I'm pretty sure The Champions know what the record sounds like just by looking at the grooves. Actually playing it is simply for the benefit of the viewer.
I was a classical music radio DJ before CDs and handled countless LPs from a huge library. We were always careful to avoid touching the playing surface, to drop the stylus into track gaps, and to minimize back-cuing. Even so, the records somehow knew to get stuck just after I'd gone into the toilet.
I worked as a DJ at a small AM station in my hometown back in the 70's. Rather unusual station, we were multi-format. Country and/or gospel, MOR, Top40, and easy listening all had portions of the day. I worked weekends, which was Top40 all Sat afternoon and easy listening all Sunday afternoon. I didn't know, or care to know, what was what in the easy listening category, we usually just pulled the next album in the row as we changed records, and just let the album sides play. At one point, I had one of those records skip, but it did it cleanly and at just the right moment, so you really couldn't hear that it was skipping, until you realized the same musical passage kept playing over and over. I just let it go for awhile. Nobody noticed. Also, I actually played a couple of Black Sabbath songs during the easy listening show. I believe it was Solitude from MOR and Laguna Sunrise from Vol 4. Again, nobody noticed. And, to be honest, we were abusive to the records. In particular, slip-cuing, which I did most of the time, since it made timing better. My goal in segueing songs was to time it so you didn't hear the transition. Nailed it once so cleanly, I found myself looking at the control board to be sure I'd actually switched over.
Enjoying your videos a lot. They lighten up the hobby which many take too seriously forgetting that it’s entertainment at the end of the day. 😁 To the mistakes audiophiles make (including yours truly), I can add never stop searching for the next gear and enjoying what you have already longer.
No mains conditioning, so acoustic pebbles, didn’t look like the record had been on a lathe, stock interconnects, no speaker cable risers, no super tweeter (how will he ever hear the stuff over 25k!) no sorbothane under the deck, no iso-acoustic stands under the speakers. This system is very susceptible to the micro vibrations earth creates and has isolated none of them. My advice, Townsend pump up stand and some Nordost cables…. And some AAA recordings. What I do like, the huge amount of glass and total lack of acoustic treatment, that’s exactly what he needs and needs no attention. If the nordost cables don’t do the trick, solid silver will!
1:22 I think that no UK channels were allowed product placement in the '60s, so ITC made its own label. I threw away the inner sleeves and made my own sleeves which folded over the record. That way there was no risk of dragging the disc against the sleeve, and the circumference was presented for easy picking up.
@@AudioMasterclass Perhaps Lew Grade tried to slip in the occasional placement. What wonderful times, when Fairy Liquid bottles were taped over, and Fablon was called _sticky-backed plastic_ .
Not only is the ‘Hi Fi’ enthusiast not advancing in rank to an audiophile, he will be promptly collected and placed in residence where his confinement will be enforced by a giant bouncy ball.
Dude, I'm totally with you. Cringe when seeing him fingering the record. I never had the money back in the day for audiophile gear, but I damn well learned how to let records gravity slide out of their sleeves, or lack thereof, into the palm of your hand and then finger the label while you transitioned to edge holding. I learned this like, very early in my record playing life. And I was playing records back then with crap autochanger players early on, but I did upgrade when I could. I remember getting a mid 60s living room furniture style console stereo radio/record player from a share store (indoor flea market) where a booth was closing and all prices were slashed. I think I paid 5 dollars for it, this being in like 1987 or so. Had to stick it out the trunk of my Dad's car that I was driving. And the thing worked! Wonderful warm sound from the valves.
I could possibly be an audiophile... As for the biggest mistake to my mind, are the professional audiophile reviewers (not all) who use ridiculous hyperbole to describe products.
I don't get the hyperbole either. Microphones and loudspeakers are the places to find real, obviously audible, differences. It's so much more difficult with other equipment that has developed to be as near perfect as it can be. Still, the reviewers have to say something and it's reasonable to think that if they did detect any faults then they would say so. DM
@@AudioMasterclass And then you can find out that most of them listened in subpar listening environment because, frankly, who really has perfect conditions in this regard. In fact, I have never come across to review of listening rooms, although these are even more important than any equipment 🙂
A true audiophile would never part with a carpet, leaving a bare room with all those sounds bouncing off the hard surfaces. Also, a true audiophile NEVER closes the lid on the turntable!
Interesting, As a binaural microphone manufacturer and having worked out how to create binaural audio by myself while I was experimenting with a few mics in my new hobby back in 2013 and hearing the virtual barber shop video on UA-cam (asking myself how did they do that!? It's your bloody ears I declared) but more importantly how to record and play it back, I find that I sometimes get the silent treatment/blocked/ignored/or shouted at for simply suggesting that the technique of others recordings are far too hot for playback, normalising etc. should not be used, simply to improve their recordings for a better binaural experience (I know I'm walking on egg shells when I do this!). Binaural recordings, in my opinion, have to be recorded correctly and played back correctly to get the basic of out of the head perceptions correctly (within reason), I've also been told it's impossible to get the "up" "down" perceptions without extra speakers within the headphones, so those remarks by the commentator simply have a model of binaural that could have been realised with bad information out there regarding what binaural audio actually is, it takes quite a bit of effort to realise a new way of thinking on what it actually is, especially when there is so much misinformation out there on the topic of binaural audio. I wonder if you could do something that is "correct" about binaural audio in a future upload? And I wonder if you would use the misinformation out there regarding HRTF! - I like to call it ERTF (ear related transfer function) as without the ear there would not be a perception of “out of your head” hearing and it would all be inside your head when wearing headphones, or if you were unfortunate to have no ears. Anyway, really enjoying your content.
I’m the only audiophile I know. Over the years, I’ve made many mistakes and likely will make many more. But, I learn from those mistakes. The man who never made a mistake, never made anything!
Ahh classic. When I finally got to visit Geneva back in the 80's, I was dismayed too see that the famous fountain was turned off on that day. (anyone who knows the series will get why I mention that)
I so loved Russell Square in London with its lovely fountain that I bought a flat there. By the time I moved in it had been switched off. Ten years later I moved out. Soon after that they fixed it. DM
I miss the days when I could stack 2 - 4 albums on the changer, listen to side(s) A - then turn them over and listen to side(s) B. Ahhh, the good old days!!
