The Death of the CD?

[Stunsworth]

The mind boggles at the amount of equipment which would be needed to wire the Mac up to my hi-fi.

If the two are in the same room you'd need a cable - either a standard headphone jack to twin phonos, or an optical one if your amp etc. has digital input. The socket on the Mac caters for both analogue and digital output. If you have an older Mac the only option may be analogue.

If the two are not in the same room you can connect them using an airport express wireless device - http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MB...ode=MTY1NDA0Mg - and a cable to connect the airport express to the hifi.

[HighlandDougie]

"I don't know about Macs however as they exist in their own walled garden" - err, exactly the same as PCs. VodkaDilc - A Macbook has an input (aka the headphones socket) which takes optical or wired cable. Run a cable from that to an AUX at the back of an amplifier (either optical or the standard twin plugs - left and right) and that's all the connection which is needed. I-tunes, warts and all, offers a very easy way of managing and storing music. Most laptops have hard disks which are big enough to store quite a lot of music. Down-load files from, say, Qobuz in a MAC-compatible format (AAC) and they go straight into your i-tunes library from which you can create a file/playlist containing that piece of music. All you then need to do is to open i-tunes, click the file and enjoy the music. It's really not very scary at all - and a way of enhancing one's existing collection of LPs, Tapes, Mini-discs, CDs and whatever.

[Don Petter]

With electronic signal, which is how I understand downloading is, you are depending on so many things, including your own memory, I suppose. And as far as I am concerned, well…. it’s all in your mind to believe that it’s there (I told you, you can laugh).

You should perhaps go back to acoustic 78s and a wind-up gramophone - no mystic electrons in the path there! But seriously, I do sympathise rather than mock. Though I am quite happy with downloading (particularly for the vast mine of goodies which have never made it to CD but which are available free in various online blogs) there are many other technical areas where I don't know the wiles and have no incentive to find out. We are probably missing out, but life is still full of plenty to understand and enjoy.

[Dave2002]

HighlandDougie

The problem with the audio output (note - not an input socket!) of the iMacs is that if the output is electrical, e.g to feed headphones, the quality is OKish, but you may hear low level background noise. Not sure if this also applies to the optical output, which can be fed into an external DAC, but there are quite a few picky people who recommend things like this - http://www.headfonia.com/the-latest-...10-usb-dacamp/ - which allegedly improves the audio quality quite a bit - and it's something under £100. Re the low level noise - it may not be just the electrical stuff which causes it, but something to do with the audio processing in the iMacs (e.g iTunes, and various Quicktime and OS X software components). I find that if I use a network connection to feed a Squeezebox + DAC to do the audio output then noise levels reduce considerably.

[Parry1912]

I use a cheap HP netbook to store 500GB of music using quodlibet under Mint11 linux system

I'm reminded of turntable enthusiasts talking about their cartridges, styli, tracking, vta adjustment, anti-skate, tonearm balance, etc. No wonder I prefer CDs.

Incidentally my PC is connected to my hi-fi via a Mackie Onyx firewire preamp. I'm not a complete luddite!

[MrGongGong]

I've never found a computer with an acceptable quality audio output
I usually use an Echo firewire soundcard (mulichannel in and out) if I want to actually LISTEN to something off the computer
the quality of the output amps even on expensive machines like the macbook pro i usually use is dreadful

I know one well known composer of esoteric music who records onto a Sound devices 744 (the pinnacle of portable recorders !) and listens to 78s on a wind up gramophone at home !

[HighlandDougie]

Dave

Many thanks for the info (and it is of course output - duh). I use an optical cable with the output (straight into a Naimuniti) - and my Macbook has an SSD rather than a hard drive (which probably makes no difference) but I can't say that I've been aware of low level background noise. However, as with many matters Hi-Fi, it's when you hear how much better it can be that you then realise that, yes, maybe there was something after all. Using the set-up wirelessly, I can't say that I've noticed any difference but I will explore your suggestions forthwith.

Incidentally, hope that you are enjoying the Decca box - I'd forgotten just how astonishingly good the sound can be on those Kingsway Hall 1950s recordings. The Campoli Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto is simply a thing of wonder.

HD

[jayne lee wilson]

The "gapped" hdtt variations were the Slatkin Britten/Dohnanyi sets... after an email exchange, I sent some excerpts to the ever-helpful Andrew Rose at Pristine (another great source for classical downloads) who confirmed the problem as a "bizarre beginner's error" in the remastering! I used a short cross-fade in XBMC to listen to them which was all but undetectable.
But got nowhere going back to hdtt, no further reply. I felt disinclined to buy from them again, but then they go and do something wonderful like the Bruckner 7, the rogues.... their Janigro/Dean Dixon Dvorak Cello Concerto (never heard better mono than this!), and the Maag/Peinemann Dvorak Violin Concerto, both from Open Reels, are two other glories. The Charles Munch Roussel 3&4 has been transferred from LP, with an astonishing visceral impact - go get!

I did try the Mozart Violin Concertos from 2L, but they fell into the old "audiophile recording" cliche - sonically perfect, musically dull. Waste of money. No wonder they wasted so many mystical words describing them!

