randy@uutopia.dell.com (Randy Price) (04/10/90)
I am an LP person holding on with all the effort I can muster. The
inevitability of CD's however is forcing me to consider a CD player as
classical music has apparently abandoned analogue music lovers in general.
A couple of comments: 1. Inexpensive CD player over quality equipment
sounds atrocious. They are the nightmare of any who loves music more
than recordings. 2. To approach the quality of a good turntable (Linn,
SOTA, etc.), expect to spend as much or more on a CD player as you spend
on a turntable, tonearm, cartridge, phono pre-amp combination. In
other words don't expect LP quality performance on a $300 CD player. I
have found that the only good sounding CD player is a quality transport
run througn a Theta. I am not presently prepared to spend that kind of money.
Anyone who claim absolute superiority of the CD medium has not heard a
good turntable properly set up. (Arguably, critics of CD may have never
heard a properly tweeked CD.)
But these are not the real issues. The real issue is that the American
recording industry is a mid-fi industry. The crappy records, lousy
media for cassette, and adoption of the first thing that came along as
the industry standard for digital, are a few of the evidences. (The
music electronic industry is a co-conspirator, and they have a spotted
history themselves, jumping on transistor before they were mature, jumping
on the original Phillips cassette, when they could have asked for better
quality.)
Like so many things in today's society, medicority is the goal, appeal
to the lowest common denominator, aspire to the ordinary.
CD's are now a part of the culture and inevitable. It is now up to a
few creative individuals to undo the mediocrity and achieve music for us again.
I have to go and see if I can exchange this soap box for a couple of
good speaker stands. |->.
Randy
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Randy Price randy@uutopia.dell.com
The opinions are my own, not my employers, cognito.
"There is no expedient to which man will not resort
to avoid the real labor of thinking."
Thomas Edison
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