I had a second Viennese school phase in my younger years too! Which is something I never expected to be typing on an amateur radio forum!
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Iâm fortunate enough to own some naim equipment - a CD player, amp and streamer, all bought second hand. They were all gradual upgrades from some Marantz kit.
We added a new mid-range (ÂŁ) Linn LP12 record player when funds allowed.
A couple of years ago, my son and I did some A/B/C testing - stream, CD and then vinyl. The same piece of music sounded identical on CD and âCD qualityâ streaming. To context this, I donât have fast enough internet for anything more than that.
Then we put the record on. Yes, a different sound. More warmth, richness and all the other audiophile BS 
. However, were both astounded by the extra detail revealed by playing the record. We repeated this a few times. Paul Simonâs Graceland is the only one I can remember, but I think we had some Eagles, Queen and Stereophonics on as well, so mainly guitar based rock and pop.
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Be careful here. Record producers usually remix from the original master âtapesâ when creating the version going to CD. They may add or remove certain instruments or increase / decrease their volume, and/or change the âsound stageâ [the left to right positioning] of the voices and instruments. So, you might hear something (clearer) or no longer hear something that you hear on the vinyl version.
I notice these changes when listening to 21st. century re-mixes of songs I know very well [from repeated playing] from the original vinyl or the original CD version, and sometimes prefer the original, probably for nostalgic reasons. Listeners often attribute the differences to technical quality (or lack of) when in fact they are not comparing exactly the same musical interpretation.
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Aye, that is a good point. I should have mentioned we used records Iâd bought in the 80âs, so wouldnât be digital recordings put onto vinyl. One was a new record, but from master tapes.
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Another reason touted for owning physical media is that some artists have used the streaming opportunity to re-record their catalogues/most popular albums to improve royalties. So potentially instead of some fresh-faced 20s band you get their 50âs version. Potentially isnât the same as the album you remember that is quite possibly not available at all via streaming.
Taylor Swift did this in the streaming era successfully after her back catalogue was sold underneath her to a 3rd party she highly disproved of (see here). Her high-dynamic-range pop symphony âShake it Offâ - a masterclass in transducing pure kinetic energy into sonic form - is in my opinion better as the original for example, but that wonât be the first version suggested by Spotify.
Iâll go further here with the CDs vs Vinyl debate and mention jukeboxes as the original target of single recordings - of an era - and how much better some of these sound on this original hardware.
Mark
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Definitely a lot of this carry on going on. Not all the time, but Iâve come across CDâs that sound so narrow itâs like trying to squeeze all the sound through the eye of a needle. When by contrast the original recording e.g. vinyl or reel etc sounds absolutely spectacular.
It also can happen the other way around with a naff, badly mastered vinyl given the modern treatment. This is where you need to do your research when looking at choosing the best version of an album. Example, I had a Mini Disc player in the past. Got rid of it years ago. Bought a portable MD player about 10 years ago specifically for a Mini Disc copy of Autechreâs Gescom album because it was designed specifically for Mini Disc in order to take advantage if its gapless playback. Yes you can do that other ways but I wanted the original version which was how it was meant to be listened to. Later releases on other formats were also piddled about with too, or incomplete.
As for streaming, itâs neither here nor there if you are using Bluetooth earbuds or headphones as Bluetooth is lossy anyway (including the latest dongle from Sennheiser that came out recently, which I own as my blower wonât do AptX - thanks Samsung, I donât want to use your codec).
I donât buy the whole audiophile language and snake oil cobblers either (remember the Monster Cables shenanigans?). I do agree there is a massive difference though between a Bush (not their original product line, they used to be mega) HiFi stack and a Technics HiFi stack. Insert your own comparitors, same difference.
End of the day, with a reasonable bit of kit, it doesnât matter what you play back, if itâs been mastered by Mr. Bean sat at the mixing desk it is going to sound utterly pants.
EDIT: Could go down an entirely different road here about Laserdisc vs VHS, DVD, Blu Ray, 4K, CED, TED (amazing East German invention that came before CED and VHD).
Just to note though, I have a small-ish library of Laserdiscs, purely because even in 2025 they still sound better than later releases of the same title on different formats. Concert discs in particular can be amazing. Pink Floydâs Pulse on PAL LD, Genesis at Wembley 1987 LD and more. Stuff that isnât even available on other formats due to rights or whatever is still stuck in LD limbo. Also, with Pulse, I got the Blu Ray edition a couple of years ago. Yes it sounds good, but they went and re-edited the concert so itâs different to the original release. Why do that?
Alien on THX NTSC Laserdisc is still the only way to get the test 70mm Sensurround audio track (which sounds phenomenal). I still watch it now and again. Terminator has the original Mono track on Laserdisc, Terminator 2 has the CDS track on DVD and so on. DTS and Dolby Digital AC-3 can sound tremendous on Laserdisc too. You stick in a Blu Ray equivalent of the same film and even in 2025, it just doesnât compare. Citizen Kane on VHS is another candidate. To this day it is still arguably the best audio track on the formats the film is available on. VHS was also used for HiFi audio only in the past and can sound fantastic, again, if done well.
