Recently, I bought brand new LPs - about 20pcs. at P50 a piece. I like the contents thats why I bought it.
I have my own TT - an audio-technica WEGA model (german made) - still running good with its orig cart.
I have also CDP, that plays HDCD, and I like to hear HDCD - good resolution. I did not invest yet in SACD/DVD-A/XRCD for the simple reason that it is just a matter of time that tech improves more and prices drop - my patience is a virtue to my pocket.
I also play most of my favorite contents in both CD and TT - not that they are "audiophily"
recorded but because it is the content that I am more concerned with.
I stayed with both because some contents I am interested with are not in CD and some are not in LP. But if I find one in both format, I go the CD way - simply because I can have the contents preserved in any way, unlike the wear&tear that goes with LP thing.
All materials recorded differently, and since I want to listen to them regardless of their recording quality, I have to adjust many parameters sometimes. Reason why I have full range driver, and modern bookshelf+sub, Why i have separate amp for TT and CD.
Sound comparison - hard to simply categorize which is better. Ones sonic taste is too subjective to be debated upon, and such taste is typically anchored on what is currently setup in ones audio rig (a very vast factor to consider), which makes it more difficult to quantify as a whole to serve as standard (or common ground) for the rest of the so-called audiophiles.
Some people have really spent no limit to come-up with the "sound-to-die-for" setup. Interestingly, some people have implemented same "banana" thing just at a small cost. It is understandable - you might say - because the factor of subjectivity knows no definite limit.
However, if the same audiophile have met both implementation (the costly and the cheaply), costs becomes an easy justification to go cheaper especially if the system is not really a night-and-day thing. And there have been records of this type of findings nowadays - from some high-end users who discovered some cheaper implementation can blow the most expensive setup (always if properly implemented - system synergy and matching).
I can only agree with one of the earlier poster that sometimes, you only need to be wiser than those peddling a very limited valuation of their sonic (and gear) preferences. Most of those bitten into high cost of sound gear are those who
- correlate audio cost to performance
- have no knowledge where to get very good but cheap implementation
- are not readily equipped to correlate audio science to the art of listening to audio
- simlpy invested in known high-end gears
They are not wrong! It is their circumstance at one point in time. That is still the best decision they have made given their particular circumstances. Sometimes they woke up and go to buy and sell section of pinoydvd!
Bottomline, ones setup is dictated by
- his convenience
- his cost
- his content
- his sonic preferences
- his value of cost related to sound quality (whatever this means)
- his attack to accomplishing good audio (relative to his ear)
- his readiness to filter crap info from the sound one
- and of course - aethetics (as in - payabang, paporma, pampaganda etc)
MABUHAY!
