J

Joe Schmoe

Audioholic Ninja
Like a lot of the older guys here, I also have a huge vinyl collection which I return to fairly often.
I also used to have a huge vinyl collection in great condition. I sold them all when CDs rendered LPs obsolete.:cool:
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Good thread

I think this has been a useful thread. I'm posting here part of an earlier post about the LP that may be useful, an earlier post on analog tape. I'm also including something I put together some time ago about the early US tape recorder scene at the request of British audio historian Barry Jones.

The LP was the first mass market high fidelity play back medium. It is a really high fidelity medium, make no mistake. There are some significant caveats.

The LP is easily ruined by poor handling and play back equipment. Unless handling of the disc has been obsessional, it will pick up numerous ticks pops, clicks and high scratchy surface noise. However carefully handled, the LP is one of the most durable of all media. I have LPs in my collection that I have had since a child, over fifty years, that still play perfectly. The only cleaning they have had is with a good dry brush and the use of the Cecil E Watts Dust Bug with every playing. They have never been left lying around, and always correctly returned to their jackets after playing.

The other problem is that inferior or poorly set up turntables and those with worn out styli do permanent damage to the disc.

The difference between a CD player costing a hundred dollars or less and one costing $10,000 dollars is not extreme. However the difference in performance between the turntable you describe, and a top end transcription turntable from one of the great manufacturers, such as Thorens or Garrard, with an arm from say, SME, completed with a fine pickup cartridge is light years apart.

The other thing is that setting up a turntable is a leaned skill. CD players are plug and go.

As to the fidelity of the LP, under the best of circumstances it is a match for the CD. I do have some items that I have bought on CD and the originally issued LP sounds better. That is not the fault of CD, but due to sloppy re mastering. It is true that the LP is a little deficient in dynamic range, but not by much. In the hey day of the LP, the mastering engineers and cutters were highly skilled and generally stayed in their jobs a lifetime. Most of them used manual gain riding and did not use compressors. They knew the music well and would gently and unobtrusively gain ride. They would do the same with bass now and again. However they were skilled in spacing the grooves. In the quiet passages and when there was little bass they would space the groves closer, and widen them in the louder parts with heavier bass, to avoid the dreaded grove "kissing". I have a feeling that much more care was taken with "classical" productions than "pop" ones. At least during the time of the LP. classical mastering engineers were no race to the bottom, like we have now. They generally mastered to the needs of those with superior equipment. If your turntable could not track it and plowed through the grooves ruining them for ever, tough luck! Certainly the fidelity of the LP is far superior to any MP3 file, even at the highest bit rate supported by the codec. I have verified that.

A word about cleaning. Do not clean the record with detergent and water and a cloth. That will drive dirt and deposits deep in the grooves and increase surface noise. I would try dry cleaning first, with a Hunts Brush for instance. Try and get a Cecil E Watts Dust Bug on eBay, and use it with every playing. Do not use the anti static fluid.

For wet cleaning there is no substitute for a professional cleaner from Keith Monks, Loricraft or Nitty Gritty. There are quite a few outfits that will clean records for a modest charge. If you feel compelled to try yourself, you can try a 50/50 mixture of pure isopropyl alcohol and distilled water. However without vacuum the results will be very uncertain and could drive the dirt deeper.

You don't say how many records you are planning to archive. However before spending money, I think you should see if the discs are in any condition worth archiving. I would be happy to try a couple of samples for you, and make CDs. Just let me know if you would like that.

If you want to archive, you need to know that your cartridge is in working order. The stylus should be inspected at least. Also over time the damping material in the suspensions changes compliance, severely degrading performance. Also remember Ortofon made moving magnet and moving coil cartridges, and they require very different preamps. On a turntable you describe, I doubt it has a moving coil, and feel it is most likely to be moving magnet.

If yours records are worth archiving, and you want to go ahead, then I strongly recommend you go on the site of Jerry Raskin "Needle Doctor". I have no financial interest in the outfit at all. They have been in "Dinky Town" Minneapolis for years. They have a wide range of disc equipment for all tastes and budgets. The staff are knowledgeable and helpful.

http://www.needledoctor.com/

Here are his phono preamp offerings.

http://www.needledoctor.com/Online-S...ge=1,50,96

He has cartridges galore and a good selection of turntables.

