Vinyl vs. CD and noise
GRL
I just got around to a project of transcribing some of my old
(classical) vinyl records (from the '70's and '80's) to CD-ROM on my
PC using DartPro 98. I had not listened to vinyl for at least a
decade.
I guess I've just become used to the quietness of CDs because I was
shocked by how much surface noise there is on vinyl disks even after
treatment with a Zerostat and Discwasher. And I don't just mean cheap
vinyl disks. I mean well cared for quality records from DG, Phillips,
and Sheffield.
I don't want to get into whether vinyl sounds better than CDs (I
think both sound fine at high signal levels), but how can you vinyl
fans stand the surface noise? It drives me nuts during quiet
passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
- GRL
"When someone annoys you, remember that it takes 42 muscles to frown,
but only 4 muscles to extend your arm and smack them on the back of
the head."
Peter W. Wright
wrote on 3/20/2000 11:07 AM:
> I don't want to get into whether vinyl sounds better than CDs (I
> think both sound fine at high signal levels), but how can you vinyl
> fans stand the surface noise? It drives me nuts during quiet
> passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
It could be the turntable/arm/cartridge combination. I just replaced my old
Technics SL-2000 direct drive turntable with a Sumiko Project 1.2 belt drive
turntable and have been astounded at how good my old vinyl sounds.
Peter
François Yves Le Gal
> It drives me nuts during quiet
>passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
Yes. Get a decent turntable/arm/cart combo, have it *perfectly* set
up, play clean records. That's all.
Werner Kliewer
system there is really no comparison and the differences are obvious
to all. With a trained ear vinyl gets even better. But, and it is a
big BUT the cost of this is out of the reach or interest of the
average listener.
I have a turntable that cost $750.00 in 1977. I did not replace the
tonearm, although it is adequate. I have a cartridge that I paid
$350.00 for in 1980 or so, and have not used a great deal, so it is
still in good shape. I have speakers I paid $1800 for in 1977. In
between I have only slightly above average consumer level equipment.
On my system, a really well made (good recording, AD conversion, etc)
CD on a really good CD player sounds about as good as a record.
Average CD's do not sound as good, but they are more convenient and
durable, and still sound acceptable.
Today, in the opinion of those who hold vinyl in the highest regard,
my turntable would be considered pretty good, but severely deficient
in one particular are, which is vinyl damping. My tone-arm would be
considered just barely adequate. The cartridge would be considered
bottom of the line of acceptability. I have no separate expensive
phono-stage (much less a moving coil level) pre-amp. I don't even
have separate pre and power amps. In fact I am running the whole
thing through an integrated receiver. All solid state. No tubes in
sight. My speaker cable was state of the art in 1977. It is still
pretty good, according to the most recent theories I have read. My
speakers, rebuilt at the factory in 1988 are still considered
excellent speakers in every way, but lacking in bottom end punch so I
recently added what these same audiophiles would consider a just
adequate powered sub-woofer, with adjustable, but not external
cross-over.
I figure the replacement value for my system (turntable, cartridge,
speakers - no pre/power amp or receiver) to be in the US$8,000
range. And I am just barely making my vinyl break even with CD's.
Anyone with lesser equipment will have trouble finding the value of
vinyl, and as such, CD's rule. OTOH, CD's are soon to be usurped by
the even lesser quality MP3. Soley based on convenience. There are
moves afoot in the DVD-Audio and even higher quality CD (SACD) to
improve the quality of CD's, but unless the price comes into popular
ranges, the chances of these formats building much market steam is
fairly low.
So I am on the same quest as you. I hooked up an outboard phono
pre-amp between my good turntable and my sound card. It's a little
better than the Radio Shack offering (not available in the US yet)
but not as good as the real audiophile units out there. There are
some other pieces in between that may also be causing problems. One
record I recorded yesterday (yet to cut to CD) sounds really good,
but one particular human voice (on an album that consists mostly of
tight 3-part harmonies with occasional solos) is driving one
component nuts. When she really pushes the volume she breaks up, at
the top. Doesn't happen to any of the instruments or the other two
voices. I have to track down whether it is the record, my stylus, the
pre-amp or, most likely, the sound card. Or maybe even just the amp
in the speakers. Or something else.
After running the recording through a noise filter and normalizing
the volume, it still sounds good enough that my wife and kids will
probably not even notice the breakup, so I will go ahead with my
project.
In article <8b5lt0$odl$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com>, Grl wrote:
> From: "GRL" <GLitw...@bigfoot.com>
> Newsgroups: rec.audio.high-end
> Subject: Vinyl vs. CD and noise
> Date: 20 Mar 2000 17:07:44 GMT
>
> This is for the people who prefer vinyl to CD.
>
> I just got around to a project of transcribing some of my old
> (classical) vinyl records (from the '70's and '80's) to CD-ROM on my
> PC using DartPro 98. I had not listened to vinyl for at least a
> decade.
>
> I guess I've just become used to the quietness of CDs because I was
> shocked by how much surface noise there is on vinyl disks even after
> treatment with a Zerostat and Discwasher. And I don't just mean cheap
> vinyl disks. I mean well cared for quality records from DG, Phillips,
> and Sheffield.
>
> I don't want to get into whether vinyl sounds better than CDs (I
> think both sound fine at high signal levels), but how can you vinyl
> fans stand the surface noise? It drives me nuts during quiet
> passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
>
> - GRL
>
> "When someone annoys you, remember that it takes 42 muscles to frown,
> but only 4 muscles to extend your arm and smack them on the back of
> the head."
>
Werner Kliewer
in Winnipeg
Jeff A. Wiseman
"GRL" <GLitw...@bigfoot.com> writes:
> This is for the people who prefer vinyl to CD.
>
> I just got around to a project of transcribing some of my old
> (classical) vinyl records (from the '70's and '80's) to CD-ROM on my
> PC using DartPro 98. I had not listened to vinyl for at least a
> decade.
>
> I guess I've just become used to the quietness of CDs because I was
> shocked by how much surface noise there is on vinyl disks even after
> treatment with a Zerostat and Discwasher. And I don't just mean cheap
> vinyl disks. I mean well cared for quality records from DG, Phillips,
> and Sheffield.
>
> I don't want to get into whether vinyl sounds better than CDs (I
> think both sound fine at high signal levels), but how can you vinyl
> fans stand the surface noise? It drives me nuts during quiet
> passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
I have no idea of what type of cartridges that you used before, but
sometimes going to a better cartidge will allow the stylus to drop
down below the more worn vinyl of the grove in the the "virgin" area
of untouched vinyl. Also, there are some chemicals out there that
are used to reduce static and friction on the LPs. you actually buff
a type of film onto the LP (e.g., LAST used to make some good stuff,
it's been a while for me too but I assume that they are still in
buisiness). I have discovered that the combination of these two items
along with the cleaning that you are doing can reduce the noise
significantly. See if you can find someone local to you who is
still into vinyl and see if they would let you try your LP on their
system to see just how quite you might be able to get it. You might
be surprised although I suspect you won't be able to get "CD silence"
out of them :-)
- Jeff
--
-----
Jeff Wiseman Alcatel USA
Jeff(DOT)Wiseman(AT)usa(DOT)alcatel(DOT)com Richardson, Texas
(972)996-7092
Schuh
news:8b5lt0$odl$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com...
> This is for the people who prefer vinyl to CD.
> I don't want to get into whether vinyl sounds better than CDs (I
> think both sound fine at high signal levels), but how can you vinyl
> fans stand the surface noise? It drives me nuts during quiet
> passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
The turntable that you're using is the most important bit, in the
playback which eventually affects the noise floor. Of course tonearm,
cartridges, and phono cables, and phono amplifiers, affect, amongst
other factors, the noise floor. However, the deck itself is the most
important bit. IMHO
John Carter
have a very good turntable at any number or expensive cartridges. I have a
Zerostat and I have a washing method that borders on a Freudian guilt
complex,.. I still got the same results as you and I now think that LPs
deteriorate even when correctly stored or unplayed. I had seven DGGs still
in a box unopened , a Christmas present duplication.
I have obtain some improvement by wet playing though I was loath to accept
it as a solution ass if I play them again I will have to always play wet..
Then almost by accident I found a solution that will outrage purists. As
mine is a stand alone CDR I wanted to make up a compilation disc from two
sources tape and LP. So I first made the recording on tape using Dolby B..
On replay the Dolby decoding reduced the noise floor so that a recording of
the Bax Three by Downes that sounded like it was recorded in a fish and chip
shop cleared up dramatically. Never being a man to let well enough alone I
contaminated the signal path with a DBX Compander and an old equaliser.
Using the analogue connection and an Audiolab preamp one can monitor the
recorded sound to gauge the result and here the ear is the only real tool.
Without equalisation, switched right out, good discs sound much better,
and better still if you monitor on earphones and switch off the speakers and
their feedback. I know the Dolby trick is all wrong, that it loses 3dB but
there isenough gain on the DBX and CDR to more than compensate. With bad
discs I even switch in some equalisation making a dummy tape run first but I
use it very sparingly.
You will never make a good LP sound as good as a good CD, LP is in an
outdated technology and with rather different requirements at the mixing and
cutting stages. Sometimes the engineers did wonders as some engineers now
must work wonders making a more foolproof system sound bad.
However it can still sound more than adequate. Try the cassette trick and
see what you think. It costs nothing and I would like a second opinion.
John Carter Barsoom
"GRL" <GLitw...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:8b5lt0$odl$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com...
> This is for the people who prefer vinyl to CD.
>
> (classical) vinyl records (from the '70's and '80's) to CD-ROM on my
> PC using DartPro 98. I had not listened to vinyl for at least a
> decade.
>
> I guess I've just become used to the quietness of CDs because I was
> shocked by how much surface noise there is on vinyl disks even after
> treatment with a Zerostat and Discwasher. And I don't just mean cheap
> vinyl disks. I mean well cared for quality records from DG, Phillips,
> and Sheffield.
>
> think both sound fine at high signal levels), but how can you vinyl
> fans stand the surface noise? It drives me nuts during quiet
> passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
>
Jeffrey Fischman
the music
is in the space between them, I have no trouble living with that. I don't
think any
type of table/cart/arm combo gets rid of the surface noise--my setup was as
high
ended as can be
Jeff Fischman
Peter
the higher frequencies, as well as random noises like ticks and pops?
I can understand that tables affect rumble, but in my opinion, other
forms of noises are dependent more on the cartridge and arm,
as well as the overload capabilities of the phono stage.
In my experience, the table is the LEAST important of the front end
components. I know this sounds like heresy, but I have listened to
enough tables, and find the differences among them inconsequentila
compared to differences between cartridges. If you want less clicks
and pops on records, the bottom line is to clean them real well.
Pete
AT-Højttalerværksted
>news:8b5lt0$odl$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com...
>> This is for the people who prefer vinyl to CD.
>>
>> I just got around to a project of transcribing some of my old
>> (classical) vinyl records (from the '70's and '80's) to CD-ROM on my
>> PC using DartPro 98. I had not listened to vinyl for at least a
>> decade.
>>
>> I guess I've just become used to the quietness of CDs because I was
>> shocked by how much surface noise there is on vinyl disks even after
>> treatment with a Zerostat and Discwasher. And I don't just mean cheap
>> vinyl disks. I mean well cared for quality records from DG, Phillips,
>> and Sheffield.
>>
>> I don't want to get into whether vinyl sounds better than CDs (I
>> think both sound fine at high signal levels), but how can you vinyl
>> fans stand the surface noise? It drives me nuts during quiet
>> passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
>>
>> - GRL
>>
little stylus pressure.Try adjusting playing weight (increasing) for best
result.I have found the reccomended pressure (or weight,or tracking force or
whatever) to be,generally too low.Insufficient stylus pressure is also the
quickest way to ruin discs as the stylus tends to hop upand down acting like
a road drill! I have LP´s that are over 30 years old and after cleaning with
disc washer stil very quiet.
Alan.
Stig Erik Tangen
get a better S/N ratio than 40 dB (worse than cassette tape actually,
although subjectively far less annoying than tape hiss). There is one
trick I always use when transfering LP's to digital - its called mono!
Usually everything below 100 Hz is mono on an LP. Most of the surface
noise is out of phase between L and R channels. If you sum to mono below
100-200 Hz, the subjective noise level drops conciderably! (and it
tightens up the bass too) Any proper audio software (I use Samplitude
24/96) can alter the stereo width. Try it! Software progams can also
filter out the remaining noise, but always at the sacrifice of sound
quality.
Regards,
Stig Erik Tangen
GRL wrote:
> This is for the people who prefer vinyl to CD.
>
> I just got around to a project of transcribing some of my old
> (classical) vinyl records (from the '70's and '80's) to CD-ROM on my
> PC using DartPro 98. I had not listened to vinyl for at least a
> decade.
>
> I guess I've just become used to the quietness of CDs because I was
> shocked by how much surface noise there is on vinyl disks even after
> treatment with a Zerostat and Discwasher. And I don't just mean cheap
> vinyl disks. I mean well cared for quality records from DG, Phillips,
> and Sheffield.
>
> I don't want to get into whether vinyl sounds better than CDs (I
> think both sound fine at high signal levels), but how can you vinyl
> fans stand the surface noise? It drives me nuts during quiet
> passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
>
> - GRL
>
Arny Kr經er
news:8b5lt0$odl$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com...
> I don't want to get into whether vinyl sounds better than CDs (I
> think both sound fine at high signal levels), but how can you
vinyl
> fans stand the surface noise? It drives me nuts during quiet
> passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
One approach is to digitize the LP's, use digital impulse noise
reduction software and maybe some manual de-clicking to get rid of
or seriously reduce the noise, and burn your own CD's.
This has the added advantage of reducing the wear on your LP
collection.
Please see
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~abcomp/lp-cdr.htm and for more
information on how to do this, and
http://www.2xtreme.net/regina-r/tmov/opinion.htm for a fairly
neutral discussion of various issues related to this.
Ton Maas
"GRL" <GLitw...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>I don't want to get into whether vinyl sounds better than CDs (I
>think both sound fine at high signal levels), but how can you vinyl
>fans stand the surface noise? It drives me nuts during quiet
>passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
Get a real good phono pre-amp, which doesn't suffer from that nasty
hump in the rumble area, and you'd be surprized how little noise is
there. I have one in my system (from Analog Research) and my old
vinyls are super-quiet these days!
Ton
Bill Noble
plain wonderful. the problem is that without a lot of work
they don't stay that way for long. so you just ignore the
noise.
"Peter W. Wright" <pwwr...@alternatesystems.com> wrote in
message news:8b5oj4$1fc$1...@bourbaki.localdomain...
> in article 8b5lt0$odl$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com, GRL at GLitw...@bigfoot.com
> wrote on 3/20/2000 11:07 AM:
>
> > I don't want to get into whether vinyl sounds better than CDs (I
> > think both sound fine at high signal levels), but how can you vinyl
> > fans stand the surface noise? It drives me nuts during quiet
> > passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
> It could be the turntable/arm/cartridge combination. I just replaced my old
Robert Berglund
as opossed to a disc of plastic,try this first.Find an old and
scratched vinyl platter and its counterpart CD.SCRUB the vinyl disc
with paint thinner and a cotton rag,the rag should be wet with
thinner,not moist or damp but wet.Scrub in a circular motion for a
few moments,then dry it real good with a clean cotton rag.Your
objective is to get rid of the mold release junk thats down in the
grooves of the disk.Thats where all the music is.Once youve done that
and your "In the groove",throw away the plastic krap and enjoy the
vinyl. P.S Ive had upwards of 5000 Jazz L.Ps and you would not
believe how Masterful a beat up looking platter sounds once the
"Grooves"are clean.Try it!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gordon Gilbert
>
> Yes it is possible to make Vinyl sound better than CD. On the right
> system there is really no comparison and the differences are obvious
> to all. With a trained ear vinyl gets even better. But, and it is a
Obvious to all? Obvious to all that already prefer vinyl, I can
believe. And to think I just did a post on blanket statements that
say everyone prefers this and that under the right circumstances.
Save it for someone who actually believes you. I'd put my best
sounding CDs played on my lowly DVD player any time against the best
sounding vinyl on any turntable/arm/cartridge someone would care to
provide. And even the best vinyl gets worse over time. You may
always prefer vinyl. That's fine by me, but don't tell us who will
prefer what and how obvious it will be to all, thank you very much.
Compared to the best CD recordings, vinyl has more surface noise,
groove distortion, wow&flutter, a lack of high-frequencies (rolled
off above 10-12kHz or so), a lot of compression on most discs (to
allow longer play times) and a subsequent lack of dynamic range (and
even at best, still 25dB below the CD's normal dynamic range
limit). If you skip down to the last 2 paragraphs, I'll explain why
I believe vinyl does sound better with many recordings. I take
issue, however, that it's the format that's better. There are many
reasons (namely recording and mastering issues) and the subsequent
qualities of vinyl (compressed with rolled off treble) that can make
them sound better on a case by case basis. However, I maintain the
best quality CD recordings will always be better than their vinyl
counterpart on a high quality playback system.
> big BUT the cost of this is out of the reach or interest of the
> average listener.
Hey, bring your $20,000 LP system over to my house. I'll put it up
against my $399 DVD player. I'll even take out my still-shrink
wrapped Pink Floyd LP collection to do the comparison just to prove
my point (since the current Pink Floyd CD transfers are excellent).
> I have a turntable that cost $750.00 in 1977. I did not replace the
> tonearm, although it is adequate. I have a cartridge that I paid
> $350.00 for in 1980 or so, and have not used a great deal, so it is
> still in good shape. I have speakers I paid $1800 for in 1977. In
> between I have only slightly above average consumer level equipment.
>
> On my system, a really well made (good recording, AD conversion, etc)
> CD on a really good CD player sounds about as good as a record.
> Average CD's do not sound as good, but they are more convenient and
> durable, and still sound acceptable.
Oh, so you don't even have one of those systems, which makes me
wonder how you know how SUPERIOR they are to the CD.
> Today, in the opinion of those who hold vinyl in the highest regard,
> my turntable would be considered pretty good, but severely deficient
Pretty good? I thought you just said those CD trouncing systems
were out of most people's reach? One of my two outoboard amplifiers
alone, cost about as much as your outdated turntable system.
> phono-stage (much less a moving coil level) pre-amp. I don't even
> have separate pre and power amps. In fact I am running the whole
I do have separates.
> thing through an integrated receiver. All solid state. No tubes in
> sight. My speaker cable was state of the art in 1977. It is still
> pretty good, according to the most recent theories I have read. My
Well, I'm not surprised since any cheap low gage cable (that does
not contain abnormally high capcitance or inductance levels) is
going to be a GREAT performer.
> speakers, rebuilt at the factory in 1988 are still considered
> excellent speakers in every way, but lacking in bottom end punch so I
Considered excellent by whom? If they're so great, why don't you
tell us what they are? I'll tell you what mine are. They are
Carver AL-III kapton-film element (most call them ribbons) speakers
with 48" "ribbons" and 10" woofers ($2000/pair new), bi-amped using
a custom Clearview active crossover system ($350 new), powered by a
120 watt (into 4ohm) Yamaha sliding Class-A biased amplifier on top
and a Carver 250 watt amplifier on the bottom (each around $700). A
Definitive Technology 15" 250-watt powered subwoofer ($1000) fills
out the bottom octave.
