Please act in a respectful, polite, mature, and professional manner in all postings on my channel. Any ad homs, condescension, incivility, and/or any objectionable/harassing/bickering content (and/or posters) will be removed at my discretion. Polite criticism is welcome but personal attacks are not, so for example, whereas you may post "I disagree with XYZ" you may NOT post "Only an idiot would think XYZ". This channel is un-monetized and furthermore I reserve the right to remove any posts I deem are just spam or veiled plugs for questionable products/services, snake oil, or rip offs [like "better sounding" aftermarket AC power cords that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars yet in truth are audibly indistinguishable from adequate stock cords].
AHHH music to my ears, no digital, just smooth sound, my dad had an AR turntable and AR amp, us kids played everything from disco, 80's country, Led Zep, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis, ratpack, you name we played it, I stiil have turntable think I will restore it, very nice!!!
😢did I just waste money buying a turntable that isn’t this one? Why do modern TT’s not employ these basic, low cost (are they low cost?) but highly effective design features?
People often ask me what to buy as a modern equivalent to the XA and although I have been out of the industry for over a decade, my answer is: "To the best of my knowledge, there AREN'T any!" Thorens comes close with their TD-1600 for $3K, but the 3 springs isolating the transport system (the rigidly coupleded platter and arm assembly) are BELOW them, rather then held from the steel top-plate above (like on the XA) so it is unstable just like a bobble-head toy will dance around unstably when jostled for the exact same reason: placing the center of gravity up high above the spring(s), and clearly not at the center of the three springs (which adds stability) is just wrong Thorens. The Linn LP-12 (and I guess also the Ariston it is "styled" after) properly hangs the transport from above and therefore is a rip off of the XA, but it's currently around $15,000? just for the INTRODUCTORY version. The deluxe one, the LP-12-50, is I think $60,000. YIKES. (I got a quick demo of the basic Linn at my local Linn dealer and I asked to see how it handled finger taps on the top surface. Unlike my restored AR-XA (sporting new rubber washers on each spring to replace the 50 year-old hardened stiff ones) I heard a loud THUMP, THUMP, THUMP from the speakers meaning the Linn's room rumble isolation (and also its immunity from incipient acoustic feedback) is poor. I don't know much about the SME turntables but they use 4 springs. There's a REASON camera tripods use three legs, not four, and adding another leg/spring does nothing but introduce new problems; just like a 4-legged table often wobbles but camera tripods NEVER do.
@@m.zillch3841Thanks for the response. So sad they (current TT manufacturers) know the exact formula needed for the perfect TT, but just don’t do it. And those making ridiculously expensive ones that can’t match the AR-AX should be ashamed of themselves.
Audiophiles are a funny lot. They hallucinate over the most bizarre fantasies. To them, every dollar spent yields a proportionate increase in sound quality. Mickey Fremer is the poster boy for snake oil. When he change his slippers, he hears a difference in the sound quality of his system.
Okay here's a very simple analogy that people seem not to understand ... === _Once you have a chain of adequate strength to tow a car, using a bigger chain does not make that car any easier to tow._ === That is... once you have an adequate means to accomplish a task, exceeding that solution will not bring any improvement. So what does this mean for audiophiles... and, in this case, for speaker cables. Basically it means that beyond wire of sufficient size to carry speaker current, you are simply wasting your money... wheelbarrows full of it! Lets take simple example .... 100 watts on an 8 ohm speaker... So the voltage for that is sqrroot(W x R) = sqrroot(100 x 8) == 28 volts. The current will be ... E / R = 28 / 8 == 3.5 amps. So now we consult a wire guage table (there's lots of them, do some searching) looking for a cable that can carry 30 volts at about 4 amps with minimal losses... (This will be interesting when people see just how light that wire can be!!) So, to retain full signal fidelity we need a resistance that is well below the resistance of our speakers ... for example: A damping factor of 10 requires we have 1/10th of the speaker resistance for a given length of cable... 0.8 ohms in this case. If we assume a 10 foot amp-to-speaker run of wire what gauge of wire is strong enough to "tow our car"? According to the tables at "Hyper Physics" ... 16ga wire is specified as being able to carry 22 amps (way more than we need) with a running resistance of 4 ohms per 1,000 feet. So if we select 16ga wire for a 10 foot run, we get a running resistance of ... (4 / 1000) x 20 == 0.08 ohms. (remembering there are 20 feet of wire in a 10 foot, 2 conductor cable) So if we use 16 ga wire, we end up with 1/10th the required resistance, with 7 times the current capacity required. This will easily "tow our car" with a huge safety margin to boot! Yes, that is plain old lamp cord... Nothing exotic or expensive is needed. So ... the bottom line here is that all your speaker wire needs can be filled with a simple trip to the hardware store to buy a spool of 16ga copper lamp cord, which is safe to use at up to 220volts and should cost less than $0.75 per foot. Now ... sit back and ask yourself why you've been spending hundreds, even thousands of dollars on fancy cables that will never outperform even simple lamp cord?