I've been surprised to find that records from my parents' collections which I saw used on those changers dozens of times as a child, often don't have the damage I assumed they would, at least not significantly. I believe we had a BSR changer when I was little, and I took a record which had been played easily 200 times, many on the changer in a stack, cleaned it up and gave it some magic record grease, and got an unbelievably-nice sound out of it with very little noise. Not at all what I expected. I'm still not going to start using a record changer, but apparently they aren't always horrible.
Oh, hell, load up a tall spindle with 10 or 12 discs and have some Real fun. Garrard, Dual, Miracord, BSR, V-M, Philips, Glaser-Steers, and Collaro, along with others, made that possible.
@@spacemissing I am probably maybe 10 or a little bit more years too young to have a first hand experience of vinyl record changers in the wild (though I do use a Dual 1019 for my analogue spinny flat music, unfortunately or maybe fortunately depending on ones predisposition I never had the changing spindles). I did have a CD changer though, which I passed on to a friend.
First, I like your sense of humour. The thing with the invented composer and label is probably because the producers of the series were not allowed to do any surreptitious advertising, though.
ITC liked making up their own props to the wisest extents. THE CHA MPIONS was barely shown in the U.S. and the best version just went out of print because home video company Network U.K. (founded in 1997) folded at the end of May of this year, 2023.
that was one of my favourite shows when I was a budding audiophile! Good catch.....btw I notice that the faint music at the end seemed to be about as good of a fake Four Seasons as the cover and label
I think my fascination for the Champions largely centres around being brought up with Tyne Tees Television, which didn't have it. Nor Batman for that matter. You always want what you can't have. DM
Such things are definitely out there, especially from the era when sometimes small regional groups or individuals would press just enough copies for people they knew or a small fan base. Some of the most-interesting ones to me are middle-school/high-school band concerts, from local areas and occasionally schools that I attended long after the record was made.
I don't know about audiophiles but I know a good few people who buy an expensive set up only to place their loudspeakers in an inappropriate room, in the wrong places in the room and pointing at random/incorrect directions. I also know many that place their loudspeakers in a room full of empty hard surfaces and marble/concrete floors. As far as audiophiles go, I think that concentrating on things like mains cables, various vibration "tuning" solids or props (I'm not referring to vibration control and isolation platforms here) , various other "magical" devices that claim to correct or improve sound after it's left the source, ridiculously expensive parts (e.g. connectors or boutique passive circuit elements) etc. are one extreme. On the other extreme are people who place all their hi-fi gear on top of their amplifier (without any shelves to rest them on) and use a random mess of socket extensions to power them off or that leave their loudspeakers/hi-fi system exposed to direct sunlight, heat or excessive humidity.
How many mistakes? Before viewing, I guessed "all but one." Certainly he didn't clean the record and stylus before playing. Most egregious is that meager record collection, no? About a decade ago, I knew a musician (guitarist) in his mid to late 20s at the time who was getting into vinyl. He was buying only used records and raved about how good they sounded. One day I visited his place with some other friends. His audio system was one of those all-in-one stereo systems that included a receiver and 8-track tape player with the turntable built-in as well. It probably had a ceramic cartridge. Speaker placement was hard to fathom. One speaker was on the floor near the system which was in the middle of the long wall of the room and the other speaker was along the adjacent wall (i.e. the two speakers were facing perpendicular directions) and that second speaker had the side of a couch in front of it with no more than 2 feet of space between them.
Apart from mishandling of records, the main mistake vinyl enthusiasts make is improper cleaning of records (e.g. using "anti-static" fluids which leave residue on the record, using normal tap water and - horror upon horrors: wood glue!)
If he was an audiophile then he would have a Garrard 301 or 401 or possibly a Thorens TD150 with Leak or QUAD amplification. He's just a successful chap with a smart appartment and a nice piece of furniture for playing his collection of white label Tagliatelle, sorry I mean Grissini, records 😉
I'm no audiophile and I've got a rumbly old 401 and QUAD (nice of you to remember it's an acronym) amps and speakers. I use them to listen to my jazz and dance band 78's. I'm quite perverse like that 😞
When I was a Tonmeister student at Surrey University in the 1970s, our head of department always delegated one of us to operate the audio system to play any musical examples he needed. One morning he handed me a disc to play, but it was absolutely filthy, so I proceeded to clean it. When I asked him which excerpt he wanted to play, he looked at the disc in consternation and said in his broad Yorkshire accent, 'You've rubbed the chalk marks off Keith mm?'
Most common issues I see today: artists having their work pressed to vinyl minus anti-static sleeves. Poor expectations: long sides to be cut at high fidelity with lots of high treble energy, particularly near the inner groove. Listeners/fans not having a balanced turntable, balanced tonearm, an anti-static brush, or a stylus brush.
Strictly speaking he's not an audiophile but a character so any perceived mistakes are by the viewer relating to the depiction of what the character is supposed to be. :-D
I'm confused, did he put the record on the stack and set the auto changer and press the start button? Isn't this how the machine is supposed to be used? Is he going to listen to the bottom album half again and then the Four Seasons album will drop down? Is this bad for the machine?
I've never had an autochanger myself but I've known people who did. The most logical use is for singles. Listen to a stack of A-sides, then turn them over all together and listen to all the B-sides. You can do that with albums but it makes less sense as you only hear half of each before turning over. DM
@@AudioMasterclass This makes me think of a Jukebox. They are so fascinating to watch operate. Although Jukeboxes seem far more complex. Thank you for the reply sir.
@@AudioMasterclass Well i have some double albums which are sequenced: LP1 side 1 side 4, LP2 Side 2 side 3, So you could listen to side 1, 2, then you turn them over for side3, 4. The Who, Tommy, Decca DXSW 7205. Why i happened upon this: I was listening to a reel to reel recording of the Tommy double album and it was recorded side1, 4, 2, 3. Oups!
No, but it's bad for the record. And the VTA is altered as the arm obviously isn't parallel to the record as there are two of them on the platter. Yes, i tried it you can put about 6 singles on a DUAL changer. Imagine!
@@AudioMasterclass I still enjoy all the box-sets including B&W box sets of Dangerman .. something about way they were filmed and produced - had that Analogue feel .. like my Sugden A21.. greetings from Ireland / Paul
He is an actor playing an ‘audiophile’, which is why its so easy to spot the mistakes. The same is true for how some actors handle firearms in movies, where for an experienced shooter, you immediately notice their mistakes. There is a special name for this… ‘a Baldwin’ after Alec Baldwin. 😂
Monumental mistakes: Believing that anyone else really agrees with you on the proper definition of good sound. Acting as though someone else's records are yours and must be handled Only the Exact way You do it. Thinking that Anyone will Ever take Your advice seriously.
