basic-audio

Here you will find a dozen or so pieces of basic audio advice. If you would like to see more, we have it.

In the darkened are at the top of every page you will see a heading for Audio Advice with links to every kind of audio advice we can think of.

Trying to Get at the Truth with Transistors

More Entries from Tom’s Audiophile Notebook

In 2007 we did a shootout for The Four Seasons on RCA and noted the following:

For those of you with better tube gear, the string tone on this record is sublime, with that rosin-on-the-bow quality that tubes seem to bring out in a way virtually nothing else can, at least in my experience.

Our experience since 2007 has changed our view concerning the magical power of tubes to bring out the rosiny texture of bowed stringed instruments.

We have in fact changed our minds completely with respect to that rarely-questioned belief.

It’s a classic case of live and learn, and represents one of the bigger milestones in audio that we marked in 2007, a year that in hindsight turns out to have been the most important in the history of the company.

Everything changed dramatically for the better for us sometime in 2005. That’s when we discovered the transistor equipment we still use to this day.

We found a low-power integrated amp made in the 70s that was vastly superior to our custom-built tube preamp and amp. We had an EAR tube phono stage at that time, which we quite liked.

UPDATE 2025

We recently hooked up our old 834p phono stage in the system and did not like the sound at all.

Things change. Boy do they ever!

In 2007 we auditioned the EAR 324P transistor phono stage and immediately recognized it would take our analog playback to an entirely new level, one we had never simply never experienced before and really had never thought could exist.

We make no claims whatsoever for any other transistor equipment of any kind, almost all of which in my experience is not at all good. The sound of these two units in combination is dramatically faster, more transparent, more free from smear, more dynamic and more resolving than any tube equipment we know of.

It is, simply put, much more musically truthful. It simply sounds more like live music and less like recorded music.

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Advances in Playback Technology Are More Than Blind Faith

More of the Music of Eric Clapton

In a 2007 commentary for a Hot Stamper pressing of Blind Faith we noted that:

When it finally all comes together for such a famously compromised recording, it’s nothing less than a THRILL. More than anything else, the sound is RIGHT. Like Layla or Surrealistic Pillow, this is no Demo Disc by any stretch of the imagination, but that should hardly keep us from enjoying the music. And now we have the record that lets us do it.

The Playback Technology Umbrella

Why did it take so long? Why does it sound good now, after decades of problems? For the same reason that so many great records are only now revealing their true potential: advances in playback technology.

Audio has finally reached the point where the magic in Blind Faith’s grooves is ready to be set free.

What exactly are we referring to? Why, all the stuff we talk about endlessly around here. These are the things that really do make a difference. They change the fundamentals. They break down the barriers.

You know the drill. Things like better cleaning techniques, top quality front end equipment, Aurios, better electricity, Hallographs and other room treatments, amazing phono stages like the EAR 324p, power cables; the list goes on and on.

If you want records like Blind Faith to sound good, we don’t think it can be done without bringing to bear all of these advanced technologies to the problem at hand, the problem at hand being a recording with its full share of problems and then some.

Without these improvements, why wouldn’t Blind Faith sound as dull and distorted as it always has? The best pressings were made more than thirty years ago [thirty? make that fifty]; they’re no different.

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This Is Not a Cheap Hobby If You Want to Get Very Far

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Paul McCartney Available Now

Some records are consistently too noisy to keep in stock no matter how good they sound. McCartney’s first album is one of them.

(We have a section for records that tend to be noisy, and it can be found here.)

Rick sent us a letter recently after having played his first Hot Stamper, the first record he ever bought from us. At $300 it wasn’t exactly cheap, but the best things in life never are, and certainly there is little in the world of audio that’s cheap and of much value.

This is not a cheap hobby if you want to do it right, and even tons of money doesn’t guarantee you will get good sound. It’s far more complicated than that. To quote Winston Churchill, you must be prepared to offer your  “blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

Churchill went on to say “You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs… Victory, however long and hard the road may be…”

Now, he wasn’t talking about audio, but he could have been, and I certainly am. It takes the serious commitment of resources — money and labor — to get the sound you want. That is the victory I am talking about.

On our Hot Stamper McCartney album, Rick no doubt heard the sound he was looking for — and then some — judging by his letter.

Hi Tom,

Well, I knew you guys were serious upon receiving the LP in 4 layers of wrapping and padding but when I put the disc on I was pretty stunned. Virtually everything was popping and so musical and rich sounding. Nothing like the 3 other pressings I’ve had of this recording in the past, the last of which I actually sailed out the window after 2 minutes of playing.

