Vinyl Vs Digital music... from another thread

[Motorhead350]

Now let's clear one thing up in digital vs. analogue. The answer is quite simple.

Anything recorded before the late 80s will sound better on vinyl and there is no debate on this. The reason being vinyl was the main format people bought music on up until 1987 or so when CDs were weeding out records, despite that CD's have had music on them since 1982. Like anything it took a little while to catch on.

Now anything recorded is meant to go on a digital format. CD's and downloading. The problem with downloading as suppose to buying a CD is the download is even more compressed than the CD. Hinse why I said crappy audio. The average person won't hear it, but the trained ear will. Most people (80% of them) probably don't care as long as they have their music.

Putting 50's music (for example :rolleyes:) onto a CD will not sound good at all since all of the recording equipment at the time wasn't as many recording tracks as it is today. Some were only 4 track others as little as one. So a lotta those "oldies" were the people playing live. A lot were poor, they couldn't take all night recording the songs because they couldn't afford it... literally. So you might hear a mistake or two. It was the true test of actual talent. Today and as long as computers are around, crap can sell because it can be sugar coated.

Take the Earth Angel for example. It was recorded on a one track recorder in a garage. They had to take 3 takes simply because a dog kept barking. That version was meant as a demo, but the label liked it so much they pressed the garage recording.

Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston (singing over Stand by Me by Ben E. King 1961) that song is meant on a digital format because people will listen to it on their ipod, not turn tables. They could cut and past and correct anything, literally. Spend weeks at a time just one one song. If it's pressed on vinyl that is the record company screwing with you since people started liking records again. Unless the record company went though the trouble to get mixers that are 40 years old and re-record the whole song so it would be up to sound qualities peak, they just want your money. You better bet is to get it on CD or as 80% of the country does, DL it.

It's all about equipment as far as sound quality goes. Modern mixers are meant for digital, old are for analogue. What you listen to and what format does make a difference.

Finally why do people download? Simple. They don't have to go out. There is no need to go to a record store anymore. Just get your music in your own living room. If you use itunes it's actually not cheaper. 1$ a song? You can buy something with 15 tracks for $9 and it's new. AssJack is the only band I bother to pay attention to. Chances are people know how to get it illegally. Everytime I see someone with an ipod I see a thief and one that is contributing to ruining the music industry.

If they get it on-line there is no need to go to the store. The store shuts down. Millions of dollars are missed out on because of it. Money the artist deserves for creating work, money the producer deserves for getting the song right... exc. You wonder why ticket prices are so high? That's why. They want their money back. Good job cheap skates!

Do you know what our number one exports are in this country behind guns and ammo? Music and movies! Can anything be done to stop the stealing from happening? A lot! Does anyone do it? Nope. If it's the number 2 and 3 export and people are taking it from all over the world I'd say that a huge problem.

What does the public care? If they can get something for free they will jump on it like white on rice and screw everyone else. So many steal songs all the time, but won't bother to take a 50 cent pack of gum from a gas station. WIMPS!

End informative rant.

[justbob]

Now let's clear one thing up in digital vs. analogue. The answer is quite simple.

Anything recorded before the late 80s will sound better on vinyl and there is no debate on this. The reason being vinyl was the main format people bought music on up until 1987 or so when CDs were weeding out records, despite that CD's have had music on them since 1982. Like anything it took a little while to catch on.

NOT. Led Zepplyn never sounded better than now.

Now anything recorded is meant to go on a digital format. CD's and downloading. The problem with downloading as suppose to buying a CD is the download is even more compressed than the CD. Hinse why I said crappy audio. The average person won't hear it, but the trained ear will. Most people (80% of them) probably don't care as long as they have their music.

Last I heard, you didn't even have a functioning sub in your car, I prefer to "feel" my music.

Putting 50's music (for example :rolleyes:) onto a CD will not sound good at all since all of the recording equipment at the time wasn't as many recording tracks as it is today. Some were only 4 track others as little as one. So a lotta those "oldies" were the people playing live. A lot were poor, they couldn't take all night recording the songs because they couldn't afford it... literally. So you might hear a mistake or two. It was the true test of actual talent. Today and as long as computers are around, crap can sell because it can be sugar coated.

You should hear my latest Del Shannon Runaway download, crisp and clear!

Take the Earth Angel for example. It was recorded on a one track recorder in a garage. They had to take 3 takes simply because a dog kept barking. That version was meant as a demo, but the label liked it so much they pressed the garage recording.

Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston (singing over Stand by Me by Ben E. King 1961) that song is meant on a digital format because people will listen to it on their ipod, not turn tables. They could cut and past and correct anything, literally. Spend weeks at a time just one one song. If it's pressed on vinyl that is the record company screwing with you since people started liking records again. Unless the record company went though the trouble to get mixers that are 40 years old and re-record the whole song so it would be up to sound qualities peak, they just want your money. You better bet is to get it on CD or as 80% of the country does, DL it.

It's all about equipment as far as sound quality goes. Modern mixers are meant for digital, old are for analogue. What you listen to and what format does make a difference.

Agreed.

Finally why do people download? Simple. They don't have to go out. There is no need to go to a record store anymore. Just get your music in your own living room. If you use itunes it's actually not cheaper. 1$ a song? You can buy something with 15 tracks for $9 and it's new. AssJack is the only band I bother to pay attention to. Chances are people know how to get it illegally. Everytime I see someone with an ipod I see a thief and one that is contributing to ruining the music industry.

I have never heard one single album that I liked every song! So yes, its substantually cheaper when you buy what you want. Another thing, the artists get a clue as to what their fans really want to hear. As for being a thief......It's their choice if they want to be a part of Itunes (or other LEGAL DL company), they DO recieve money, and companies such as Itunes have created a whole NEW income that most artists would not be getting off CD sales. Fact: When searching for a song, one tends to get sidetracked and the next thing you know you purchased 10 songs from 7 different artists. Would you have spent (using your $9 rate) a MINIMUM of $63.00 plus tax? Not most people. I completely agree with you about illegal DL's and I do not have anything nice to say about them individuals.

If they get it on-line there is no need to go to the store. The store shuts down. Millions of dollars are missed out on because of it. Money the artist deserves for creating work, money the producer deserves for getting the song right... exc. You wonder why ticket prices are so high? That's why. They want their money back. Good job cheap skates!

It's called advertising, it has only shot up 1 trillion percent over the years, without advertising, there would be no show.

Do you know what our number one exports are in this country behind guns and ammo? Music and movies! Can anything be done to stop the stealing from happening? A lot! Does anyone do it? Nope. If it's the number 2 and 3 export and people are taking it from all over the world I'd say that a huge problem.

What does the public care? If they can get something for free they will jump on it like white on rice and screw everyone else. So many steal songs all the time, but won't bother to take a 50 cent pack of gum from a gas station. WIMPS!

Oh I pay! And they recieve.......

End informative rant.

You also never gave credit to 8track or cassettes:P The two most worthless devices to ever contain music! The artists should PAY ME back for all the money wasted on POS tapes!

Do you ever wonder why not too many people agree with your taste in music or the way you play it?? This isn't 1955 anymore. A few songs, maybe more but thats all I can take, and I want it to sound CLEAR.

End answered rant.

[Rocknthehawk]

wow. you're pretty out of touch with the modern world dom.

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

The masters the vinyl were made from were far inferior to the masters of the same music, used to make the digital copies today. Because the digital media and the equipment people use to play it, is so much better today, studios have gone to great lengths to find the best original masters and in most cases, carefully remaster to do thir best to overcome limitations of the original recordings and mixes. Also unless you are playing brand new vinyl, the signal/noise ratio of even lightly used vinyl, is gonna be atrocious.

Calling vinyl/analog a "warm" sound, which people love to throw around, just means to me that the equipment is coloring the sound = less accurate

The only beef with a lot of modern rock/pop recordings is the "loudness wars" where everything is run with such tight compression to sound as loud as possible over commercial radio, ipod headphones, etc, to the point where the music loses its impact because there is so little difference, dynamic range-wise, between the softest and loudest sounds. That kinda bothers me because the beauty of having such good recording and reproduction equipment with such wide dynamic range, is wasted.

[MrBluGruv]

Dude, I remaster audio as a hobby, have been for about 5 to 6 years now. Also work as a synth designer and sound designer.

Give me any old piece of recording, and I will make it sound clearer and better, I GUARANTEE it. The only way you may stand a chance of having me not make the recording better, is sending me an extremely low bit-depth or sample rate quality version.

[Motorhead350]

wow. you're pretty out of touch with the modern world dom.

Tell me about it.