Here is the thread on analog tape stuff.

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37608
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
History of the early American streo tape era and staggered head recorders

I have had to put this piece, on the early years of stereo tape in America, I put together at the request of British audio Historian Barry Jones on another post due to length. Here it is.

Here is what I wrote to Barry Jones with special reference to the era of the stereo staggered head recorders.


You might want to verify my information. I will copy to Geoff as he may be able to revise and extend what information I'm going to give you.
The first staggered head recorder was the Magnecord, 1951.

http://online.sfsu.edu/~hl/s.html

I'm not sure of the head spacing.
This whole era is complicated, as there was no agreed head spacing. All the tapes I own, have different delays between channels and so must have been produced for different machines.
RCA produced a big repertoire of staggered head tapes prior to 1959. In 1959 RCA invented and produced the four track stacked head, and the era of the two sided stereo tape began. The history of all this is difficult, as the RCA head office and archives in Camden NJ were bulldozed into barges on the Delaware River, with no attempt to preserve their important technical archives. I have tried to do extensive research on this era but information is sparse. I have managed to get some data. I have established that the head spacing was 0.66667sec at 7.5 ips. The other point of contention is the equalization of these tapes and their stacked two and four track tapes, and for that matter their masters. They said their equalization was to the NATB curve. All I can tell you is that all RCA tapes play back hot and need equalization, and so do CDs made from their master tapes of that era. I have made extensive inquiries to find the time constants of the curve they used. I have been completely unsuccessful. I have to believe that information was bulldozed into the Delaware River.
This matter is not trivial because this was a golden period for RCA, with lots of fine opera recordings, and recordings of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Riener being especially notable. At that time RCA made their own tape machines. These recordings were mastered on three channel machines. The Mercury Living presence and some Capitol recordings were made mostly on three channel Ampex machines or three channel optical recorders. These recordings are now being issued in three channel SACD. The Mercury recordings were made by Robert and Wilma Fine. Wilma Cozart Fine is still alive, and in her nineties and has a three channel Ampex recorder. Decca who have the Mercury masters hired Wilma Cozart fine to re master the recordings to three channel SACD. She commissioned a custom recorder from a Japanese builder. When she verified it was better than the Ampex machine, that is what she used to play back the masters. I have to say she did a fantastic job. I have some of these SACDs and they are astounding. These recordings, always good, now live up to the hype, as the buzz was always, "yes but you should hear the three channel tapes". Well now we can.
The RCA reissues however are another matter. BMG hold the rights to these. The re mastering of these has been sloppy. I, and others have noticed that they have the equalization error! This makes them sound unpleasantly bright.
Anyhow I digress, but it is important history. The RCA staggered tapes could be played on their machines, but RCA domestic machines were never plentiful. Most of these tapes were, and still are, played on machines made by the Voice of Music Company of Benton Harbor Michigan.
They produced machines with the correct head spacing to play the RCA tapes. When the stacked head tapes came out, they made machines that could be switched between staggered and stacked heads. They can be recognized by controls over the head assembly.
The Voice of Music Company products have always had an enthusiast following and individuals who preserve and restore their products.

http://www.thevoiceofmusic.com/index.htm

This site contains good photographs of all their products.

I have never had a staggered head RCA tape in my hands. These tapes do come up on eBay and usually fetch $250 to $300 each. I have got in touch with some purchasers, and they have all been owners and enthusiasts of Voice of Music Company products. The staggered head tapes that I posses, have been by Sonotape and Livingstone. They do not have the RCA head spacing.
I'm attaching a couple of pictures of Wav. files as a word document, so you should be able to open it. On the first stereo Wav. file you will see the delay between the channels. The second Wav. file shows the channels synchronized.
There were I believe, other manufacturers producing staggered head machines, but information is very sketchy, and I have not devoted the time to it. I think I have introduced you to the most important companies involved in this era, which in its prime was short lived and chaotic. There were a lot of strange audio devices in this era that are footnotes. One of the most interesting and colorful was Earl "Madman" Muntz, and his four track cartridge machines.