> I figure the replacement value for my system (turntable, cartridge,
> speakers - no pre/power amp or receiver) to be in the US$8,000
> range. And I am just barely making my vinyl break even with CD's.
$8000? You're dreaming. My whole audio system didn't cost that
much including the surround and center speakers I use for movies and
the surround and preamp equipment! And my speakers aren't 1970's
technology. You can't just increase the value of your system with
inflation you know. Speaker technology and *especially* turntable
technology have increased a lot over the years. In fact, you
probably don't know how good vinyl can really sound with a modern
player, even (distortion is way down).
But I'd say the best vinyl still doesn't compare to the best CDs.
You can't just compare an "average" record to an "average" CD
because on "average" I think most vinyl out of the '80s sounded
better than most CDs of the same period. That, however says nothing
about the capability of the CD format itself. It says something
about the LP format (rolled off highs; see below) and poorly
recorded/mastered CDs (often made from the same masters as the LP,
which DOES say something about the originally recording quality).
I think most CDs now still sound pretty darn mediocre. That doesn't
mean it's the CD format's fault! My best CDs are AMAZING sounding.
What it means is most studios don't bother with sound quality
becuase it's not high on their list of priorities and most people's
systems won't show the differences anyways (in fact, many albums are
purposely mixed to sound best on cheap boom boxes and cheap car
systems since that's where most people do most of their listening
and subsequently they can sound EVEN WORSE on a good system). Many
bad quality CDs have shrill top-ends that can sound AWFUL. LP's
have naturally rolled off top-ends so even if they were shrill on
the master, they aren't on the product. This gives them a nice
mellow character by default. CDs, however, show every last defect
in the recording and mastering stages, but you can't usually tell
that that's why they sound bad. They just sound BAD. This also
means a shrill master from the '70s or '80s transferred to LP and CD
can sound better on the LP because the format itself removes much of
the shrillness while the CD will contain it, note for note, because
it's far more accurate. If you have ever noticed that remastered
albums from the '70s usually sound far better on CD than the
original transfer, then you should have a good idea of the problem.
Many early CDs were made from working tapes mastered for LP; that
throws the frequency balance off on top of everything else....
So, if you think vinyl sounds "about the same quality" as CDs on
your system, I would question your system first and foremost. Many
CDs made in the '80s should probably sound worse than their vinyl
counterparts, particularly when compared to '70s vinyl that's still
in good shape (a lot of vinyl dropped in quality in the '80s as
well). You might want to upgrade your turntable. I intend to
eventually get a good turntable for my system, but it's not because
I believe the Vinyl format itself is superior. However, many
recordings do sound better on vinyl for various reasons as indicated
above. I would NEVER say, however, that it would be obvious to all
that vinyl itself is superior even on the highest quality vinyl
systems. I'm quite sure I could find a CD that would make you
believe otherwise. And you don't need a $1000 (or more) CD Player
to hear that difference either! But in any case, leave room for
other people's opinions. I know many people that don't like the LP
at all (due to surface noise, etc.) and would always pick a shrill
CD over a noisy LP.
--
- Gordon Gilbert | g...@sssnet.com -
- Visit The Audiophile Asylum for CD and DTS CD Reviews with -
- Sound Quality Ratings at http://pages.sssnet.com/glg -
Norman Schwartz
news:8b5lt0$odl$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com...
> This is for the people who prefer vinyl to CD.
> I guess I've just become used to the quietness of CDs
because I was
> shocked by how much surface noise there is on vinyl
disks even after
> treatment with a Zerostat and Discwasher.
It's been noted that Discwasher makes matters worse
leaving a "noisy" dirt trapping residue which is very
difficult
to remove. I'm convinced a Zerostat can also make a
quiet LP noisy. Before going to cdr its impossible to
play every record through from beginning to end, but
after zerostating several old LPs "for good measure",
I'm
inclined to believe that they are noisier than if I
hadn't.
Curtis L. Coleman
After cleaning my old records with the Alsop Orbitrac record cleaner and
using a Decca 2+2 record brush before playing, I find that most of my
records are amazingly quiet. Obviously, the bad ones are full of clicks and
pops from scratches, etc. But the "noise" from the good ones is very low and
unobtrusive, even at high listening levels. And the smoothness and sense of
space is matched by few CDs, even though I have no complaints about my CD
player (Rotel RCD 940BX).
Curt Coleman
Jeff A. Wiseman <jawi...@usa.alcatel.com> wrote in message
news:8b6904$shv$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com...
twinmo...@webtv.net
extremely good high frequency response of the CDs especially at high
levels. This tends to show up the defects of a poor recording (bad mike
placement, mike overloading, excessive equalization etc.) There are
many bad recordings and the CD makes them sound bad. There are also
some good recordings and they sound very good when the CDs are played on
a good system.
I also think that much of the preference for LP sound is because of
the crosstalk distortion which is mistaken for ambience. I wonder too
how the vinal addict can deal with the inner groove distortion that is
always present on an LP.
mwr...@linney.co.uk
Planar which I haven't used for a while. Oh dear, the vinyl sounded terrible
compared to what I had fondly remembered. The noise was terrible despite the
use of a carbon brush.
Therefore a question - one of the other posts mentioned playing the disks
'wet' - what does this mean please.
regards
Mick
Jeffrey Fischman
think due
to the brick wall filters used by older cd players)--the new cd players (eg
pioneer
elite with 24/96 DA converters) dont sound like that, they sound like
"vinyl" (without the cross
talk distortion you claim is the essence of ambience). by the way, they make
straight line
arms that don't have inner groove distortion
Jeff Fischman
<twinmo...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:sdftmc4...@corp.supernews.com...
John Webb
such as a Nitty Grtty or VPI 16.5.
I normally us a Hunt brush to brush of any light dust followed by the
Orbitrac then I use the Nitty Gritty with the VPI carbon brush for
the final cleaning and vacuum records dry. All records are then
treated with Groove Glide and are put in new Rice paper sleeves.
After the initial treatment, when I play a record all that is
required is a once over with an Audioquest carbon fiber brush before
play and I usually give it a once over before putting it back in the
sleeve after playing. I follow this treatment for both new and used
records.
Unless the record has been damaged there is very little if any
surface noise. Many time I've had to get up from my chair just to
check that I had in fact dropped the cueing lever or that the
turntable was actually moving. Just purchased a used Dusty
Springfield "Memphis" for $2.50 at the thrift shop, gave it the
treatment and no surface noise just music.
GRL wrote:
> This is for the people who prefer vinyl to CD.
>
> I just got around to a project of transcribing some of my old
> (classical) vinyl records (from the '70's and '80's) to CD-ROM on my
> PC using DartPro 98. I had not listened to vinyl for at least a
> decade.
>
> I guess I've just become used to the quietness of CDs because I was
> shocked by how much surface noise there is on vinyl disks even after
> treatment with a Zerostat and Discwasher. And I don't just mean cheap
> vinyl disks. I mean well cared for quality records from DG, Phillips,
> and Sheffield.
>
Michael Mayers
fact most high end arms are of the pivoting type, not straight line.
Inner groove distortion is because in order to keep a constant output
level, everything has to be put on the disk at a higher level because
of the slower speed.
-Mike
Bob Trosper
>
> This is for the people who prefer vinyl to CD.
> I guess I've just become used to the quietness of CDs because I was
> shocked by how much surface noise there is on vinyl disks even after
> treatment with a Zerostat and Discwasher. And I don't just mean cheap
> vinyl disks. I mean well cared for quality records from DG, Phillips,
> and Sheffield.
The Discwasher just isn't that effective for really cleaning a record.
Get a vacuum record cleaner (Record Doctor from Audio Advisor or
similar), and clean your records. Make sure your cartridge is set up
correctly - one of the disk protractors should do it. Make sure the
tracking weight is correct. Adjust the vertical tracking angle (VTA).
If you can, adjust the azimuth and the overhang.
You don't say what playback equipment you're using. I can say that
with a VPI jr., Audioquest PT-6 arm, Kiseki Purple Heart cartridge
(rebuilt) and Audio Research SP-14 as phono preamp, the noise level on
LP is very low. Yes, there's the very occasional tick or pop, but not
often. On some records, not at all.
-- Bob T.
Kurt Drillen
Use studio or semi studio equipment.
High mass turntables like Thorens TD 124 suisse, EMT 930 germany,
Garrard 301 or 401 - all in self built HEAVY wood block ( pine wood ).
No wood case - I mean wood BLOCK - HEAVY !!!
Or use platine verdier or something near.
Use long arm like Ortofon RMG 309 or old EMT arm.
Use Ortofon SPU classic ( no "audiophile" SPU type )or EMT "Tondose".
NEVER use light weight "audiophile" arms and pick ups!
It is quite VERY VERY quite. It sounds near live - no joke.
CD is a joke - no dynamics - no live - believe me or not.
That is all I have to say here.
Kurt
Curtis Leeds
>...I wonder too
> how the vinal addict can deal with the inner groove distortion that is
> always present on an LP.
If you have a constant problem with inner groove distortion,
then you need a better pickup arm or cartridge and/or you
have a setup problem. If you tell us what kind of equipment
you're using, perhaps we can help.
Stewart Pinkerton
>I think you mean the extremely poor reproduction of the high frequencies ( I think due
>to the brick wall filters used by older cd players)--the new cd players (eg pioneer
>elite with 24/96 DA converters) dont sound like that, they sound like
>"vinyl" (without the cross talk distortion you claim is the essence of ambience).
Hmmm. Well, some of us don't like the false images caused by Legato
Link, but otherwise CD players are indeed much better than they were
at launch - would that all CDs were as carefully mastered as some of
the early Dire Straits albums!
>by the way, they make straight line
>arms that don't have inner groove distortion
Inner groove distortion is not a function of pivoted arms (although
tracing distortion is!). Inner groove distortion is caused by the
reduced linear speed of the groove making the high frequencies much
more distorted (than they already are.......).
So many distortions, it's hard to keep track of them all! :-)
--
Stewart Pinkerton | Music is art, audio is engineering
Gordon Gilbert
> It is quite VERY VERY quite. It sounds near live - no joke.
> CD is a joke - no dynamics - no live - believe me or not.
The CD format has no dynamics? I have to question if you know the
meaning of the words dynamic range.
> That is all I have to say here.
Me too.
Remco Stoutjesdijk
> mine is a stand alone CDR I wanted to make up a compilation disc from two
> sources tape and LP. So I first made the recording on tape using Dolby
B..
> On replay the Dolby decoding reduced the noise floor so that a recording
> of
> the Bax Three by Downes that sounded like it was recorded in a fish and
>chip
> shop cleared up dramatically.
An outrage indeed. You have found a system that can discrimate signal and
noise at its input? Than you'd better file a patent very soon and you'll be
rich. The Dolby B system is only able to reduce the amount of ADDED noise in
the process of recording. It does this by emphasizing the signal during
recording (not unlike RIAA) and de-emphasizing the signal during playback,
effectively attenuating the *tape and recorder head noise* that is most
noticeable in the high frequency area since signal levels are very low
there. Wrongly configured de-emphasing networks attenuate too much of the
highs, effectively screwing up the tonal balance of the recording. This is
what you experience as less noise!
Don't get me wrong: I love vinyl and have spent more than enough time and
money into making it sound as good as possible within my boundaries. But
this so-called trick is not magic - it's what psycologists call cognitive
dissonance.
Regards,
Remco
Curtis Leeds
>
> Inner groove distortion has nothing to do with the type of arm - in
> fact most high end arms are of the pivoting type, not straight line.
This is mistaken. Distortion in the inner grooves is
exaggerated by tangency error, which is inherent in pivoted
arms, and exaggerated even more if set-up is not correct.
The pickup arm is usually a major player when this
distortion is audible. Alternative alignments can minimize
the problem.
> Inner groove distortion is because in order to keep a constant output
> level, everything has to be put on the disk at a higher level because
> of the slower speed.
This is mistaken. Inner groove distortion is mainly the
result of the stylus having trouble tracking the
closely-spaced inner grooves. That's why a Shibata-type
stylus will minimize the audibility of the problem... to
somewhere around zero.
Curtis Leeds
>
> Even with the best pressings, the best turntable and pickup you'll never
> get a better S/N ratio than 40 dB (worse than cassette tape actually,
> although subjectively far less annoying than tape hiss).
This is totally and compoletely false. S/N way in excess of
40 dB is possible... and common. Of course, you'll need a
good phono preamp to get there. And clean LPs, which means a
good LP cleaner.
M Mccord
his method of cleaning his LP's was not the best way to go,
Discwasher does leave a residue in the groves of the LP. When I got
my VPI record cleaner that pretty much cleared up the problem unless
the record was badly worn. BMC
Richard D Pierce
Indeed. For all a piece of crap the Linn Sondek is, it is, at
least, a quite piece of crap, with an unweighted rumble figure
of 70 db re 5 cm/s @ 1 kHz for a 20 kHz bandwidth. Even moderate
phono preamps can routinely achieve similar unweighted figures.
And good LPs can have a real surface noise level of -55 to -60
dB. Add them all together and you can get at least 15 dB better
than this claimed -40 dB.
Now, LP's simply don't have the dynamic range capability of
other media. That's a fact. But the claim that they are limited
to an S/N ratio of 40 dB is patently absurd. Where Mr. Tangen
got this figure is anyone's guess, but it is CERTAINLY not based
on any real objective data. And if his claim that it is worse
than cassettes was true, one would be able to copy an LP via
cassette transparently as far as noise is concerned. I would
like to see Mr. Tangen do this, because he would be the first.
--
| Dick Pierce |
| Professional Audio Development |
| 1-781/826-4953 Voice and FAX |
| DPi...@world.std.com |
Eric Barry
>
> Even with the best pressings, the best turntable and pickup you'll never
> get a better S/N ratio than 40 dB (worse than cassette tape actually,
> although subjectively far less annoying than tape hiss).
own setup, with a VPI HW19 Mk. III (quoted rumble -79db) and AT OC9
into a nineteen year old Naim preamp (known for not being
particularly quiet) demonstrates a dynamic range of between 50 and
60 db. My 1977 Thorens TD 165 (rumble was around -61db, IIRC)/Grado
MCZ into a Musical Fidelity A1 demonstrated the same performance.
This was measured using the Ortofon direct cut test record, which
has successive bands cut at -20, -30, -40, -50, -60, and "greater
than -60"db. In my system, I can tell the difference between the
-50 and -60db, but not between -60 and greater than -60, meaning the
dynamic range is between -50 and -60.
Now, given the ambient noise level in urban environments, this means
that at typical SPLs, vinyl has as much usable dynamic range as CD.
If you live out in the country, in a well insulated listening room,
the dynamic range differences between cd and lp might actually
matter.
Of course transient response is superior on lp:)
--Eric
Arny Krüger
news:8bdkf6$3oo$1...@bourbaki.localdomain...
>
> Indeed. For all a piece of crap the Linn Sondek is, it is, at
> least, a quite piece of crap, with an unweighted rumble figure
> of 70 db re 5 cm/s @ 1 kHz for a 20 kHz bandwidth. Even moderate
> phono preamps can routinely achieve similar unweighted figures.
> And good LPs can have a real surface noise level of -55 to -60
> dB. Add them all together and you can get at least 15 dB better
> than this claimed -40 dB.
I'm hardly a great fan of vinyl, but I can confirm posession of a
"straight up" digital transcription of a commercial vinyl recording
with a SNR of 52 dB (broadband) and 59 dB (high-passed at 20 Hz).
This would be the RMS value of the noise from between the tracks,
compared to the RMS value of the loudest peaks in the track.
The cartridge was a Grado Platinum, SOTA Sapphire Turntable with
Premiere FT-3 arm. I think the preamp was a Krell KSP-7B preamp,
which was connected to the input of a DAT recorder.
Werner Kliewer
counter-intuitive, but if it makes it easier/nicer to listen to, who
knows.
It was the other piece that caught my eye. I have an old DBX 117
compression/expansion unit that just sits there on my stereo rack
since my Nakamichi 500 died and I have not had occasion to fix it.
But I was thinking of using the DBX in the transfer of vinyl to CD
process, to expand the dynamic range of the recordings to something
approaching the capability of the CD medium. Right now I have a
pretty poor sound card for the purpose, so I have not tried it yet,
but I wonder what others think of the potential for this. With any
luck it would also reduce any background noise coming out of the
cartridge/turntable/phono pre-amp, although I have to say on the 3
disks I have done so far without the DBX, background noise has been
the least of the problems.
The wave editor I use on the files after digitization has a
"normalization" process, but I think that just increases the volume
of everything proportionately, rather than expanding the dynamic
range. Plus there are other distortions that happen when you do a
simple mathematical multiplication such as the editor probably uses.
Werner Kliewer
in Winnipeg
In article <8b6ddu$171$1...@bourbaki.localdomain>, John Carter wrote:
> From: "John Carter" <jrca...@marcopolo26.freeserve.co.uk>
> Newsgroups: rec.audio.high-end
> Subject: Re: Vinyl vs. CD and noise
> Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 23:49:32 GMT
>
> I have been doing the same archiving LPs to CDR with the same effect. I
> have a very good turntable at any number or expensive cartridges. I have a
> Zerostat and I have a washing method that borders on a Freudian guilt
> complex,.. I still got the same results as you and I now think that LPs
> deteriorate even when correctly stored or unplayed. I had seven DGGs still
> in a box unopened , a Christmas present duplication.
> I have obtain some improvement by wet playing though I was loath to accept
> it as a solution ass if I play them again I will have to always play wet..
> Then almost by accident I found a solution that will outrage purists. As
> mine is a stand alone CDR I wanted to make up a compilation disc from two
> sources tape and LP. So I first made the recording on tape using Dolby B..
> On replay the Dolby decoding reduced the noise floor so that a recording of
> the Bax Three by Downes that sounded like it was recorded in a fish and chip
> shop cleared up dramatically. Never being a man to let well enough alone I
> contaminated the signal path with a DBX Compander and an old equaliser.
> Using the analogue connection and an Audiolab preamp one can monitor the
> recorded sound to gauge the result and here the ear is the only real tool.
> Without equalisation, switched right out, good discs sound much better,
> and better still if you monitor on earphones and switch off the speakers and
> their feedback. I know the Dolby trick is all wrong, that it loses 3dB but
> there isenough gain on the DBX and CDR to more than compensate. With bad
> discs I even switch in some equalisation making a dummy tape run first but I
> use it very sparingly.
> You will never make a good LP sound as good as a good CD, LP is in an
> outdated technology and with rather different requirements at the mixing and
> cutting stages. Sometimes the engineers did wonders as some engineers now
> must work wonders making a more foolproof system sound bad.
> However it can still sound more than adequate. Try the cassette trick and
> see what you think. It costs nothing and I would like a second opinion.
> John Carter Barsoom
Werner Kliewer
> believe. And to think I just did a post on blanket statements that
> say everyone prefers this and that under the right circumstances.
> Save it for someone who actually believes you.