I have a hypothesis that if you were to analyze self-identified audiophiles you would discover that disposable income would be a more closely correlated factor than any increased hearing acuity. It is a hobby that allows one to double dip on feeling superior: first they can show off their expensive bits and pieces, and then again when they claim to hear things that normal humans don't. Honestly, anyone I've known that has spent more than a couple hundred on a system, has had no special hearing acuity, and, at best, only a vague understanding of acoustics, electronics, or musicality. But they all have big houses, big TVs, shiny cars, lots of expensive stuff on casual display, and music collections that demonstrate how closely they followed the trends of popular music, rather than a genuine interest in music as anything but a consumable product to compliment your home decor and wardrobe.
Gressini only ever performed on television and even then just for a few seconds at a time. Music to Flag Up Otherwise Unexpected Thuggery by Gressini was guaranteed to knock you out.
I often wonder about the previous life of a used LP when considering a purchase. Was it loved by someone who knew what to do, how to care for it, or did it have a life of lying on the living room carpet coated in a layer of pet hair just before a nice scratchy play on a BSR changer with 7g of tracking force on a worn out needle? Heck.. some new pressings sound like that was their situation right out of the wrapper.. LOL If only they could talk!
I had a flirtation with 78s a few years ago. The steel stylus should be changed every two sides, but did previous owners know this? From my experience, most didn't. A worn 78 is not a pleasant listening experience. DM
I can understand the generic white label record prop. Because I'm sure at the time in the UK, in 60s and 70s, there was very strict rules about not showing commercial brands on TV, unless it was an advert. And a real record of The Four Seasons, would have had labels like Decca, Pye, EMI, Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, etc. on the sleeve and label.
The message is that if you intend to time travel back to the 1960s to enjoy authentic period hi-fi then you need to wear the right cardigan to blend in. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Thanks for clarification. Makes perfect sense, now.👍 Will definitely keep that in mind for my next time travel, maybe even traveling into the future. In fashion, everything comes back at some point.
The biggest mistake audiophiles do is when they listen to review website recommendations that rate 99% of their products a 4 out of 5 star and not a single 1 or 2 star. Thats just inherently a bad rating system.
Very entertaining and many a true word spoken in jest. Of course that Alexandra Bastedo (changed her name to Geraldine Bastedo) experienced an awful high pitched squeal every now and then which would have been much better in 24bit 96khz
No audiophile would put their speakers that close to the wall... 🙄 Everybody knows you're supposed to suspend them from the ceiling about 1/3 room length from the far wall, 1/4 room width from respective side walls, and center your listening chair on the mid-line between the speakers about 1/3 room length from the back wall. Also, the listening room dimensions (H x W x L) need to correspond to the Golden Ratio, or sequential numbers of the Fibonacci sequence, and cannot have any obstructions in the middle of the room that might cause perturbances in the sound waves. 😆
Your comment is very amusing. Actually the listening room should have certain dimensions - length, width, height that are not simple ratios of each other. This will spread the standing wave frequencies. Better to have more weak standing waves than few strong ones. DM
I don't consider myself an audiophile but I sure do better than that guy on the movie eesh! and there is nothing wrong with using an automatic TT according to audiofools I use to be one stackers scratch records which is totally false and some are made to adjust to the angle as you play multiple records six of my TT's are auto matic 2 of my other TT's are manual been playing with auto TT's and playing stacked records so far no scratches I see or hear its the handling that scratches the record as mine are done I go into audiophile mode take each one out and put them back in sleeve I have scratched more records using my manual TT than in my automatic player JRo
....being an audiophile is the only mistake you need to make. All the others are dialed in by default. ....including 1,000 dollar a yard cables, etc. ....and of course, high impedance words like 'insouciant'. ........and let's not forget the prerequisite requirement to listen to boring 'music'. Best regards, Bill P.
He isn't an audiophile. He is very wealthy. I have been in houses with the latest McIntosh amps and B and W speakers in every room, guest house, and Lake House, and they didn't even have them properly wired up. I had a friend whos Anesthesiologist dad had a 30k dream setup with Laserdisc player (the 1990s) and the kid never even used the LD player and his father still had most of his small and random collection of discs still in their shrink. I recently bought a gatefold LD (in 2023) of Apocalypse Now, and the rich person who bought it in 1992 only opened the ends where the disc access is located!!!!! They never even took the shrink off to look into the gatefold!!!!Im not sure how they made their money, but it definitely wasn't for their attention to detail. Im guessing the salesperson at their favorite 1990s hifi shop sold them the "Cutting edge" LD player with a word similar to that in quotations, and the rest is history. Lucky for us, my rich folks with audiophile gear have gone to that country club in the sky and if you look close enough, there is yesterdays audiophile gear that was hardly ever used in thrift stores and estate sales all around us... And I want to know if your virtual assistant even gets aroused by anything 😀
A Philips Stereogram but the deck resembles a Dual. A piece of crap anyway. Imagine the support this gave to the furniture industry, and imagine their dismay when it all went to separates with the Garrard SP25! All that gear, tons of it, was, and is junk, very few realised that. And I don't mean audiophiles, I just mean anyone with any common sense. I wonder if you could explore what we might be thinking of today's bees knees in 50 years time.
The mistake I see mostly, is spending huge amounts of money on hifi equipment, £1000 quid a meter for speaker cable for example ! Ah, but then the reproduction is better! Really, by what, 0.5%... pffff
Too Funny ! He should have cleaned the record before playing, whether that be a record bath or a sticky tape drum is debatable. Nor did he check the stylus pressure and remove any fluff on the stylus, what an amateur and don't get me started on the arrangement of furniture.
What a monumental hassle.. same reason I put in the thrash bin all the cassetes in the late 90's .. just to see people resurfacing them for no good reason rather recently. .No..just no.. Im too old for this shit. crappy remasters are no good reason to bring any of this back from history.
You claim to be an audio professional, so I'm a bit curious to why you seem to always be trying to debunk audio and audiophiles. Especially vinyl listeners. Seems rather counter-productive, but you do seem to enjoy it so.