http://www.answers.com/topic/4-track-cartridge

I don't recall staggered tapes being issued in the UK. The RCA offerings were however extensive over here, even prior to the official launch of stereo in 1958.
The other thing is I remember the British prerecorded commercial tapes as being very low fidelity, and not plentiful. In the UK everybody thought that discs were best and probably are. However it turns out that commercial four and two track tapes were plentiful here. They circulate on eBay in enormous quantities, almost all from American sellers, very few from anywhere else. There are two sisters, one Deborah Gunn, trading as reel-lady in California and her sister Jayne Swanson, trading as reel-sister, in Missouri, find and sell these tapes in astonishing quantities, and have quite remarkable offerings. Deborah recently had a huge sale of "madman" Muntz's four track cartridge tapes.
I have bought quite a collection of reel to reel tapes. I'm astonished at the fidelity compared to what I remember from my youth in the UK. RCA and Columbia produced their own. Decca, DGG and EMI had their tapes produced superbly by Ampex. ARGO and Phillips were produced over here by Barclay Crocker, almost all as Dolby B four track tapes. Ampex produced quite a bit of the Decca inventory as Dolby B tapes. I bought one of old Harry Kloss's Advent Dolby B encoder/decoders, not working for a song on eBay. I have restored it. I'm astonished at the quality of these Dolby B tapes.
Also an eccentric engineer Harry Belock, who made a fortune designing and manufacturing guided missile systems back in the fifties, was a tape recorder nut. In his works he designed and had built his own mixers and tape recorders, and then hired orchestras and famous conductors to let him record works. Back in the late fifties his equipment was more advanced than anything anybody else had. He issued real time 2 track copies of the masters at 7.5 ips. He also issued high speed copy four tracks and LPS. He did not like disc and the LPS did not have due care and attention. He sold all this under the Everest label. I have acquired two of his real time two tracks. Sir Adrian Boult conducting Mahler No1. The only Mahler Boult ever recorded, and many consider the best recorded performance ever. And I have Malcolm Arnold conducting his Scottish Dances. The fidelity and impact of these tapes is unbelievable. Any one who hears these are totally blown away.
Any way it seems to me tape had a much bigger role in the history of Hi-Fi in the US than in the UK.
 
adam71

adam71

Junior Audioholic
I also used to have a huge vinyl collection in great condition. I sold them all when CDs rendered LPs obsolete.:cool:
WRONG AGAIN !!!

There were MORE vinyls sold in the past 3 years than the 10 years before that. FAR from obselete. Not really sure why you have such a passion for hating vinyl when it is clearly one of the HIGHEST fidelity mediums (the absloute highest in my opinion) in the history of music playback. To each his own for sure but you don't have to hate on it.













As far as fidelity is concerned, I would rank formats accordingly.
1. vinyl
2. DVD-Audio and SACD
3. CD
4. mp3 (if in variable bitrate via the ubernet standard using the LAME encoder)
5. cassette
6. 8 track
 
Coheednme13

Coheednme13

Audioholic
Everyone keeps commenting on vinyl having a larger dynamic range than CD's. I don't believe this is true, however I'm no expert. But I do know this. CD's in this day and age are mixed hot meaning there is only about a 6db(+/-3) range while older LP's had an average range of say 12db(+/-6). This has to do with recording practices not the medium of delivery. Radio stations need all of their music to sound relatively level matched. Therefore, many new vinyl LP's probabley are mixed hot and many older CD's have larger dynamic ranges than those CD's mixed today.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Dynamic range.

You are correct. The LP has less dynamic range than CD. Prior to noise reduction systems analog tape had a usable dynamic range of 60db. So that limited the LP prior to Dolby A and dbx1 to 60 db. Analog tape with noise reduction has a dynamic range of 95 to 100db with good master tape at 30 ips. 90 to 95 at 15 ips. That is assuming a track width of 1/8 inch or greater.

After the advent of noise reduction the LP could manage a dynamic range of 70db. The CD has a usable dynamic range of around 96 db, some would say 90db in practice.

SACD has a dynamic range of 120 db.

As far as frequency response, the LP can cover from 20 Hz to 76KHz. Yes cartridges have tracked as high as 76 KHz. Practically LPs were rolled off below 30 Hz.