OK, OK. Never, Never, Never make generalizations. I get it. I was primarily
referring to the great unwashed, with their untrained ears whose main previous
experience is their parent's old console stereo (remember when the good ones
came with Girrard turntables?) and who think CD's in boom boxes are the second
coming of music. Anyone with a trained ear will have their own opinions and
preferences based on their own experiences, equipment and tastes.
>
> However, I maintain the
> best quality CD recordings will always be better than their vinyl
> counterpart on a high quality playback system.
I recognize all the deficiencies you suggest for vinyl, although I propose that
most of them can be mitigated with a little care. I have a few records that are
in terrible shape, but most sound as good as the day after I brought them home
to allow time for cleaning and drying. I have only audited this newsgroup for a
few weeks and you are the first I have seen to come out in such vehement
defence of CD's.
> Hey, bring your $20,000 LP system over to my house. I'll put it up
> against my $399 DVD player.
I have to say that my CDN$399 DVD player does not do a very good job on CD's.
Not even as good as the late, unlamented US$150.00 CD player I had for a while
just so my kids would not wreck my LP's. I am now shopping for a better quality
CD player, but still have to watch the budget, as long as the kids are in
school and the mortgage hangs over our heads...
> Pretty good? I thought you just said those CD trouncing systems
> were out of most people's reach? One of my two outoboard amplifiers
> alone, cost about as much as your outdated turntable system.
I still maintain that statement. Most people consider what I spent on that
turntable to be more than enough budget for an entire system. Today they would
want a complete 5.1 surround system with DVD player for that price. And Costco
will sell them one with a popular brand name.
> Well, I'm not surprised since any cheap low gage cable (that does
> not contain abnormally high capcitance or inductance levels) is
> going to be a GREAT performer.
Hey... I really do have good speaker cables. They were among the first,
multi-stranded, multi-braided, speaker cables sold. They are probably not state
of the art anymore, but they are more than one or two steps above clear
insulation, 14-guage lamp cord.
> > speakers, rebuilt at the factory in 1988 are still considered
> > excellent speakers in every way, but lacking in bottom end punch so I
>
> Considered excellent by whom? If they're so great, why don't you
> tell us what they are? I'll tell you what mine are. They are
> Carver AL-III kapton-film element (most call them ribbons) speakers
> with 48" "ribbons" and 10" woofers ($2000/pair new), bi-amped using
> a custom Clearview active crossover system ($350 new), powered by a
> 120 watt (into 4ohm) Yamaha sliding Class-A biased amplifier on top
> and a Carver 250 watt amplifier on the bottom (each around $700). A
> Definitive Technology 15" 250-watt powered subwoofer ($1000) fills
> out the bottom octave.
OK. They are Magneplanar Tympani III-C's. They pre-date the days of ribbon
tweeters in Tympani's, but they are still bi-directional, mylar-film flat panel
drivers. At the time I could not afford the only 1 or 2 brands of true
electro-statics on the market, nor the amplification to drive such a speaker
properly. When I heard the Tympani's and found out they were magnetically
actuated and could be driven by most reasonably clean receivers, I was hooked.
They easily beat some Dahlquist DQ-10's that were offered to me around the same
time. In the years since, I have seldom heard anything bad said about them
except for the lack of any sort of bottom end, and often hear them being
favourably compared with speakers that are much more expensive. I have not
bi-amped them, again for cost reasons. But I recently added a B&W ASW2000
powered sub. It's only 170 watts, but the large cabinet and porting allows it
to get away with less. So of all my components, the speakers are the one I will
never be ashamed of.
> $8000? You're dreaming. My whole audio system didn't cost that
> much including the surround and center speakers I use for movies and
> the surround and preamp equipment! And my speakers aren't 1970's
> technology. You can't just increase the value of your system with
> inflation you know. Speaker technology and *especially* turntable
> technology have increased a lot over the years. In fact, you
> probably don't know how good vinyl can really sound with a modern
> player, even (distortion is way down).
>
First, I am talking about insurance type replacement cost here. Last I looked
Magneplanar Tympani's were going for $4500 a pair. That was in about 1989. Now
I am picking up the idea that they are not being made anymore, so I do not know
what I might have to replace them with. I would never again settle for a
speaker in a box.
> But I'd say the best vinyl still doesn't compare to the best CDs.
> You can't just compare an "average" record to an "average" CD
> because on "average" I think most vinyl out of the '80s sounded
> better than most CDs of the same period.
Perhaps that is exactly what I was doing.
> That, however says nothing
> about the capability of the CD format itself.
But I sometimes wonder if the 44khz sampling rate of CD's is simply inadequate.
In the same way that science proves that bees cannot fly, but they do it
anyway. Science says we cannot hear up to or past 44khz. But now 96khz and
higher are being proposed. At the molecular level, vinyl is also digital (or at
least, discrete samples). What is the effective sampling rate of vinyl? Taking
into account that the sample are taken at different rates at different
frequencies and then overlapped in ways that we call analogue.
> I think most CDs now still sound pretty darn mediocre. That doesn't
> mean it's the CD format's fault! My best CDs are AMAZING sounding.
> What it means is most studios don't bother with sound quality
> becuase it's not high on their list of priorities and most people's
> systems won't show the differences anyways
I agree with you that CD's are capable of much higher quality than most
achieve. And in no way do I shun CD's as a matter of principle.
> So, if you think vinyl sounds "about the same quality" as CDs on
> your system, I would question your system first and foremost.
Well, OK. I do not claim that it belongs in a "High End" category, and expect
mostly to be reviled for "settling" for a mediocre system. But for those of you
who wonder here is the system:
Starts with an ADC Astrion MM cartridge. This was the limited series they put
out with individually mapped frequency response curves. The stylus is (from old
memory at 2AM) an elliptical? diamond on a cantilever grown as a single quartz
crystal. It was a near high end cartridge in it's day, although the clincher
for choosing it was that it looked real good on my J.A.Michaels Prisma
turntable, with accompanying J.A. Michaels ToneArm. This is a very fine
turntable, except that the 6-point record support system does not allow for any
real vinyl damping. The tonearm has the cute little anti-skating counterweight
on a thread, and is quite rigid, but it is an S-shape, and so not perfect.
One upon a time this all fed into a mid-fi Kenwood receiver (I forget the
model) rated at 170 watts RMS/side into 8 ohms (250 into 4). The phono and
pre-amp sections of this unit were quite decent, and my theory was that if I
had plenty of headroom in the amplifier, I would never run into the worst
distortion ranges of what was also a reasonably clean power section, for a
Japanese/English (called them Trio in Britain, I think) hybrid.
This has since been replaced by an Onkyo SV-70 Pro-Logic capable receiver,
rated at 85 watts into the fronts, and 35 into the other channels, with a
sub-out jack; 110 watts/channel for straight stereo. More modern, and cleaner
at all listening levels except ear-shattering. A better unit, but it won't blow
the windows out.
I still have my old Nakamichi Dual-Tracer 500 cassette deck, but it is in
storage since either the whole unit needs de-magnetizing, or more likely new
heads, which I am not sure can even be had. When I used if for recording vinyl
I also stuck a DBX-117 into the path to help with noise levels and restore some
of that dynamic range they take out of records to fit more songs into 12
inches. Perhaps it should be pressed back into service in my LP to CD-R
process.
The DVD player is a very low end model Sharp 550, with built-in AC-3 Decoder,
selectable 5.1 or two-channel sound output and selectable
NTSC/S-video/Component Video outputs. I find I get the best results right now
using choosing the 5.1 sound-track through the DVD player decoder to two
channel output into Pro Logic surround on the receiver. For some reason this
gives much better separation and imaging than playing the Surround soundtrack
straight into the receiver. The DVD will probably be replaced after I decide
what exactly I want in the next receiver and acquire that.
All this feeds out through Sound Cable brand speaker cables into the
aforementioned Tympani's. The bottom end finally covered with the B&W Sub, and
the rear channels handled by a pair of Micron 401's. The center channel is
handled by the speakers inside the older Toshiba 32" vertical console TV, which
consist of a pair of tweeters on the edges and some very nice 5.5 or 6"
mid/bass drivers directly under the screen. I put in dual throw switches so I
can switch the TV speakers between the internal TV amp and my Onkyo for
external source material. They work quite well for the purpose, and I chose
this for both economic and aesthetic reasons. Because the TV is a vertical
console, it is already quite tall, and I did not want another speaker on top of
that.
I based my choices at the time on spending the most money on the physical to
electrical interfaces - cartridge and speakers, since those are by far the most
difficult jobs to do well. In between anything that does not wreck the path is
adequate. The old adage that an amplifier should be a straight wire with gain.
And whether or not I was accomplishing this based on my ears and listening
environment. The other adage that says "what sounds right to you is what is
right for you". As my ears got trained, I began to see the deficiencies in
various components. I replaced what I could afford, but once I got married, had
kids, etc. there had to be compromises. And the time available to sit in the
dark and just let the music envelope me and carry me away reduced to such a
level that I could not justify more improvements. Perhaps some day, I will have
that time again, but first I have to finish my dock, so I can park my boat. And
I still miss my last MG even more, so that will be the first thing replaced
when the kids are gone. Helps that my wife also wants this. So where am I at?
You cannot pry those speakers out of my hands with anything less than a shotgun
or 10 times the money they are worth. The turntable is now relegated to making
inferior CD's from some of my more "pop" oriented vinyl. And I need a decent
but not too expensive CD player to make those Maggies sing, in between doses of
the Matrix and True Lies.
Werner Kliewer
in Winnipeg
Norman Schwartz
news:8bdh7a$mq6$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com...
You can align until the end of time, acquire all the
esoteric electronics, TTs, tonearms, cables etc. to
absolutely no avail. What is first needed is a Fritz
Geiger configured stylus ("FG-V") to match that of the
cutter.
PeterS
news:8b5lt0$odl$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com...
> I was shocked by how much surface noise there is on well cared for quality
records from DG, Phillips > and Sheffield after treatment with a Zerostat
and Discwasher, how can you vinyl fans stand the >surface noise? It drives
me nuts during quiet passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
Dear GRL,
There is a secret, its called a brain, along with a good audio system.
In a good playback system the "noise" is in mono and is separated from the
music. The brain listens to the music and ignores the noise.
One other point, Zerostat and Discwasher don't clean records, they just push
the dirt around, into little piles.
PeterS in FL
dpl...@radagast.org
Arny Kr篇er <ar...@flash.net> wrote:
>One approach is to digitize the LP's, use digital impulse noise
>reduction software and maybe some manual de-clicking to get rid of
>or seriously reduce the noise, and burn your own CD's.
>
>This has the added advantage of reducing the wear on your LP
>collection.
True 'nuff. However, when doing thing I strongly encourage the
experimenter to carefully clean the LP before digitizing (the Record
Doctor machine recommended by others works quite well in my
experience). It's much better to eliminate the pops and ticks
_before_ digitizing, rather than trying to take them out with
software... it's more effective, and reduces the risk that the
noise-reduction software will actually "de-click" the leading edges of
musical transients.
--
Dave Platt dpl...@radagast.org
Visit the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior/
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!
ragge...@my-deja.com
Gordon Gilbert <g...@sssnet.com> wrote:
> Compared to the best CD recordings, vinyl has more surface noise,
> groove distortion, wow&flutter, a lack of high-frequencies (rolled
> off above 10-12kHz or so), a lot of compression on most discs (to
> allow longer play times) and a subsequent lack of dynamic range (and
> even at best, still 25dB below the CD's normal dynamic range
range for a CD?
> them sound better on a case by case basis. However, I maintain the
> best quality CD recordings will always be better than their vinyl
> counterpart on a high quality playback system.
We have a system which samples the signal 44100 times a second. Now draw
a sine wave on a paper. Imagine that this sinewave has the frequency of
22050 Hz (1/2 the sampling rate). Now place sample points on this sine
wave. The distance between the points is 1/2 wave. Did you put the
sample points at the peaks? Good! Now, draw a straight line between the
points. After you put the resulting signal through a low-pass filter,
you will get a perfect sine at 22050 Hz. Now I want you to imagine that
the world is not a perfect place, and that the sample points isn't at
the peaks, but at the zero points. You probably agree that this is a
possibility? Now draw the same line connecting the points. What do you
get? Low and behold! SILENCE!!!! This isn't a constant roll-off like on
vinyl, but a random attenuation roll-off, sometimes even cut-off! All
depending upon your luck when sampling.
Now imagine a sawtooth wave. When this wave is sent through the low-pass
filter of the DAC, it comes out as a sine-wave, unless it is very low
frequency.
Now draw a new sine-wave and draw three sample points per wave. Connect
them as before with lines. If you study the resulting wave carefulle,
you'll see that not only do you get a sine wave output of the original
sine, but also a new sine wave of lower frequency. The steady change of
phase of the sine when the AD samples the signal, makes the amplitude of
the output sine change. This amplitude modulation is in fact a wave or a
number of waves itself. The more samplepoints you have, the less of a
problem this becomes, but it is still there.
Now imaging hundreds and maybe even thousands of waves, sine,
triangular, square (i.o.w. music). And with the above analysis, imagine
the output signal in a not-so-perfect world (as a physicist, I know that
the world is NOT a perfect place). Packed with random roll-off, cut-off,
quasi-harmonics and waveshaping. PHEW! Whatta mess!
And a last point, imagine a small signal at low frequency. Say a couple
of bits. What do you get? A stepped signal, not a sine, not a triangular
wave, but a rounded staircase signal. You need to get the signal at
least a few bits up in order to get a reasonably good signal. But then
you have to cut down on dynamics, since too much would cause clipping.
And from what I've read about CD-recordings, random noise is actually
ADDDED to the signal to make it stronger, and thus make small signal
more easy to hear, and to make them sound more natural.
Granted, voices on CD's are good. Not as good as on vinyl, but very
acceptable indeed.
I have about 1000 albums in my collection, 3/4 which are on vinyl. Would
I swap them for CD's? No way. I don't like the sound on about 10% of the
vinyl, but about 50-60% of my CD's have sound that I find unsatisying. I
only keep them because I can't get the music on vinyl. (Newer
recordings). None of them are better than 20-30% of my vinyl. And only a
couple of them are "boom-box" recordings. The rest are
medium to high-quality recordings from reputable companies (Chesky,
AudioQuest, Deutsche Grammofon and Kirkelig Kulturverksted. And some
other, smaller companies).
Do I have a $20,000 LP-player? Nope. Bought mine used. A 20 year old
Linn Sondek with a new RB-300 arm from Rega, and a Shure pickup. Cost me
$500. The motor is screaming to be retired (have postponed it due to
money shortage). My CD-player is a Pioneer PDS-06. Considered by many
reviewers to be the best below $1000. It is $800 here in Norway.
GRAND FINALE!!!!!
Enjoy the music! Spin those discs, whether CD or Vinyl! And stop
quarreling about which is better. We have individual tastes. CD's and
Vinyl are different medias. They have different signatures. Which is
better is a matter of taste. Like with valve amps and transistor amps. I
like the valve amps. Their specs are shitty, but they sound wonderful to
me. And in astronomy : Lens telescopes have better resolution, but they
are marred by color defects. There is always two or more "religions".
And supporters of all will rather die than admit to anything other than
that all others are wrong.
Ragnar Aas
Music lover
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Stig Erik Tangen
I once made an investigation on this subject. Its here:
http://extra.newsguy.com/~stigerik/dynamics/lp-vs-cd.html
The spectrum of the sound and noise is ignored on the graphs shown
there (so I guess I ask for it – flames that is).
What I was trying to say is that the ratio between the signal and the
noise is not much more than 40 dB. What is S/N ratio? The difference
between the maximum signal level and the noise maybe? At 20 kHz the
noise is sure much lower than at 1 kHz, but so is the signal! I took
a look at it now with FFT analysis - there is not much more than 40
dB between max signal and the noise floor on my LP's.
If we compare the average level of entire noise spectrum (from 20 to
20k) to the maximum level an LP can output at 1 kHz, the figure is
much higher - up to 60 dB at its best.
My setup is:
Alphason Sonata with Alphason HR-100 arm
Benz Micro hi-output
Homebrew preamp (low-noise, of course...)
I remember from when I used to record LP's onto cassette tapes - I
could always hear the vinyl surface noise no matter how shitty tapes
I used, even without Dolby NR. Sonic resolution is a different story
thogh...
Stig Erik Tangen
Richard D Pierce wrote:
> In article <8bdh7q$mq7$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com>,
> Curtis Leeds <cle...@idt.net> wrote:
> >Stig Erik Tangen wrote:
> >>
> >> Even with the best pressings, the best turntable and pickup you'll never
> >> get a better S/N ratio than 40 dB (worse than cassette tape actually,
> >> although subjectively far less annoying than tape hiss).
> >
> >This is totally and compoletely false. S/N way in excess of
> >40 dB is possible... and common. Of course, you'll need a
> >good phono preamp to get there. And clean LPs, which means a
> >good LP cleaner.
>
> Indeed. For all a piece of crap the Linn Sondek is, it is, at
> least, a quite piece of crap, with an unweighted rumble figure
> of 70 db re 5 cm/s @ 1 kHz for a 20 kHz bandwidth. Even moderate
> phono preamps can routinely achieve similar unweighted figures.
> And good LPs can have a real surface noise level of -55 to -60
> dB. Add them all together and you can get at least 15 dB better
> than this claimed -40 dB.
>
Thomas Nulla
wrote:
<big snip>
>But I sometimes wonder if the 44khz sampling rate of CD's is simply inadequate.
>In the same way that science proves that bees cannot fly, but they do it
>anyway.
What 'scientist' says bees cannot fly? This sounds like some kind of
urban legend to me; I've seen several articles explaining insect
flight, and it's quite interesting but I've never seen one claiming
'bees cannot fly'.
>Science says we cannot hear up to or past 44khz. But now 96khz and
>higher are being proposed.
Perpetual motion schemes are frequently proposed as well...but their
utility remains undetermined. Certainly we should examine new ideas,
but I think some rigorous testing is in order before plunking down
large sums of money.
We may be able to get equally good sound from existing CD's, perhaps
by addressing some of the digital filter vs. sampling rate issues via
upsampling (for example). It's going to be a long time, I suspect,
before the software base of SACD or DVD-A is significant.
>At the molecular level, vinyl is also digital (or at
>least, discrete samples). What is the effective sampling rate of vinyl?
>Taking into account that the sample are taken at different rates at different
>frequencies and then overlapped in ways that we call analogue.
I do not understand what this means. Where does different sample
rates at different frequencies happen in vinyl?
<bigger snip>
>Werner Kliewer
>in Winnipeg
Thomas <now playing: Ozric Tentacles, "Become the Other">
http://www.io.com/~nulla (high fidelity and miscellany)
Hacker Jargon, Dunlavy Audio r.a.* archive to 13 March 2000
"Measurements may not tell us when everything is right,
but they often tell us when something is wrong."
Arny Krüger
news:8bf5sb$pv6$1...@bourbaki.localdomain...
> "GRL" <GLitw...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
> In a good playback system the "noise" is in mono and is separated from the
> music. The brain listens to the music and ignores the noise.
Most noise comes from particles that have settled on the groove.
If the particle settles on the bottom of the groove, then it
vertically modulates the stylus, resulting in roughly opposite
signals in each channel.