Because he realizes there is a large group of people who are believing there is a big old snake oil train that has pulled into the station, and he caters to them. They are ones who for instance are "Cable Experts" without ever having tried or owned expensive cables, and they just know it's snake oil from their theories, which they try to make look like they're based on something, but are really based on "I don"t feel like spending money on cables." They would prefer to fool themselves into believing there are no differences. That way they can both save money and have someone to poke fun at. They don't want to feel like they're missing out. Someone has to cater to this group, and yes it is fun to poke fun at obsessive fussbudgets. In this case there is an ocean big opportunity. Not just cables but AC conditioning, Expensive Audiophile Fuses, Lp pressings which cose well over $100 new, record mats, record clamps, record weights, phono cartridges which cost thousands of dollars, amps and speakers which cost more than homes, spray and gel contact enhancers etc. etc. It's funny to them to think there are delusional people running all over the place and spending big money on stuff that doesn't do a thing. What makes their whole guffaw merry go round, is that sound is invisible.
His video titles are clickbaitey but as a vinyl enthusiast I think he's fair about things, though he does try to get the 'digital good, everything else bad' audience on board without sounding like a jerk to the rest of us like some hosts will do very flippantly. He doesn't usually pit the worst of one format against the best of another, which is the basis for most 'digital better' arguments, and he does acknowledge a lot more about real-world usage of things than those arguments tend to include.
He's entertaining and funny. But he's more of a docudrama than a documentary. Not that long ago he said compact discs are not to his liking and vinyl was. He says he has sold his vinyl collection?? Streaming maybe? I know he's not doing cassettes.
What audiophile? This video perfectly illustrates why so many people assume records inherently sound bad: the average person has-or-had pretty bad record-handling ability and a mediocre player, and rarely-if-ever cleaned their records or needle, let alone took out the static charge before putting the needle in the groove, and doesn't recognize how the sound quality is highly contingent on a bunch of different things being done properly AND having well-made vinyl to play. It can be expensive, time-consuming and a pain in the ass and I don't tell anybody they're wrong for avoiding it, but I also know that those 'vinyl-is-bad' people are generally the same ones who will listen to poor-quality digital music and not hear the artifacts or flatness, and they enjoy the compression taking out the dynamics-- fine for them, but it undermines the whole 'digital is better' argument when it isn't being USED better. You can't just get a new needle for your mp3 player and wash the record, put a little magic grease on it and make it sound better, but with records it happens surprisingly often and it is downright revelatory at times. Best comparison I can think of, obscure but absolutely true: 'Phantom of the Paradise' soundtrack, CD vs original record. The CD is very good, but if nothing else, the record is mastered head-and-shoulders better and sounds absolutely monstrous at times compared to the CD, while retaining a noise floor so low that on my system, you can't hear any 'silence-noise' without cranking the speakers 3/4 the way up so you hear more tape hiss than vinyl artifacts, and blow your face off when the sound hits.
This is also why cassette decks need demagnetising and cleaning. Regarding 'Phantom of the Paradise', which I haven't heard yet, I've commented in another video that it is perfectly possible that the vinyl version of anything sounds better than the CD because of better or more appropriate mastering. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Right, it's one specific example out of a few in my collection, and I admit it's a 'loaded' example because the CD sounds clean-but-tinny just compared to other CDs, and the record is one of the best-sounding things I own. Thank you for reminding me to demagnetize my cassette deck.
I'm pretty sure The Champions know what the record sounds like just by looking at the grooves. Actually playing it is simply for the benefit of the viewer.
I was a classical music radio DJ before CDs and handled countless LPs from a huge library. We were always careful to avoid touching the playing surface, to drop the stylus into track gaps, and to minimize back-cuing. Even so, the records somehow knew to get stuck just after I'd gone into the toilet.
I worked as a DJ at a small AM station in my hometown back in the 70's. Rather unusual station, we were multi-format. Country and/or gospel, MOR, Top40, and easy listening all had portions of the day. I worked weekends, which was Top40 all Sat afternoon and easy listening all Sunday afternoon. I didn't know, or care to know, what was what in the easy listening category, we usually just pulled the next album in the row as we changed records, and just let the album sides play.
At one point, I had one of those records skip, but it did it cleanly and at just the right moment, so you really couldn't hear that it was skipping, until you realized the same musical passage kept playing over and over. I just let it go for awhile. Nobody noticed.
Also, I actually played a couple of Black Sabbath songs during the easy listening show. I believe it was Solitude from MOR and Laguna Sunrise from Vol 4. Again, nobody noticed.
And, to be honest, we were abusive to the records. In particular, slip-cuing, which I did most of the time, since it made timing better. My goal in segueing songs was to time it so you didn't hear the transition. Nailed it once so cleanly, I found myself looking at the control board to be sure I'd actually switched over.
Enjoying your videos a lot. They lighten up the hobby which many take too seriously forgetting that it’s entertainment at the end of the day. 😁
To the mistakes audiophiles make (including yours truly), I can add never stop searching for the next gear and enjoying what you have already longer.
The biggest mistake is why anyone is bothered about hifi when Alexandra Bastedo is around!
Yep,seeing her in the swimming pool during the opening credits was a weekly treat.
Wouldn't change my stereo for her
Audiophiles are lovers of sound. Doesn’t have to be accurate representations
No mains conditioning, so acoustic pebbles, didn’t look like the record had been on a lathe, stock interconnects, no speaker cable risers, no super tweeter (how will he ever hear the stuff over 25k!) no sorbothane under the deck, no iso-acoustic stands under the speakers. This system is very susceptible to the micro vibrations earth creates and has isolated none of them. My advice, Townsend pump up stand and some Nordost cables…. And some AAA recordings. What I do like, the huge amount of glass and total lack of acoustic treatment, that’s exactly what he needs and needs no attention. If the nordost cables don’t do the trick, solid silver will!
…remember to run the cables in! Very important!
The Champions is being shown on Talking Pictures mid week in the UK, great series and remember it well as a child.
Nice cardigan, looks like an audiophile model to me
I think it's the Perry Como Special Edition.
1:22 I think that no UK channels were allowed product placement in the '60s, so ITC made its own label.
I threw away the inner sleeves and made my own sleeves which folded over the record. That way there was no risk of dragging the disc against the sleeve, and the circumference was presented for easy picking up.
Yes of course, I’d completely forgotten that. Seems archaic now. We still see that the player is a Philips though. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Perhaps Lew Grade tried to slip in the occasional placement.