Thank you for all this great info. I lost track of the technical audio field in the mid 90’s. You cleared up a great deal of questions I had. It’s funny how there are companies out there actually selling bi-wire cables for up to 1600.00 lol I would hate to spend that money and then watch your video here 😂 You earned a sub from me
This is clearly a very clever design. With the zero gravity tonearm I would focus on its groove reading benefits, not on the warped records as warped records should not be listened to to begin with, their wow and flutter is too big - a longer surface distance is covered within the same time alters the pitch, not only the thumps at the extremes of the height drop. Your warp experiment is really a tilt one as the record is not truly warped.
A change in tilt potentially may adversely alter distortion characteristics but it will not vary the test tone's pitch and I demonstrate just such pitch wavering, using instrumentation, here: 19:51 [The wavering is clearly audible, at least to me, although the test frequency I used is not where the ear is most sensitive to such wavering.] In the two AR Music Rooms (technology showrooms playing AR gear where no sales were transacted and engagement with AR personnel was entirely up to the discretion of the attendees), one of which was located on the Main Concourse of Grand Central Terminal ("Station") of New York City, they gave live demonstrations of the benefits of the AR arm's unusually low pivot height in its ability to greatly reduce warp wow, on ACTUAL warped records, not simulated warp records like I used in the video. [Only because I don't currently own any warped records.] This principle is still currently employed by at least some top name tonearms such as SME costing £7,550 (around $9,687 USD), for the EXACT same stated reason: "Axes at record mean level to minimise warp-wow." My translation: "Our pivots are placed right at the record's average play surface height in order to minimize audible wow (pitch fluctuation) when encountering record warps." Quote and price source: www.vickershifi.com/products/smeav12/sme-v-12-series-5-12-precision-turntable-pick-up-tone-arm
Thanks for interesting, well explained video. Would you need at least 2 people to do this experiment, 1 to do the listening and 1 to do song selection etc ?
Yes. With a costly (~$1K) ABX box a computer inside it randomizes the inputs automatically so one person can test themselves. With my DIY "manual" ABX box you need two people: One person pre-wires the box's inputs, by random coin toss assignment, out of sight of the listener, and then hides the rear connections they've made with a black cloth/tape. They then leave the room and then the listener enters and tries to figure out if X is actually the same as A or B, but MY box costs only $20 (plus wiring)!
Oh, I left out that the listener is in control of the playback machine feeding the two DACs being compared, so they select whatever song they want and whatever master volume they want on the preamp/integrated amp/receiver receiving the signal from this little switch box's output, as well as when the song starts, and to pause playback for a snack or to take a break for any reason. The only rule is they must not sneak a peek under the black cloth/tape to see what truly is wired to X (A or B), plus the incoming music of A and B must (of course) be synchronized and at the same matching volumes. Otherwise a difference in volume would betray the secret identities. For example, if B was sonically louder and the listener notices X is also louder then obviously it would be a dead giveaway (also called a "tell") that X must actually be B.
@@m.zillch3841 Presumably the operator could decide how many different songs to listen to when doing the testing ? For example if he or she was using a sample size of 16, they could listen to the same song several times or listen to 16 different songs ?
@@Chris-nd5se The listener is free to hear any materiel they want (including from their own private collection), pre-train with that material before the test in any manner they wish, however much they want, listening to it in the actual test as many times as they want, (even conducting the test over days/weeks/months/years if they want), in any order they want.
Thanks. Well, it may happen to provide signals for the surround speakers with its "off stage" L/R sounds, but officially it is just for 2ch stereo so I'm not sure you should trust it for setting the signal levels properly for the surround L and R.