Every Night just sounds incredible, especially when he drops the bass an octave. And Maybe I’m Amazed gave me goosebumps for the first time since I bought it the week it came out. Also heard something on that track I never did (or could hear) before. During the guitar solo there’s a single high pitched vocal kind of buried in the background. Almost sounds like a mistake, making me think it could be Linda and Paul did what he could. Pretty wild.

My only very slight criticism is there is some surface noise but this is very overshadowed by all the positives. Overall it is superb. Can I give you guys a short list of LPs I’m looking for?

Thanks so much!

Best
Rick M.

Rick, we are so happy to hear you loved that record as much as we did. We have been touting McCartney’s first solo album for more than a decade. Ever read a word about it in an audiophile context elsewhere? Of course you haven’t! The audiophile world doesn’t know and doesn’t care about great albums like this one, but we at Better Records LIVE for  sound and music of this caliber.

It’s a permanent resident of our rock and pop Top 100 list for a reason: no other solo album by a Beatle can touch it.

As for surface issues, we wish we could find quietpressings of the album, but that is simply not an option, especially considering how dynamic the recording is. Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus is roughly what yours was graded and that is certainly not dead quiet by any stretch. As we said:

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Small Speakers and Some Audio Lessons I’ve Learned Over the Last 40+ Years

More Helpful Speaker Advice

Do not believe a word you hear in this video.

You probably shouldn’t even watch it.

Let me state clearly one of our core beliefs here at Better Records.

Small speakers are incapable of lifelike musical reproduction in the home.

You will never feel as though you are in the presence of live musicians with a system like the one below. Real acoustic instruments move lots of air; that’s why we can hear them all the way at the back of the concert hall.

Little speakers, unlike full-range speakers with large dynamic drivers, do a poor job of moving air.

Screen speakers are not quite as bad as small speakers like those you see pictured, but they suffer from the same limitation: they don’t move enough air.

I’ve never had speakers this small (or screens), but I’ve heard many systems with little speakers on stands, with and without subs, and all of them left a great deal to be desired. When I find myself in a room with such systems, at most I listen for a few moments, for curiosity’s sake more than anything else, just to hear what they might be doing better or worse, and then I get the hell out of there before I become even more irritated than I normally am.

If you get talked into buying a system like this — novice audiophiles are constantly getting talked into buying bad stereo systems in virtually every audio salon in the world — you will have a hard time getting very far in audio, and will probably just end up stuck at this unacceptably low level. So don’t do it!

This system may represent a floor, a good entry point for the budding enthusiast, but it is also a ceiling in the sense that it will keep you from making any real progress in the hobby. Which would be a shame. I have dedicated more than 45 years of my life to audio and have no intention of abandoning it. On the contrary, I get better at it all the time.

Can you imagine hooking up a turntable to these little boxes? Why bother?

Everything that’s good about analog would be inaudible on this system, and that right there is all the reason you should not go this route.

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Turntable Set Up Guide Part 1: Why You Need to Do It Yourself

More from Robert Brook

One of our good customers has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Below you will find a link to an article about turntable setup in which I am quoted on the subject. I would have loved to write something along these lines myself, but just never found the time to do so.

Robert Brook took the job upon himself and has explained it well, so if you would like to learn more about turntable setup, I encourage you to visit his blog and read more about it.

Turntable Setup Guide Part 1: You NEED to DO IT Yourself!

Further Reading

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Where Cheap Turntables Fall Flat – The Music of Franz Liszt

Hot Stamper Pressings of Classical Music Available Now

Classical music is unquestionably the ultimate test for proper turntable/arm/cartridge setup.

The Liszt Piano Concerto record you see pictured is a superb choice for making small adjustments to your setup in order to improve the playback of these very difficult to reproduce orchestral recordings.

Here are some other reviews and commentaries touching on these areas of turntable setup.

One of the reasons $10,000+ front ends exist is to play large scale, complex, difficult-to-reproduce music such as Liszt’s two piano concertos. You don’t need to spend that kind of money to play this record, but if you choose to, it would surely be the kind of record that could help you recognize the sound quality your tens of thousands of dollars has paid for.

It has been my experience that cheap tables more often than not collapse completely under the weight of a mighty record such as this.

As for the music, I don’t know of a piano concerto record that more correctly captures the relationship between the piano and the orchestra. The piano here is huge and powerful, yet at the same time, the percussive and lighter qualities are clearly expressed in relation to the entire orchestra. In addition, there are places on this album where the brass is as powerful and dynamic as I’ve ever heard on record.

Lately we have been writing quite a bit about how pianos are good for testing your system, room, tweaks, electricity and all the rest, not to mention turntable setup and adjustment.

  • We like our pianos to sound natural (however one chooses to define the term).
  • We like them to be solidly weighted.
  • We like them to be free of smear, a quality that is rarely mentioned in the audiophile record reviews we read but is easily audible on the smear-free equipment we use.