It all depends who was sat at the controls and what buttons they were pressing I guess!
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This reminds me of most Oasis records that are compressed within an inch of their lives. Iâm no audiophile but I have standards, and as much as I might have liked the music itself I wasnât going to sit and listen to one of their albums with headphones on.
I believe I read somewhere they deliberately mixed it to sound good on your grannies AM radio, much like The Beatles would have been played on for 99% of the listening public.
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As both myself and Fraser have low-end high-end hifis (i.e. neither of us felt flush enough to buy an AudioNote power amp with output transformers hand wound with solid silver wire at a $150000 or buy a Koetsu cartridge with a hand carved Rosewood case) we are painfully aware of how badly some music is mastered. It makes you cry when you hear just how terrible some stuff really is made.
But you can always put some RVG mastered BlueNote recordings on and revel at how well you could record music 60-70 years ago with a two track tape recorder and 1 or 2 microphones. There are some recordings which are staples for âtestingâ hifi⌠Joan Armatradingâs âMe Myself Iâ, Joe Cockerâs âSheffield Steelâ and surprisingly Rushâs âHemispheresâ. Theyâre all quite old⌠I canât think of anything recent that stands out but there is, just having a senior moment.
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I still cherish my original Led Zep 1 & 2 vinyls.
In my youth, using a homebrew push-pull pair of 6V6s, I used to try and persuade my Mum that this was music worth listening to, especially when turned right up 
But I always lost the argument. When doing the ironing, she typically preferred either Herb Alpert or Bert Kaempfert!
73 Dave
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I no longer have the means to play vinyl, but I still cherish my âkeep foreverâ album collection: Pink Floyd DSOTM, WYWH, Animals and The Wall, Genesis Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and TLLDOB, Led Zep Physical Graffiti - and so on, all played just once to tape them. Monuments to a period when music was lovingly constructed rather than hammered together after a pub session. They will pass as heirloom treasures to my eldest son, the only one of the trio who has inherited the music gene.
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The other influence on remastered old recordings is having a techo retune the singersâ voices so they are spot-on the written note. This is a bit of a hobby horse of the youtube channel Wings of Pegasus with Fil analysing the outcomes of the autotuned voices. Basically someone in the recording studios or post post production editing studios thinks that the artistâs voice is not good enough and they have to correct it so it is not just nominally on the note A it is instead absolute zero beat with the nominal note A. So the vibrato that some singers have naturally, which gives their voice a character (which is what the fans like) gets ripped off the note and all the voices sound dead.
So cherish, keep, protect those original vinyl albums, the newer versions the music companies want us to buy are shoddy versions of the original.
As noted above, the music industry is built around what the majority of consumers use to play the music, so sounds have to be compressed out of its mind to be heard above the traffic. Folk sitting at home in a quiet room and able to savour the subtleties in music are not on their radar.
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You are so right, Andrew! Manipulating the pitch is part of being an artist, being slightly sharp or flat for effect is an important skill, not just for singers but for solo instrumentals, too. Putting that under the control of a faceless tech is both arrogant and ignorant.
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Arctic 252 has a youtube channel. In one of his latest videos he is trying to have a different frequency allocated as its pointless going up against KW power of Châine 3. I cant receive them anyway.
That Guardian article was wrong when they said there werenât any valves left as they assumed they were Glass ones! Will any longwave station continue, will there be anything left on Medium wave? I did submit a FOI request when RTE on 252 shutdown. I got the following response:
Thank you for your request for information about the use of medium wave and long wave bands. We received this request on 6 April 2023 and have considered it under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Your request You asked: âI am enquiring about the long wave and medium wave frequencies and their future use. With Absolute Radio (1215 Khz) leaving the airwaves as well as TalkSport (1053 khz, 1071 Khz and 1107 khz) reducing output power and coverage are there any plans to use those frequencies once they are clear? Are there any licence requests for new stations to use those or other frequencies on the MW band? As more and power stations or leaving the band due to costs, will the band be open to Amateur radio use on an experimental low power basis? Also RTE is leaving the LW on 252 Khz as this transmits from Eire are there any plans for this frequency or is this outside of Ofcomâs power?â
Our response Ofcom has received a small number of informal enquiries about what may be happening to the medium wave frequencies where broadcasters have ceased or reduced their use of them. We have no plans at present either to advertise new licences for commercial radio services that would operate on medium wave frequencies, nor to make them available for other uses. There are international agreements setting out which frequencies are used by each country for broadcasting. Even though the transmitter in the Republic of Ireland has ceased transmitting on 252 kHz, the UK does not have the right to use it instead, and we have no plans to make use of the frequency in the UK.
Everything digital, online and through the Rayo app. Stream your music until you cant anymore. You will own nothing and be happy. My two cents anyway.
Did you fix the DAB/2m FM issue?