Pure gold!!!

Hi Dusty, it is: RCA Camden CAL-486: The Art of Sergei Rachmaninoff Vol 2.

Thank you very much

I have not heard the Encores. However, the Encores are small bookshelf speakers, and they match very very different systems than my speakers do. Performance-wise: I think that's a moot subject. The question is always which is the one you like more... Knowing my preferences, for me anything that's less than 91dB/Wm is unacceptable - unable to resolve low level details, dynamic contrasts, and presents a dead / uninvolving midrange. Can still produce a wide frequency band, play loud, but without the rest it's not my cup of tea.

Which all boils down to Distortion. I think you lot call it Warm.

@@earl007 Since Janos has been running this channel, it has always boiled down to these three things.

@@earl007 I have heard tube amp - LP systems that were absolute stone dead-cold and clinical. You can't put all of that diversity into a simple you lot ; ).

Janos runs two cartridges I think, Benz for stereo, AT33Mono for mono.. from what I gather, it's best to get the cartridge that has a needle that fits the cutting equipment of the time the record was pressed...

Great write-up. Apparently even well copied cassettes (since they ran straight from master tape copies) hold up well against LP. For me being trapped in the world of DACs, LP was not insta-nirvana, but looking back it definitely got me on the path to connecting to music, being able to tweak, tune, design amps to a higher level and develop my hearing and taste. What's your favourite mono cartridge (I run everything mono)?

@@EduardBroekman Thanks, that is a interesting rabbit hole to go into with mono.🥳 Unfortunately that has not been explored by me of several reasons. I have one TT with one arm board. And no quick connection for the head shell. Making a "quick" swap not that "pain free". So all my modifications and adjustments efforts went into one TT and stereo cartridge(s). Not having enough mono LPs to justify the work and cost to swap and buy a true mono cartridge. 😥 I have one of many projects/ideas regarding mono/stereo comparison. 💖 When I got a set of LPs of Miles Davis that contain a stereo pressing and a mono pressing of the whole album on two separate discs in the same album. My idea is to compare them when they probably is cut from the same source and produced on the same vinyl compound in the pressing plant (yes the cut and plating is producing other metal parts and they will differ). 🤔 Probably the closest comparison between mono vs stereo I could be able to do. 🤔 But I have not yet played that specific mono LP when I got several other stereo pressings of that album (Japanese, UHQR and so on). 🥰 And I know that to give the mono pressing a fair chance I need in my mind use a mono cartridge and do the comparison "correctly" and fair.🥰 And of course I have listening on other mono LPs in my collection but with my stereo cartridge. 🤪 And I hear the "potential" and how great they actually sounds and it is somehow in its "simplicity" captivated. 🤓 And sounds much better than I could imaging, feels like and sounds like, that less is more somehow.🥰 Do you feel that you can connect to the music better with mono than stereo ? I guess the power of mono is that there is not that much of the added information of stereo information that clearly makes it interesting with sound being placed horizontally and the ability for sound being panned left to right as a effect for example. 🤪 I suspect that all of those "stereo effects" makes it interesting/fun/spectacular. 🤔 But on the other hand it is probably in reality is a distraction from the real core/emotions of the music and makes it harder to connect to it!? 🤔🤯 For example do we really need a sound/instrument that gets panned left to right back and forth..🤔 Yes it is a cool and interesting effect that entertain and draw our focus towards that effect as wow and cool it sounds.. But is it music or just a ADDED effect to the music?! 🤔 When it is not coming from the artists really in many cases and it is a added artistically effect in the production after the recording have been captured by a mixing engineer. That draw a knob (or in the computer) left to right or just place the captured musician (from his microphone) to the left of the singer when it could in some cases be 50/50 percent chance that he could placed him to the right that day! (Especially on recordings where the musicians were recorded separately and were not at all playing together in the same session.). I suspect that it steel and robs our attention to the music and MAY be one reason why I maybe don't connect to the music in a deeper way ??🥳💖 With all of those "distractions" that is in its core not music from a artist..🤕🤯 What is your experience and thought, regarding this as a dedicated mono consumer ? 🤔