Bob, I wasn't just focused on 1955. Sean Kingston wasn't around then and is actually younger than me. You do bring up a good point I never thought of. Getting seven songs off itunes from seven different artists. That's cool. As far as Led goes, I have heard what you are talking about, but I still like Houses Of The Holy more on my record player than the Mothership album. My drummer did point out though on the new CD you can actually hear Johns drum petal squeak in the beginning of one of the songs. We love finding stuff like that.

Steve, I couldn't agree with you more on the radio aspect. I also agree that good records are hard to come by because if it's used even a little bit, you will notice. Frankly I don't care. I don't mind the pops at the beginning, but when you have something that is a fresh press or you come across one band that actually recorded in Mono, it's a beautiful thing.

What some still do not get it is that to get the best quality you must buy it on the format that it was pressed on when it was new. I'm sorry, but I don't like anything remastered that was recorded many years ago. Heck fro whatever reason I think VHS is more exciting that DVD or Blue Ray, something with the picture, I don't know. I guess less is more to me.

[RF Overlord]

The problem with downloading as suppose to buying a CD is the download is even more compressed than the CD.Dom, are you sure you aren't confusing compression with bit rate? CDs play uncompressed linear PCM at (approx) 1400 kbps. MP3s can have varying bitrates, but the most common is 128 kbps, which is a compression of 11:1.

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

to get the best quality you must buy it on the format that it was pressed on when it was new

It doesn't work that way though, that's like saying, to get the best performance out of a 1970 barracuda, you have to drive it on bias ply tires because that's what it was originally designed to run, which is completely false. Just because that's the best technology had to offer back then doesn't mean that it has any magical value as a "native" format. I mean the master recordings were analog tapes so it had to be converted from a magnetic format to the mechanical vinyl form and then it gets converted back through the magnetic head in the turntable. Going from a good analog tape master to digital is sampled, sure (theres the argument "analog is the complete signal, digital is only a bunch of snapshots") but philips didn't choose 44.1 khz ampling arbitrarily either when the audio cd standard was created either, at some point with enough samples you have a good enough approximation of the original, and in digital format it will sound exactly the same every single time you play it.

For nostalgia factor, that's fine, I do play vinyl sometimes, but when I listen to say, neil young's harvest, or meat loaf bat out of hell I, or any of the jethro tull albums, on semi decent speakers (I am just running B&W DM602s which were $600 book shelf speakers in the 1990s, made in England, probably still better than what most people use for plain stereo playback at home though) I am always amazed out how muddy the original mixes were and how out of whack they sound compared to the remasters on digital. The vinyl stuff just sounds like there was not a whole lot of attention paid to mixing and mastering originally. Some stuff sounds really good on original vinyl and some doesn't.

the one thing you do notice with the older recordings though is a total lack of compression, so you do get a lot of dynamic range which is fun to listen to

I'm rambling and I should be working....

[duhtroll]

Please forgive the ego rant, but it has a point.

I likely have the most "trained" ear here. I have perfect pitch, have studied music for 34 years (since I started piano at age 6) have taught music for 20 years and performed professionally in symphony orchestras for 15 years. I can hear pitch variances smaller than quarter tones and can tune pianos by ear. I play at least 15 different instruments, not counting percussion.

Dom, to use a technical term, you're full of crap.

Digital music contains a dynamic range impossible in analog recordings. Classical music proves this. Listen to ANY classical music on vinyl and then on CD. If you cannot hear the difference, you are what I would call hearing impaired.

This thread has fail all over it.

EDIT: I am going to add that music was meant to be performed live. I'd rather see people sponsoring live performances than buying any type of recording. If we don't support live performances, pretty soon all we are going to have is Rock Band (tm) and Karaoke. Computers doing all the work is not art. Art is a human creation.

Music can be made perfect digitally, but it was never meant to be perfect. I will even go so far as to say that any recording really isn't music but a compilation of sounds being REproduced, not produced.

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

^not 100% fail, I am in it!

[Motorhead350]

Dom, to use a technical term, you're full of crap.



Whatever dude.

[MrBluGruv]

duhtroll is pretty much spot on with the digital point there, there's a reason most reputable studios (at least the one I worked for for four years) records at at least 24-bit 96000KHz sampling rate for recordings.

I will disagree on one point though, recorded music is just as much music as a live show. The way you're putting it, you make it sound like recordings are completely incapable of evoking emotions in the listener, and I think that's a little absurd. I can understand where you're pickier than most with your background, but still, that's just elitist mess you're talking right there when you say it's just an empty collection of reproduced sound waves.