The CD can go from 1 to 20KHz. 20 KHz is the absolute upper limit of the CD.

SACD has a response from 0 to 100KHz

So there you have it.

I don't listen to pop and rock music CDs, but I'm told they are suffering from increasing doses of dynamic range compression. I find classical CDs expertly engineered in the main. I have some SACDs that are truly astonishing.
 
WmAx

WmAx

Audioholic Samurai
ERadio stations need all of their music to sound relatively level matched. Therefore, many new vinyl LP's probabley are mixed hot and many older CD's have larger dynamic ranges than those CD's mixed today.
No, they don't need any level matched CDs. Have you ever noticed a rock station that plays classic rock mixed with modern rock? No level matching problems here. They have special limiter and compression systems that average the levels of everything put into them. A highly compressed recording will not sound louder in such a case, it will just sound worse(as the multiple aggressive compression systems interact layer upon layer potentially causing undesirable modulation artifacts).

-Chris
 
G

gus6464

Audioholic Samurai
What I don't understand is why SACD hasn't become more popular. I only started listening to SACD recently since I got the PS3 but right away my wife and I could hear the difference in quality. Now we have repurchased a couple of albums that we already had on CD in SACD. I keep hearing though that Classical just sounds astonishing on SACD but there are just way too many of them out there so I have no idea what's good and what's not.
 
F

fmw

Audioholic Ninja
The music buying public proved to us all that sound quality wasn't the primary consideration in buying music. Instead of embracing SACD with its superior sound quality, people embraced the Ipod and MP3. Convenience and portability won the day.

For Coheed, it is the CD that has more dynamic range, not the vinyl record. Analog is limited by tape saturation at recording and the mechanics of holding the stylus in the record groove at playback. So analog recordings are limited as they are taped and compressed as the record masters are made. So are most digital recordings, just to a lesser degree.

Rock music has a fairly narrow dynamic range. Recording and mastering it isn't all that difficult. If you want to hear serious dynamic range you need to listen to classical orchestral music which can go way over 100 db from soft to loud. Listen to a Mahler symphony or a Wagner opera and you'll see what I mean. that's where you will encounter the most compression in an analog recording.

As a classicl music listener, I embraced CD immediately back in the 1980's because of the improved dynamics. Listening to CD's was simply more visceral. I continued to buy records, however, up to around 2000 or so when I finally decided that digital simply made more sense. I have some very well recorded records pressed on 180 and 200 gram vinyl that are truly spectacular in terms of fidelity. These records were expensive - $50 and $60 each. But they are certainly more compressed than the CD versions of the same recordings which cost significantly less. I have several of them done both ways.

As a final note, I've included a URL for Joe Schmoe. You were wondering about the longevity of vinyl. This jazz track of Harry "Sweets" Edison was recorded in 1958. I duped the record to CD-rw using a consumer CD recorder and then ripped the 320 mp3 from the CD-rw. You will need to take my word for it, but the mp3 sounds just like the original record-at least to me. I think you will agree that they were capable of making excellent recordings 50 years ago and that the records to which there were pressed can last a long time.
Click here to hear the track http://www.foodieforums.com/otherimages/illwind.mp3
 
adam71

adam71

Junior Audioholic
As a classicl music listener, I embraced CD immediately back in the 1980's because of the improved dynamics. Listening to CD's was simply more visceral. I continued to buy records, however, up to around 2000 or so when I finally decided that digital simply made more sense. I have some very well recorded records pressed on 180 and 200 gram vinyl that are truly spectacular in terms of fidelity. These records were expensive - $50 and $60 each. But they are certainly more compressed than the CD versions of the same recordings which cost significantly less. I have several of them done both ways.

As a final note, I've included a URL for Joe Schmoe. You were wondering about the longevity of vinyl. This jazz track of Harry "Sweets" Edison was recorded in 1958. I duped the record to CD-rw using a consumer CD recorder and then ripped the 320 mp3 from the CD-rw. You will need to take my word for it, but the mp3 sounds just like the original record-at least to me. I think you will agree that they were capable of making excellent recordings 50 years ago and that the records to which there were pressed can last a long time.
I have to ask this. Why would a vinyl album be more compressed than it's CD counterpart?? I find this extremely hard to believe. That would be like a vinyl made at "mobile fidelity" sounding worse than the same album done at "mobile fidelity" in the CD format. Not saying you're necessarily wrong but I am just finding that VERY hard to swallow.