If the particle settles on one of the groove walls, then it
diagonally modulates the stylus, resulting in differing, but not
exactly opposite signals in each channel.
Detailed Analysis of the playback of vinyl recordings shows that the
noise is rarely monophonic.
I think that static discharges, and little usually come out in mono.
auplater
> "GRL" <GLitw...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
>
>> I was shocked by how much surface noise there is on well cared for
>> quality records from DG, Phillips and Sheffield after treatment
>> with a Zerostat and Discwasher, how can you vinyl fans stand the
>> surface noise? It drives me nuts during quiet passages. Is there
>> some secret to getting rid of it?
>
>
> Dear GRL,
>
> There is a secret, its called a brain, along with a good audio system.
>
> In a good playback system the "noise" is in mono and is separated from the
> music. The brain listens to the music and ignores the noise.
>
> One other point, Zerostat and Discwasher don't clean records, they just push
> the dirt around, into little piles.
>
> PeterS in FL
hmmnn... since "noise" can be viewed as a "distortion" of the
original signal, I guess if one applies this argument for vinyl, then
it is completely valid for any playback medium, be it cd, tape, mp3,
etc.
I personally cannot stand the "gauze" of scrapes, clicks,
pops,rumble, hiss, etc. I hear on even the best vinyl,
notwithstanding my transfers to tape of all vinyl recorded wet. And
not all the noise is in mono, btw. Manufacturing defects, among
others, occuring during the electroforming of the masters can affect
individual channel reproduction. It's interesting that crosstalk and
channel separation aren't being discussed as well.
As always, what one hears is most important, and what I (and many
others who's opinion I respect) have heard on well engineered cd's
far exceeds vinyl reproduction in every case. It's interesting that
the vinyl argument is always prefaced with a discussion about "noise"
amelioration. Gives one pause.
auplater
John Lichtenberger
MetaPlate Inc.
Richard D Pierce
>simply inadequate.
Wondering is fine, but is really nothing more than often
uninformed specualtion. Making predictions that result in real
advances takes more than wondering.
>In the same way that science proves that bees cannot fly,
>but they do it anyway.
Please, since this is often used as some sort of "proof" of the
error in science, why don't you post the specific references of
studies and calculations, done by acknowledged experts in the
field of insect flight and aerodynamics, that have appeared in
the appropriate peer-reviewed scientific journals, that has such
proofs.
Why? Becuase such proofs don't exist.
>Science says we cannot hear up to or past 44khz. But now 96khz and
>higher are being proposed.
What does THAT have to do with anything? Green pens, magic
bricks, wooden pucks, water-filled cables, blue "dithering
diodes" and a whole other range of things have been proposed,
NONE of which had ANYHTHING to do with reality.
Why would you think that "because it's proposed, it must be
real?"
>At the molecular level, vinyl is also digital (or at
>least, discrete samples). What is the effective sampling rate of vinyl?
>Taking into account that the sample are taken at different rates at different
>frequencies and then overlapped in ways that we call analogue.
Given the definition of sampling, as defined and proved by
Claude Shannon a half century ago, the effective sample rate is
just slightly more than twice the bandwidth. Thus, given that
damned few LPs make it past 20 kHz, the effective sampling rate
is just above 40 kHz. If you dont like that answer, take it up
with Mr. Shannon, Mr Nyquist and Mr. Fourier before you bring it
here.
Richard D Pierce
PeterS <sync...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>
>In a good playback system the "noise" is in mono and is separated
>from the music. The brain listens to the music and ignores the
>noise.
>
in a playback system.
For example, the electronic noise in a phono preamp in each
channel is completely seperate and totally uncorrelated. The
same is true of the high-frequency surface noise on the disk,
the thermal noise from the cartridges resistance and such. The
tape his recorded on the record is also completely separate and
uncorrelated between channels. It's not clear how anyone could
make a defensible claim, given this and more, that "the 'noise'
is mono."
Now there ARE some mono-correlated noise sources, but they are a
MINOR contributor to the noise. For example, the out-of-phase
low frequency noise that results from mechanical vibrations
within the turntable itself will be truly mono. Also, any
external electrical interference will generally be mono.
But for the predominant sources of the noise, they are NOT mono
at all.
Richard D Pierce
<ragge...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>In article <8b89nu$8me$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com>,
>Gordon Gilbert <g...@sssnet.com> wrote:
>> Compared to the best CD recordings, vinyl has more surface noise,
>> groove distortion, wow&flutter, a lack of high-frequencies (rolled
>> off above 10-12kHz or so), a lot of compression on most discs (to
>> allow longer play times) and a subsequent lack of dynamic range (and
>This is handled by the RIAA equilazation.
No, it is not. The RIAA deals with, incompletely, only one
problem. Until YOU have had the opportunity to actually witness
the gyrations an LP mastering engineering must go through,
including deliberate compression, steep low-pass filters,
mono-bass-sum networks and more, to get stuff on to an LP, you
have little authrity to make such a ludicrous claim.
>> even at best, still 25dB below the CD's normal dynamic range
>Where did you find this number? And what is considered "normal" dynamic
>range for a CD?
CD's routinely achieve better than 85 dB dynamic range. And if
you apply the SAME weighting criteria to these measurements that
is applied to LP's then the figures are much better than that.
Applying A weighting, for example, means that ordinary CDs can
easily achieve better than 100 dB, while the LP is still running
at 70 to 75 dB BEST CASE.
>> them sound better on a case by case basis. However, I maintain the
>> best quality CD recordings will always be better than their vinyl
>> counterpart on a high quality playback system.
>
>Let's look at the CD format as it is today with objective
>eyes:
No, what YOU do is look at CD's with the same complete
misconceptions and mistaken information that has been done by
others.
>We have a system which samples the signal 44100 times a second. Now draw
>a sine wave on a paper. Imagine that this sinewave has the frequency of
>22050 Hz (1/2 the sampling rate).
Great, you have just described a broken system.
> Now place sample points on this sine
>wave. The distance between the points is 1/2 wave. Did you put the
>sample points at the peaks? Good! Now, draw a straight line between the
>points. After you put the resulting signal through a low-pass filter,
>you will get a perfect sine at 22050 Hz.
Once again, we have another example of someone who simply does
NOT understand the sampling process trying to prove things.
The input to a 44.1 sampler will be low-pass filtered BELOW
22.05 kHz, thus, a 22.05 kHz sine wave will NEVER occur in the
scenario you describe.
> Now I want you to imagine that
>the world is not a perfect place, and that the sample points isn't at
>the peaks, but at the zero points. You probably agree that this is a
>possibility? Now draw the same line connecting the points. What do you
>get? Low and behold! SILENCE!!!! This isn't a constant roll-off like on
>vinyl, but a random attenuation roll-off, sometimes even cut-off! All
>depending upon your luck when sampling.
This is coplete nonsense, as you have completely ignored the
requirements for Nyquist sampling.
You are making specific technical assertions. One of the
consequences of your assertions is that you predict a specific
behavior of these systems. So, to see if your asertions are
correct, we should be able to look at these systems, subject
them to the signals you assert, and they either will or will not
behave the way you claim.
well, in fact, when we do as you suggest, these system DO NOT
behave as you claim, and ths we can conclude that your
description of these systems and thus your understanding of them
is flawed. Seriously flawed.
>Now imagine a sawtooth wave. When this wave is sent through the low-pass
>filter of the DAC, it comes out as a sine-wave, unless it is very low
>frequency.
>Now draw a new sine-wave and draw three sample points per wave. Connect
>them as before with lines. If you study the resulting wave carefulle,
>you'll see that not only do you get a sine wave output of the original
>sine, but also a new sine wave of lower frequency.
Again, complete nonsense because your simplictic description of
how sampling works is simply wrong.
And, again, your simplistic description predicts a specific
behavior we can test for and, once again, we find that these
system simply DO NOT behave the way you claim, further
demonstrating that your description is just plain wrong.
>Now imaging hundreds and maybe even thousands of waves, sine,
>triangular, square (i.o.w. music). And with the above analysis, imagine
>the output signal in a not-so-perfect world (as a physicist, I know that
>the world is NOT a perfect place). Packed with random roll-off, cut-off,
>quasi-harmonics and waveshaping. PHEW! Whatta mess!
Well, you claim to be a physicist, but you have quite soundly
demonstrated that you do NOT know how smapling works, that you
do NOT know how linear superposition works, that you do NOT now
how Fourier synthesis works and on and on and on.
>And a last point, imagine a small signal at low frequency. Say a couple
>of bits. What do you get? A stepped signal, not a sine, not a triangular
>wave, but a rounded staircase signal. You need to get the signal at
>least a few bits up in order to get a reasonably good signal.
Again, complete and utter nonsense. You show that you do not
understand the principles of dithering, because, again, the
behavior you predict simly DOES NOT EXIST in these systems.
>And from what I've read about CD-recordings, random noise is actually
>ADDDED to the signal to make it stronger, and thus make small signal
>more easy to hear, and to make them sound more natural.
Wrong, completely totally wrong. The noise is NOT added to "make
the signal stronger. Noise is added at the level of 1/2 LSB and
that added noise adds little if any power to the signal, it, in
fact, completely linearizes the system and the staircase you
claim ceases to exist.
Once again, you make an assertion that is objectively testable,
and when tested,m your assertion and thus the foundation behind
them, fails miserably.
>Granted, voices on CD's are good. Not as good as on vinyl, but very
>acceptable indeed.
Now that's an OPINION, one that your are more than welcome to
have. Let's not mistake opinion for fact.
>I have about 1000 albums in my collection, 3/4 which are on vinyl. Would
>I swap them for CD's? No way. I don't like the sound on about 10% of the
>vinyl, but about 50-60% of my CD's have sound that I find unsatisying.
That's your choice. And that choice is based on your preference,
and you are welcome to that preference, a preference that no one
will argue against.
But your "physics" is simply nonsense.
>Enjoy the music! Spin those discs, whether CD or Vinyl! And stop
>quarreling about which is better. We have individual tastes. CD's and
>Vinyl are different medias. They have different signatures. Which is
>better is a matter of taste.
Indeed, the preference is a matter of taste.
But your pseudo-tehnical claims about sampling and staircasing
and wandering phase and all of that, raised, apparently, to
justify your preferences and your taste, are nothing more than a
bunch of technical hogwash. If you are, as you claim, a
physicist, I would invite you to condiser that there is a
substantial hole in your understanding of the sampling theorem,
and that a visit to the likes of Claude Shannon's work from a
jhalf century ago is in order. Here, you will find all of your
technical claims soundly and completely refuted. Check out
Lipshitz and Vanderkooy's excellent treatise on dithering and
resolution below the least significant bit in the AES journal
from 15 years ago.
Your poreferences are your preferences, and I and no other
rational person whould attempt to argue against those. But,
sorry to say, your "technical" assertions are absurd and wrong,
as intuitive as they may seem. Certainly they have been repeated
before, but no amount of repetition of something that is plain
wrong will ever make it right. And just because some
self-appointed high-end magazine "expert" ALSO repeast the
same claptrap doesn't make it any less wrong. It only
makes it more wearisome to have to debunk the technobabble over
and over and over again, so that the people who REALLY want to
know how stuff works can learn something useful.
Stephen McElroy
<nu...@io.com> wrote:
> What 'scientist' says bees cannot fly? This sounds like some kind of
> urban legend to me; I've seen several articles explaining insect
> flight, and it's quite interesting but I've never seen one claiming
> 'bees cannot fly'.
It may be an urban legend, but this is the rationale as I understand it:
bee's wings are too short and/or lack the surface area to provide
sufficient lift to fly their body weight. This conundrum was solved when
it was discovered that wings beat in a figure eight pattern, improving the
lift to wing surface ratio.
Sounds like a question for the Mr. Smarty Pants website.
Stephen
Stewart Pinkerton
>Let's look at the CD format as it is today with objective eyes:
>We have a system which samples the signal 44100 times a second. Now draw
>a sine wave on a paper. Imagine that this sinewave has the frequency of
>22050 Hz (1/2 the sampling rate). Now place sample points on this sine
>wave. The distance between the points is 1/2 wave. Did you put the
>sample points at the peaks? Good! Now, draw a straight line between the
>points. After you put the resulting signal through a low-pass filter,
>you will get a perfect sine at 22050 Hz. Now I want you to imagine that
>the world is not a perfect place, and that the sample points isn't at
>the peaks, but at the zero points. You probably agree that this is a
>possibility? Now draw the same line connecting the points. What do you
>get? Low and behold! SILENCE!!!! This isn't a constant roll-off like on
>vinyl, but a random attenuation roll-off, sometimes even cut-off! All
>depending upon your luck when sampling.
BZZZZZZT! This is *exactly* why the so-called Nyquist bandwidth limit
is properly quoted as *less* than half the sample rate. Try the same
thing with a 22.04kHz wave and you never get silence..........
>Now imagine a sawtooth wave. When this wave is sent through the low-pass
>filter of the DAC, it comes out as a sine-wave, unless it is very low
>frequency.
That is true of *any* band-limited system, and has nothing to do with
sampling or quantisation.
>Now draw a new sine-wave and draw three sample points per wave. Connect
>them as before with lines. If you study the resulting wave carefulle,
>you'll see that not only do you get a sine wave output of the original
>sine, but also a new sine wave of lower frequency. The steady change of
>phase of the sine when the AD samples the signal, makes the amplitude of
>the output sine change. This amplitude modulation is in fact a wave or a
>number of waves itself. The more samplepoints you have, the less of a
>problem this becomes, but it is still there.
No it isn't. This is why you have a low-pass anti-aliasing filter
*before* the ADC, so that such out of band signal are not digitised.
>Now imaging hundreds and maybe even thousands of waves, sine,
>triangular, square (i.o.w. music). And with the above analysis, imagine
>the output signal in a not-so-perfect world (as a physicist, I know that
>the world is NOT a perfect place). Packed with random roll-off, cut-off,
>quasi-harmonics and waveshaping. PHEW! Whatta mess!
As a physicist, I suggest that you go read up on how digital audio
actually works. Pohlmann's book would be a good start.
>And a last point, imagine a small signal at low frequency. Say a couple
>of bits. What do you get? A stepped signal, not a sine, not a triangular
>wave, but a rounded staircase signal.
Absolutely *not* true! This is why we use dither.
> You need to get the signal at
>least a few bits up in order to get a reasonably good signal. But then
>you have to cut down on dynamics, since too much would cause clipping.
>And from what I've read about CD-recordings, random noise is actually
>ADDDED to the signal to make it stronger, and thus make small signal
>more easy to hear, and to make them sound more natural.
Shaped noise of about 1/2 LSB is added to randomise the LSB
quantisation level, thereby ensuring accurate reproduction of input
signals at *and below* the LSB level. This is quite different from
your description above, which simply isn't true.
>Granted, voices on CD's are good. Not as good as on vinyl, but very
>acceptable indeed.
In terms of fidelity to the original analogue signal, voices on CD are
*vastly* closer than on vinyl. You are of course free to *prefer* the
sound of vinyl, but don't confuse this with fidelity!
>I have about 1000 albums in my collection, 3/4 which are on vinyl. Would
>I swap them for CD's? No way. I don't like the sound on about 10% of the
>vinyl, but about 50-60% of my CD's have sound that I find unsatisying. I
>only keep them because I can't get the music on vinyl. (Newer
>recordings). None of them are better than 20-30% of my vinyl. And only a
>couple of them are "boom-box" recordings. The rest are
>medium to high-quality recordings from reputable companies (Chesky,
>AudioQuest, Deutsche Grammofon and Kirkelig Kulturverksted. And some
>other, smaller companies).
>Do I have a $20,000 LP-player? Nope. Bought mine used. A 20 year old
>Linn Sondek with a new RB-300 arm from Rega, and a Shure pickup. Cost me
>$500. The motor is screaming to be retired (have postponed it due to
>money shortage). My CD-player is a Pioneer PDS-06. Considered by many
>reviewers to be the best below $1000. It is $800 here in Norway.
>GRAND FINALE!!!!!
>Enjoy the music! Spin those discs, whether CD or Vinyl! And stop
>quarreling about which is better. We have individual tastes. CD's and
>Vinyl are different medias. They have different signatures. Which is
>better is a matter of taste.
EXACTLY!! Please don't translate your personal *preference* to
absolute statements that LP is 'better' than CD, or vice versa.
Stewart Pinkerton
>"GRL" <GLitw...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
>news:8b5lt0$odl$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com...
>
>> I was shocked by how much surface noise there is on well cared for quality
>records from DG, Phillips > and Sheffield after treatment with a Zerostat
>and Discwasher, how can you vinyl fans stand the >surface noise? It drives
>me nuts during quiet passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
>
>Dear GRL,
>
>There is a secret, its called a brain, along with a good audio system.
>
>In a good playback system the "noise" is in mono and is separated from the
>music. The brain listens to the music and ignores the noise.
This is absolutely not true! Surface noise comes from roughness on the
groove walls, and is certainly not mono, while dust particles can push
the stylus in any old direction, but almost always with a large
vertical component, which is the exact opposite of a mono signal. A
mono signal requires a pure lateral stylus movement, which is pretty
unlikely from any noise mechanism.
Mitch Alsup
>
> On Thu, 23 Mar 2000 21:39:54 GMT, Werner Kliewer <vkli...@mpi.mb.ca>
> >wrote:
> >simply inadequate.
>
> uninformed specualtion. Making predictions that result in real
> advances takes more than wondering.
>
> >but they do it anyway.
About 18 months ago, a science researcher figured out how a bee could
generate enough energy so that its tiny wings could generate more
lift than the bee weighed. So now science knows how a bee can fly.
NO PROOF had to be un-proved, as no proof had established a bees
inability to fly, only that science (of that time) could not explain
how a be flies. BIG difference.
In addition, it was quite obvious that bees did fly, so there was
massive evidence that bees can and do fly. The only thing lacking
was a theory as to how a bees tiny little muscles could move the
wings fast enough. [hint: the wings beat faster than muscles respond
to electrical impulses]. What was finally discovered, is that the
wing muscles are attached to the wings through a resonant coupling
device (cartilage) so that the muscles only have to stimulate the
resonance at a sufficient rate so that the wings continue beating
without pauses [like continuously tapping a bell at a slower taping
rate than the bell's frequency.]
Mitch
Ton Maas
world!DPi...@uunet.uu.net (Richard D Pierce) wrote:
>>In the same way that science proves that bees cannot fly,
>>but they do it anyway.
>
>Please, since this is often used as some sort of "proof" of the
>error in science, why don't you post the specific references of
>studies and calculations, done by acknowledged experts in the
>field of insect flight and aerodynamics, that have appeared in
>the appropriate peer-reviewed scientific journals, that has such
>proofs.
>
>Why? Becuase such proofs don't exist.
And on a more fundamental note: Science actually never proves _anything_
(almost). It merely tries to offer explanations for observed phenomena. The
fact that, at any current state of affairs, scientists are unable to come
up with effective explanations for the flight of bees, cannot be
interpreted as "proof that they cannot". It only shows that they do not yet
understand how it's done.
>>At the molecular level, vinyl is also digital (or at
>>least, discrete samples). What is the effective sampling rate of vinyl?
>>Taking into account that the sample are taken at different rates at different
>>frequencies and then overlapped in ways that we call analogue.