Ostensibly the 60 people who participated in the vote and downloaded the two, Hi-res (96kHz), direct electrical recordings made by wire (meaning not acoustically through the air via microphones) of the two turntable systems being compared did indeed listen to them on their own, singular home stereo systems, in one room, from one seated position, with one set of speakers (and/or headphones if they preferred). It is important to understand we aren't comparing the sound of complete audio systems in a room in this test at all, by the way, just two turntable systems playing two LPs (one a $125 "audiophile grade" pressing used on the expensive turntable and a regular $26 version on the inexpensive turntable) played using two different cartridges, tonearms, interconnect wires, and phono preamps, always with the pricier version of each being used with the expensive turntable. Neither test signal passed through any loudspeakers, amplifiers to power those speakers, room acoustics, nor microphones. [All of those things being bypassed would have objectionably added high levels of distortion/noise/alteration had they been in the chain, compared to the direct wires coming straight out of the two turntable systems which were used.] More details can be found at that link I included, which I'll repeat here for convenience: www.avsforum.com/threads/500-000-vs-78-turntable-blind-test.3237117/?post_id=61442108#post-61442108
@@m.zillch3841 Thanks for the clarification. It is a pity that the digital files made by Michael Fremer and you on the 2 turntable systems were not from an identical vinyl pressing but the results of the test is quite surprising nonetheless.
@@Chris-nd5se I totally agree that ideally the exact same physical record should be used (not just the same pressing), however be advised the early claim in the AVS forum thread that his MoFi record was purely analog and never had undergone any stages of digitization was later determined to be incorrect. Like most of their discs (made post 2015) MoFi finally admitted they used DSD (256 in this case), which can be verified for this disc in question here: web.archive.org/web/20230924145057/mofi.com/products/paul-simon-still-crazy-after-all-these-years-ultradisc-one-step. His disc was a limited edition (now sold out), audiophile grade, "One-Step process" record made on two discs (rather than cramming all the songs tightly onto one disc), at 45 RPM (so more vinyl surface is used per second), both said to improve sound quality. While it was still available it cost $125. My LP was $99 less, $26, not a limited edition pressing, made by Columbia. Mine's made on one disc at the standard 33⅓ RPM speed.
@@m.zillch3841 I think the fact that when people hear the files back, this obviously initially involves the digital to analog conversion process, ie. a dac of some kind and then equipment further down the chain, ie amplifiers, speakers, headphones which could be of significantly different quality, to reproduce the analogue sound, you are introducing lots of variables which could be responsible for the result obtained. However I applaud you for enabling the test.
@@Chris-nd5se Keep in mind my invitation to participate was not to a general audience of average folks off the street, but instead to an audio hobbyists forum in a subsection dedicated to 2ch music reproduction. Should I have further demanded that only people using speakers that cost 10's or 100's of thousands of dollars be allowed to vote? Regarding these numerous stages of distortion you just outlined above, I'm confused as to why they'd apply DIFFERENTLY for listeners of Fremer's uploaded content vs my uploaded content. Sure, not everyone has speakers that cost $100K but that sound limitation applies equally to both recordings, his and mine, so the impairment was the same in my mind. Please explain why/if you disagree, thanks.
Of course its worth it, your halving the cables impedance and separating the drivers frequencies at the amps output, on long lengths of cable of 12ft and over biwiring is the way to go, same principle as adding dropper wires to a model railway, without them the train will slow down after about 20feet therefore you need to push more voltage to make the train run properly, yes model railways run on AC today to carry the digital information to the decoders the rule is simple: copper cable for bass silver cable for treble Without bi-wiring this is impossible. Also some like myself wire the tweeter out of phase in a linear phase scenario (technics themselves sold speakers in this configuration), this improves stereo width, again this is something else that cannot be done without bi-wiring. Even though the amp outputs full range sound its the cable types going to the drivers that makes the difference, and the reason why each set of speaker binding posts accept bare wire and banana plugs at the same time. when one cable tries to do everything thats when the problems arise, especially with long lengths of cable. silver cable carries high frequencies way more efficiently than copper copper cable is pretty hopeless at frequencies above 14khz biwiring will cut distortion by half, thats its whole purpose due to being able to use the correct type of cable for each frequency band. Neither copper or silver alone can carry the full range signal efficiently thats why they need to be split at the amps output stage, or wire them in an A/B speaker switch configuration, oil and water do not mix, the sole reason why manufacturers make their speakers bi-wirable in the first place, the inbuilt crossovers can then do their job properly. speakers work on AC not DC thats why biwiring works, (bi directional wiring) if it was DC then yes it would be pointless. basically 2 types of cable doing their job that theyre intended to. Its pointless biwiring on mini systems like the denon stuff because their speakers are not biwire compatible as theyre designed to be used no more than 5feet away from the amp, but for long lengths its a definate YES, in any case just do it, speaker cable is cheap even on mini systems inside the speakers will be both silver and copper cabling going to the drivers (if its a high quality hifi that is) In fact bi-amping is useless and destroys sound quality unless you have 2 finely tuned identical amplifiers with their volume levels and DC offsets set up 100% perfect. bi-amping is a complete pain in the backside and rarely gives good results.