I also find it VERY hard to believe that you recorded a vinyl to CD and then ripped it to mp3 and still sounded like the LP. No way I will believe this. No offense but that doesn't even seem possible what so ever.

I would really like to hear some more of what you have to say on this subject. I find all this stuff interesting to say the least and would like to hear more.
 
adam71

adam71

Junior Audioholic
What I would also like to know is why wasn't DVD-Audio on that list of formats?? I would like to know who made the decision that SACD was superior to DVD-Audio.?? It's like a bunch of audiophiles got together and decieded that becasuse DVD-Audio had the actual word "DVD" in it that the format was NOT an audiophile format. I have a small collection of both SACDs and DVD-As and I don't find SACD any better what so ever. In fact, I bought Steely Dan - Gaucho in BOTH formats and neither sounds better than the other. In fact, the DVD-A sounded better in multi-channel than the SACD did. In 2 channel it was a wash but you get my drift. It's true SACD will be around for a while on the audiophile labels due to it's popularity. But it's also a shame that DVD-Audio was shunned by the masses when it was just as capable if not MORE capable than SACD.

Anyone have any input on this subject??
 
adam71

adam71

Junior Audioholic
Everyone keeps commenting on vinyl having a larger dynamic range than CD's. I don't believe this is true, however I'm no expert. But I do know this. CD's in this day and age are mixed hot meaning there is only about a 6db(+/-3) range while older LP's had an average range of say 12db(+/-6). This has to do with recording practices not the medium of delivery. Radio stations need all of their music to sound relatively level matched. Therefore, many new vinyl LP's probabley are mixed hot and many older CD's have larger dynamic ranges than those CD's mixed today.
The thing with most people that listen to vinyl is that all the measurements and statistics mean nothing. As a vinyl listener I don't care about useable dynamic range and where vinyl does't stack up. I don't care about frequency rseponse as vinyl has proven it more than holds its own in that category. All that matters to me is the fidelity it offers over CD. I hear things in a vinyl recording that I've NEVER heard in the CD counterpart. Nucances are more evident in vinyl than on CD. I listen with my ears, NOT instruments or gauge readings. Bottom line is vinyl just absolutely sounds BETTER to my ears. PERIOD !!

The above was a rant. My opinion and should be treated as such.
 
J

Johnd

Audioholic Samurai
WRONG AGAIN !!!

There were MORE vinyls sold in the past 3 years than the 10 years before that. FAR from obselete. Not really sure why you have such a passion for hating vinyl when it is clearly one of the HIGHEST fidelity mediums (the absloute highest in my opinion) in the history of music playback. To each his own for sure but you don't have to hate on it.
Way to call a spade a spade new adam!

Without a doubt a well-recorded sacd, though I will always retain a strong affinity with my vinyl collection.
 
avaserfi

avaserfi

Audioholic Ninja
Gross Misinformation

I think everyone is missing the point here - Vinyl is a technically inferior format to the new digital [lossless] ones by its own nature, the analog system simply cannot do what digital can. Beyond this it comes down to the engineers involved with the track and the amount and type of compressions used. On CDs it is easier to compress the tracks than on vinyl due to this technical superiority so vinyl is often considered to be higher fidelity when the truth is CDs allow for fidelity impossible on the older analog format.

Vinyl just happens to get higher fidelity versions of tracks than CDs do more often than not. The same goes for the high-resolution formats such as SACD and DVD-A. I suggest you read the AES article "Audibility of CD-Standard A-D-A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback" if you are curious about the audibility of high-resolution formats.

The world of audiophiles is one in which knowledge and logic are thrown away for snake-oil and subjectivity. This is why vinyl is so popular. If the audio community tried to get quality CD recordings back in the mainstream vinyl could be relegated to where it belongs: the nostalgia bin.

