[net.audio] CD's: a step ahead?

wilson@inteloc.UUCP (11/23/83)

I used to be an audiophile.  In the early and mid-70's I read all the
magazines, visited the salons, assembled a component system piece by piece.
Then I became a husband and a father, and my time and money have been spent
on other pursuits.  And, frankly, the components I bought back when I was an
audiophile (Linn-Sondek turntable, Audio Research pre-amp, Hafler power amp,
Rogers LS 3/5A speakers, home-built subwoofer and crossover) work so well
that I saw no reason to upgrade the system just to have the "preamp of the
month."  

Now along come Compact Disc's (CD's).  In technical terms, they promise
much:  lower noise, wider dynamic range, freedom from ticks and pops,
tracking error and feedback.  On paper, they look very impressive. My
question is:  do they deliver more realism, or just better hi-fi?

Let me try to clarify that a bit.  As good as I think my system is, it is
incapable of convincing me that Glen Gould is really sitting in my living
room playing the Goldberg variations.  On the best program material, under
ideal listening conditions, it can come close.... but, on most program
material it lacks the dynamic range, the freedom from noise, and  (most
importantly) the imaging needed to recreate the concert hall. 

To my mind, the only fundamental advance in sound reproduction in recent
decades was stereo. Other innovations -- transistors, moving coil
cartridges, noise reduction schemes -- made sound systems more affordable
or solved some technical problems (often at the cost of introducing
different types of distortion).  Even stereo, of course, is by no means an
unequivocally good thing.  I would much rather listen to good, clean mono
(old Mercury LP's, for instance) than multi-miked, unconvincing stereo.

Someone responded to a recent discussion in this newsgroup about amplifier
characteristics needed for CD's by saying that his Onkyo speakers and
45-watt receiver seemed to work just fine.  My initial reaction to this was
incredulity.  There is no way that such a system could reproduce the
dynamic range and frequency response claimed for CD's. It couldn't even
come close.

Then I reflected more.  This person is not asking for state of the art
performance from his system; he wants a pleasurable, musical experience.
His CD player serves as an improved source of "hi-fi" without many of the
deficiencies of analog records, and on those terms his receiver is no doubt
perfectly adequate.

So is that all CD's really offer?  Or do they bring Glen Gould a step
closer to your living room?  

I might become an audiophile again and start investing in new components if
they could provide increased realism.  I'd be interested in responses from
readers.

Andy Wilson
..icalqa!omsvax!inteloa!wilson