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Hi-Fi Beats My-Fi If Better Sound Is Your Goal

Basic Audio Advice — These Are the Fundamentals of Good Sound

If by record collecting you mean collecting better sounding pressings of the albums you want to play. (If you just want to collect records because you like collecting records, you are definitely on the wrong site.)

Our system is fast, accurate and uncolored. We like to think of our speakers as the audiophile equivalent of studio monitors, showing us exactly what is on the record, nothing added, nothing taken away.

When we play a modern record, it should sound modern. When we play a vintage Tubey Magical Living Stereo pressing, we want to hear all the Tubey Magic, but we don’t want to hear more Tubey Magic than what is actually on the record.

We don’t want to do what some audiophiles like to do, which is to make all their records sound the way they like all their records to sound.

They do that by having their system add in all their favorite colorations. We call that “My-Fi,” not “Hi-Fi,” and we’re having none of it.

If our system were more colored, slower and tubier, a vintage Living Stereo record would not sound as good as it should. It’s already got plenty of richness, warmth, sweetness and Tubey Magic.

To take an obvious example, playing the average dry and grainy Joe Walsh record on our system is a fairly unpleasant experience. Some added warmth and richness, with maybe some smear and some upper-midrange suckout thrown in for good measure, would make it much more enjoyable.

But then how would we know which Joe Walsh pressings aren’t too dry and grainy for our customers to play and enjoy on their systems?

How do you tell which ones have the least amount of smear when you’re playing them back through a system that has smear built into it? On some systems, every record is smeary!

(I know smear when I hear it. The Mac 30s I owned in the 90s taught me the pros and cons of tube colorations. More on that subject here.)

How do you tell which pressings have a present, tonally correct midrange when you’re playing records through a system with a sucked out, tonally incorrect midrange?

Enough with the rhetorical questions already.

There is only one approach that works. The first thing you need to get is good sound – then you can recognize and collect good records.

A White Hot copy should have a near-perfect blend of Tubey Magic and clarity, because that’s what we hear when we play it on our system.

We are convinced that the more time and energy you’ve put into your stereo over the years, decades even, the more likely it is that you will hear our Hot Stamper pressings sound the way they should.

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This Is the Heart of Our System’s Accuracy

Thoughts on Playback Accuracy

If you have a rich sounding cartridge, perhaps with that little dip in the upper midrange, the one that so many moving coils have these days, you may not notice some tonality issues we discuss on the blog and in our Hot Stamper listings quite as easily as we do.

Our Dynavector 17Dx Karat is ruler flat and very unforgiving in this regard. It makes our shootouts much easier, but brings out the flaws in all but the best pressings, exactly the job we require it to do.

We discussed the issue in a commentary entitled Hi-Fi beats My-Fi if you are at all serious about audio.

Further Reading

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Turntable Setup Guide Part 2: Dialing In Tracking Force By Ear

Robert Brook runs a blog called The Broken Record, with a subtitle explaining that the aim of his blog is to serve as:

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

We know of none better, outside of our own humble attempt to enlighten that portion of the audiophile community who love hearing music reproduced with the highest fidelity and are willing to go the extra mile to make that happen.

Below you will find a link to an article about turntable setup. I would have loved to write something along these lines myself, but never found the time to do it. Robert Brook took the job upon himself and has explained many aspects of it well, so if you would like to learn more about turntable setup, I encourage you to visit his blog and read more about it.

I do have some ideas of my own which I hope to be able to write about soon, but for now, check out what Robert has to say.

Turntable Setup Part 2: What To Do For EXCELLENT SOUND

Robert’s Approach

Robert has methodically and carefully — one might even say scientifically — approached the various problems he’s encountered in this hobby by doing the following:

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The Brahms Violin Concerto – Unplug or Suffer the Consequences!

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin Available Now

The massed strings here, such as those found at the opening, are close-miked and immediate as befits the Mercury recording style.

Your electricity had better be good when you play this record, because it presents a test many of you will have trouble passing at even moderate levels. 

We’ve often encouraged our readers and customers to go about unplugging things in their homes in order to test the effect of clean electricity on their playback systems.

The opening of this record is a perfect example of the kind of material everyone should be testing with in order to hear these changes.

I’d be very surprised if the strings on this record don’t sound noticeably better after you’ve unplugged a few things in your house, and the more the better.

The effect should not be the least bit subtle. It’s certainly not subtle in our listening room.

The same would be true for any of the tweaks we recommend. The Townshend Seismic Platform or Hallographs would be a godsend for proper playback of this record. Hard to imagine what it would sound like without them. (To tell you the truth, we don’t really want to know.)

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