Again, the only reason vinyl can sound better is due to inferior mastering of the CD copy.
 
adam71

adam71

Junior Audioholic
We're all in this for one thing. The love of music. I like all the formats but I LOVE vinyl.
 
adam71

adam71

Junior Audioholic
I think everyone is missing the point here - Vinyl is a technically inferior format to the new digital [lossless] ones by its own nature, the analog system simply cannot do what digital can. Beyond this it comes down to the engineers involved with the track and the amount and type of compressions used. On CDs it is easier to compress the tracks than on vinyl due to this technical superiority so vinyl is often considered to be higher fidelity when the truth is CDs allow for fidelity impossible on the older analog format.

Vinyl just happens to get higher fidelity versions of tracks than CDs do more often than not. The same goes for the high-resolution formats such as SACD and DVD-A. I suggest you read the AES article "Audibility of CD-Standard A-D-A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback" if you are curious about the audibility of high-resolution formats.

The world of audiophiles is one in which knowledge and logic are thrown away for snake-oil and subjectivity. This is why vinyl is so popular. If the audio community tried to get quality CD recordings back in the mainstream vinyl could be relegated to where it belongs: the nostalgia bin.

Again, the only reason vinyl can sound better is due to inferior mastering of the CD copy.
Again, it doesn't matter why they can sound better. Truth is they DO sound better in a most cases. So what do you suggest then? Because the mastering engineers can't get their **** together on a format that is approching it's 25th birthday we should listen to inferior CDs anyway?? I have NEVER doubted the CD as a format. It is technically superior, I agree with all that. But it's the simple fact that vinyl can still sound better than this technically superior format that has me hanging on to all my vinyl. Like my earlier post said, I listen with my ears, not technical possibilities.

I suggest you read the AES article "Audibility of CD-Standard A-D-A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback" if you are curious about the audibility of high-resolution formats.
Do yo have a link where I can read this.?? I am interested.
 
F

fmw

Audioholic Ninja
Adam, I can't help you with your beliefs. I do, however, take it very personally when someone calls me a liar so this will be the last time I respond to one of your posts.

Records are compressed more to prevent the stylus from jumping the groove during loud passages. It's that simple. It also helps the mastering technician fit more content on the record surface.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
I have to ask this. Why would a vinyl album be more compressed than it's CD counterpart?? I find this extremely hard to believe. That would be like a vinyl made at "mobile fidelity" sounding worse than the same album done at "mobile fidelity" in the CD format. Not saying you're necessarily wrong but I am just finding that VERY hard to swallow.

I also find it VERY hard to believe that you recorded a vinyl to CD and then ripped it to mp3 and still sounded like the LP. No way I will believe this. No offense but that doesn't even seem possible what so ever.

I would really like to hear some more of what you have to say on this subject. I find all this stuff interesting to say the least and would like to hear more.
Just look at my post. If a an LP and CD are made from a master tape prior to noise reduction both will have a dynamic range of 60 db. If The LP and CD are from a master tape with Dolby A or dbx 1 noise reduction or a digital master, then the LP will have a dynamic range of up to 70 db and the CD up to 96db

Now those are facts, and no matter how much you rant you won't change it. Those are physical limitations, governed by the laws of nature, and the parameters set for the CD.
 
F

fmw

Audioholic Ninja
I would let it go, TLS. He is just an internet bully. Best to ignore him and let him believe or disbelieve what he likes. In the grand scheme of things what he thinks doesn't matter a whit.
 
adam71

adam71

Junior Audioholic
I would let it go, TLS. He is just an internet bully. Best to ignore him and let him believe or disbelieve what he likes. In the grand scheme of things what he thinks doesn't matter a whit.
Would you both (TLS & FMW) just calm down. I sir am many things but an internet bully is NOT one of them. I never called anyone a liar. At least I sure as hell never tried to. When I used the words "hard to believe" or "hard to swallow" I meant just that. I wasn't calling anyone out and I surely wasn't calling anyone a liar. I just found it hard to believe, thats all. I apologize to both of you for coming off like that, but I assure you it wasn't intentional. I was hoping you guys could explain things further so I could actually understand what you meant. So please, don't think of me as a internet bully as I'm only trying to seek more knowledge of these things. As I said earlier I love the sound of vinyl and that is about ALL I know about the format.
 

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