@@Synthematix And you need to study some REAL electronics. What you are talking is typical audiophile mumbo-jumbo taken directly from the websites of predatory companies that exist for no better reason than parting you from your money. I've posted a ton of explanation about how this stuff really works, here.... educate yourself.
@@Synthematix And you don't seem to understand that I am a diplomate Technician, working in electronics for 40+ years with a fair bit of design experience. But that's okay ... you can be as incompetent as you like, it's no real skin off my back unless you are trying to spread disinformation.
I used to watch this in the 90's and the church bells (or maybe it was just one Boston church) use to peal when the finale began. I wonder if they still do that.
Sorry about the glitch. I recorded this as a live TV braodcast and that's how my recording came out. Re-uploading it to RU-vid would have the same glitch.
Marvellous, but what's that little glitch at 10.54? If it's a change from one camera to the other more effort should have been made to match the sound up in this of all pieces.
This event was a live TV broadcast I recorded right as it happened with no possibility to "rewind and restart" if an error occurred and I don't know what caused the brief glitch, sorry. It also can't be edited out and fixed in post because there was no alternate feed to cut to when the brief glitch occurs. Maybe a rain cloud passing by disrupted the transmission beam? Who knows. . . . Speaking of glitches, have you ever seen these exact same Boston news crews film the runners up close and personal during the Boston Marathons? Also, FILLED with stuttering, frozen images, and glitches. Oh well.
you might consider upgrading your cartridge to something like a vm95ml. the hf distortion around 4:20 is pretty crispy also, what are your thoughts on using the instrument inputs on the motu as opposed to a separate phono stage
Like most units of its kind the MOTU M4 lacks a necessary RIAA EQ curve correction stage (a phono stage) so normally an intermediate phono preamp is necessary to apply the corrective EQ, first converting the cartridge's output to standard line level with a flat response before then being digitized by the M4.
Also as for distortion, this song is known to have some embedded in the original master tape itself. As to whether it is intentional or not is debatable, but check out the right channel from 5m47s to around 5m50s on this DIGITAL version of it (so we know it has nothing to do with vinyl/cartridges): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CPSkNFODVRE.htmlfeature=shared&t=344 Additionally, keep in mind this is the very last song on this side of the disc so it has the highest level of inner groove distortion, the shortest vinyl path length per rotation (the smallest circumference), and a relatively high tracking angle error compared to the opening cuts.
@@m.zillch3841for clarification, I'm mainly referring to "if there's a buSSSTle in your heDGerow..." this sibilance is not present on the digital version you linked. the stereo image also shifts when this happens, which to me indicates a cartridge mistracking problem. is r1-535340 a1 the matrix number on this disc? if so, I apparently have this exact issue and can record a demonstration. with respect to the motu, the assumption would be that if you used it as a preamp you'd just apply the riaa de-emph digitally. the notion that this is "better" stems from my guess that the motu preamplfiers likely are quieter/have more headroom/reject common-mode noise/etc. you'd have to strap a 47k resistor in parallel or compensate digitally for the change in input impedance (an advantage of the latter approach would be reduced current noise from the cartridge).
@@technology4617 When recording vinyl, even expensive audiophile grade discs in great/perfect condition (and this disc isn't exactly either of those two things), the limitations in your overall recording's signal to noise ratio and distortion has little to do with the performance of an ADC like the MOTU M4 (www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/motu-m4-audio-interface-review.15757/ ), nor which input on it you use; the main bottleneck in SINAD is almost always the format, vinyl, itself.
