Digital vs Vinyl?

[AMC]

I fixed one with a rubber band, once.

Expensive by comparison!

[johnnyrichards]

Expensive by comparison!

[generic]

I've been in computer support for over 10 years. Almost every failure I've ever seen on the PC side of things has to do with fan failure. HDDs fail on occasion, hence the reason for backups, but the PC itself will last as long as any receiver, tape deck, amplifier, preamp, or CD player, as long as the failure mechanisms are removed (FANS). That includes video cards. The fanless cards I've used have yet to fail, even after 6 years. PSUs will also last as long as you, if you keep the dust out, which fans are great at collecting for you.

Having a PC on the network is not the same as having internet access. You can disable any PC you want from accessing the internet, even if it's on the LAN.

I'll stand by my assertion that a PC can last you at least 10 years. If it's built like a receiver (no moving parts like fans), then there's no reason it wouldn't last as long.

Funny, I've been in PC support for over 10 years too. I've seen many HDD failures, PSU failures, CPU failures, and even motherboard failures. I've seen massive failures in 3 year old PCs. Not really a problem at all in a enterprise setting (assuming the user backed up their data on their shared drive like they are suppose to), but in a home setting, these failures can be more then annoying.

If you've been in support for so long, you surly know that the biggest problem is the end user. Your kinda assuming everyone knows how to build and manage a media server all easily and flawlessly.

I'm not sure how this turned in to a digital vs digital thread. Play your music however you want, just try not to school or shove it down other peoples throat. I've gone through WAY more puters then audio gear. Good audio gear last longer in my experience. Suggesting a computer is the better way to go is comical to me.

As far as the digital vs vinyl things goes, I want it all. I would never want to rely on either format. Sales have been making a come back big time, and often times, a digital copy comes with the pressing now days.

Vinyl records are hands on, personal, an experience. Digital copies can't come with full size art you can hold in your hand, posters etc. Vinyl records can be displayed on the wall and if it a quality 180/200g pressing kept in good shape it should only go up in value once out of print. Maybe assuming the music is something people want.

For me, digital files are still only for on the go and secondary systems. I doubt I'd ever want to take the time to digitize my whole collection. I'm slowly building a digital collection, but so much is still on hard media.

[Pallas]

OK, BILLIONS of DEAD people have heard phonograph records and they never heard or will hear digital music.

By that standard, shouldn't we all be comparing to shortwave or AM radio? After all, BILLIONS of DEAD people have heard SW and AM at least once and they never heard or will hear digital music.

Since I can count on the fingers of one hand the recordings made this Century I have bought (or wanted to buy), I'm not missing out on a thing.

Perhaps a little bit less narrow-mindedness would do you some good.

I'll stand by my assertion that a PC can last you at least 10 years. If it's built like a receiver (no moving parts like fans), then there's no reason it wouldn't last as long.

I can't comment about PCs, because they seem generally to be shoddily built, but I can tell you that (with one hinge replacement ca. 2004 or 2005) my Apple TiBook purchased in early 2001 is still fully functional...

***For me listening to CD's with only 2 speakers is ridiculous and is a grating aggravating experience, because the format is too good for straight 2 channel playback.***

Huh? CD is a 2-channel only medium, if one excludes matrixing surround formats.

If your point is really that music is too good for mere 2-channel playback, there I agree. Decent multichannel (which includes most 2-channel recordings fed through Dolby Pro Logic II's matrixing scheme) absolutely blows away the best 2-channel, and the best multichannel is only bested by great seats in a great performance venue.

Two-channel is for headphones and sports cars. It's obsolete everywhere else.

[Pete Schumacher ®]

2 words for ya DJG, WOW and FLUTTER!

How about wow, flutter, and RUMBLE. And both tape and vinyl are prone to picking up the time shifted signal in the "adjacent" groove or track since both media are spirally wound leading to bleed over, magnetically with tape, and physically with vinyl.

There are just so many more problems with analog playback than with digital.

[Pete Schumacher ®]

Funny, I've been in PC support for over 10 years too. I've seen many HDD failures, PSU failures, CPU failures, and even motherboard failures. I've seen massive failures in 3 year old PCs. Not really a problem at all in a enterprise setting (assuming the user backed up their data on their shared drive like they are suppose to), but in a home setting, these failures can be more then annoying.