And even if it is discrete, is it digitally encoded in any sensible meaning
of the word? No, there is no sampling rate because nobody sampled anything.
Ton
Richard D Pierce
Mitch Alsup <mi...@beast.amd.com> wrote:
>Richard D Pierce wrote:
>> On Thu, 23 Mar 2000 21:39:54 GMT, Werner Kliewer <vkli...@mpi.mb.ca>
>> >wrote:
>> uninformed specualtion. Making predictions that result in real
>> advances takes more than wondering.
>>
>> >but they do it anyway.
>
>generate enough energy so that its tiny wings could generate more
>lift than the bee weighed. So now science knows how a bee can fly.
Uh, if this "science researcher" fgured this out only 18 months
ago, he's quite a few years behind the times, because the actual
discovery was a LONG time ago.
[ This has strayed off topic, as the Subject shows, and needs
go no further. -- deb ]
James Boyk
>=20
> On 20 Mar 2000 17:07:44 GMT, "GRL" <GLitw...@bigfoot.com> wrotE:
>=20
> > It drives me nuts during quiet passages. Is there some secret to gettin=
g rid of it?
>=20
> Yes. Get a decent turntable/arm/cart combo, have it *perfectly* set up, p=
lay clean records. That's all.
Well, not quite all. The behavior of the RIAA preamp is important
also. Many of them overload in the ultrasonic range, which can
radically worsen the sound in response to any dust particles.
I'm not clear whether the noise originally complained of in this
thread was (1) the inherent background level of vinyl or (2) the
additional noise of dust, scratches, etc. Or (3) tape hiss.
No. 1 is ultra low--play any of the Sheffield direct-disk records to
see just how low.
No. 2 is pretty avoidable, and is ameliorated by having a good stylus
profile and a preamp that won't overload in the ultrasonic.=20
No. 3 depends on the recording process, obviously; but it's
astonishing how low tape hiss can be, and not just for 'recent' tape
machines like Ampex ATR-102 running 1/2" 2-track at 30 ips. Some of
the much older tape types were subjectively lower in hiss than more
modern types. I've personally heard a master tape (unreleased) of
Marais & Miranda (wonderful folk singers) made in 1962 on I think
Scotch 111A, and even though the music is just male voice, female
voice & guitar, the hiss is not bothersome at all. In fact,
subjectively it often seems absent (because the magnetic particle
size [a] wasn't well controlled, and the particles were [b] bigger on
average; thus [a] there's much less of a pitch to the hiss, and [b]
the spectrum of hiss is much lower in the range, down where there's a
meaningful amount of musical energy to mask it).
James Boyk
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk
Richard D Pierce
Ton Maas <ton...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>>>At the molecular level, vinyl is also digital (or at
>>>least, discrete samples). What is the effective sampling rate of vinyl?
>>>Taking into account that the sample are taken at different rates at different
>>>frequencies and then overlapped in ways that we call analogue.
>
>And even if it is discrete, is it digitally encoded in any sensible meaning
>of the word? No, there is no sampling rate because nobody sampled anything.
Well, not correct.
ANY discret representation can be considered sampling, whether
those samples are evenly spaced apart or not.
Second, one can surely talk about equivalent sampling rate, as
did Shannon and Nyquist, and that is completely applicable to
the "equivalent" sampling rate, which is required to be more
than twice the bandwidth of the represented signal.
Thirs, far to much attention is paid to the rather generla
concepts of "sampling" and "discrete." A far more valuable
approach is to consider what, in a sustem is "knowable" and what
is lost due to ambiguities in the system, like noise. Given this
general approach, one discovers that, in fact, the loss of
information in a system, be it because of the presence of noise
or the low-level discrete nature of a representaion, is exactly
equivalent, most certainly in the case of digital audio
representations (we are, for the purpose of this discussion,
assuming that BOTH the continuous time/continuous amplitude and
discrete time, discrete amplitude implementations are working
woithin the limits of their design parameters, e.g., that the
digital system is properly dithered and band-limited, that the
analog system is linear between the noise floor and maximum
level and so on).
In this more generalizd view: BOTH system loose information
(quite erroneously dubbed "micro-dynamics by some magazine wonk)
at low levelsm because NEITHER sustem is capable orperfectly
representing infinitesimally small change in the signal. In one
case, the mere presence of noise means that one cannot precisely
determine what the signal was at that instant to an accuracy
better than the fundamental noise level, and in the other, one
cannot determine it to an accurascy better than the
quantization/dither level.
And (before someone once again steps in and claims otherwise),
BOTH systems allow one to represent AND hear signal BELOW the
equivalent broadband noise level because of the properties of
the signals (periodic and regular) and the detector/ear (they
are narrow bandpass analyzers with time averaging). Normalized
to the same noise floor, we find, in fact, that the ear is
equally capable of hearing signals far below the fundamental
single-instant ambiguity level of BOTH systems EQUALLY well.
Given this broader view, one can start making some reasonable
generalized statements. IF the bandwidths of two systems are the
same, and the maximum levels are normalized to be the same, but
the lowest fundamental limit (due to noise or quantization and
dither) are different, then it can be said that THE SYSTEM WITH
THE LOWER NOISE FLOOR HAS THE HIGHER RESOLUTION, no matter HOW
the signal is represented. Sine we have normalized the systems
for gain and maximum level and bandwidth, we can then generalize
one step further and say that RESOLUTION IS DIRECTLY
PROPORTIONAL TO DYNAMIC RANGE.
Thus, the wider the dynamic range of the system, the higher the
resolution. Period.
We do not have to concern ourselvs with whether it's limited by
bits, by vinyl molecules (it isn't) or surface noise (it is) or
tape noise (it is), The system with the wider dynamic range
must, by definition, have the higher resolution.
If a LP system has a norrower dynamic range than a CD (that's
NOT to say it sounds any more or less "dynamic"), then it MUST
have less resolution than a CD. Forget quantization (since it is
not factor in properly dithered digital audio), simply look at
the dyamic range. Wider dynamic range translate directly an
inexorably to higher resolution. The high-end magazine
self-annointed experts and editors notwithstanding.
w spohn
rather than necessarily due to the condition of the vinyl. I have
taken the same record from a friend's table, a Japanese set up, where
it was making unacceptably frequent popping and ticking, and took it
to my place and played it on two different systems.
One was a Sota Cosmos with SME V and Monster Sigma Genesis, the other
a VPI TNT with SME V and Koetsu Urushi. Without cleaning the record
(by this I mean wet cleaning - I did use a carbon fibre brush before
playing, as he had on his an SL 1200 Mk2 with a Stanton pickup) we
played it and noted much, much less frequent noise. My guess would be
a smaller stylus tip in both cases, but I have to wonder if the rest
of the turntable has any effect on this. Any thoughts?
James Boyk
>
> I have found many noise problems to be somewhat equipment
> where it was making unacceptably frequent popping and ticking, and
> Without cleaning the record (by this I mean wet cleaning...) we...
> noted much, much less frequent noise.... Any thoughts?
Could be a million things. Presumably not just your t/t-arm-cartridge
are different but also your amps & speakers. Surely your room is
different. Can be the preamp's susceptibility to ultrasonic overload,
as I noted. Could be less static electricity in your setup. Can
indeed be stylus profile, as you mention. What's certain is that
*something* is wrong in any system where noise is a problem.
James Boyk
James Boyk
> Obvious to all? Obvious to all that already prefer vinyl, I can
> believe.
Every reviewer and every listener--every one I've heard from, that
is--who have compared my Mussorgsky Lp and CD have found the
pure-analog version on the Lp much superior to either version on the
CD (pure digital and digital-from-analog). The comparison is out of
date now, but it's interesting that no one else went to the
(admittedly large) trouble and expense of making their own comparison
albums. (Mussorgsky recording described at
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/records.html#pr7 .) What better way
to let people hear and decide for themselves, which is what I've
always been about?
With the superiority of "high-bit" digital recording over "CD
format," I would have thought that the notion of the latter as some
kind of incarnation of perfection would have been dropped. Perhaps
some feel that while the newer digital systems do improve on the CD
format, nevertheless the CD format itself bettered analog recording.
This has emphatically not been true in my twenty-plus years of
involvement with both analog and digital. I have engineering credits
on highly-praised examples of both analog and digital recording, and
none of the digital comes close to analog, in my view.
It is amazing how many people do hold forth vigorously and
dogmatically on this & other audio subjects--and contemptuously, too,
on occasion--without the slightest actual *experience* of hearing
music live, hearing it over a direct microphone feed, recording it
and then comparing against the live sound. It's not as though this is
such a terribly difficult thing to do. Good equipment is expensive,
of course--it may even have to be custom-made--but certainly costs no
more than what many on this list pay for their playback equipment.
James Boyk
John Landry
care is not taken in remastering to CD. SACD is promising! We can only
hope that SACD puts the turntables to rest for good.
James Boyk <jb...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:8bjdhs$9gg$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com...
Rob Thomas
>In a good playback system the "noise" is in mono and is separated from the
music. >The brain listens to the music and ignores the noise.
Well, more so the opposite is true. Listening to an old, damaged, dirty MONO
record through a STEREO lp chain separates much of the noise left and right,
leaving a suprisingly clean central image, IME.
My brain then ignores the stereo noise and concentrates on the music in the
middle...
Ton Maas
world!DPi...@uunet.uu.net (Richard D Pierce) wrote:
>Subject: Re: Vinyl vs. CD and noise
From: Richard D Pierce
>Organization: Professional Audio Development
>Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 18:41:33 GMT
>Newsgroups: rec.audio.high-end
>
>In article <8bi34u$2a0$1...@bourbaki.localdomain>,
>Ton Maas <ton...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>>>>At the molecular level, vinyl is also digital (or at
>>>>least, discrete samples). What is the effective sampling rate of vinyl?
>>>>Taking into account that the sample are taken at different rates at different
>>>>frequencies and then overlapped in ways that we call analogue.
>>
>>And even if it is discrete, is it digitally encoded in any sensible meaning
>>of the word? No, there is no sampling rate because nobody sampled anything.
>
>Well, not correct.
>
>ANY discret representation can be considered sampling, whether
>those samples are evenly spaced apart or not.
Hmm. I was referring primarily to what supposedly happens at the "molecular
level", which the original poster seems to perceive as digital or at least
discrete. Does your objection apply to that as well?
Ton
BELJAN E
A. Wiseman) writes:
> Also, there are some chemicals out there that
>are used to reduce static and friction on the LPs. you actually buff
>a type of film onto the LP (e.g., LAST used to make some good stuff,
>it's been a while for me too but I assume that they are still in
>buisiness).
>
I have a device called the "Watts Parostatik disk preener" its a small
round tube, velour wrapped around foam, wrapped around a plastic tube
with a wick inside of that. You keep this wick moist, dust the records
off with it. This supposedly deposits some sort of antisatic to the LPs
as well as dusting them. I have had this thing for years, came along
with a little stylus cleaning device made out of velvet that removes
dust and deposits from the stylus. I use it from time to time, if the
records appear dusty you just put them on the turntable, give them a
spin while dusting them with this device. It seems to work well enough
as stated in my previous post I did not find noise to be much of a
problem.
BELJAN E
writes:
>
>I don't want to get into whether vinyl sounds better than CDs (I
>think both sound fine at high signal levels), but how can you vinyl
>fans stand the surface noise? It drives me nuts during quiet
>passages. Is there some secret to getting rid of it?
>
I dont find vinyl to be any noisier than CDs in certain cases. First
off I mainly listen to only classical on vinyl. I have picked up a nice
collection of old classical LPs. While I listen to mainly CDs for
everything I really did not want to go out and buy more than I had to
so I decided I would just listen to the LPs I had for classical. I
found that equipment has as much to do with the quality and noise level
of the sound as do the recordings. The collection I listen to mainly is
a set of 5 LPs from Vox which are in quite good condition. I listen to
them mainly in my basement which is far from the best system setup, a
Pioneer VSX-305 Pro Logic reciever, an old Panasonic single cassette
deck, an Admiral 5CD changer, two Utah WD-90 speakers, one Lyric 5
speaker and one Acoustics 200P speaker. Basically the system was just
old and cheaper components. I recently was shopping at at the local
junkstore and came across a new old stock DeJay record player with a
BSR changer. Being cheap enough at $50 I bought it and hooked it up in
my basement. I put it to the test listening to some of my old classical
LPs. They never sounded better. The piano concertos sounded crisp and
clean like new once again. I took the same records and tested them on
my Realistic turntable (a linear tracking model), and my Garrard 1212.
Both have recieved much more use and actually sounded noisier than the
"new" DeJay did. I wonder if the wear on an old stylus, a lower quality
cartridge, the quality of the actual turntable itself doesnt make as
much of a difference as does the actual quality of the vinyl.
John Busenitz
news:8bmcle$ukl$1...@bourbaki.localdomain...
> I agree that some CD-Vinyl comparisons are disappointing. This happens
when
> care is not taken in remastering to CD. SACD is promising! We can only
> hope that SACD puts the turntables to rest for good.
The same can be said in any case: if "care is not taken in remastering"
the SACD, it has every potential to sound as bad as a poorly-mastered
CD or record.
The bottom line is that CD and SACD have more resolution than vinyl.
Obviously, some preferences do not reflect this, so there is no guarantee
that SACD (or DVD-A) will completely snuff out vinyl. CD has done most of
it already, anyway.
ragge...@my-deja.com
description of the CD. I know that some of what I wrote, was from the
top of my head and thus not very accurate. But then I want to make
the following statements :
1) I did not make any claims about the CD as a SYSTEM. That is, a
complete cd-player or cd-transport/DAC. I was making claims about the
CD as a format. I was trying to argue against mr. Gilbert's claims
that the CD format was superior. And actually, Your reply to my
arguments, actually supported such a view. To explain with an analogy
: I was talking about the eye as a shitty optical system and you were
complaining that we see pretty darn good. Yes, but not because the
eye is a great optical system. Believe me, it is not. But luckily, we
have a brain to compensate for the errors of the eye. I was
complaining about the cd-format itself, not CD-systems. Which I
tried, without luck, to point out later.
2) You repeatedly write that I "make claims" about being a physicist
and thus "this and that". First of all: What has that got to do with
anything? I made a statement that as a physicist, I know from
experience that the world is not a perfect place, I didn't make
claims that I know everything there is to know about the theory of
sampling. Second : I AM a physicist. I hold a Masters Degree in Space
Physics. My thesis was on the subject of increasing the resolution of
an X-ray camera onboard the NOAA-13 satellite launched 12'th of
August 1993, by using signal processing techniques and statistical
methods. Now, does THAT make me an expert on digital signal
processing? By no means. And I haven't made such claims.
3) Loosen up, man! I can appreciate that you as a professional may
feel insulted when people like me make claims that are wrong, but you
don't need to declare me the Great Satan of the Hifi World just
because of that.
Now for my reply on your reply :
In article <8bgeif$bgb$1...@bourbaki.localdomain>,
world!DPi...@uunet.uu.net (Richard D Pierce) wrote:
> In article <8bf81e$qsh$1...@bourbaki.localdomain>,
> <ragge...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >In article <8b89nu$8me$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com>,
> >Gordon Gilbert <g...@sssnet.com> wrote:
> >> Compared to the best CD recordings, vinyl has more surface noise,
> >> groove distortion, wow&flutter, a lack of high-frequencies (rolled
> >> off above 10-12kHz or so), a lot of compression on most discs (to
> >> allow longer play times) and a subsequent lack of dynamic range (and
> >This is handled by the RIAA equilazation.
>
> No, it is not. The RIAA deals with, incompletely, only one
I'm sorry, I didn't listen to my own advice, and didn't read mr.
Gilbert's statement. If I did, I would know that I was mistaken.
> problem. Until YOU have had the opportunity to actually witness
> the gyrations an LP mastering engineering must go through,
> including deliberate compression, steep low-pass filters,
> mono-bass-sum networks and more, to get stuff on to an LP, you
> have little authrity to make such a ludicrous claim.
Hmmm. Interesting. I've watched my dad rebuilding a diesel-enging from
scratch, so that probably makes me an expert on how well or bad the
diesel engine is. Of course it doesn't. I have never claimed to be an
authority. I just made a statement, which, regretfully, was wrong.
> >We have a system which samples the signal 44100 times a second. Now draw
> >a sine wave on a paper. Imagine that this sinewave has the frequency of
> >22050 Hz (1/2 the sampling rate).
>
> Great, you have just described a broken system.
I chose 1/2 the sampling rate because it would be easier to make a
point. I agree that it was a mistake to use this frequency because of
the criterion for the sampling to be at least twice the maximum signal
frequency. But I used it because it would be easier to draw.
> > Now place sample points on this sine
> >wave. The distance between the points is 1/2 wave. Did you put the
> >sample points at the peaks? Good! Now, draw a straight line between the
> >points. After you put the resulting signal through a low-pass filter,
> >you will get a perfect sine at 22050 Hz.
>
> Once again, we have another example of someone who simply does
> NOT understand the sampling process trying to prove things.
>
> The input to a 44.1 sampler will be low-pass filtered BELOW
> 22.05 kHz, thus, a 22.05 kHz sine wave will NEVER occur in the
> scenario you describe.
See the statement above.
>
> > Now I want you to imagine that
> >the world is not a perfect place, and that the sample points isn't at
> >the peaks, but at the zero points. You probably agree that this is a
> >possibility? Now draw the same line connecting the points. What do you
> >get? Low and behold! SILENCE!!!! This isn't a constant roll-off like on
> >vinyl, but a random attenuation roll-off, sometimes even cut-off! All
> >depending upon your luck when sampling.
>
> This is coplete nonsense, as you have completely ignored the
> requirements for Nyquist sampling.
I agree, but see the explanation above.
> You are making specific technical assertions. One of the
> consequences of your assertions is that you predict a specific
> behavior of these systems. So, to see if your asertions are
> correct, we should be able to look at these systems, subject
> them to the signals you assert, and they either will or will not
> behave the way you claim.
>
> well, in fact, when we do as you suggest, these system DO NOT
> behave as you claim, and ths we can conclude that your
> description of these systems and thus your understanding of them
> is flawed. Seriously flawed.
As I said, I was not making any claims about the SYSTEMS. But the cd.
I admit that I didn't make this clear, since I added DA converters
and low-pass filters.
What you are talking about, is the information contained within the
digital signal. That information is enough to REPRODUCE the original
signal by using signal processing. Actually, I checked this with a
couple of colleagues of mine who has been working with signal
processing for years. They said "The closer you get to 1/2 the
sampling rate, the more samples you need to be able to reproduce the
original signal. And you will also be less able to reproduce any
waveshape other than a pure sine. You need to have a sample frequency
of many times the signal frequency in those cases to get even close."
An encyclopedia of physics I read yesterday said "The sampling
theorem states that you need at least twice the sampling frequency of
the maximum signal frequency to have enough information to get close
to the original signal". Not the word "close".
What I was talking about was the simplest DA system possible. Split
the serial digital stream from the CD into right and left channel.