@@m.zillch3841a similarly-glib response from me would be something like: "if this recording is neither audiophile-grade nor the disc in great condition, what exactly is the point of this video? if the mastering engineer in his expert judgment didn't think the peak limiting applied to the streaming release didn't make it sound better..." etc etc
My dad was a baritone in our Russian Orthodox Church and one day sat with me and explained what each part meant. The first part was the Devine liturgy which began our service. Later you hear sounds of the invading French army, then their canons. I won’t have enough time to tell it all, but the sounds of church bells express the joy of the Russian people when the French retreat. Then I married an Irish American girl in her cathedral… and I was suddenly a Russian Episcopalian. This is the greatest 1812 Overture I have ever heard.
The halving of resistance over a few inches vs the halving of resistance over 8-12 feet is most certainly a difference. It's not a huge change your life difference, but it is a difference. For a listener it is, for purposes of simplicity, a much better idea to go to a single, higher gauge wire of good geometry and construction. For example, go from a Kimber 4 TC to a 8 TC. I would personally not spend more than Kimber's basic TC line.
Purposefully using inadequate gauge wire so as to prove the added clutter and complexity of using two parallel runs "makes a difference" is ridiculous stupidity. Any sane person would use a single wire run with an adequate gauge from the get-go.
As I say at 3:09 it is an unmodified turntable however "I've replaced the mat (and the belt) which wear out over time, true of any organic material" (paraphrased). Both original AR mats and belts were special in ways that improved performance but they are unfortunately no longer available, so I had to use substitutions.
They used to show off this feat in their showrooms, at trade shows, and in this ad: www.audioholics.com/audio-technologies/turntable-history/ar_turntablehammer.jpg The AR turntable must be placed on a dead solid, immovable surface with absolutely no sway for it to work so most affordable stereo racks won't do. I used my kitchen's rock solid countertop. And the rubber grommets at the bases of the three internal suspension springs should be new, soft, and supple, not the undoubtedly-now-dried-out, stiff, half-century old stock ones they installed back in the 60/70's when the turntable was originally built. I was lucky and found new ones in the nuts and bolts department of my local hardware store but there are online sources too. Have fun!
Wonderful concert! But -- I can't believe there are ads on it! Right while the orchestra is playing, 2 ads. What a travesty. It ruined the experience. 😪😠
Their business model seems to have changed unfortunately. Unless you buy their premium service it's inescapable to the best of my knowledge. My channel is 100% non-monetized BY ME, just so you know, and every single question they pose to me about setting up my channel regardingcommercials I respond "none".
I love how at some point Tchaikovsky was writing this and was like “zis is missing something. I know vat zis needs! Canons!” (I know I just spelled a German accent, I can’t think a Russian one rn)
Ok, I chose not to bother with stands for my bookshelves but I just got a pair and I have to say, proper positioning does make quite a difference indeed. Though now I am experiencing some OCD about placing them in a perfect triangle lol.
They are a decades-long, ongoing rip off. Optimal performance is attainable at very low prices although this is not to say any old wire will do fine. You need to use an adequate gauge of copper wire for the speaker impedance and run (length) which can be determined by consulting a reputable wire table such as this one: www.roger-russell.com/wire.htm#wiretable Differences heard with expensive exotic wires are a combination of the placebo effect, every single person on earth without exception is potentially susceptible to (so double blind test conditions are always necessary for wire listening tests), marketing lies, or an odd inductance/capacitance of the wire which makes the amp misbehave or exhibit a skewed frequency response the listener may errantly identify as an "improvement".
Given the short distance and the width of the metal straps, you are talking about tiny fractions of an ohm of reisistance... any metal strap will do just fine.
Only usefull with an active crossover before the amps, in between the pre-amp and poweramp, that every amp works on their own low/mid/high😊 only then it sounds amazing
I don't bi-wire but there is one thing that is missing from your diagram and that is that bi-wiring also means to cables or actually 4 cables (2 speakers) at the amp side and internally in the amp, 2 circuits.
You might better understand that the two complete circuits actually use the same number of wires and are exactly the same other than the distance from the amp where the y-split occurs (which is common to both scenarios) by watching part 2, here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NJhFxuymlCI.html Keep in mind just because the short wire from the internal amplifier circuit to the amp's external binding posts is invisible to you because it is inside a box doesn't mean it doesn't exist or doesn't count as a wire. Similarly the y-split invisible to you that's inside a speaker cabinet using the jumper straps in place, "single wiring" rather than "bi-wiring", also exists and the two wires out of it both count. There's no change in the number of wires used in the two COMPLETE circuits, just their lengths, visibility to the user, and who has to buy them and connect them.