If you've been in support for so long, you surly know that the biggest problem is the end user. Your kinda assuming everyone knows how to build and manage a media server all easily and flawlessly.

I'm not sure how this turned in to a digital vs digital thread. Play your music however you want, just try not to school or shove it down other peoples throat. I've gone through WAY more puters then audio gear. Good audio gear last longer in my experience. Suggesting a computer is the better way to go is comical to me.

As far as the digital vs vinyl things goes, I want it all. I would never want to rely on either format. Sales have been making a come back big time, and often times, a digital copy comes with the pressing now days.

Vinyl records are hands on, personal, an experience. Digital copies can't come with full size art you can hold in your hand, posters etc. Vinyl records can be displayed on the wall and if it a quality 180/200g pressing kept in good shape it should only go up in value once out of print. Maybe assuming the music is something people want.

For me, digital files are still only for on the go and secondary systems. I doubt I'd ever want to take the time to digitize my whole collection. I'm slowly building a digital collection, but so much is still on hard media.

Schooling? OK, tell me what the failures were on these PCs? PSU? Almost a guarantee it was a fan failure leading to device failure due to excessive heating. HDD? Another moving part that fails, and knowing that, backing it up (which we've covered already.) MOBO failure? Again, most cases a chipset fails due to a fan failure and excess heat. Yes, the end user is a big problem. But the biggest failure point in a PC is the fan. CPU failure? 99% of the time, a bad fan causes the problem.

The PCs I have where I've removed moving parts (fans) and replaced them with large heat sinks, have lasted years without issue. There is nothing in a PC that would fail any more rapidly than in any audio gear, other than the moving parts, like HDDs and fans. Take those out of the equation, and the electronics will outlive you, if you can keep the dust out of them (and having no fans is a BIG help there.)

[djg]

Finally, the best of both worlds.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE5ecVK4iDk

[generic]

Schooling? OK, tell me what the failures were on these PCs? PSU? Almost a guarantee it was a fan failure leading to device failure due to excessive heating. HDD? Another moving part that fails, and knowing that, backing it up (which we've covered already.) MOBO failure? Again, most cases a chipset fails due to a fan failure and excess heat. Yes, the end user is a big problem. But the biggest failure point in a PC is the fan. CPU failure? 99% of the time, a bad fan causes the problem.

The PCs I have where I've removed moving parts (fans) and replaced them with large heat sinks, have lasted years without issue. There is nothing in a PC that would fail any more rapidly than in any audio gear, other than the moving parts, like HDDs and fans. Take those out of the equation, and the electronics will outlive you, if you can keep the dust out of them (and having no fans is a BIG help there.)

Assuming the fans were the cause of all those failures, replacing everything with heat-sinks is custom work and that can get pricey quickly and at the end of the day, requires knowing what you're doing. Easy for you, but not everyone. All those little parts have huge mark-ups on them. I had to replace a fan on a motherboard years ago that was brand new. Sure, I could have sent everything in to Asus, gone without a computer for weeks, lost out on shipping, but I just went and got a better unit and ate the cost. I don't remember the exact cost, but it wasn't "cheap" and at the end of the day, annoying that a brand new part failed right away.

I'm not going to sit and debate with you all day. You seem solid in what you believe in. Nothing wrong with that.

For me, computers are mass produced on a scale that audio gear never will be, usually come with short term warranties. In my experience, computers have planned obsolescence in the engineering and manufacturing. Low end audio/video gear might have that too, but good equipment should last for a very long time. I still have a perfectly good working DVD/CD player from 98. I'd imagine some poor kid in China burned my computer bits from the computer I had in 98 many moons ago. On the green side of things, I've only recycled one AVR that has failed on me. I've sold or gave away all my other older gear that was still in working order. I have two old computer boxes laying around doing nothing and are worthless and someone is giving me another free one this week. I hope out of all of them, I can come up with something useful. The main problem with all of them, is they all have slow, small, and old hard drives that I wouldn't trust.