[ChiTownMaraud3r]

BluGruv, he is just saying that looping digitally created samples and creating a song out of it takes the art out of say, a group of talented musicians playing together in unison in front of a live audience.
Although I would say, it still takes a very talented person to sample something and make it sound good like Boonie 'Doc' Mayfield for example.

[MrBluGruv]

Sounds like he's saying any recording because it isn't being played for you in your living room. I could agree that sequenced songs don't have the life that live recordings do, but you're forgetting something: DIGITAL RECORDINGS CAN ALSO INCLUDE LIVE RECORDINGS.

If I'm wrong though, my sincerest apologies for the misinterpretation. :D

[Motorhead350]

This info was actually very insightful.

[duhtroll]

The point I am making and everyone is missing is that "live recording" is an oxymoron.

There is no such thing as a live recording. It is impossible.

Either you heard it live or you didn't. Either way, recording or not, all you have is a memory of that performance.

Music is performed. I can set up a computer to reproduce perfect sounds that are fun to listen to, but then it is ultimately the computer making those sounds, not me.

And Dom, I understand you're a little miffed that I trounced all over your "musical authority," but deal with it already.


Sounds like he's saying any recording because it isn't being played for you in your living room. I could agree that sequenced songs don't have the life that live recordings do, but you're forgetting something: DIGITAL RECORDINGS CAN ALSO INCLUDE LIVE RECORDINGS.

If I'm wrong though, my sincerest apologies for the misinterpretation. :D

[Paul T. Casey]

Having given up on nearly every new band, and "mixed" music (Yeah I know Paul McCartney is a genius, who cares) I have to disagree with most of what Dom is saying also. My downloaded from iTunes, remastered Bo Diddley Live sounds much better now than even 10 years ago (re-mastered tape). IMHO, music is meant to be done as a whole, not pieced together. This is why nowadays my collection is exclusively "live" or band in studio music. I also realize that much of the "live" stuff is over-dubbed, but the feel is still there.

[MrBluGruv]

The point I am making and everyone is missing is that "live recording" is an oxymoron.

There is no such thing as a live recording. It is impossible.

Either you heard it live or you didn't. Either way, recording or not, all you have is a memory of that performance.

Music is performed. I can set up a computer to reproduce perfect sounds that are fun to listen to, but then it is ultimately the computer making those sounds, not me.

And Dom, I understand you're a little miffed that I trounced all over your "musical authority," but deal with it already.


So then the fact that the music was at one point performed entirely by human beings, sometimes in one take even, is negated by the fact that it is recorded onto a medium?

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

Is it live or is it memorex?

http://linked2leadership.files.wordpr ess.com/2008/12/memorex-comercial2.jpg

[CBT]

One of the greatest ads of all time.:beer:



Is it live or is it memorex?

http://linked2leadership.files.wordpr ess.com/2008/12/memorex-comercial2.jpg

[Motorhead350]

Technology ruins music, but that's my opinion and also hides what is actual talent.

As far as Bo Diddley is concerned, I wouldn't see why anyone would buy anything of his on a digital format, but SAY MAN to each his own I guess.

This is the type of discussion that will never be resolved.

In a related question if a car runs lower than 11s does that mean it's no longer a street car? We can do this forever....

I'm kinda surprised you guys didn't get my half insult opinion that drove me to the conclusion. Since I don't like digital recorded music and all new music is digitally recorded... :P

[SideshowBob]

It's been a long, long time since I was into serious audiophile mode, but something in Dom's rant struck me as being a little off. He talks about downloads being EVEN MORE compressed than CDs (a bad thing, according to him), while extolling the virtues of vinyl. Well, I'm old enough to remember that vinyl records were recorded with standard RIAA compression, which was a pretty good squeeze, necessary to keep the stylus from mistracking the wildly undulating grooves that would result from uncompressed loud bass tracks. Toward the end of the "vinyl age", audiophiles had turned back to direct-to-disc recording with extended dynamic range. I remember seeing photos of the grooves of a DTD recording of the 1812 Overture with real cannons that looked like a ski slalom! People without a gazillion-dollar turntable and cartridge wouldn't be able to play it. Normal vinyl was highly compressed. Remember DBX dynamic range enhancers?

[duhtroll]

How in the world are you arriving at that conclusion?

If you're going to draw conclusions, don't attribute them to me. I can do my own typing.

When a musical performance ends, it exists only in memory. I don't care what medium you use to record it -- the performance is still over no matter how many times you try to reproduce it. It is still just a memory.