Store one sample into individual da-circuits. No FFT, no upsampling,
no dithering no nothing. What do you get on the output? Discrete
voltages. On an ideal DA, perfectly square signal output in discrete
values. When we put this through a low-pass filter, the
high-frequency components of the square signal is removed or at least
heavily attenuated. And we get some other signal out. Not square, but
not necessaryly a sine either. If we use a frequency of 22049 which
is within the limits of the criterion, and we start by putting the
first sample on the 0 point of the sine, the next sample will be a
little bit above zero, the next a little bit above that again, and so
forth. Thus the output will be a slowly increasing voltage until the
sample reaches a peak of the signal, after which it will start to
decrease. I.o.w. we get a slow depiction of the sine wave. If not,
the dac is doing something to the signal. And this is your point, the
chips in a modern audio dac does something to the signal. It
reproduces the original signal by analysing the digital stream. (This
I got confirmed from my colleagues.)
> Again, complete nonsense because your simplictic description of
> how sampling works is simply wrong.
I guess that my tutor at the university taught us wrong then. cause
he told us that sampling is done at time intervals defined by a
highly accurate clock. It then sampled the signal at that point. This
of course, is with sample and hold circuits. If you use other
circuits, finite time average samples, then we have a different
ballgame altogether.
> Well, you claim to be a physicist, but you have quite soundly
> demonstrated that you do NOT know how smapling works, that you
As I stated above, being a physicist does not imply knowing
everything there is to know about all physical or mathematical
systems. That you're an audio engineer does not make you an expert on
quantum physics, although engineers have built the tunnelling
microscope, based on quantum physics.
> do NOT know how linear superposition works, that you do NOT now
> how Fourier synthesis works and on and on and on.
I know how linear superposition works. I have read an article by
people at Analog Devices when looking into their AD 1890 sample-rate
converter. I have not studied this in detail, but again, as I was
saying, I was not talking about a complete system WITH FFT circuits
and such, ONLY the CD as a format. With simple da-converters. Not any
of the electronic wiz-bang you have today.
> Again, complete and utter nonsense. You show that you do not
> understand the principles of dithering, because, again, the
> behavior you predict simly DOES NOT EXIST in these systems.
Again, you are proving my point, since you admit that you need
dithering to fix a problem with the CD-format.
> >And from what I've read about CD-recordings, random noise is actually
> >ADDDED to the signal to make it stronger, and thus make small signal
> >more easy to hear, and to make them sound more natural.
>
> Wrong, completely totally wrong. The noise is NOT added to "make
> the signal stronger. Noise is added at the level of 1/2 LSB and
> that added noise adds little if any power to the signal, it, in
> fact, completely linearizes the system and the staircase you
> claim ceases to exist.
Again, I apologixe for making claims based on top-of-my-head
information that I bearly rememebered from an article on dithering I
read. Another point is that you actually agree, although you wont
admit to it, that my point of making it more natural was true. You
write "to linearize the system", I.o.w. to remove the staircase?
Pardon me if I'm too assumtious here. That was not my intentions.
> >I have about 1000 albums in my collection, 3/4 which are on vinyl. Would
> >I swap them for CD's? No way. I don't like the sound on about 10% of the
> >vinyl, but about 50-60% of my CD's have sound that I find unsatisying.
> But your "physics" is simply nonsense.
I didn't make any claims about physics, I did an analysis based on
what I learned in university classes.
> But your pseudo-tehnical claims about sampling and staircasing
> and wandering phase and all of that, raised, apparently, to
> justify your preferences and your taste, are nothing more than a
I did not at any point do this to justify my preference. If I did,
would I conclude by telling people to spin the discs whether CD or
LP? I was making claims to disprove mr. Gilbert on his claims of the
superiority of the CD as a FORMAT, not as a system complete with
technological wiz-bang to fix the problems I've pointed out.
Does the LP have problems. INDEED! Many of them you've pointed out
yourself. I'm not trying to deny that. And that is why I say that I
LIKE the format better, not making claims that it is INHERENTLY
better because yadda yadda. And I also tried to illustrate this by
using the tube amps as an analogy. They have shitty specs, but sound
beautifully to me. TO ME! I know they have their problems, as does
vinyl, but I like them better. And that was my point. I LIKE them
better. What YOU like is your choice. And I won't critizise your
choice. I urge you to listen to music, not cd's or vinyl, solid-state
or tube, digital or analog. Listen to the music.
> bunch of technical hogwash. If you are, as you claim, a
> physicist, I would invite you to condiser that there is a
> substantial hole in your understanding of the sampling theorem,
Don't think so. Read the above. And most of my claims have been
confirmed by my colleagues who has been working with this kind of
problems for years. And btw: What is so special about physisicst? Are
we the people who should know everything?
> and that a visit to the likes of Claude Shannon's work from a
> jhalf century ago is in order. Here, you will find all of your
> technical claims soundly and completely refuted. Check out
> Lipshitz and Vanderkooy's excellent treatise on dithering and
> resolution below the least significant bit in the AES journal
> from 15 years ago.
I guess you're not going to enlighten us? I for one have not access
to any university library, and thus am not able to read up on these
matters. But again, I made claims about the CD as a format, NOT
digital in general, as I DO know about dithering and such, which only
proves my point about the CD as a format.
> wrong will ever make it right. And just because some
> self-appointed high-end magazine "expert" ALSO repeast the
> same claptrap doesn't make it any less wrong. It only
Actually, I haven't read anything by any high-end magazine writer
that support my views. Most of my views are from experience through
my studies and from books and articles I have read.
> makes it more wearisome to have to debunk the technobabble over
> and over and over again, so that the people who REALLY want to
> know how stuff works can learn something useful.
I can appreciate that. I myself have often been annoyed when people
make claims about things that simply aren't true. But then I have to
study what they are really saying. And thus I try not to reply to any
such claims until I have controlled my temper. Seems like I can urge
you to do the same. And remove those "Theeze are the wordz of Saitn!
Debunk evrything he sez!"-glasses. They are easy to put on if you are
knowledgable about a subject, as I assume you are. But knowledge
should make you humble, not furious. And again, I apologize to have
stirred up such feelings in you. That was by no means my intentions.
Enjoy the music!
Ragnar Aas
Audio Amateur
Music lover.
Howard Ferstler
First, I am curious about how the new "hi-bit," SACD system
will be subjectively better than the CD system we have been
using for years. After all, from what I gather all we get
from the new format is a greater S/N ratio and wider
bandwidth. However, since the 44.1/16 system is already able
to handle the full audible bandwidth (and then some) and
most recordings are S/N limited by microphones and mixers, I
do not see what the 96/24 system can offer in terms of
practical improvements.
Anyway, below is an edited excerpt of a review I did of Mr.
Boyk's Mussorgsky compact disc, which allows the listener to
compare the "pure digital" version with the
"digital-from-analog" version. The full review appeared in
my Digital Audio Music List book, and is a bit more than
twice as long as this excerpt.
Excerpt:
"During my initial listening session, I was somewhat shocked
to note that the analog transcription sounded more
impressive than the digital version: more presence, more
impact, and more detail. However, after the initial
consternation dissipated, I did some careful measuring, and
here is what I discovered.
First, the analog version was roughly half a decibel louder
in terms of the average peak levels on many sections.
Second, the analog version was often 2 to 3 dB louder over
the 400- to 500-Hz range on some passages. Third, the analog
version was always at least half a decibel louder on the
quiet passages in those same sections.
So, on the whole, the analog version was just enough louder
overall to give the impression that it was, you guessed it,
more forward, clearer sounding, and blessed with greater
impact. While one might claim that this is proof that a good
analog recorder has more subjective dynamic headroom than a
digital recorder, I think we can assume that if a good DAT
deck is adjusted so that the peaks do not exceed 0 dB on the
recording meters, no headroom problems will be encountered.
So I have to assume that the analog-mastered version was
configured on purpose to sound somewhat louder than the
digitally mastered version, possibly because the engineers
were worried about overdriving the DAT on peaks.
Interestingly, with a bit of deft control of the volume knob
on my preamp, I could make the digital section sound just as
good as the analog version by advancing the gain
accordingly. Well, I actually could make it sound a bit
better, because the fewer number of tube circuits involved
kept its background hiss level a bit lower."
End of excerpt. The complete review is actually considerably
longer than this, and those who are interested in Mr. Boyk's
philosophical ideas concerning musical aesthetics and how
digital and analog recording systems impact those musical
aesthetics, are directed to the complete review, as well as
reviews of several other of his recordings in the book.
On the whole, his CD material is excellent, and I think the
reason for this has nothing to do with the digital or analog
technologies involved.
As for the LP version, which I have not heard, it is quite
possible that the microphone and mixing techniques used to
make it were more complementary to the vinyl version than to
the CD versions. The LP format can also often add some
interesting and pleasant distortions that make for a more
satisfying listening experience with certain speaker/room
set ups.
Howard Ferstler
Michael Mayers
1. The first playing of the record could have cleaned the record of
dust particles with the stylus.
2. Some of the noise could have been static discharge. The humidity
might have been higher at the second playing which would have
prevented the discharge.
-Mike
Stewart Pinkerton
Let's just cut to the chase here:
>DPi...@uunet.uu.net (Richard D Pierce) wrote:
>What you are talking about, is the information contained within the
>digital signal. That information is enough to REPRODUCE the original
>signal by using signal processing. Actually, I checked this with a
>couple of colleagues of mine who has been working with signal
>processing for years. They said "The closer you get to 1/2 the
>sampling rate, the more samples you need to be able to reproduce the
>original signal. And you will also be less able to reproduce any
>waveshape other than a pure sine. You need to have a sample frequency
>of many times the signal frequency in those cases to get even close."
They are not talking about the same thing. In *any* band-limited
system, the only signal which can be reconstructed from two sample
points is a sine wave, hance *any* signal above 14.7kHz is of
necessity sinusoidal. In reality, any CD signal above 11 kHz is a pure
sinusoid because it can have no harmonic content.
>An encyclopedia of physics I read yesterday said "The sampling
>theorem states that you need at least twice the sampling frequency of
>the maximum signal frequency to have enough information to get close
>to the original signal". Not the word "close".
Of course. No scientific text wilkl ever mention 'perfect sound
forever', that bullshit belongs in marketing slogans. Close in this
context does however mean very close indeed!
>What I was talking about was the simplest DA system possible. Split
>the serial digital stream from the CD into right and left channel.
>Store one sample into individual da-circuits. No FFT, no upsampling,
>no dithering no nothing. What do you get on the output? Discrete
>voltages. On an ideal DA, perfectly square signal output in discrete
>values. When we put this through a low-pass filter, the
>high-frequency components of the square signal is removed or at least
>heavily attenuated. And we get some other signal out. Not square, but
>not necessaryly a sine either. If we use a frequency of 22049 which
>is within the limits of the criterion, and we start by putting the
>first sample on the 0 point of the sine, the next sample will be a
>little bit above zero, the next a little bit above that again, and so
>forth. Thus the output will be a slowly increasing voltage until the
>sample reaches a peak of the signal, after which it will start to
>decrease. I.o.w. we get a slow depiction of the sine wave. If not,
>the dac is doing something to the signal. And this is your point, the
>chips in a modern audio dac does something to the signal. It
>reproduces the original signal by analysing the digital stream. (This
>I got confirmed from my colleagues.)
You may have misheard them..........
What you have described will indeed output a pure sine wave at
22.049kHz at high levels, but will have significant quantising
distortion at low levels. This is not because of any 'problem' with
the CD format, but because dithering is an *essential* part of the
system.
As Einstein said "everything should be made as simple as possible, but
no simpler". What you are attempting to use as a whipping boy is a
system which is too simple, and does not exist in practice.
Regarding your claims about the 'slow depiction' of the sine wave,
what you are describing is the necessary restriction due to the
bandwidth limit of 22kHz, which implies that the signal has existed
since the beginning of time and will never cease. If the steady-state
22 kHz signal changes at all, this requires content at a higher
frequency. Your signal processing friends will be aware of this, but
may not have explained it well.
>> Again, complete nonsense because your simplictic description of
>> how sampling works is simply wrong.
>
>I guess that my tutor at the university taught us wrong then. cause
>he told us that sampling is done at time intervals defined by a
>highly accurate clock. It then sampled the signal at that point. This
>of course, is with sample and hold circuits. If you use other
>circuits, finite time average samples, then we have a different
>ballgame altogether.
>
>> Well, you claim to be a physicist, but you have quite soundly
>> demonstrated that you do NOT know how smapling works, that you
>
>As I stated above, being a physicist does not imply knowing
>everything there is to know about all physical or mathematical
>systems. That you're an audio engineer does not make you an expert on
>quantum physics, although engineers have built the tunnelling
>microscope, based on quantum physics.
>
>> do NOT know how linear superposition works, that you do NOT now
>> how Fourier synthesis works and on and on and on.
>
>I know how linear superposition works. I have read an article by
>people at Analog Devices when looking into their AD 1890 sample-rate
>converter. I have not studied this in detail, but again, as I was
>saying, I was not talking about a complete system WITH FFT circuits
>and such, ONLY the CD as a format. With simple da-converters. Not any
>of the electronic wiz-bang you have today.
Once again, this is not 'whiz-bang', it's all *essential* to the
correct operation of the system. The only 'whiz-bang' is the use of
4-16x oversampling in multi-bit DACs that don't strictly need it. This
is done to make it easier to design the reconstruction filter.
>> Again, complete and utter nonsense. You show that you do not
>> understand the principles of dithering, because, again, the
>> behavior you predict simly DOES NOT EXIST in these systems.
>
>Again, you are proving my point, since you admit that you need
>dithering to fix a problem with the CD-format.
Dammit, dithering is not fixing a *problem*, it's an *essential* part
of the system.
> I was making claims to disprove mr. Gilbert on his claims of the
>superiority of the CD as a FORMAT, not as a system complete with
>technological wiz-bang to fix the problems I've pointed out.
Total hogwash. How well do you think vinyl will work without the RIAA
compensation and mono bass necessary to 'fix the problems'?
James Boyk
>
> ...since the 44.1/16 system is already able to handle the full
> audible bandwidth (and then some) and most recordings are S/N limited
> by microphones and mixers, I do not see what the 96/24 system can
> offer in terms of practical improvements.
It's not known what "full audible bandwidth" is.
Many digital systems affect phase profoundly even well within the
passband, and this may well have deleterious effects.
I use no mixers. S/N of my mikes, from 1%--if memory
serves--distortion point down to broadband noise is about 102 dB. To
this one must add the amount by which one can "hear into" the
noise--for the perfectly sound reason that the broadband noise isn't
relevant; what's relevant is only that portion of it that masks a
given pitch; and that is only the portion w/in a fraction of an 8ve
of that pitch. This adds between 16 and 25 dB. Therefore the range of
the mike is between 118 and 127 dB. No recording medium in the world
will handle this!
> Anyway, below is an edited excerpt of a review I did of Mr. Boyk's
> Mussorgsky compact disc, which allows the listener to compare the
> "pure digital" version with the "digital-from-analog" version....
> "...on the whole, the analog version was just enough louder overall
> to give the impression that it was, you guessed it, more forward,
> clearer sounding, and blessed with greater impact. While one might
> claim that this is proof that a good analog recorder has more
> subjective dynamic headroom than a digital recorder, I think we can
> assume that if a good DAT deck is adjusted so that the peaks do not
> exceed 0 dB on the recording meters, no headroom problems will be
> encountered...."
If you get that close to the digital limit--or at least if you did in
those days (recording dates from about '91)--you're in trouble! We
got to -3 on digital meters, and that was closer than I would have
liked. Of course one cannot control this!
> "...So I have to assume that the analog-mastered version was
> configured on purpose to sound somewhat louder than the digitally
> mastered version, possibly because the engineers were worried about
> overdriving the DAT on peaks...."
Each version was mastered to the CD in the best way we knew how, to
maximize its own quality. It is in fact *extremely* difficult to
"match levels" between digital and analog master recordings. Not
difficult; impossible. They simply do not represent the dynamics the
same way at all. If you match peaks, you're misrepresenting the
averages; if averages are matched, you're misrepresening the peaks.
There is *no* "correct" way to do it! The way we (Doug Sax and I) did
it was to treat each as a separate recording being mastered to CD as
best we knew how.
However, it's the pure-analog Lp you should be comparing to! After
the CD, the Lp makes one fall on the floor.
> ...On the whole, his CD material is excellent....
Thank you. As the performer, my interest is of course to capture what
I'm doing as best I know how, no matter what the medium.
> ...As for the LP version, which I have not heard, it is quite
> possible that the microphone and mixing techniques used to make it
> were more complementary to the vinyl version than to the CD
> versions.
No no no. There *were* no "mixing techniques." My gear is chosen on
==>direct microphone feeds, that is, comparisons against live music.
That's the way to find the equipment that will capture musical sound
optimally, no matter what medium one uses.
> The LP format can also often add some interesting and pleasant
> distortions that make for a more satisfying listening experience with
> certain speaker/room set ups.
Cannot express the strength of disagreement I feel. As a professional
performer, I simply want the very best possible capturing of the
music I make! And I've had many experiences--in Sheffield Lab
sessions, e.g.--listening to live mike feeds and then immediately
hearing a master lacquer played back on an ordinary turntable, where
the differences were so tiny that it was shocking. I've done this at
Sheffield Drum Record sessions, LAPhilharmonic "Firebird" sessions,
etc. etc. True, the master lacquer is better than a finished
Lp--primarily in S/N--but nevertheless has very similar character.
James Boyk
James Boyk
device, which magically made surfaces silent and clarified the sound,
letting you for instance follow one voice in a chorus more easily.
There was a lot of talk about alleged damage to record surfaces,
supposedly by preventing an instantaneous liquefaction of the vinyl
at the vinyl/stylus interface, so that the vinyl tore instead of
melting and then reforming. George Alexandrovitch of Stanton wrote a
paper about this long ago, with photomicrographs. Without arguing
about the matter--I'm in no position to argue--I do have albums I've
played dozens or hundreds of times "wet," and I didn't notice the
supposed gross degradation, nor has anyone else.
I *wish* I could find a new LencoClean brush for home and lab!
James Boyk
> ...the gyrations an LP mastering engineering must go through, including deliberate compression, steep low-pass filters, mono-bass-sum networks and more, to get stuff on to an LP...
My own albums, on Performance Recordings (R) have...
No "deliberate compression," No equalization (apart from RIAA of
course), no "steep low-pass filters" that I'm aware of, no
"mono-bass-sum networks." No nothing!
James Boyk
ragge...@my-deja.com
a...@borealis.com wrote:
> Total hogwash. How well do you think vinyl will work without the RIAA
> compensation and mono bass necessary to 'fix the problems'?
Probably just as bad as the CD would if you didn't add the FFT,
dithering, lowpass-filtering, oversampling yadda yadda. Seemingly
nobody understands my point here. The LP NEEDS the RIAA and mono bass
to make it work properly. Without the RIAA, the pickup would jump
like a 'roo across the LP on strong bass-parts, and the surface noise
would probably completely drown the treble unless you put the signal
level at least 10 times higher than the 1 kHz level. And as for mono
bass : The human ear starts loosing its sense for direction below 200
Hz. At 80-100 Hz it is completely gone. So mono bass should not
change anything significantly. So stereo below 100 Hz is a complete
waste. Which is why you only need one sub-woofer in a system. And
thus, I try for the third time to conclude : I AM NOT TRYING TO SAY
THAT VINYL IS INHERENTLY BETTER, I AM TRYING TO SAY THAT CD'S AREN'T
EITHER.