[CUtiger]

Assuming the fans were the cause of all those failures, replacing everything with heat-sinks is custom work and that can get pricey quickly and at the end of the day, requires knowing what you're doing. Easy for you, but not everyone. All those little parts have huge mark-ups on them. I had to replace a fan on a motherboard years ago that was brand new. Sure, I could have sent everything in to Asus, gone without a computer for weeks, lost out on shipping, but I just went and got a better unit and ate the cost. I don't remember the exact cost, but it wasn't "cheap" and at the end of the day, annoying that a brand new part failed right away.

I'm not going to sit and debate with you all day. You seem solid in what you believe in. Nothing wrong with that.

For me, computers are mass produced on a scale that audio gear never will be, usually come with short term warranties. In my experience, computers have planned obsolescence in the engineering and manufacturing. Low end audio/video gear might have that too, but good equipment should last for a very long time. I still have a perfectly good working DVD/CD player from 98. I'd imagine some poor kid in China burned my computer bits from the computer I had in 98 many moons ago. On the green side of things, I've only recycled one AVR that has failed on me. I've sold or gave away all my other older gear that was still in working order. I have two old computer boxes laying around doing nothing and are worthless and someone is giving me another free one this week. I hope out of all of them, I can come up with something useful. The main problem with all of them, is they all have slow, small, and old hard drives that I wouldn't trust.

If you're willing to surf the net for 30 minutes there is not a fan in a computer that can't be sourced for cheap (unless your talking about a big heatsink/fan combo). I've been building PC's for well over 15 years and my first one is still alive and kicking in my grandmothers house with a few networking upgrades. User error may be the cause of many computer problems but Pete is right the vast majority of hardware failures are due to heat. The only exception being HDDs especially the older ones as they could be very picky about G-force and shock loads.

[Pete Schumacher ®]

Assuming the fans were the cause of all those failures, replacing everything with heat-sinks is custom work and that can get pricey quickly and at the end of the day, requires knowing what you're doing. Easy for you, but not everyone. All those little parts have huge mark-ups on them. I had to replace a fan on a motherboard years ago that was brand new. Sure, I could have sent everything in to Asus, gone without a computer for weeks, lost out on shipping, but I just went and got a better unit and ate the cost. I don't remember the exact cost, but it wasn't "cheap" and at the end of the day, annoying that a brand new part failed right away.

I'm not going to sit and debate with you all day. You seem solid in what you believe in. Nothing wrong with that.

For me, computers are mass produced on a scale that audio gear never will be, usually come with short term warranties. In my experience, computers have planned obsolescence in the engineering and manufacturing. Low end audio/video gear might have that too, but good equipment should last for a very long time. I still have a perfectly good working DVD/CD player from 98. I'd imagine some poor kid in China burned my computer bits from the computer I had in 98 many moons ago. On the green side of things, I've only recycled one AVR that has failed on me. I've sold or gave away all my other older gear that was still in working order. I have two old computer boxes laying around doing nothing and are worthless and someone is giving me another free one this week. I hope out of all of them, I can come up with something useful. The main problem with all of them, is they all have slow, small, and old hard drives that I wouldn't trust.

Well . . . being a DIY site as this is, PCs certainly fit the bill. They are EASY to make, and I mean EASY. You can order the parts, sans fans, from the beginning. You can even eliminate the HDD and replace it with a SSD for a truly long lasting and failure free piece of DIY audio gear.

We have guys here building amps, preamps, speakers, why not the source gear? Starting with an old case, even an older MOBO that you can still source a CPU for, will make for a more than adequate music platform, since music is hardly taxing on a CPU, even a 486 . . .

Still, for less than the cost of a mid range CD player (under $400), you can build a brand new fanless PC that does everything the CD player does, and more.

[generic]

If you're willing to surf the net for 30 minutes there is not a fan in a computer that can't be sourced for cheap (unless your talking about a big heatsink/fan combo). I've been building PC's for well over 15 years and my first one is still alive and kicking in my grandmothers house with a few networking upgrades. User error may be the cause of many computer problems but Pete is right the vast majority of hardware failures are due to heat. The only exception being HDDs especially the older ones as they could be very picky about G-force and shock loads.

