OFF: What hi-fi equipment do you use to listen to Hawkwind?

[Doug Pearson]

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 10:33:06 -0500, Alastair Sumner
<alastair_sumner at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

>I was wondering what kind of hi-fi equipment people on this list use to
>listen to Hawkwind. For the past ten years or so I've had a Nad 5220 CD
>player, Nad 3020i amplifier and Mission speakers. Despite the clear sound
>I've always felt frustrated at how neutral and lifeless it sounds. I can't
>put my finger on it but I used to enjoy music more playing LPs through my
>old Aiwa midi system.

I use a NAD amplifier (can't remember the model number) and Vandersteen 1B
speakers.  I'm not sure that I would recommend the speakers in your case,
since they tend to reproduce sound very flatly and accurately (they're
fantastic for reviewing studio mixes since their response is so much like
studio monitors) and don't "color" the sound much (which is what it sounds
like you're looking for).  In general, the speakers are the component that
will have the most effect in that area, so all I can really recommend is
auditioning a whole bunch of speakers at your local hi-fi shop.

>Now I've decided to bring my vinyl back from the dead
>and invest in a Rega P2 or P3 turntable and will probably build a new
>system around it. So what kind of equipment do you use? And what do you
>think makes Hawkwind come alive?

Dual CS5000, which sounds great IMHO.  But even a low-end Rega is probably
going to be just as good or better.

Subjectively, I find that no CD beats the sound of *well-pressed* (this is
the key!) vinyl.  The German pressing of 'Warrior' that I have sounds
astounding.  On the other hand, playing any 80s Flicknife pressing on a
decent turntable & system is a waste; those records will never sound
great, and get noisy after just a couple plays.  (The original London
pressings of the early ZZ Top albums [not the Warner Bros reissues!] are
also great examples of well-pressed records, check out "Beer Drinkers and
Hell Raisers" [as later covered by Motorhead] from 'Tres Hombres'.)

And while it's true that CD's theoretically have a greater dynamic range
than vinyl, the sad fact is that most modern mastering/remastering jobs
squash everything into just a few dB's of variation in pathetic attempts
to win the "loudness" wars, with the result being distorted transients,
ear fatigue, and zero dynamics.  Great as the recent Litmus CD is, the
drums sound like crap because of the mastering job!  Completely trashy and
distorted; unlistenable with headphones :^(.  The most recent Rush album
is another example (as I try to think of a particularly egregious large-
selling recent instance) of horrid-sounding drums resulting from
compression/mastering.  Mastering is a skill that takes *excellent* (i.e.
way better than mine) ears to do right, and right now, the market is
flooded with so-called experts who don't have that trait (and compound the
problem by using cheap plug-ins on cheap computer systems but still
consider themselves "professionals").

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com