They both need "support systems" to sound good. Which is better, is a
matter of taste and ear. I personally like vinyl best. It gives me
goosebumps more than CD's. But that is my opinion! Am I to be
crusified for that?
Please don't put opinions into this that aren't mine. What I say is
what I mean. Period.
You probably think that this discussion is a waste, and frankly, I'm
starting to believe it too. Nobody seems to understand/want to
understand my point. So I just stop here. Any replies will not be
replied to.
Ragnar Aas
Audio Amateur
Music Lover
Arny Krüger
news:8bthqf$ca2$1...@news.aud.alcatel.com...
> > compensation and mono bass necessary to 'fix the problems'?
>
There is no FFT that is inherent in the CD processing.
> dithering,
There is no dithering that is inherent in the CD processing.
>lowpass-filtering,
I thought this was a problem, not a fixup.
>oversampling yadda yadda.
There is no oversampling that is inherent in the CD processing.
>Seemingly
> nobody understands my point here. The LP NEEDS the RIAA and mono bass
> to make it work properly.
Actually, records existed for years without RIAA EQ.
>Without the RIAA, the pickup would jump
> like a 'roo across the LP on strong bass-parts, and the surface noise
> would probably completely drown the treble unless you put the signal
> level at least 10 times higher than the 1 kHz level.
Actually, RIAA tends to make records more prone to skipping.
> And as for mono bass : The human ear starts loosing its sense for direction below 200
> Hz. At 80-100 Hz it is completely gone. So mono bass should not
> change anything significantly.
Actually, bass directionality can be quite clearly audible down
below 60 Hz.
>So stereo below 100 Hz is a complete waste.
Actually quite a controversy rages over whether multichannel bass is
a good idea. With vinyl neither multichannel nor multichannel bass
are viable options.
>Which is why you only need one sub-woofer in a system.
Actually, vinyl has so much low frequency noise and is so
susceptable to acoustic feedback that...
>And thus, I try for the third time to conclude : I AM NOT TRYING TO SAY
> THAT VINYL IS INHERENTLY BETTER, I AM TRYING TO SAY THAT CD'S AREN'T
> EITHER.
Then we agree. Some things are less perfect than others.
> They both need "support systems" to sound good.
By virtue of its greater power bandwidth and dynamic range, CD needs
far less tinkering and circumventions to make it sound good.
>Which is better, is a matter of taste and ear.
Upon this we can agree.
>I personally like vinyl best.
99.5% of the record buying public likes CD's best.
> It gives me
> goosebumps more than CD's. But that is my opinion! Am I to be
> crusified for that?
No, but we can point out the mutitude of false technical claims that
are in your post! ;-)
> Please don't put opinions into this that aren't mine. What I say
is what I mean. Period.
I ain't gonna touch that! ;-)
> You probably think that this discussion is a waste, and frankly, I'm
> starting to believe it too. Nobody seems to understand/want to
> understand my point. So I just stop here. Any replies will not be
> replied to.
OK.
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
Agreed. It also depends on what the meaning of "audible" is
for you. We can easily "hear" high ultrasonic at high level,
just anyone in a sub :-) But, we do that with our skin.
>Many digital systems affect phase profoundly even well within the
>passband, and this may well have deleterious effects.
You mean antialias filters here?
>for the perfectly sound reason that the broadband noise isn't
>relevant; what's relevant is only that portion of it that masks a
>given pitch; and that is only the portion w/in a fraction of an 8ve
>of that pitch. This adds between 16 and 25 dB. Therefore the range of
>the mike is between 118 and 127 dB. No recording medium in the world
>will handle this!
But, James, the digital or analog system does not need the 16 to 25
dB, because you can hear below the digital (and most analog) noise,
considering the spectrum, of course, by the same amount. So, you are
comparing apples to oranges. You're left with 102 dB, give or take,
which is about 17 bits. You even get this in a 20 bit convertor,
sometimes. (There is something about "real bits" vs. "marketing
bits" to be said on another day here.)
>If you get that close to the digital limit--or at least if you did in
>those days (recording dates from about '91)--you're in trouble! We
>got to -3 on digital meters, and that was closer than I would have
>liked. Of course one cannot control this!
Well, one can record in 20 bits (now) and then scale carefully and
with appropriate dither (now).
>It is in fact *extremely* difficult to
>"match levels" between digital and analog master recordings.
Close to impossible for a lot of reasons, from how the meter
works to what "loudness" really is.
>Not
>difficult; impossible. They simply do not represent the dynamics the
>same way at all.
And no meter "dynamics" matches loudness in any substantial
way, either.
>If you match peaks, you're misrepresenting the
>averages; if averages are matched, you're misrepresening the peaks.
And neither conveys a decent sense of loudness.
>Cannot express the strength of disagreement I feel.
Well, James, the existance of euphonic distortions on LP's is
pretty clear, and you can NOT avoid them, they are part of the medium.
--
Copyright j...@research.att.com 2000, all rights reserved, except transmission
by USENET and like facilities granted. This notice must be included. Any
use by a provider charging in any way for the IP represented in and by this
article and any inclusion in print or other media are specifically prohibited.
Richard D Pierce
>>
>> ...since the 44.1/16 system is already able to handle the full
>> audible bandwidth (and then some) and most recordings are S/N limited
>> by microphones and mixers, I do not see what the 96/24 system can
>> offer in terms of practical improvements.
>
>
>passband, and this may well have deleterious effects.
I don't know what digital systems YOU'RE using, but you might
want to toss it out and buy something that's a little newer than
20 years old.
I have, in fact, measured the phase peformance of a LOT of
dgital and analog equipment over the years, and the current and
previous generation of digital equipment simply DOES NOT have
the phase shiftf you claim here. As just one quite ordinary
example: neglecting the input DC blocking cap, the total
input-to-output phase shift of an Orban AUDICY workstation
running at 44.1 kHz, through both A/D and D/A is within +-5
degrees out to 20 kHz. Bypass the input coupling cap, and the
phase shift is maintained within that +-5 degree limit all the
way from DC to 20 kHz. To 10 kHz, it is WELL within +- 2
degrees.
Show me ONE analog tape recorder that comes even remotely close
to this level of phase performance.
Please, the phase performance of digital systems simply has NOT
been an issue since the introduction some time ago of
oversampling antialias and anti-imaging filters. Your claims
that "many digital system profoundly effect phase within the
passband" MIGHT have been lagely true 15 years ago, but that
problem has been quite adequetely solved. There exist no
objective measurements on current digital mastering or even
playback hardware of phase (an objectively quantifiable
parameter) that supports this assertion.
Richard D Pierce
<ragge...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>In article <8br097$24r$1...@bourbaki.localdomain>,
>a...@borealis.com wrote:
>
>> Total hogwash. How well do you think vinyl will work without the RIAA
>> compensation and mono bass necessary to 'fix the problems'?
>
What FFT? What are you talking about? There is no "FFT" used in
CD recording, mixing, production, mastering or playback. What is
this supposed to mean.
>dithering, lowpass-filtering, oversampling yadda yadda. Seemingly
>nobody understands my point here.
Simply because your point is not tachnically valid.
>The LP NEEDS the RIAA and mono bass
>to make it work properly. Without the RIAA, the pickup would jump
>like a 'roo across the LP on strong bass-parts, and the surface noise
>would probably completely drown the treble unless you put the signal
>level at least 10 times higher than the 1 kHz level. And as for mono
>bass : The human ear starts loosing its sense for direction below 200
>Hz. At 80-100 Hz it is completely gone. So mono bass should not
>change anything significantly. So stereo below 100 Hz is a complete
>waste. Which is why you only need one sub-woofer in a system. And
>thus, I try for the third time to conclude : I AM NOT TRYING TO SAY
>THAT VINYL IS INHERENTLY BETTER, I AM TRYING TO SAY THAT CD'S AREN'T
>EITHER.
>They both need "support systems" to sound good. Which is better, is a
>matter of taste and ear.
Your mistake is the assumption that dithering and all is "a
support system." That's like claiming we have to put up with
support systems like microphones and microphone cables. Sorry,
but it is not a "support system" but rather an integral property
of the medium. RIAA is NOT an integral property in LP playback,
mono bass is NOT an integral property of LP playback. It is
perfectly possible to cut records without either.
> I personally like vinyl best. It gives me
>goosebumps more than CD's. But that is my opinion! Am I to be
>crusified for that?
No.
>starting to believe it too. Nobody seems to understand/want to
>understand my point. So I just stop here. Any replies will not be
>replied to.
Becasue your point is not technically valid. That's all
Arny Krüger
> Someone wrote about...
>
> > ...the gyrations an LP mastering engineering must go through,
including deliberate compression, steep low-pass filters,
>
> My own albums, on Performance Recordings (R) have...
>
> No "deliberate compression," No equalization (apart from RIAA of
> course), no "steep low-pass filters" that I'm aware of, no
> "mono-bass-sum networks." No nothing!
This begs the question: "Which is more audible, a steep low pass
filter starting at 22 KHz or a gentle one starting at 50 Hz?"
Given the great difficulty that out-of-phase bass causes vinyl
playback equipment, is the absence of bass control good or not?
Richard D Pierce
James Boyk <bo...@caltech.edu> wrote:
>Someone wrote about...
>
>> ...the gyrations an LP mastering engineering must go through, including deliberate compression, steep low-pass filters, mono-bass-sum networks and more, to get stuff on to an LP...
>
>My own albums, on Performance Recordings (R) have...
>
>No "deliberate compression," No equalization (apart from RIAA of
>course), no "steep low-pass filters" that I'm aware of, no
>"mono-bass-sum networks." No nothing!
And how many of the hundreds of thousands of LP releases are you
responsible for?
James, no one is claiming that you DELIBERATELY do anything
along these lines, but, really, beyond an extraordinarily small
number of esoteric (and often musically uninteresting, present
company excepted) releases can you nowestly say exhibit the kind
of care you put into your releases?
Howard Ferstler
>
> Howard Ferstler wrote:
> > "...So I have to assume that the analog-mastered version was
> > configured on purpose to sound somewhat louder than the digitally
> > mastered version, possibly because the engineers were worried about
> > overdriving the DAT on peaks...."
> Each version was mastered to the CD in the best way we knew how, to
> maximize its own quality. It is in fact *extremely* difficult to
> "match levels" between digital and analog master recordings. Not
> difficult; impossible. They simply do not represent the dynamics the
> same way at all. If you match peaks, you're misrepresenting the
> averages; if averages are matched, you're misrepresening the peaks.
> There is *no* "correct" way to do it! The way we (Doug Sax and I) did
> it was to treat each as a separate recording being mastered to CD as
> best we knew how.
I am a bit confused, here. Are you saying that if you
matched the peaks with either kind of technology that you
used to make the dual-format CD (digital master vs analog
master), the average levels would not be the same? Or that
if you matched averages with the two of them the peaks would
not be the same?
If this is the case, you are basically saying that one of
them is compressing or expanding the musical signals
themselves. Can they do this kind of thing as long as each
recorder (digital or analog) is working properly and neither
is being pushed past its design limits?
I mean, the last thing anyone would say about PCM digital
technology is that it compresses or expands the dynamic
range of program material itself as it is being recorded.
Also, I am not aware that analog technology will normally do
this, either, provided that recorder is not pushed past its
peak abilities.
So what is causing these changes in averages if peaks are
matched or peaks if the averages are matched, and which of
these technologies does the best job of reproducing the
dynamics of the music accurately? Again, my experience has
shown that the current PCM digital system does not compress
or expand musical content.
> However, it's the pure-analog Lp you should be comparing
to! After
> the CD, the Lp makes one fall on the floor.
I am curious about how this can be. I mean, the measured
distortion levels of the LP format will often be hundreds or
even thousands of times higher than what we get with the
current 16/44.1 system. In addition, in terms of wow,
background noise, channel separation, tracking distortion,
tracking error, etc. the CD certainly has a huge edge over
the LP. So, what is it about the LP, in terms of its ability
to be more accurate than the CD, that gives it the edge you
believe that it has?
> > ...As for the LP version, which I have not heard, it is quite
> > possible that the microphone and mixing techniques used to make it
> > were more complementary to the vinyl version than to the CD
> > versions.
> No no no. There *were* no "mixing techniques." My gear is chosen on
> ==>direct microphone feeds, that is, comparisons against live music.
> That's the way to find the equipment that will capture musical sound
> optimally, no matter what medium one uses.
Would you say that the LP more faithfully captures the
material on the master tape, or does the LP add sonic
embellishments that make for a more pleasant sound, even if
that sound is not as true to the master tape as what a CD
would be able to deliver?
> > The LP format can also often add some interesting and pleasant
> > distortions that make for a more satisfying listening experience with
> > certain speaker/room set ups.
> Cannot express the strength of disagreement I feel. As a professional
> performer, I simply want the very best possible capturing of the
> music I make! And I've had many experiences--in Sheffield Lab
> sessions, e.g.--listening to live mike feeds and then immediately
> hearing a master lacquer played back on an ordinary turntable, where
> the differences were so tiny that it was shocking. I've done this at
> Sheffield Drum Record sessions, LAPhilharmonic "Firebird" sessions,
> etc. etc. True, the master lacquer is better than a finished
> Lp--primarily in S/N--but nevertheless has very similar character.
I assume that you give the edge to the LP, even though we
have the higher distortion levels it exhibits, compared to
the CD. However, I do have to point out that studies have
shown that if there is a delay of even a few seconds between
switchovers from one source to another, acoustic memory can
play tricks with the mind. An instantaneous switchover is
best, and that could be done between the master tape and the
finished LP and then again between the same master and the
finished CD. Are you saying that with a comparison of that
kind the LP would reproduce the master tape that made them
better than the CD could?
Howard Ferstler
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
Richard D Pierce <world!DPi...@uunet.uu.net> wrote:
>James, no one is claiming that you DELIBERATELY do anything
>along these lines, but, really, beyond an extraordinarily small
>number of esoteric (and often musically uninteresting, present
>company excepted) releases can you nowestly say exhibit the kind
>of care you put into your releases?
Frankly, nearly all recordings I find have completely discarded any
attempt at a reasonable ITD and ILD (Interaural level difference,
interaural time difference), and then they wonder why people think
the soundstage stinks...
I think it might be one thing Dick, JB and I all agree on here.
James Boyk
> "James Boyk" <jb...@earthlink.net> wrote...
> > My own albums, on Performance Recordings (R) have... No "deliberate compression," No equalization (apart from RIAA of course), no "steep low-pass filters" that I'm aware of, no "mono-bass-sum networks." No nothing!
> filter starting at 22 KHz or a gentle one starting at 50 Hz?"
I don't follow. The steep filter at 22kHz can have very deleterious
effects; that's why so many ADCs arrange to avoid it by oversampling,
etc. But what "gentle" low-pass filter starting at 50 Hz are you
referring to?
> Given the great difficulty that out-of-phase bass causes vinyl
> playback equipment, is the absence of bass control good or not?
Again, I don't understand. If one uses coincident miking--which is a
good thing to do for multiple other reasons--the bass difference
signal does not create problems in disk-cutting.
James Boyk
Arny Krüger
> "Arny Krüger" wrote:
>
> > "James Boyk" <jb...@earthlink.net> wrote...
> > > My own albums, on Performance Recordings (R) have... No
"deliberate compression," No equalization (apart from RIAA of
course), no "steep low-pass filters" that I'm aware of, no
"mono-bass-sum networks." No nothing!
>
> > This begs the question: "Which is more audible, a steep low pass
> > filter starting at 22 KHz or a gentle one starting at 50 Hz?"
>
> I don't follow. The steep filter at 22kHz can have very
deleterious
> effects; that's why so many ADCs arrange to avoid it by
oversampling,
> etc.
Simply not true. Oversampling, etc. moves the steep filter at 22 KHz
from the analog domain (a very costly place to realize such things)
into the digital domain (dirt cheap and getting cheaper). However,
the "steep filter" remains.
If you don't mean that ALL "steep filters" cause audible problems,
then why use those words?
>But what "gentle" low-pass filter starting at 50 Hz are you
referring to?
RIAA de-emphasis. Almost always implemented in analog where
component shifts can make its parameters vary from ideal. Miss one
or more corner frequencies by a little and you get big, wide,
highly-audible shelves.
If vinyl playback were REALLY technologically-driven we'd already
have preamps that do what the latest computer disk drives do - have
a minimal preamp to get the levels up, digitize and then use a DSP
to do the necessary processing in the best possible way. This could
sit on a chip that weighs a few grams and rides on the back of the
cartridge.
> > Given the great difficulty that out-of-phase bass causes vinyl
playback equipment, is the absence of bass control good or not.
> Again, I don't understand. If one uses coincident miking--which is
a
> good thing to do for multiple other reasons--the bass difference
> signal does not create problems in disk-cutting.
Regrettably this avoids having phase variations in low frequency
sounds that one or more recent AES papers suggest contribute to a
sense of "aliveness".
James Boyk
>
> James Boyk <bo...@caltech.edu> wrote:
> >My own albums, on Performance Recordings (R) have...No "deliberate compression," No equalization (apart from RIAA of course), no "steep low-pass filters" that I'm aware of, no "mono-bass-sum networks." No nothing!
> And how many of the hundreds of thousands of LP releases are you
> responsible for?
Um... ahem... uh.... (ah! I've got it!)... "I'm sorry, those numbers
are confidential."
> James, no one is claiming that you DELIBERATELY do anything along
> these lines, but, really, beyond an extraordinarily small number of
> esoteric (and often musically uninteresting, present company
> excepted) releases can you nowestly say exhibit the kind of care you
> put into your releases?
Gosh... how embarrassing... *must* I admit that my records are better
than others'?
James Boyk
James Boyk
> Would you say that the LP more faithfully captures the material on
> the master tape, or does the LP add sonic embellishments that make
> for a more pleasant sound, even if that sound is not as true to the
> master tape as what a CD would be able to deliver?
The whole recording chain ending in the Lp more faithfully captures
the original sound than the whole recording chain ending in the CD.
The ambience is better represented, the tone color of that particular
piano, the harmonic decay of sustained notes. The musical dynamics
are *much* better represented. To me as the performer, the difference
is musically significant.
James Boyk
James Boyk
> ...Are you saying that if you matched the peaks with either kind of
> technology that you used to make the dual-format CD (digital master
> vs analog master), the average levels would not be the same? Or that
> if you matched averages with the two of them the peaks would not be
> the same?
Right. Of course.
> ...If this is the case, you are basically saying that one of them
> is compressing or expanding the musical signals themselves.
This is indeed the implication.
> ...So...which of these technologies does the best job of
> reproducing the dynamics of the music accurately? Again, my
> experience has shown that the current PCM digital system does not
> compress or expand musical content.
Oh, the best (direct-to-disk) Lp clearly does a better job of
reproducing musical dynamics than any CD-format digital I've heard.
And the best analog tape does a better job than CD also, in my
experience. I think it would be a fairly unusual professional
recording engineer who would disagree with these statements,
actually. I think there's a lot of agreement about the virtues of
analog master recording. But whether there is or not, such are my
views.