I find using the optical output from a 2007 13" Macbook gives excellent sonic results plugged into a Cambridge DacMagic using a Wireworld Supernova 6 Glassfibre cable. Generally I have the DacMagic filter set to minimum phase, a close relation to the "apodising" filters used at far greater expense by Meridian etc.

I do like HDTT's stuff generally. Occasionally I've had to add some silence at the end of tracks, but haven't found any redundant silence. It's easy enough to repair with Audacity or any wave editor. Which release gave you problems?

Chandos' BBCPO 24/96 are stunningly good though expensive. Do try eclassical.com, too, for BIS, whose latest are 24/96; other labels available from them. too. Then there's the Linn shop, Acousence and 2L - however, nearly all releases are available on SACD for much less money.

I discovered by chance that Analekta issue some 24 bit files while browsing Mathieu

http://www.analekta.com/

e.g.

http://www.analekta.com/en/album/Andre-Mathieu-Concerto-No-4-Orchestral-Works.515.html

still on my wish-list.

And now DSD tracks can be downloaded - huge files. I must say the cost of storage of these makes SACD cheap (unless you're buying from Japan).

[MickyD]

This is not meant as criticism of PJPJ or of anyone else who has adopted this baffling-sounding technology - far from it; I have great admiration for them.........
BUT it sounds so much more complicated than my present method: See a CD which I like the look of; go to a shop or phone The Woods to buy it; put it on the CD player; listen! (Then put on shelf and admire, giving easy access for next time.)

I couldn't agree more, Vodkadilc.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's not so much the Death of the CD as the attempted murder of the same. It's constantly being talked down, with misleading statements, such as "more and more people are "going digital" and abandoning their CDs.

So CDs are supposed to be analogue, are they. I didn't realise we had been deceived in 1983.

[MrGongGong]

Likewise. though when recording live performances to DAT I got used to adding a MiniDisc deck, fed with a throughput from the DAT recorder, to the chain so that I could patch any drop-outs in the DAT recording. I keep promising myself to get on with backing up the many DATs, MiniDiscs, cassettes, VHS HiFi, etc. recordings to hard disc, but only ever do a few at a time. I've got to admit though, that recording to silicon is by far the most convenient and reliable medium today, and it can be done in 96/24 or even 192/24. My new toy (a Zoom H2n) can even record reasonable 4 channel surround using its 5 integral mic. capsules (three for mid-side and a near coincident pair in the opposite orientation for x-y) though 'only' at 48/24 max. when opting for surround.

http://www.drivebyhighfive.net/2011/...-h2n-recorder/

The Zoom H2 is wonderful device indeed and absurdly cheap
there was a comparison on one of the nerdy newsgroups I'm on (either CEC or Phonography ?) between several machines including the Zoom and a Calrec Soundfield > Sound Devices 744. The apart from absolute signal to noise it was hard to choose between them , and with the Zoom costing about £120 and the Soundfield costing about £5,000 and the 744 about £3500 ....... you could buy 70 of the Zoom units for the same price ! Its a shame that its so flimsily built though !

[jayne lee wilson]

Absolutely, EA, the ad absurdam of that was the Brennan ads, oh what hard work it is to choose and play a CD when you could be making a cup of tea instead! But of course away from classical, downloads have become high-volume sales items. We'll probably rely more and more on the specialists like Alpha, Hyperion, Testament and so on, for well-produced, presented and annotated CDs. High-res classical files are a fairly small, though often very special, niche - I've no idea of current sales figures for classical lossless downloads, as against CDs... anyone?

It's not so much the Death of the CD as the attempted murder of the same. It's constantly being talked down, with misleading statements, such as "more and more people are "going digital" and abandoning their CDs.

So CDs are supposed to be analogue, are they. I didn't realise we had been deceived in 1983.

[Bryn]

The Zoom H2 is wonderful device indeed and absurdly cheap
there was a comparison on one of the nerdy newsgroups I'm on (either CEC or Phonography ?) between several machines including the Zoom and a Calrec Soundfield > Sound Devices 744. The apart from absolute signal to noise it was hard to choose between them , and with the Zoom costing about £120 and the Soundfield costing about £5,000 and the 744 about £3500 ....... you could buy 70 of the Zoom units for the same price ! Its a shame that its so flimsily built though !

MrGG, I have previously purchased two H2 recorders (the first 'went missing' on a trip to Devon). The new machine is the H2n, a considerable improvement on the H2 in a number of areas: better microphone capsules, far better screen, longer battery life, the combination of mid/side and near coincident cardioid pair for front and back respectively ... . That said, I have yet to test it in a concert situation, but the various reports I have read suggest it to be well worth the investment.

Oh, and it comes with Steinberg's Wavelab LE7, a cut-down version of the well respected DAW.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

But of course away from classical, downloads have become high-volume sales items.

...and even higher piracy items. You have to make a little more effort to pirate a CD.

[Bryn]

...and even higher piracy items. You have to make a little more effort to pirate a CD.

But only a little more, that's for sure. I have not visited The Barras in Glasgow for some time, but it used to be over-run with bootleg CDs and DVDs.