Sorry, to clarify the term LP as "LOFI".. It is not the same as saying it is not good enough.. But that is a whole other discussion.. 😝 I got it from my daughters husband friend. 🤕 When he is younger (40 year) and I were showing him my dedicated listening space with the system.. He referred and pointed to all of the LPs as "LOFI"..🤣🤪 We did not have time to listening to the system at that point.. 🎶 I were reflecting on the given "LOFI" remark. What did he think that someone put all the effort with treating the dedicated symmetrical room without comprises, and then just put on a crappy LP with bad sound to enjoy all the spent time and efforts?? 🤯 But yes the man have defiantly a big valid point.. 🥰 (I am not trying to stroke my brain to convince my self that that LPs is something better than they actually are.. They at what they are..) 🤓🥰 But I guessed that the man had some skewed view of what level of sound quality LP can in practice give. 🤔🥳 So the next time he were on a visit I had qued up a song on Michel Jackson thriller album (ultradisc one-step pressing by mofi. (Yes, just that ONE that started the mofi gate scandal. That showcased that audiophiles can't hear a difference between a digital processed LP or a fully analog one!)). 🤣🤣 And also stated the same tune on streaming. 🍭 All level matched. 🎶 Placed him on the sweet spot with the remote.. 🎂🍻 And told him: Here is the selector for switching between the sources. You don't see or know what source you got. The same song is playing. And you just need to identify which is the "LOFI LP" and which is the "superior" HIFI streaming? 🤣🤣🤯 Well it were one of the better LPs that I used so no klicks or pops were present on it so it will not give away that it were the LP source.. 🤪🥰 But anyway the random man with his preconditioned mind set of LOFI. 🤪 I saw him struggling and almost sweat when he were not able to determine which source were what with the remote in his hand going back and fourth.. 🤣🥰 And maybe he got a different view point and respect of the LP LOFI and its sonically capabilities. 🤔 Mission completed! 🤣🤣🥳 Note, that even with one of the BEST or BETTER LP pressings and tweaked front end TT (micro line, silver tone arm cables, discrete RIAA and so on).. The LP did NOT blow the streaming out of the water or were superior in any way. 🎶 Even when the streaming setup is a modest setup and far from tweaked and not put all of the work, attention and efforts into it as the LP frontend needed and had got. So the average LP in a collection has a lower sonic qualities than the one I used for this comparison. 🤓 (Limited pressing and retails for 100 USD for a record..) So with all that in consideration LP is LOFI but can be good or "good enough" and there is other reasons to listening to LP than just sound quality. 🥳 And we should not mix those two things together that LP is the same as "good" sound quality automatically! 🤯🥰

@@AmazonasBiotop There's a lot to unpack and in your thoughtful comments, but in short I'd say this: if you discover, or you prefer above else to feel directly 'why is an artist on stage', anything beyond mono is a distraction and actually anything that tries to impress/stand-out. Music is of the whole, the invisible spirit that interconnects every part, has it flow, expand, contract and perform magic. Mono also sounds far more like what you'll hear live with your eyes closed. For me mono also helps in how I listen to music: anywhere in the house, not sitting down in a sweet spot: the whole room is the sweet spot here. This is partly because I employ a nearly complete omni directional mono speaker, so I enjoy a near-total lack of phase cancellation and a very even sound level throughout the room. It also sounds great in the next room. On the pragmatic side, it allows me to far quicker prototyping of cables, amps, .. at half the cost - or doubling the budget for the same component! Now finally, to return to the subject of this video, it's my experience so far that a mono system is easier to tune and build to get in touch with the heart, soul, energy, flow, inspiration that created the recorded music... it also forces you to get fulfilment from music that has less distractions, so it comes from both ends. The way I started my journey was just listen to one channel, reposition your speaker where it sounds the best and then live it for two weeks - it will take that kind of time to getting used to it.. Don't expect though that you immediately will 'connect', there's no magic bullet for that but at least you've got a nice TT setup, so you've got elements in place that make it possible. I also bought some records that others had heard once that so impressed them (on let's say a exotic horn system at a show), but that same album sounded so shite at home so that got them into a journey to get the same sound... and with me having such records, it does the same.. at some point as the system gets to a point where these 'difficult' records comes to live, and so they help guide you to where the barriers between music and you are disappearing. In my experience, you'd like your audio system to get out of the way of music ... for which it doesn't need to be neutral but can pass on the spirit and energy when they hit 'record' !! :) Hope that makes some sense :))) Btw Janos has excellent record tips for this.