What wonderful times, when Fairy Liquid bottles were taped over, and Fablon was called _sticky-backed plastic_ .
Yes I remember that. I must correct myself though - the Philips badge wasn’t shown in the episode, only in the photo. DM
Disclaimer: No audiophiles were hurt in the making of this video.
Not only is the ‘Hi Fi’ enthusiast not advancing in rank to an audiophile, he will be promptly collected and placed in residence where his confinement will be enforced by a giant bouncy ball.
I once knew an audiophile that made the mistake of paying less than $2,000/Ft for for his speaker cables, eh I mean interconnects. 😂
Barbarism! He should have bought it in metric units!
hope he used cash and not digital currency.................
You gave me a good laugh, thank you! I already love your channel. :)
He probably didn't have the right kind of speaker wires.
Brilliant!
Was that the audiophile police in green ?
Nothing so stylish today !
Dude, I'm totally with you. Cringe when seeing him fingering the record. I never had the money back in the day for audiophile gear, but I damn well learned how to let records gravity slide out of their sleeves, or lack thereof, into the palm of your hand and then finger the label while you transitioned to edge holding. I learned this like, very early in my record playing life. And I was playing records back then with crap autochanger players early on, but I did upgrade when I could. I remember getting a mid 60s living room furniture style console stereo radio/record player from a share store (indoor flea market) where a booth was closing and all prices were slashed. I think I paid 5 dollars for it, this being in like 1987 or so. Had to stick it out the trunk of my Dad's car that I was driving. And the thing worked! Wonderful warm sound from the valves.
And then at the end he goes and risks getting hearing damage by receiving a blow to the head.
I could possibly be an audiophile... As for the biggest mistake to my mind, are the professional audiophile reviewers (not all) who use ridiculous hyperbole to describe products.
I don't get the hyperbole either. Microphones and loudspeakers are the places to find real, obviously audible, differences. It's so much more difficult with other equipment that has developed to be as near perfect as it can be. Still, the reviewers have to say something and it's reasonable to think that if they did detect any faults then they would say so. DM
@@AudioMasterclass And then you can find out that most of them listened in subpar listening environment because, frankly, who really has perfect conditions in this regard. In fact, I have never come across to review of listening rooms, although these are even more important than any equipment 🙂
Stereo enthusiasts listen to their music. Audiophiles listen to their equipment.
I glue my records to large circular saw discs to keep hands off
Do you have to buy 2 copies of the same LP then? Sounds pricey.
A true audiophile would never part with a carpet, leaving a bare room with all those sounds bouncing off the hard surfaces. Also, a true audiophile NEVER closes the lid on the turntable!
or takes the lid off, if the record play comes with one
@@Grimwriggler Bang on!
His albums are not in polybags. The Turntable should be in the centered between the chairs behind for better sound .
Interesting,
As a binaural microphone manufacturer and having worked out how to create binaural audio by myself while I was experimenting with a few mics in my new hobby back in 2013 and hearing the virtual barber shop video on UA-cam (asking myself how did they do that!? It's your bloody ears I declared) but more importantly how to record and play it back, I find that I sometimes get the silent treatment/blocked/ignored/or shouted at for simply suggesting that the technique of others recordings are far too hot for playback, normalising etc. should not be used, simply to improve their recordings for a better binaural experience (I know I'm walking on egg shells when I do this!).
Binaural recordings, in my opinion, have to be recorded correctly and played back correctly to get the basic of out of the head perceptions correctly (within reason), I've also been told it's impossible to get the "up" "down" perceptions without extra speakers within the headphones, so those remarks by the commentator simply have a model of binaural that could have been realised with bad information out there regarding what binaural audio actually is, it takes quite a bit of effort to realise a new way of thinking on what it actually is, especially when there is so much misinformation out there on the topic of binaural audio.
I wonder if you could do something that is "correct" about binaural audio in a future upload? And I wonder if you would use the misinformation out there regarding HRTF! - I like to call it ERTF (ear related transfer function) as without the ear there would not be a perception of “out of your head” hearing and it would all be inside your head when wearing headphones, or if you were unfortunate to have no ears.
Anyway, really enjoying your content.
I’m the only audiophile I know. Over the years, I’ve made many mistakes and likely will make many more. But, I learn from those mistakes. The man who never made a mistake, never made anything!
So a lot of fakes here: fake audiophile, fake composer, fake garbage men.
Thanks for being real, David!
The way he looked after his drink was real though. DM
Ahh classic. When I finally got to visit Geneva back in the 80's, I was dismayed too see that the famous fountain was turned off on that day. (anyone who knows the series will get why I mention that)
I so loved Russell Square in London with its lovely fountain that I bought a flat there. By the time I moved in it had been switched off. Ten years later I moved out. Soon after that they fixed it. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Ten years ! I see the local council really rushed that repair job through then, usually councils take their time over such matters.
Brings back so many memories of vynil mishandling.. how I learned guitar..needle dropping .. literally
Audiophile failure: neglecting to install one's $5,000 parallel grounding box on the recommended conical isolation feet.
I miss the days when I could stack 2 - 4 albums on the changer, listen to side(s) A - then turn them over and listen to side(s) B. Ahhh, the good old days!!
Yet another of vinyl’s joys. DM
I've been surprised to find that records from my parents' collections which I saw used on those changers dozens of times as a child, often don't have the damage I assumed they would, at least not significantly. I believe we had a BSR changer when I was little, and I took a record which had been played easily 200 times, many on the changer in a stack, cleaned it up and gave it some magic record grease, and got an unbelievably-nice sound out of it with very little noise. Not at all what I expected. I'm still not going to start using a record changer, but apparently they aren't always horrible.
Oh, hell, load up a tall spindle with 10 or 12 discs and have some Real fun.
Garrard, Dual, Miracord, BSR, V-M, Philips, Glaser-Steers, and Collaro, along with others, made that possible.
@@spacemissing I am probably maybe 10 or a little bit more years too young to have a first hand experience of vinyl record changers in the wild (though I do use a Dual 1019 for my analogue spinny flat music, unfortunately or maybe fortunately depending on ones predisposition I never had the changing spindles). I did have a CD changer though, which I passed on to a friend.
First, I like your sense of humour. The thing with the invented composer and label is probably because the producers of the series were not allowed to do any surreptitious advertising, though.