There is one part where Dom and I agree but only in the most basic form. He says technology ruins music. While he obviously doesn't realize that anything other than the human body being used for musical performance *IS* technology, I think the more technology a person uses, the less of their own artistry is in the product.


So then the fact that the music was at one point performed entirely by human beings, sometimes in one take even, is negated by the fact that it is recorded onto a medium?

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

like current "hip hop" that is all vocoder'd up now. When did people let that happen? I don't remember anyone asking me if it was okay to produce that stuff

[Motorhead350]

duhtroll I am starting to think you are a Jazzman...

[MrBluGruv]

How in the world are you arriving at that conclusion?

If you're going to draw conclusions, don't attribute them to me. I can do my own typing.

When a musical performance ends, it exists only in memory. I don't care what medium you use to record it -- the performance is still over no matter how many times you try to reproduce it. It is still just a memory.

There is one part where Dom and I agree but only in the most basic form. He says technology ruins music. While he obviously doesn't realize that anything other than the human body being used for musical performance *IS* technology, I think the more technology a person uses, the less of their own artistry is in the product.

Well now you've changed what you said, before it was something along the lines of music isn't real when it's on a recording, and now it's performances aren't really happening when they are played back. And of course, that's an obvious statement. Thing is, those two ideas can be interpreted WILDLY different. I will agree with you in what you said here though, any given performance isn't the same when it's being played back instead of actually happening.

[Mote]

Technically true. But in common use it has always meant "a recording of a performance for an audience(not in a studio)". Even that was bastardized over time, by overdubbing entire tracks or repairing mistakes etc. Zappa was a master - He would take a guitar solo from a live performance years prior and dub it onto a studio recording of a different piece, etc. etc.


There is no such thing as a live recording. It is impossible.

[Motorhead350]

And no recording can ever be completely accurate. Getting any sound from a mic to an amp or whatever will be delayed. :rolleyes: Everything is delayed.... live at least when using electronics.

[duhtroll]

A recording is not people performing music. It is a machine reproducing music.

If you think that I have said things that are wildly different, it is on you. I've been pretty consistent. (IOW I have not changed what I have said.)


Well now you've changed what you said, before it was something along the lines of music isn't real when it's on a recording, and now it's performances aren't really happening when they are played back. And of course, that's an obvious statement. Thing is, those two ideas can be interpreted WILDLY different. I will agree with you in what you said here though, any given performance isn't the same when it's being played back instead of actually happening.

[duhtroll]

If I don't sit inside your guitar while you play it, the sound is delayed.

Oops, wait. If I am not the actual strings as you play them, it is still delayed.

Darn the physical universe anyway!


And no recording can ever be completely accurate. Getting any sound from a mic to an amp or whatever will be delayed. :rolleyes: Everything is delayed.... live at least when using electronics.

[justbob]

A street car must complete a 15-30 cruise, cool down, and run to be in street car class. There is many low 9 second cars that can do this. The one's that finish the day are street cars. Ofcourse an 11 second car is a street car.

[duhtroll]

Yes, and...?

The common usage of the term doesn't change anything with regard to live vs. recording. It is one or the other, never both.


Technically true. But in common use it has always meant "a recording of a performance for an audience(not in a studio)". Even that was bastardized over time, by overdubbing entire tracks or repairing mistakes etc. Zappa was a master - He would take a guitar solo from a live performance years prior and dub it onto a studio recording of a different piece, etc. etc.

[FordNut]

Tube vs transistor vs integrated circuit amplifiers...
Opinions?

[Stoneblue]

Where are the tubes sourced from? What Class amp are you asking about? Rockport Technologies System III Sirius tonearm and TT ($73K) or my $200 Denon CD with stock DACs or with Burr Brown DACs? I love music, I still think Motown through a dash speaker sounds the best. Remember using a green marker on the edges of a CD to improve the sound? While I am envious of people with perfect pitch, it doesn't diminish my joy at hearing a new artist or a different recording of the same tune because I don't. It's all just psycho-acoustics anyway.

[ImpalaSlayer]

personally i hate the way vinal sounds, especialy new music on it. i hate how people who know nothing think its sounds better, no it doesn't it sounds like ****.

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue43/green_pen.htm

I had to look that up. Pretty cool. I have actually learned something from this thread!

[ChiTownMaraud3r]

personally i hate the way vinal sounds, especialy new music on it. i hate how people who know nothing think its sounds better, no it doesn't it sounds like ****.