Regarding PCM's compressing or not, do you mean that you have
measured such systems under dynamic conditions similar to music
signal?
Analog recording certainly can compress when pushed, though in a
complex way. And the degree to which this is heard is also a complex
function of the duration of the peak, its spectrum, etc. Do remember
however that peaks are precisely the parts of the signal that do
"push" the system. (One advantage of Dolby SR is that one need not
every push the system at all; but I don't use noise reduction in my
own work.) As for CD-format digital, I simply don't know whether any
given digital system compresses, expands or does neither; and I am
not well-inclined toward arguments that it "can't" have bad effects.
I remember too vividly all the similar arguments twenty years ago
about how it "had" to be perfect. Yet look at us, here we all are,
trembling on the verge of admitting that, gosh, higher-bit and/or
higher-rate digital systems really Are better than CD-format
digital.
> > Would you say that the LP more faithfully captures the material on
> the master tape, or does the LP add sonic embellishments that make
> for a more pleasant sound, even if that sound is not as true to the
> master tape as what a CD would be able to deliver?
Yes, I would say that the Lp "more faithfully captures the material
on the master tape," and that the tape + Lp *system* more faithfully
captures the actual original sound of that piano, that pianist (me),
that room...that event! I'm sorry if this statement is too diffident,
but I'm like that: I've always been shy.
One phrase that Drives Me Up the Wall is "euphonic colorations." I'd
thought it was banned for the 3rd Millennium, but something must have
gone wrong. In the 60's we were told that we only liked tubes because
of their "euphonic colorations." We were told that by people who
didn't play an instrument, had never attended a concert, people to
whom musical sound was not life and death...but somehow they knew
what they Ought to hear. No, we didn't like the tube amps--the
Dynacos and the Marantzes--because of errors they had! We liked them
because they were infinitely superior to and More Accurate than, the
solid-state amps *of that era*! Everyone now agrees about this! No
one *now* says that *those* solid-state amps were good. Everyone
acknowledges--now!--that they were lousy. But at that time*, it took
strength of character--or having ears--to say, "Wait a minute. Those
solid-state amps are the cat's meow all right, but they Sound
lousy."
To me, the CD has been a replay of that earlier story. It's been new,
it's been technologically neat, it's been convenient--and it's been
lousy. And I confidently predict that Everyone will agree about this
by 2005; maybe sooner. There is also no question in my mind that by
2010 or sooner, musicians and music lovers will regard the first
years of the Compact Disk as a Lost Era in music recording; an era,
that is, whose great performances are lost because the Compact Disk
medium not allow them to be heard.
I'm sorry about the pallid way I express these things. I'm working on
expressing myself more vividly.
> I assume that you give the edge to the LP, even though we have the
> higher distortion levels it exhibits, compared to the CD.
Did I not express myself clearly? I'm saying that when a master
lacquer is heard Against the Live Microphone Feed Coming Over the
Control-Room Speakers, it can be very very close. I've heard it be so
close that professional recording engineers visiting the session
turned their heads and stared at each other. To be sure, the final Lp
isn't so good as the lacquer, but it hasn't lost all that much,
either. So what distortion levels are you talking about?
Have you ever actually made a recording yourself--a high-quality
recording--and had it cut onto lacquer at a top-quality facility?
Have you then compared the Lp with the master tape? Have you then
found--as I have--that in a system calibrated to within an inch of
its life, with frequency response matched virtually perfectly across
the whole band, it can be very difficult to pick the lacquer from the
master tape?
*
A major problem that goes unnoticed--this is a very odd thing to say,
I know, especially in this group--is that Most People's Systems
Aren't Very Good. And I don't care how much has been spent on them.
When tested *without* any storage medium, without any recording, but
direct from the microphones, most equipment simply can't "cut it."
This is a simple fact, as can be attested by anyone who has listened
this way *while comparing to the live music.*
This simple fact means that almost all the judgments people make are
distorted. But don't trust *me* on this; just get your own superb
mikes and mike preamps and do your own evaluations against the live
feed. You'll fall over when you hear how just-plain-bad most gear is.
(And no, equipment manufacturers do *not* do such evaluations. If you
saw how casually they do their so-called "listening tests," or how
they don't do any at all, you'd never buy another piece of gear!)
> ...studies have shown that if there is a delay of even a few
> seconds between switchovers from one source to another, acoustic
> memory can play tricks with the mind. An instantaneous switchover is
> best...
In my view, instantaneous switchovers are death, because they
highlight any tiny differences in frequency response between the
things being tested; and those are precisely the differences that
matter the least in long-term listening.
James Boyk
> ...the mold release junk thats down in the grooves of the disk.
> Thats where all the music is.
Record-pressing people tell me that there is no "mold release junk."
I don't know where this fiction got started.
As to "where the music is," it's in the modulation of the groove
walls. I shouldn't think it would matter how high or low you are on
the walls, so long as you're reading them accurately. Perhaps best to
read as much of them as you can--as big a top-to-bottom segment as
possible, that is--to improve S/N.
James Boyk
> Now, LP's simply don't have the dynamic range capability of other
> media. That's a fact.
Don't forget to add +18 dB for Lp headroom over the standard 0 level
of 3.54 cm/s. Greater level could be put on the disk if one knew for
sure that everyone had good-tracking cartridges, but of course
everyone doesn't. The +18 figure is level that actually works in
practice.
Digital systems are often spec'd from a 0 level which represents the
actual overload point--or just short of it. Analog systems are always
spec'd from a level substantially below the overload point. The
difference is the 18 dB in question here, or even more; sometimes 20
dB.
Doug Stabler
I know of on very respected recording engineer that would disagree
with you. That would be the late Gabe Weiner. Below is a clipped quote
from Gabe to rec.audio. pro before he passed away.
"Accuracy to original recording is nearly impossible on
vinyl. The
sheer number of physical distortions that exist due to the
cutting
process render any notion of accuracy pretty meaningless.
The test of comparing vinyl disk to digital copy of vinyl
disk is not
something that I suspect you do "all the time" and may not
be
something you're even remotely interested in doing. But
that was the
topic of discussion.
>Following your logic therefore, that which can't be measured doesn't
>exist?
That does not follow from my logic.
Nowhere in my assertion did I say anything about
measurement. My
assertion was that in a well-run listening test (i.e. one
which rules
out the biases associated with non-aural attributes), it is
virtually
impossible to discern analog original from digital copy,
demonstrating
that the "mystery distortion" fallacy is just that.
What follows from my logic is: If you can't hear it, it
doesn't exist.
And you haven't heard it until you can prove you haven't
imagined it.
>It is completely debatable based entirely on your definition of
>accuracy.
Here it comes!
Accuracy: The ability to reproduce an electrical signal
such that the reproduced signal is indistinguishable from
the original in any test we would care to run.
>And I assume your "empirical research" invalidates that which many,
>many inteligent, rational thinking people HEAR?
Sometimes I think people are blind as well as deaf, because
they
surely don't bother to read the posts on this newsgroup.
NOWHERE did
anyone attempt to invalidate what you or your friends HEAR.
You are
entitled to hear whatever you want. But your entitlement is
solely a
function of PREFERENCE. If you prefer vinyl, great.
Enjoy. But what
you're hearing is a stylized, inaccurate, 2nd-harmonic-rich
rendition
of an original microphone feed.
The test is very simple. We can take a source....ANY
source....and
make a digital copy of it, and cut a vinyl record of it.
And in a
well-run test, given three buttons in front of you, you
would not be
able to discern which is the original source and which is
the digital
copy. Vinyl is pleasurable to listen to, but it is
pleasurable by its
nature as a signal processor, not as an accurate reproducer.
No experience that you or your friends have can undo this
reality.
Hate to break it to you.
> LISTEN TO THE MUSIC and listen to your ears.
I do. And they tell me that digital audio, properly
implemented,
reproduces musical signals with far more accuracy than any
vinyl disk
is capable of. And after all, we are after transcription of
musical
events, not revisionist history here.
> Perfect sound forever, huh?
You demonstrate your lack of ability at conducting an
intelligent
argument by waving the ol' "perfect sound forever" flag, as
if the
clamorings of Sony/Philips marketeers 15 years ago has
anything to do
with modern digital audio technology.
ow ironic you bring this up, when a digital copy of an LP is
indistinguishable from the original when played on good
equipment in
any environment normally used for home listening.
ow ironic you bring this up, when a digital copy of an LP is
indistinguishable from the original when played on good
equipment in
any environment normally used for home listening."
Howard Ferstler
> In my view, instantaneous switchovers are death, because they
> highlight any tiny differences in frequency response between the
> things being tested; and those are precisely the differences that
> matter the least in long-term listening.
Well, in my experience quick switchovers are able highlight
a whole lot more than just frequency-response differences.
Acoustic memory being what it is, doing the comparing any
other way is asking for trouble. Note that I am not saying
that long-term listening is not to be done. I am just saying
that when it comes time to make the switchover, the
switchover has to be done very quickly.
And I should also note that precise level matching is also
important (which is why I had problems dealing with and and
judging your dual-source compact disc), and if the frequency
response is not the same between two components, it is going
to be very difficult sometimes to get those levels matched
effectively.
In any case, since you do not believe that
frequency-response differences matter all that much, just
what do you believe does matter?
Howard Ferstler
Eric Barry
> James, no one is claiming that you DELIBERATELY do anything
> along these lines, but, really, beyond an extraordinarily small
> number of esoteric (and often musically uninteresting, present
> company excepted) releases can you nowestly say exhibit the kind
> of care you put into your releases?
>
Stereophile column states there is about 4db between average and
peak levels on the recent Santana album.
The problem is even worse on reissues (just using my ears here). I
can't speak for classical, but virtually any pop or jazz cd reissue
mastered before 20-bit converters sounds anywhere from atrocious to
decent, even when the original lp pressings and subsequent
remasterings indicate the potential for good to great sound.
--Eric
Richard D Pierce
Eric Barry <ed...@columbia.edu> wrote:
>Richard D Pierce wrote:
>> James, no one is claiming that you DELIBERATELY do anything
>> along these lines, but, really, beyond an extraordinarily small
>> number of esoteric (and often musically uninteresting, present
>> of care you put into your releases?
>>
>But the same caveat must be raised about cd. For instance a recent
>Stereophile column states there is about 4db between average and
>peak levels on the recent Santana album.
>
>The problem is even worse on reissues (just using my ears here). I
>can't speak for classical, but virtually any pop or jazz cd reissue
>mastered before 20-bit converters sounds anywhere from atrocious to
>decent, even when the original lp pressings and subsequent
>remasterings indicate the potential for good to great sound.
Why does this point to ANYTHING but incompetence in the
mastering process. The fact that a change occured coincident
with the introduction of one piece of technology proves nothnig
about the causal links with that technology.
Yeah, it's trivially easy to make a bad recording, be it LP or
CD. I'm sure Mr. Boyk would agree with me on this one. There's
plenty of evidence out there to support the assertion,
unfortunately. Frankly, the all-time WORST recording I have, bar
none, is the Columbia LP release of of Bernstein conductiing the
NYP in moscow doing Shostavich's 5th Symphony. Historically
significant perfomance be damend, this is the must putrid,
hideously awful recording of ANY kind I have ever heard.
And the inherent limitations of the medium, in this case as in
many, have NOTHING to do with how awful it sounds.
And because it's actually cheaper to make CDs than LPs, it's
easier for more people to produce and release CDs: regrettably,
any incompetent, deaf moron can do it and, regrettably many do.
Indeed, there are some fine LP releases out there, I have never
denied such. But the VAST majority of LPs are simply
overproduced, incompetently engineered abominations.
And there are some fine CD releases out there, I have never
denied such. But the VAST majority of CDs are simply
overproduced, incompetently engineered abominations.
The problem comes when some equally incompetent magazine writer,
editor, reviewer gets ahold of one of these, combines it with a
decidedly anti-scientific agenda rooted in technical ignorance,
and then declares as if it were some universal on par with the
conservation of energy, that LP's are inherently superior, more
musical, warmer, whatever, than CDs.
I challenge ANY one of these self-annointed experts to sit down
and listen to examples like the Bernstein Shostakovich 5th
without running screaming from the room.
But, draw irrational and unjustified conclusions to suit
preconceived notions? Sure, that, it's to be supposed, is what
it's all about.
James Boyk
> ...If one uses co-incident miking, one throws away, irretrevably,
> one of the most important of psychoacoustic cues, ITD. Why would one
> do that?
I don't know why "one" would do that, I only know why I do it. I use
Blumlein miking with ribbons because it gives the best imaging I know
how to achieve. When I find something better, I'll change. Moreover,
the form of your question--as of most of your posts--is insulting. It
makes me sound as though I must be an idiot, instead of a producer
with over two decades' experience, whose recordings have received
rave reviews on two continents for both musicianship and sound
quality, including reference-standard imaging, a subject on which
I've produced a demo recording called "the argument-stopper" in
HFN&RR, and "highly recommended" by John Eargle.
James Boyk
James Boyk
> One has to ask: How on on earth can a recording medium affect notes
> played on a piano in a studio? Does the CD recorder supernaturally
> reach out and dampen certain piano strings on the soundboard? Or
> does the recorder do a fast-fourier analysis and say to itself: I
> don't like some of those harmonics in that sustained note, I think
> I'll change them?
What you say above implies that all recording media are perfect! Do
you really think that?
Of course the recorder doesn't affect the playing of the notes, it
affects how they are captured and preserved.
Play one note on a fine piano and listen to the individual harmonics
as it decays. (I've taught this to students in my Caltech course for
20 years.) Now record that piano in a variety of ways and you find
that some microphones, some preamps, some recorders mask what the
harmonics are doing, and thereby interfere with the music and the
interpretation. (See http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/ARTICLES.HTM
for various relevant articles.)
On most piano recordings, *everything* is misrepresented: the attacks
('short-term dynamics'), the long-term dynamics, the harmonic decay,
the spatiality. I've described all this in detail elsewhere.
What's the difficulty with appreciating this fact?
Or were you just being provocative? Or was it a joke? If so, sorry I
missed it.
James Boyk
meaningful way. I got into this when trying to specify Magnesaurus,
my custom master recorder. It's quite an interesting subject--gets
you into all kinds of byways--but it's not something to pick up in an
afternoon.
Just as an example, here's how I ended up specifying not S/N but....
*
Dynamic Range: 78+ dB (Signal-to-Noise + Headroom)
Signal to Noise Ratio: 64 dB, from 0 VU (230 nW/m ANSI) down to
CCIR/ARM-weighted noise. Tape played back on Ampex ATR.
Headroom: 14.6 dB above 0 VU was measured on true peak meter from
master tape for album pr7.
Note: Tones can be heard down into the noise. This extension,
which ranges from 16 to 25 dB, is not included in the above figure.
If it were, the rating would be between 94 and 103 dB. It is this
figure that should be compared with those for dithered digital
systems.
*
Full specs at http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/351.htm
James Boyk
James Boyk
> ...it's trivially easy to make a bad recording, be it LP or CD. I'm
> sure Mr. Boyk would agree with me on this one.
Absolutely... and it would be amusing to right a really careful guide
to how to do it.
James Boyk
Stewart Pinkerton
Nice try, but let's not forget that vinyl surface noise is around
50-60 db *at best* below the 0dB level, giving you a best possible
dynamic range of around 75-80dB even with a 'hot' cut. Compare and
contrast with the 93dB range of yer average CD, requiring no special
care to achieve. LP's simply don't have the dynamic range capability
of other media. That's a fact.
--
Stewart Pinkerton | Music is art, audio is engineering
Stewart Pinkerton
>Howard Ferstler wrote:
>
>> Would you say that the LP more faithfully captures the material on
>> the master tape, or does the LP add sonic embellishments that make
>> for a more pleasant sound, even if that sound is not as true to the
>> master tape as what a CD would be able to deliver?
>
>The whole recording chain ending in the Lp more faithfully captures
>the original sound than the whole recording chain ending in the CD.
>The ambience is better represented, the tone color of that particular
>piano, the harmonic decay of sustained notes. The musical dynamics
>are *much* better represented. To me as the performer, the difference
>is musically significant.
This is a combination of personal preference and misinformation. It is
absolutely and provably the case that CD is significantly more
transparent to the source than is LP. Make a CD-R of an LP and it
sounds just like the LP. Now try cutting an LP from a CD.......
The dynamic range of CD is *at least* 20dB greater than that of LP, so
the ambience of the original location is clearly better reproduced by
CD, as is the natural decay of say solo piano. Of course, the midband
phasiness and surface noise of LP give an *impression* of ambience,
but that's just like turning up the reverb a little.........
Regarding tone colour, again CD is transparent and LP adds noticeable
colouration, which may well be euphonic, leading to a *preference* for
that distinctive sound. You are entitled to your personal preference
as to which sounds 'better' to *you*, but let's stay off the
absolutes, huh?
Arny Krüger
>
> In my view, instantaneous switchovers are death, because they
> highlight any tiny differences in frequency response between the
> things being tested; and those are precisely the differences that
> matter the least in long-term listening.
My Boyk, I think we agree that passages of music vary greatly in
terms of their technical content. I believe that your web site has a
good, clear accurate report of one aspect of this posted at
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/spectra/spectra.htm .
The nature of audible defects in equipment is that they are
triggered by sounds that have certain technical content.
One very clear example of this triggering effect was reported in
Carlstrom, David, Greenhill, Laurence, Krueger, Arnold, "Some
Amplifiers Do Sound Different", The Audio Amateur, 3/82, p. 30, 31,
also reprinted in Hi-Fi News & Record Review, Link House Magazines,
United Kingdom, Dec 1982, p. 37.
In this article, certain bass notes, when played though a certain
loudspeaker at a certain level triggered audible misbehavior in a
highly-reviewed amplifier from a well-known manufacturer. What many
found interesting was the fact that a far less costly amplifer from
a far less well-known manufacturer lacked this fault and seemed to
have no other audible faults.
Not all passages of music will trigger reliable perception of all
audible defects all of the time.
I call sounds that trigger audible misbehavior in audio equipment
"critical passages".
IME, it is far more common for technical defects of many kinds to be
reliably audible with only a very small percentage of all music.
If one has a collection of critical passages to test with, one can
reliably hear audible defects in equipment in short order. I have
been trying to assemble a collection of critical passages that are
freely redistributable, and keep them posted at
ftp://ftp.pcabx.com/pub/download/SAMPLES/ . I provide an easy index
to using them at http://www.pcabx.com/listening_room.htm .
IME using a catalog of critical passges is easier if one has some
technical tests that correlate with the critical passages. Technical
tests, if they can be readily and reliably analyzed in terms of
audibilty, are faster, more sensitive and more reliable than
listening tests. Nevertheless, listening tests are where we make our
final judgements of sound quality.
IMO what you are describing might be more-or-less randomly wandering
through a bunch of music not knowing well what specifically to
listen for.
Eventually you seem to have found something, but still your post
suggests you don't know exactly what you heard.
Of course, since you did not say you did your comparisons blind, the
experiences you are reporting might be basically metaphysical, and
your post might be just be reporting your malaise over one thing
over another...
Richard D Pierce
Unfortunately, there is no need to. What about the collections
of those texts on how to do it right? Who pays attention to
them? How awful does YOUR local FM station sound?