ITC liked making up their own props to the wisest extents. THE CHA MPIONS was barely shown in the U.S. and the best version just went out of print because home video company Network U.K. (founded in 1997) folded at the end of May of this year, 2023.
that was one of my favourite shows when I was a budding audiophile! Good catch.....btw I notice that the faint music at the end seemed to be about as good of a fake Four Seasons as the cover and label
A great video. It looks as though the cartridge is indeed a flipper.
LOL ! I used to love The Champions on a sunday lunchtime while the beef was roasting...cheers.
I think my fascination for the Champions largely centres around being brought up with Tyne Tees Television, which didn't have it. Nor Batman for that matter. You always want what you can't have. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Always the way :)
LMAO!!! Great & Funny. Thanks :)
PS Where was the static carbon brushing session?!?
This record will self-destruct in five seconds. (oops, wrong series)
Mission Impossible, for anyone else reading this. Pre-Tom Cruise but still good. DM
Some of my records have no catalogue number or copyright information. Just a white label with the title ;-) Enjoyed the video.
Such things are definitely out there, especially from the era when sometimes small regional groups or individuals would press just enough copies for people they knew or a small fan base. Some of the most-interesting ones to me are middle-school/high-school band concerts, from local areas and occasionally schools that I attended long after the record was made.
I don't know about audiophiles but I know a good few people who buy an expensive set up only to place their loudspeakers in an inappropriate room, in the wrong places in the room and pointing at random/incorrect directions. I also know many that place their loudspeakers in a room full of empty hard surfaces and marble/concrete floors.
As far as audiophiles go, I think that concentrating on things like mains cables, various vibration "tuning" solids or props (I'm not referring to vibration control and isolation platforms here) , various other "magical" devices that claim to correct or improve sound after it's left the source, ridiculously expensive parts (e.g. connectors or boutique passive circuit elements) etc. are one extreme.
On the other extreme are people who place all their hi-fi gear on top of their amplifier (without any shelves to rest them on) and use a random mess of socket extensions to power them off or that leave their loudspeakers/hi-fi system exposed to direct sunlight, heat or excessive humidity.
Secret Agent Man’s Mobile Fidelity sleeve might be stuck?
Each of your videos is more excruciating than the last 😄
Don't tempt me. DM
@@AudioMasterclass oh, I definitely think we should 😉
How many mistakes? Before viewing, I guessed "all but one."
Certainly he didn't clean the record and stylus before playing.
Most egregious is that meager record collection, no?
About a decade ago, I knew a musician (guitarist) in his mid to late 20s at the time who was getting into vinyl. He was buying only used records and raved about how good they sounded. One day I visited his place with some other friends. His audio system was one of those all-in-one stereo systems that included a receiver and 8-track tape player with the turntable built-in as well. It probably had a ceramic cartridge. Speaker placement was hard to fathom. One speaker was on the floor near the system which was in the middle of the long wall of the room and the other speaker was along the adjacent wall (i.e. the two speakers were facing perpendicular directions) and that second speaker had the side of a couch in front of it with no more than 2 feet of space between them.
First and biggest mistake is using vinyl.
That was his only option back then. Hi-fi cassette didn't yet exist.
@@AudioMasterclass I know that. But people are still dong it for reasons other than irony. Sadly.
Apart from mishandling of records, the main mistake vinyl enthusiasts make is improper cleaning of records (e.g. using "anti-static" fluids which leave residue on the record, using normal tap water and - horror upon horrors: wood glue!)
That wood glue. Mixed my broken uke perfect. DM
If he was an audiophile then he would have a Garrard 301 or 401 or possibly a Thorens TD150 with Leak or QUAD amplification. He's just a successful chap with a smart appartment and a nice piece of furniture for playing his collection of white label Tagliatelle, sorry I mean Grissini, records 😉
We are on a similar wavelength. You might consider worrying about that. DM
I'm no audiophile and I've got a rumbly old 401 and QUAD (nice of you to remember it's an acronym) amps and speakers. I use them to listen to my jazz and dance band 78's. I'm quite perverse like that 😞
This is painful! That poor record...screaming like cabbages and carrots!
Love this 1!
When I was a Tonmeister student at Surrey University in the 1970s, our head of department always delegated one of us to operate the audio system to play any musical examples he needed. One morning he handed me a disc to play, but it was absolutely filthy, so I proceeded to clean it. When I asked him which excerpt he wanted to play, he looked at the disc in consternation and said in his broad Yorkshire accent, 'You've rubbed the chalk marks off Keith mm?'
Fortunately I've never needed to mark vinyl discs but I enjoyed the scene in 'The Get Down' where Grandmaster Flash describes how it's done in hiphop.
Perhaps he was distracted by Sharron Macready. I know I was.
Most common issues I see today: artists having their work pressed to vinyl minus anti-static sleeves. Poor expectations: long sides to be cut at high fidelity with lots of high treble energy, particularly near the inner groove.
Listeners/fans not having a balanced turntable, balanced tonearm, an anti-static brush, or a stylus brush.
hilarious and excellent -----
The biggest mistake they make is buying snake oil
Strictly speaking he's not an audiophile but a character so any perceived mistakes are by the viewer relating to the depiction of what the character is supposed to be. :-D
As an impressionable child, watching shows about Tiabatain monk-enhanced secret agents - Explains a lot. 😛 He didn't clean the record.
The only reason to watch "The Champions" was Alexandra Bastedo and even then it was hardly worth it: what were THEY thinking?
I'm confused, did he put the record on the stack and set the auto changer and press the start button? Isn't this how the machine is supposed to be used? Is he going to listen to the bottom album half again and then the Four Seasons album will drop down? Is this bad for the machine?
I've never had an autochanger myself but I've known people who did. The most logical use is for singles. Listen to a stack of A-sides, then turn them over all together and listen to all the B-sides. You can do that with albums but it makes less sense as you only hear half of each before turning over. DM
@@AudioMasterclass This makes me think of a Jukebox. They are so fascinating to watch operate. Although Jukeboxes seem far more complex. Thank you for the reply sir.
I can agree, although the standard of jukebox in the UK was usually much less than the mighty Wurlitzer. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Well i have some double albums which are sequenced: LP1 side 1 side 4, LP2 Side 2 side 3, So you could listen to side 1, 2, then you turn them over for side3, 4. The Who, Tommy, Decca DXSW 7205. Why i happened upon this: I was listening to a reel to reel recording of the Tommy double album and it was recorded side1, 4, 2, 3. Oups!