Except when your in a pinch and you want the part today, then you go to Fry's. For awhile, motherboards had defective capacitors that failed very early. I saw this in a enterprise setting for a major company. They fail because they are built cheap. Read up on planned obsolescence. Here is one read. http://www.tested.com/news/planned-o...t-to-last/689/

Now, if you buy the best of the best, it should last longer, but then it is no longer cheap. SSD can have failures too and hard drive failure is almost a sure thing on a long enough timeline. Anything new and modern will likely not last. Lately, it seems to be an epidemic. I go through phones like crazy. Even if I replace the original battery, the keyboard will stop working. Now in the past, computer could and did last. My sister built her first web page on a old Intel 80186 with 10MB hard drive and monochrome monitor. That computer was actually just left behind before it broke. It could have worked for 20+ years, who knows. Now days though, because stuff gets dated before you even bring it home, it is NOT build to last. Their is really no reason for manufactures to build things to last because the market as a whole will not want to use it after 5 years. They will want something new, even if what they have still works.

If you guys have computers that last 15 years, it is either because you are really lucky, or you have something that didn't have a planned obsolescence objective. I don't know of anyone building a computer that last for 15 years today. Maybe if you can get your hands on some military grade stuff, tough books, etc... Most if it will be junk in 5 years of sale. That is just the market and how it is. These 10+ year lasting computers is not the normal average for a life of a modern computer.

[Silver1omo]

I'm running vortexbox out of an old P4 PC and the DAC is an Onkyo 708.
All of the parts on the P4 PC are recycled so it was very low cost and the music is backed up into an external HD. You do not need to spend a lot to get a music only PC.

If it dies (when it dies) I'll probably recycle what I can and move to an atom based mobo.

I still want to get a tt to play a couple of records that I have not found in CD.
But the price of a tt around here is just too high...

[johnastockman]

Actually, there hasnt been much in the way of new music I can tolerate, much less care to buy. Music is in a sort of dark ages right now.

+10. I miss lead guitar, which seems to be lacking in a lot of newer music/artists. When I watch them play, they're all doing the same thing & movements at the same time. 2-3 rhythm guitars and no one doing lead. Just my preference.


John A.

[johnastockman]

Recently, I've picked up a few LPs that are incredible:

Ilona Knopfler Live the Life

and

Cat Stevens Tea for the Tillerman

The Fleetwood Mac Rumours reissue is quite good, as well.

Highly recommended.

Thanks Paul! I didn't know about Acoustic Sounds...great recommendations there. At the audio store, we sold vinyl, but only the "audiophile" pressings, the half-speed mastered stuff. Mobile Fidelity, IIRC. I used to have a huge collection, but I sold them for a good price to help pay for a hip replacement where the old cemented-in implants had failed. I'm now scrounging around for the ones I used to have. I have only 2 left, Boston's first album and Al DiMeola - Elegant Gypsy. I used to have the Fleetwood Mac one...looks like I can check that one off my list!


John A.

[lunchmoney]

Music is in a sort of dark ages right now.

Subjective comment of the century.

Depends on what you're into.

I have found tons of amazing new music lately.

You probably wouldn't like any of it

[fastbike1]

John, you need to be looking in the Blues genre. Plenty of lead guitar there.

http://www.amazon.com/Revelator-Tede...1156303&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/White-Sugar-Jo...1156335&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=ATVPDKIKX0DER

http://www.amazon.com/Fast-Lane-Addi...1156389&sr=1-3

http://www.amazon.com/Lie-Me-Jonny-L...1156436&sr=1-3

+10. I miss lead guitar, which seems to be lacking in a lot of newer music/artists. When I watch them play, they're all doing the same thing & movements at the same time. 2-3 rhythm guitars and no one doing lead. Just my preference.


John A.

