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Enjoyed your podcast, but it dropped out on my Ipad a little over half way through.  Probably an AT&T issue here in Atl.   

Any chance of getting the USB microsope piece up on the site?  I really like that new isolation device under the Caliburn.  Pretty smart solution.   

Just glad vinyl in back in a big way. As to the newer pressings, what I am noticing is much blacker backgrounds and little groove noise. Quality it back. I like my Spin Clean, but a vacuum cleaner must happen this year as clean vinyl is a must.

Thanks for taking the time for the podcast.

Hardly.  How many of you are running at 30ips? Dirty, undemagitized heads, azimuth issues, -55 to -60db noise floor and what is the distortion when you go over "0"?  It starts climbing. Pitch stability? 

I do not use a computer to record anymore and everything is at 2496 on SD cards. My noise floor is what ever the HVAC and room are, plus some electronics from the mic pres which are very low. Those issues are the same for tape except that the tape hiss may be higher than the noise floor of the room.  Those natural reverb tails from the room I'm in are not falling into tape hiss. I am usually at -75db to -80db.

It would be nice to have a 2 inch 30 ips machine, but at 2496 this is getting so close to a pristine lp like ones I've been buying recently. There is no $400 R2R that would play back Tea for the Tillerman from QRP  better than a Project Debut Carbon. My new copy of KInd of Blue is scarry good. The only thing better might be the DSD copy. We all know that most tape duplication was done at high speed.  Time is money.

The old story of someome having to silent play a reel of magnetic tape prior to a session to insure there were no dropout on the tape IS real. There also was a certain manufacturer of tape who pruposely overloaded the tape to improve freq response and it always resulted in having to clean the heads more often.

Both LPs and tape have their quirks that must be addressed to make each medium sound their best. I would rather have a performance either recorded on 2 inch at 30ips or recorded digitally at 24/192.  Either will make great sounding pressings from QRP or RTI. The quality of A2Ds today is remarkable.

Good stuff Mikey. It's always a good laugh getting digi-heads wound up.

"It's always a good laugh getting digi-heads wound up"

Case and point made

Criticizing MF for being able to own a great tt makes no sense. The quieter the platter/bearing system the better a LP sounds.  Is it way better than an SME 30?  I don't know as I've never heard one, but MF has and it's his money.  I sure his old Simon Yorke would have suited me just fine.

Now that he is trying to define the differences between carts from $1K and up I can certainly see how he would need the best there is to determine their sonic values. I'm sure those who intend to drop $5K on a cart are glad MF is doing what he is doing. I'm not sure a loaner would work for a dealer as to who would want to buy a "used" $5K cart? If MF finds a tweak that improves his Caliburn, good for him, it is his money. I doubt anyone is out there spending crazy money just on Michael's say so. Why should I get upset if someone buys a 7 Series BMW?  I hope they enjoy it.  

You can take any R2R you want and any recording you have on tape and I would never believe that it should sound better than a Project Debut Carbon playing the QRP pressing of Teaser and The Firecat, Catch Bull at Four, or Tea for the Tillerman, or anything else you what to listen to from QRP. You won't have a tape that can touch that. That is only a $430 expense.

If vinyl had all sounded this good the format probably would not have had such a slow down. There were just too many poor quality pressing done in the 60's, 70's, and early 80's and all were mastered from  R2Rs. I have no idea how much one can blame the poor sound on a poorly made recording from an engineering stand point. I have an LP of David Benoit: This Side Up, that is a superb LP recorded with great dynamic range and deep bass, so at least some mastering engineer did not compress it to death when he prepared the lacquers.

The new pressing I have of Kind of Blue is so good and so quiet that I am amazed what can come off an LP and at my tracking force I am not "plowing" through the grooves and certainly not anymore than the tape residue left behind by playing some mylar coated tape over and over. I can tell you that if anything is holding back that sound it would be the master tape that John Marks had a chance to hear with his visit with Mark Wilder about the SACD release.  That is a great article to read.  It would be great if there was another manufacturing run of that SACD.

And, it would be nice if SACD were REALLY alive today, but Sony killed it and the limited amount still coming out is hardly going to set the world on fire. No one can argue that there are many more turntables and new LPS being sold than SACDs or SACD capable players. I love SACDs, but I'm not crying over their loss. Sony screwed up and that is all there is to it. They don't care about high end audio anyway. Making one pair of $30K "statement" speakers is not a commitment to the audio industry.

Michael knows what he hears, and I know what I hear on my crappy turntables and what I hear is pretty remarkable coming from a "dead" format. I'll be long gone before any one starts manufacturing R2Rs and anyone supplies commercial R2R recordings. Good luck with that. They would duplicate them at such a fast speed anyway it wouldn't matter.

I would bet that with the speakers you have you SHOULD easily be able to hear the difference with one of the new QRP pressing. Give it a try and borrow a table from a friend. I'll bet a Debut Carbon is easily in your budget. I would hope so.

Very nice podcast, I really enjoyed your podcast. I think you are the best video assist operator in the world.