turntable

Every sound you hear in real life that doesn't come out of a speaker is analog. Analog audio is, simply put, an analogous record of sound, and an LP's groove is a literal imprint of the music's soundwaves. Analog magnetic tape is just as analog, but the waveform is recorded to the orientations of the iron oxide particles bonded to the tape. Tape or LP, analog recordings store audio signals as a continuous wave in or on the media and therefore have theoretically infinite resolution.

Digital audio recording converts the original sound into a sequence of numbers; sampled to convert the analog signal to a digital representation. Sampling is the division of the signal into discrete intervals (CD's sample rate is 44.1 thousands of samples per second). CDs have a 16-bit resolution and DVD-Audio discs can be encoded with a maximum of 24-bit resolution. DVD-A's have greater bit depth results in finer gradations of sound compared with CDs and MP3s, and is subjectively on par with analog recordings. Analog-to-digital processing is performed by a converter in the recording studio; and must be converted from digital-to-analog to be listened to.

If I lost you with all that talk about sampling and conversions, let's just say the prime difference between analog and digital is that analog recordings are continuous in time, and digital is sampled at distinct intervals. What happens between samples? Not much. Analog is always "on," digital is either on or off. Analog recording's theoretically infinite resolution refers to its continuity, compared with digital's on/off sampled nature.

If digital audio sounds a lot more complicated than analog, that's because it is. But digital recording offers very significant advantages over analog recording; it has inherently lower noise, perfect duplication capabilities, and superior speed accuracy (lower wow and flutter).

Most of the digital audio advances since the early days in the 1970s come from today's superior A/D and D/A converters. Digital audio has never sounded better than it does now.

The same can be said about analog: the best LPs, played back on a good turntable sound more like real, live music played by human beings than digital recordings ever do. That's my subjective opinion. On a more objective basis I'd say digital eliminates, or lowers analog-type distortions (noise, speed variations, and so on), but it suffers from far from perfect analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion processes. To many, but not all, audiophiles and recording engineers, the best digital still sounds sterile, cold, and lacks natural warmth.… Read more

To be perfectly honest, I'm more of a home theater enthusiast than an audiophile. But the latest NBS universal phono preamplifier really caught my attention with its extravagant finishing.

You see, this is one of the rare hi-fi components cast out of solid copper right down to the knobs for a combined weight of 66 pounds. While I'm not exactly convinced by the $30,000 price tag, this is what NBS has to say about the unique choice of material: "The solid copper chassis provides exceptional shielding and grounding. A generous grounding post is provided adjacent to … Read more

Sure, to some a record might be just a piece of plastic, but to me an LP is a beautiful object. It feels great in my hands, and looks amazing spinning on a turntable. There are dozens of LP cover art books, but just looking at light dancing on a LP's spiral groove is something I never tire of.

I own thousands of LPs and sometimes use them in my art. Of course the LP's prime attraction is its sound, so even as CD sales continue to decline, the LP looks like it will be around for the … Read more

Sound & Vision magazine's Michael Trei recently tested three turntables: the Rega Research P1 ($395), Music Hall mmf 2.2 ($449), and Technics SL-1200MK2 ($699). And guess what: the most expensive turntable wasn't the best-sounding one!

Mike's an old friend and a major turntable guru in his own right. His knowledge of all things analog runs deep, and he regularly sets up finicky high-end turntables for the rich and famous, including the president of a major record company, here in NYC. Mike set up the VPI Classic turntable I bought last year.

The three turntables covered in his report, the Rega, Music Hall, and Technics are all excellent, but I was more interested in the belt vs. direct-drive aspect of the reviews. The Technics is a long standing DJ favorite, for its powerful, direct-drive motor, which is a big plus when you're back cueing and scratching records. Direct-drive 'tables never wowed the high-end crowd, they favor belt-drive turntables. The appeal is mostly based on the fact that the belt "decouples" the motor from the platter. So whatever noise and vibration the motor makes as it spins aren't directly transmitted to the platter, and therefore to the record. No wonder the vast majority of turntables sold to audiophiles are belt-drive designs.

Mike may be a hard-core audiophile, but he's not closed-minded about direct-drive turntables, and in fact owns a Technics direct-drive turntable (and many belt-drives as well).… Read more

Ots CD Scratch 1200 is a fun and easy-to-use program that lets users play CDs in a virtual turntable environment. It's not as complex as some of the DJ software that we've seen, which may be a drawback for more advanced users, but this program is a great choice for those just getting started with turntable-style DJing.

The program's interface isn't the most intuitive we've ever seen, but it gets points for being fun. The design seeks to replicate the appearance of a real DJ deck, with two turntables and various cables and buttons. We … Read more

I have no idea why giant electronics companies like Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, or Samsung never really tried to enter the audiophile market in the U.S.

Sure, Sony's very first SACD player, the $5,000 SCD-1 was a spectacularly good-sounding component; Sharp made an exotic, very high-end digital amplifier a few years ago; and back in the 1970s Panasonic's Technics gear was pretty impressive. I'm sure those companies are still producing no-holds-barred audio for their home markets. So the know-how is there, but apparently little interest in sending it here.

The first-generation Marantz audio products were designed and built by Saul B. Marantz in his home in Kew Gardens, New York, in the 1950s. The company truly advanced the state of the art, and those early Marantz designs now fetch big bucks on eBay. By the 1960s Marantz started building gear in Japan, and the company was sold and resold over the intervening decades. But through good times and bad, Marantz stayed true to its roots and always made above-average-sounding products, bettering the offerings from larger companies like Sony and Panasonic sold in the U.S.

Robert J. Reina's enthusiastic Marantz PM5003 integrated amplifier review in the January 2010 issue of Stereophile started me thinking about affordable high-quality gear from mainstream manufacturers. Yes, it can happen.

The Marantz PM5003 ($450) is a stereo integrated amplifier; it puts out 40 watts per channel. It was designed in Japan and made in China.

Do you have a turntable? Great, you can plug it directly into the PM5003; it has a rather sophisticated moving-magnet phono stage that'll bring out the very best sound from your records. The PM5003 also has five line-level inputs, two record outputs, a balance control, a headphone amplifier, treble, bass, and loudness controls. … Read more

My pal Dave Clark, editor at Positive Feedback Online, took a lot of great pictures at CES 2010. After the jump, see but a brief sampling from his Web site.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--I know CNET pays me to cover MP3 players, but privately, I'm a sucker for my beat-up, old Technics SL-1200MK2. Compared with most of the flimsy, plastic, belt-driven, disposable toys that get passed off as turntables these days, my 1200 is a 20-pound metal beast that will probably outlive my grandchildren.

USB turntables are the worst offenders. Built on the cheap, to last just long enough to rip your old LPs into iTunes, most of the world's USB decks spend their lives stored in closets in garages once their owners see them for the bulky, eyesores they … Read more