[Pete Schumacher ®]

Except when your in a pinch and you want the part today, then you go to Fry's. For awhile, motherboards had defective capacitors that failed very early. I saw this in a enterprise setting for a major company. They fail because they are built cheap. Read up on planned obsolescence. Here is one read. http://www.tested.com/news/planned-o...t-to-last/689/

Now, if you buy the best of the best, it should last longer, but then it is no longer cheap. SSD can have failures too and hard drive failure is almost a sure thing on a long enough timeline. Anything new and modern will likely not last. Lately, it seems to be an epidemic. I go through phones like crazy. Even if I replace the original battery, the keyboard will stop working. Now in the past, computer could and did last. My sister built her first web page on a old Intel 80186 with 10MB hard drive and monochrome monitor. That computer was actually just left behind before it broke. It could have worked for 20+ years, who knows. Now days though, because stuff gets dated before you even bring it home, it is NOT build to last. Their is really no reason for manufactures to build things to last because the market as a whole will not want to use it after 5 years. They will want something new, even if what they have still works.

If you guys have computers that last 15 years, it is either because you are really lucky, or you have something that didn't have a planned obsolescence objective. I don't know of anyone building a computer that last for 15 years today. Maybe if you can get your hands on some military grade stuff, tough books, etc... Most if it will be junk in 5 years of sale. That is just the market and how it is. These 10+ year lasting computers is not the normal average for a life of a modern computer.

We went through the bad capacitor thing at work too. However, I've never come across a MOBO that I've bought myself that ever had a problem like the Dell GX270 and GX280 with their popping caps.

As for obsolescence, look at HT Receivers. Something made 6 years ago is obsolete. No HDMI inputs . . .

10 years for a PC is easy. Get rid of the fans. And back up your HDD. The PC should last for a decade, at least.

PCs are easy to "upgrade" as well. Want a better sound card? No problem. Pop open the case, remove the old and add the new. Need a better BluRay? Same thing.

You're making out the PC to be far more difficult than it actually is.

[evilskillit]

In my experience moving parts fail the most. Of all the computers I've built since 1996 I've had a bunch of fan failtures, a hand full of hard disk failures, 1 graphics card failure, 1 motherboard failure and 1 power supply failure. That's out of 10+ PCs (counting ones built for friends and family). My Pentium 3 600mhz (overclocked to 800mhz) is currently working great as a music playing computer.

Tho some friends of mine have had motherboard failures more than I've had hard drive failures. Maybe I'm just lucky.

[generic]

You're making out the PC to be far more difficult than it actually is.

Depends on how much spare time you have and how many spare parts you have. I have wasted a lot of time playing with spare computer bits and not ended up with a stable good system.

Cheap yes, easy, not always. Compared to sticking a disk in to a working player and pressing play, it isn't easy at all.

I might be pointing out the negative parts of using a computer for audio needs, but I'm not going to sit and sugar coat something that doesn't work all easy with no issues at all. I will never in my life suggest to any client that a computer is good for 10 year if you just do this and that. I feel like someone is telling me the world is flat by telling me that computers last 10 years. I'm really surprised that you are suggesting this. As a senior member or are you a moderator? It just feels like a flat out lie. I know first hand that computers generally don't last 10 years. Outside of older computers from back in the day, I have continually had things start to fail right around the 5 year mark on all my computers. CPUs wear out, memory wears out. It doesn't take moving parts to have things wear out. Electronics wear out. They can be built to be tough to last longer, but the general products available on the market don't fit in to that category. The higher end stuff that will last longer is far from cheap. If you got the cash, you can buy parts with a 5 year warranty.

This is going to be my last post on this topic. I've never heard anyone claim that all computers will last 10 years if you change out the fans for heat sinks before. Unless you buy a rather expensive PSU, it WILL fail. Good ones are not cheap. I thought we were talking about how cheap it can be. A good PSU alone can go well north of $200. Add the mobo, memory, cpu, HD, CD drive (at least) with quality gear, then the price is going to jump past the cost a a Oppo BDP-93 that will likely be better in every way.

Sure, it can all be done with used gear, but I just not getting over the claim of this used gear being able to last so long. My last used build lasted 6 months till I got a failure. I'd still like to get it back up and running, but at the end of the day, it will always be used gear.

[evilskillit]

Yeah it all depends on what you like DIYing and fiddling with. I'd never recommend messing with PC parts, especially second hand junk to someone who has no interest or desire in that sort of thing.

But if you do like it and have the expertise and parts its a pretty solid way to go. I wouldn't exactly recommend someone to build speakers either if they didn't like woodworking and lacked basic tools and knowledge.