No, but it's bad for the record. And the VTA is altered as the arm obviously isn't parallel to the record as there are two of them on the platter. Yes, i tried it you can put about 6 singles on a DUAL changer. Imagine!
Great series and the wonderful Alexandra Bastedo .. RIP and Stuart Damon .. RIP..
Yes, went too soon. DM
@@AudioMasterclass I still enjoy all the box-sets including B&W box sets of Dangerman .. something about way they were filmed and produced - had that Analogue feel .. like my Sugden A21.. greetings from Ireland / Paul
For non-UK comment readers, Danger Man is also known as Secret Agent, Destination Danger, or John Drake. DM
At first I thought it was Mr Wint and Mr Kidd at the door. But if it was James Bond, there would have already been a women in the room.
For anyone reading this, they're from Diamonds Are Forever, apparently. DM
He is an actor playing an ‘audiophile’, which is why its so easy to spot the mistakes. The same is true for how some actors handle firearms in movies, where for an experienced shooter, you immediately notice their mistakes. There is a special name for this… ‘a Baldwin’ after Alec Baldwin. 😂
That’s a good one. Maybe we can use it as a translated term and call this example an “Audio Baldwin”…
Monumental mistakes:
Believing that anyone else really agrees with you on the proper definition of good sound.
Acting as though someone else's records are yours and must be handled Only the Exact way You do it.
Thinking that Anyone will Ever take Your advice seriously.
I have a hypothesis that if you were to analyze self-identified audiophiles you would discover that disposable income would be a more closely correlated factor than any increased hearing acuity. It is a hobby that allows one to double dip on feeling superior: first they can show off their expensive bits and pieces, and then again when they claim to hear things that normal humans don't. Honestly, anyone I've known that has spent more than a couple hundred on a system, has had no special hearing acuity, and, at best, only a vague understanding of acoustics, electronics, or musicality. But they all have big houses, big TVs, shiny cars, lots of expensive stuff on casual display, and music collections that demonstrate how closely they followed the trends of popular music, rather than a genuine interest in music as anything but a consumable product to compliment your home decor and wardrobe.
Gressini only ever performed on television and even then just for a few seconds at a time. Music to Flag Up Otherwise Unexpected Thuggery by Gressini was guaranteed to knock you out.
Brilliant 👌😂😂
Exactly the same number of mistakes you did, before you learnt how to do them. He probably did less mistakes than you, chances are higher
I've made way more mistakes than this, believe me. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Ahahah, I know the feeling, ye, I ve done gazillions. Thanks for the video, was a joy to watch ;)
I often wonder about the previous life of a used LP when considering a purchase. Was it loved by someone who knew what to do, how to care for it, or did it have a life of lying on the living room carpet coated in a layer of pet hair just before a nice scratchy play on a BSR changer with 7g of tracking force on a worn out needle? Heck.. some new pressings sound like that was their situation right out of the wrapper.. LOL If only they could talk!
I had a flirtation with 78s a few years ago. The steel stylus should be changed every two sides, but did previous owners know this? From my experience, most didn't. A worn 78 is not a pleasant listening experience. DM
I can understand the generic white label record prop. Because I'm sure at the time in the UK, in 60s and 70s, there was very strict rules about not showing commercial brands on TV, unless it was an advert. And a real record of The Four Seasons, would have had labels like Decca, Pye, EMI, Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, etc. on the sleeve and label.
Love your videos and - dare saying, as usual - left a like. But honestly, I don't quite understand what the message is this time.😉
The message is that if you intend to time travel back to the 1960s to enjoy authentic period hi-fi then you need to wear the right cardigan to blend in. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Thanks for clarification. Makes perfect sense, now.👍
Will definitely keep that in mind for my next time travel, maybe even traveling into the future. In fashion, everything comes back at some point.
Audiophiles' main mistake is they don't listen to MUSIC.
Dumb guys' main mistake is that they're always making up dumb shit and saying "somebody ELSE believes that!" when it's just you
No Cecil Watts Dust Bug, nor EMI cleaning cloth!? Hes probably drinking isopropyl alcohol from that glass....
Hari
Dust bug, EMI… Classics. Doubtless there are audiophile versions now. DM
don't call me shirley 👍
The biggest mistake audiophiles do is when they listen to review website recommendations that rate 99% of their products a 4 out of 5 star and not a single 1 or 2 star. Thats just inherently a bad rating system.
Revolver
Very entertaining and many a true word spoken in jest. Of course that Alexandra Bastedo (changed her name to Geraldine Bastedo) experienced an awful high pitched squeal every now and then which would have been much better in 24bit 96khz
not the 60s again
No audiophile would put their speakers that close to the wall... 🙄
Everybody knows you're supposed to suspend them from the ceiling about 1/3 room length from the far wall, 1/4 room width from respective side walls, and center your listening chair on the mid-line between the speakers about 1/3 room length from the back wall. Also, the listening room dimensions (H x W x L) need to correspond to the Golden Ratio, or sequential numbers of the Fibonacci sequence, and cannot have any obstructions in the middle of the room that might cause perturbances in the sound waves. 😆
Your comment is very amusing. Actually the listening room should have certain dimensions - length, width, height that are not simple ratios of each other. This will spread the standing wave frequencies. Better to have more weak standing waves than few strong ones. DM
… just because no one here seems to have stated the obvious: the first mistake this audiophile made was playing vinyl… 😆 [sorry]
Was that Des O'Connor playing the non-speaking thug?
You might not be wrong. DM
Why do I feel like I wasted 5 minutes of my life watching this video?
The biggest mistake a music lover can make is not listening to Van Morrison😇
But he's playing CLASSICAL music. He MUST be an audiophile if he's playing classical music, instead of that ghastly lower-class rock & roll stuff.
I don't consider myself an audiophile but I sure do better than that guy on the movie eesh! and there is nothing wrong with using an automatic TT according to audiofools I use to be one stackers scratch records which is totally false and some are made to adjust to the angle as you play multiple records six of my TT's are auto matic 2 of my other TT's are manual been playing with auto TT's and playing stacked records so far no scratches I see or hear its the handling that scratches the record as mine are done I go into audiophile mode take each one out and put them back in sleeve I have scratched more records using my manual TT than in my automatic player JRo
....being an audiophile is the only mistake you need to make.
All the others are dialed in by default.
....including 1,000 dollar a yard cables, etc.