I was listening to a Michael Jackson record on a brand new $400 turntable hooked up to a yamaha amp and two def tech tower speakers, and it sounds pretty damn good. But nothing better than I can get out of a good digital source, such as CD or SACD or higher bit rate MP3.

[Stoneblue]

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue43/green_pen.htm

I had to look that up. Pretty cool. I have actually learned something from this thread!

I read about it in Stereophile, a truly snobbish, smug magazine (I'm poor white trash and can't afford any of their gear). Then over in Skeptical Enquirer they bashed the whole concept. One guy I know used a green sharpie pen. Him being an optical tech and such. His CDs started separating. Guess he should have studied materials and chemistry! This was all when CDs mainstreamed in '88 I think. I never tried it...

[Motorhead350]

Tube vs transistor vs integrated circuit amplifiers...
Opinions?

Both my tube and transistor devices are broken. I cannot give you a good opinion, but I can say this: I love the sound of my Marshall half stack guitar amp (tubes) than my smaller Marshall that is circuit based. I hardly know what I am talking about to be honest with you, but I like my tube sound more than the common guitar amps without tubes.

Now we are going beyond records and downloading. Cool!

[MrBluGruv]

Dude, check out the Danelectro Honeytone mini-amp. I payed $35 for the amp and a power cable for it and it gave me a vintage style crunch practice amp that can fill my bedroom with ease and sounds absolutely delicious.

[Motorhead350]

Ya I have one of those. They sound better than the Marshall edition!

[MrBluGruv]

Easily. A friend of mine bought the Marshall small stack instead of the full one with more than just volume basically, he pretty much regrets it and only uses his Roland Cube for partable practice amp.

[guspech750]

I hear Beta is making a comeback.

Why did laser disc vanish so quickly? Just curious.

[glassman99]

Tube vs transistor vs integrated circuit amplifiers...
Opinions?

The following are my opinions, and they are opinions only and I am speaking of home systems, not automotive systems:
It all depends on what you ability to listen is. Most people do not want to actually "listen" to what is being played by just hear it.
I am a firm believer in tube based equipment. I have had both tube and solid state over the years and always go back to the tubes.
There is good tube equipment and there is mediocre and there is bad tube equipment, the same as solid state. Price is not always the determing factor. Research by listening. A good audio shop will set appointments. They will clear the room of all other equipment and let you spen time auditioning the exact equipment you are looking for. If there are other speakers in the room, they may discolor the sound. Hell, I have had 2 hour appointments to compare the stylus on a cartridge.

Start with the source. Turntable (table, base, tonearm, cartridge, interconnects, etc), CD player etc. All music begins here. This is probably the most important part of a system. You can spend thousands on speakers but if your source is the weak link, the money is wasted. I frimly believe, and have not been proven wrong yet that a single mike, real time recording on vinyl is superior to digital. There is no mixing (with the inherant distortion ) and the music is recorded as played. A good vinyl will far exceed the sound quality of a CD because it has not been through a mixer, has not been multi-miked and is recorded as pure as it comes. You will not hear the "depth of field" on a CD as clearly as on a good LP. Table selection is critical (I prefer belt driven) as is the tonearm, cartridge, head amp (MC) and interconnects.

Preamplification and amplification are important and tonal differenes are readily apparent to the trained listener. Tubes, solid state, or hybrids. There are good and bad in each design. Power doesn't mean jack as long as it is enough to drive your speakers to the listening level you desire. You probably cannot tell the difference between 100 watts and 150 watts. Distortion? You cannot generally discern the difference between .1% or .01%A lot of the specs try to baffle you with ********. High end equipment manufacturers sometimes don't ever bother with a lot of the meaningless (to most ears) figures.

Speakers present the end result. Unfortunately they are usually the largest component and compormises are made as to size and placement. One fallacy is that bigger is better. The fact is that better is better. There is no relationship. A speaker is like anything else, it is the sum of it's components. Most of the quality of a speaker is hidden, in the crossovers, in the motors, in the internal design of the cabinet. Many times a speaker is purchased because of its "looks'. Do not judge a speaker by its looks, but by it's sound, driven by the amplification that you are using. with the source that you will be using and in the room size you will be in. The sound of a speaker is usually personal preference. (If you like matal or rap, don't waste a lot of money on high end speakers, get boomers).

I have heard the best there is out there and most of what is between. Personal preference and the size of your billfold (wisely spent) determine the level of sound quality.

Final note: Automotive audio specifications cannot be compared to high end audio specifications. No way, no how.