@@EduardBroekman Thanks for the replay! Yes then we are on the same page that stereo and other "distractions" is lowering the chance of engagement and connection to the music. And I see that moving around in comparison to sitting in sweat spot is beneficial to use mono. But I am lucky to also being able to work in the sweet spot but as said stereo is still a distraction in that position. 🤔 Maybe I should pursue more mono listening in my life..🤯👍🥰 Question have you a technique or a preferred way to make music of today into mono ?? I mean when they pan stuff and put stuff to the right and left on today's recordings then just taking one of the channels will make you to loose some information that is only present in worst case on the other channel. 🎶 So I guess it needs to be summed together, L and R somehow.🤔 I am not interested in to just listening to only 70 year old recordings that were recorded pre introduction of stereo. Then we miss out of 90% of today's different genres..🤔 Maybe it is OK to just take L and R RCA and sum them into a Y connector and get one summed channel? Or is there better ways to do it? 🤔 Did a quick google search and found: "To sum a stereo pair to a mono signal it is recommended to terminate 2 1K ohm resistors to the Left and Right channels and then tie them together. Solder one side of the first resistor to the left channel followed by soldering one side of the second resistor to the right channel." 🤔 Funny that we came to the same conclusion but from different experiences. 🥳🥰

DDC?

@@verbatim_transfer a classical highend dac cant speak on USB format language. officially its USB conversion to Spdif. that means we have to convert a digital signal to an other digital signal without to lose musicality. Digital-to-Digital-Converter: DDC. this conversion is really primitive on DAC's with built in DDC, with USB in. best is: digital source > external DDC > stand alone spdif DAC.

@@MrBazsi888 interesting. i’ll look into it. as of right now, my thoughts on the best sound were transport > nos filterless DAC

non over sampling certainly helps regarding musicality.

@@MrBazsi888 is the DDC only necessary if there is a USB implementation? what if the chain is cd transport/digital source > tube nos DAC with spdif? no USB.

As a guitar player then you may like albums like Jan Akkermans' Tabernakel, taking older music into today..

@@EduardBroekman I've heard of him. In addition to the early and classical guitar, I also like lute, vihuela, viola da gamba, and many other stringed instruments too. Thanks for the suggestion. Cheers 🍻

So well said Eduard! Since then we have all the hype and show, but the direct link provided by shellac-stylus is gone. If I engage my clinical brain I can dissect the sound and figure things out that lack in technicality. However, the mind refuses to go the clinical way, it's a direct heart-to heart connection that is entirely unknown in later eras. Yes, each technology has its own aspect, and we are so easily dismissing the lack of the most fundamental aspect because we don't get to experience it.... and it is this lack that feeds the never ending hunger to up the technology, and in the meanwhile the answer lays in simplicity, to go back to the foundations, the roots. I was super busy lately, did not get around anything audio. I've read your email about the 3-way extension with the midrange unit. My take is that I cannot predict which version will give the best tone. You could optimize it for linear output, but tone takes priority over that, and it's next to impossible to predict how the crossover regions interact with each other. You will find the optimal solution by playing around with the values once it's up and running. Also, the exact positioning of the low midrange cabinet will affect it a lot, will give plenty of room to play around.

European guy replying here, it is such a pity that there is not an English version of the YT channel: franks werkstatt der lautsprechertechnik. This is exactly what you ask for, plus a workshop to demonstrate everything. It is in German. I am not sure if there are translate plug ins, but it would be worth while.

Hi Eduard, I can totally see where you are coming from. But there are many reasons why somebody wants to do this. The most important one in my opinion is for people who have treated their Hi-Fi components as black boxes so far. It is a very important gate way in getting confidence with DIY Hi-Fi. Some other people may have confidence but cabinet building is not something they are geared up to. Or they are stuck with certain types of gear for esthetic reasons, for good or for bad, that is not up to us to prioritize. Any way, I agree with you that if sound is the end goal, the combination of high efficient speakers with low powered valve amplifiers is something you ignore at your own detriment.

@@hugobloemers4425 Hi Hugo totally agree, upping components or perhaps put a passive preamp, kit speaker or cables together is a great start for DIY and getting inspired. It's just that I found the area of optimising crossovers/speakers very hard and if you see experienced designers like Devore taking 9 months on average to get an xo right,.. ..what I really was saying in a long winded way, have a pause and take a helicopter view for second..

@@EduardBroekman That gets us to Danny, who knows his filters. But his approach is to flat line every speaker he gets. In some cases that is warranted to a certain extend, but as a general approach I am not so sure about that. If you start as amateur, the best thing is to improve on the quality of the components and leave the design for what it is.