....and of course, high impedance words like 'insouciant'.
........and let's not forget the prerequisite requirement to listen to boring 'music'.
Best regards,
Bill P.
He isn't an audiophile. He is very wealthy. I have been in houses with the latest McIntosh amps and B and W speakers in every room, guest house, and Lake House, and they didn't even have them properly wired up. I had a friend whos Anesthesiologist dad had a 30k dream setup with Laserdisc player (the 1990s) and the kid never even used the LD player and his father still had most of his small and random collection of discs still in their shrink. I recently bought a gatefold LD (in 2023) of Apocalypse Now, and the rich person who bought it in 1992 only opened the ends where the disc access is located!!!!! They never even took the shrink off to look into the gatefold!!!!Im not sure how they made their money, but it definitely wasn't for their attention to detail. Im guessing the salesperson at their favorite 1990s hifi shop sold them the "Cutting edge" LD player with a word similar to that in quotations, and the rest is history. Lucky for us, my rich folks with audiophile gear have gone to that country club in the sky and if you look close enough, there is yesterdays audiophile gear that was hardly ever used in thrift stores and estate sales all around us...
And I want to know if your virtual assistant even gets aroused by anything 😀
Greasing!! Hillarius😅
A true audiophile is Mel Gibson's character in "What women want". This is just a poor clueless actor.
A Philips Stereogram but the deck resembles a Dual. A piece of crap anyway. Imagine the support this gave to the furniture industry, and imagine their dismay when it all went to separates with the Garrard SP25!
All that gear, tons of it, was, and is junk, very few realised that. And I don't mean audiophiles, I just mean anyone with any common sense.
I wonder if you could explore what we might be thinking of today's bees knees in 50 years time.
The mistake I see mostly, is spending huge amounts of money on hifi equipment, £1000 quid a meter for speaker cable for example !
Ah, but then the reproduction is better!
Really, by what, 0.5%...
pffff
Too Funny ! He should have cleaned the record before playing, whether that be a record bath or a sticky tape drum is debatable. Nor did he check the stylus pressure and remove any fluff on the stylus, what an amateur and don't get me started on the arrangement of furniture.
I'm still waiting for someone to comment on the state of the carpet and wallpaper. DM
The first thing that stood out is the crackling of the vinyl LP.
The first thing we notice is that you didn't watch the video but still wanted to SAY something
@@jamescarter3196 You’re welcome.
What a monumental hassle.. same reason I put in the thrash bin all the cassetes in the late 90's .. just to see people resurfacing them for no good reason rather recently. .No..just no.. Im too old for this shit. crappy remasters are no good reason to bring any of this back from history.
Biggest mistake is not having a CD player.
You claim to be an audio professional, so I'm a bit curious to why you seem to always be trying to debunk audio and audiophiles. Especially vinyl listeners.
Seems rather counter-productive, but you do seem to enjoy it so.
You could possibly read some other comments to see whether people enjoy my video or not. Remember, 49,999,999 other channels are available. DM
Because he realizes there is a large group of people who are believing there is a big old snake oil train that has pulled into the station, and he caters to them. They are ones who for instance are "Cable Experts" without ever having tried or owned expensive cables, and they just know it's snake oil from their theories, which they try to make look like they're based on something, but are really based on "I don"t feel like spending money on cables." They would prefer to fool themselves into believing there are no differences. That way they can both save money and have someone to poke fun at. They don't want to feel like they're missing out. Someone has to cater to this group, and yes it is fun to poke fun at obsessive fussbudgets. In this case there is an ocean big opportunity. Not just cables but AC conditioning, Expensive Audiophile Fuses, Lp pressings which cose well over $100 new, record mats, record clamps, record weights, phono cartridges which cost thousands of dollars, amps and speakers which cost more than homes, spray and gel contact enhancers etc. etc. It's funny to them to think there are delusional people running all over the place and spending big money on stuff that doesn't do a thing. What makes their whole guffaw merry go round, is that sound is invisible.
@@AudioMasterclass Good advice. Stop watching.
His video titles are clickbaitey but as a vinyl enthusiast I think he's fair about things, though he does try to get the 'digital good, everything else bad' audience on board without sounding like a jerk to the rest of us like some hosts will do very flippantly. He doesn't usually pit the worst of one format against the best of another, which is the basis for most 'digital better' arguments, and he does acknowledge a lot more about real-world usage of things than those arguments tend to include.
He's entertaining and funny. But he's more of a docudrama than a documentary. Not that long ago he said compact discs are not to his liking and vinyl was. He says he has sold his vinyl collection?? Streaming maybe? I know he's not doing cassettes.
What audiophile? This video perfectly illustrates why so many people assume records inherently sound bad: the average person has-or-had pretty bad record-handling ability and a mediocre player, and rarely-if-ever cleaned their records or needle, let alone took out the static charge before putting the needle in the groove, and doesn't recognize how the sound quality is highly contingent on a bunch of different things being done properly AND having well-made vinyl to play. It can be expensive, time-consuming and a pain in the ass and I don't tell anybody they're wrong for avoiding it, but I also know that those 'vinyl-is-bad' people are generally the same ones who will listen to poor-quality digital music and not hear the artifacts or flatness, and they enjoy the compression taking out the dynamics-- fine for them, but it undermines the whole 'digital is better' argument when it isn't being USED better. You can't just get a new needle for your mp3 player and wash the record, put a little magic grease on it and make it sound better, but with records it happens surprisingly often and it is downright revelatory at times.
Best comparison I can think of, obscure but absolutely true: 'Phantom of the Paradise' soundtrack, CD vs original record. The CD is very good, but if nothing else, the record is mastered head-and-shoulders better and sounds absolutely monstrous at times compared to the CD, while retaining a noise floor so low that on my system, you can't hear any 'silence-noise' without cranking the speakers 3/4 the way up so you hear more tape hiss than vinyl artifacts, and blow your face off when the sound hits.
This is also why cassette decks need demagnetising and cleaning. Regarding 'Phantom of the Paradise', which I haven't heard yet, I've commented in another video that it is perfectly possible that the vinyl version of anything sounds better than the CD because of better or more appropriate mastering. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Right, it's one specific example out of a few in my collection, and I admit it's a 'loaded' example because the CD sounds clean-but-tinny just compared to other CDs, and the record is one of the best-sounding things I own. Thank you for reminding me to demagnetize my cassette deck.