Interesting is that i can hear some noise ( hum ) before the music begins so Michael needs a better phonostage
I can hear the hum too. I guess twenty six grand doesn't get you a good phono stage.
jeff
That's because you never used double albums for their intended purpose- seed removal.
I think this is quite rare tho, even tho many do the audio stuff as a sideline from the 'real' design of their day jobs. Keeping the day job mentality for the hobby is tough.
This is an interesting point. The original question (which I hope we have not completely lost sight of) is if anti-phase LF noise gives an illusion of 'ambience', and the answers are likely to be quite different for speaker versus headphone listening.
I've found that difficult in the past, but deliberately summing everything below about 200Hz to mono seems to really help with LF noise. I seem to recall this is effective against LF noise in the vertical plane which is out of phase between the channels. Many decades ago Audio Source (?) had a graphic equalizer that offered this functionality which I found to be quite effective.
Strangely the current setup does not seem to have this issue to anything like the same degree as I remember, or perhaps I am going deaf.
I suspect a lot of these noise components are actually generated by the TT itself, noisy main bearing and other components, the current ones are much quieter than the ones I had in the past.
I can hear the hum too. I guess twenty six grand doesn't get you a good phono stage.
jeff
Well, it's no secret that really, really poor engineering abounds in the high-end sector. Some of the amplifiers in particular (8% THD at full power!) are pitiful. Hum that's always present because it comes from the preamp is just totally unacceptable.
However... sometime back we discussed how the noise from the groove before the music started created a sense of anticipation. That is is also true when listening to music from say 1970 which has been remastered to CD. Even at moderate volume levels you can hear the noise from the studio start, sometimes with one or two step increases in level. On some music you can also hear a faint background hum kick in, but this is totally masked when the music starts. I guess noise gates were expensive then.
This also works to trigger anticipation, so it is not purely a vinyl thing.
This would be an interesting experiment if conducted double-blind. I think the answer then might run into thousands.
Anyone familiar with my 5532 power amplifier
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/chip-amps/174540-doug-selfs-ne5532-power-amp-thoughts-anyone.html
will know that I'm not afraid to use opamps by the bucketful when it seems like an interesting idea.
Having now read it, I can say that document is a fascinating account of cancelling aural (between-ears) crosstalk in speaker listening.
I can't however see it has anything to do with the perception of anti-phase LF noise as 'ambience'.
I'm positively awful at using the search but pretty sure it was SY who did that one. however http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/ever...mate-opamp-shootout-where-you-get-decide.html is interesting. Not least how few people will vote when they can't cheat using audacity. Many here at least are afraid of op-amp based active crossovers for that reason. Your burning amp presentation is a good place to point the terminally anxious
Yes. And how much the ritual add to the experience is interesting to know.
LOL. Point taken! I don't remember what vinyl plugi-ns I used, just whatever I could fing using google or the forums.
My interest was to learn if applying vinyl faults to a clean digital signal would make me like it more, or at least make it sound more warn or analog or something. It did not, but I did feel the plug-in effects were too crude, too much of a gimmick. Some of what was discussed at the top of this thread might be more valid. LF groove noise, crosstalk, rumble, off center hole, etc. Leave out the pop and clicks, maybe.
To be fair, I have a lot of vinyl that is wretched sounding. It's faults do give it a certain feeling of life, tho.
I have read many times that part of the joy of vinyl is the 'ritual' of getting the disc out of its sleeve, plonking it on the turntable and cautiously lowering the stylus on it.
As the owner of some 500 well-played albums, permit me to put on record (ha) my view of this.
1) Every time you buy an album you hope desperately that your favourite track won't be towards the end of a side. End-of-side distortion (EOS) is truly horrible, and I can' think that anyone would say this was a positive feature of vinyl.
2) Every time you pull a disc from its sleeve is a moment of stress because you could be producing a debilitating scratch.
3) Everytime you lower that stylus you may fumble it and and one more click to the disk. This is a good argument for not attempting vinyl when you just come back from the pub. I find this restrictive.
4) Constant alertness is required to make sure the stylus does not get damaged. A small chip out of the diamond turns it into a record-wrecking cutting tool that will degrade everything you play. The only way to be sure about this is to use a proper microscope. I have one, but how many vinyl fans do? The worst example of this I saw in action on a friend's system- it actually produced a pile of fine brown swarf in front of the stylus. Joni Mitchell's Blue deserved better treatment.
As the owner of some 500 well-played albums, permit me to put on record (ha) my view of this.
1) Every time you buy an album you hope desperately that your favourite track won't be towards the end of a side. End-of-side distortion (EOS) is truly horrible, and I can' think that anyone would say this was a positive feature of vinyl.
2) Every time you pull a disc from its sleeve is a moment of stress because you could be producing a debilitating scratch.
3) Everytime you lower that stylus you may fumble it and and one more click to the disk. This is a good argument for not attempting vinyl when you just come back from the pub. I find this restrictive.
4) Constant alertness is required to make sure the stylus does not get damaged. A small chip out of the diamond turns it into a record-wrecking cutting tool that will degrade everything you play. The only way to be sure about this is to use a proper microscope. I have one, but how many vinyl fans do? The worst example of this I saw in action on a friend's system- it actually produced a pile of fine brown swarf in front of the stylus. Joni Mitchell's Blue deserved better treatment.
I guess I am a bit of an outlier. I get most enjoyment from buying things from the bargain bin, cleaning them up and discovering not only new music, but playable vinyl under the grot. Of course I have the std audiophool specials bought in my sillier years, but a significant percentage of my favourites cost 10-50p.
Edit: @Douglas not sure if Garon records existed on kings street in your days in cambridge, but in the late 80s it was an amazing place to get some great deals on barely played classical and Jazz vinyl as people were dumping their collections for CD. Sadly I remember more about where and when I bought my records than almost anything else in my late teens.
The cleaning is then part of the ritual. I do intend one day to get an ultrasonic cleaner to speed this, but that might reduce the fun
Sorry dragging things OT.
Edit: @Douglas not sure if Garon records existed on kings street in your days in cambridge, but in the late 80s it was an amazing place to get some great deals on barely played classical and Jazz vinyl as people were dumping their collections for CD. Sadly I remember more about where and when I bought my records than almost anything else in my late teens.
The cleaning is then part of the ritual. I do intend one day to get an ultrasonic cleaner to speed this, but that might reduce the fun
Sorry dragging things OT.
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5) Broke off the stylus - thats exactly what happened to my most expensive cart one fine evening, after a couple bottles of nice red wine (no pub required
), and I was ready to fall on my knees and cry but we had guests.....On another note, I did compare the same records ( mostly the same recordings even) on CD, SACD and Vinyl, and for me the Vinyl wins, but SACD is very close. Without the "ritual" part of it, of course. If I really concentrate on the noise, I find it to be lower with SACD (no surprise there). With regards to the microdetails, Vinyl wins (at least for me), and that is a similar finding with speakers or headphones.
There has been a lot of debate what microdetails actually represent, considering a signal -50dB down with a low-output MC. Some folks here did the math , can't recall right now, but it points towards a surprisingly small number of electrons, at which point the quantification would have to set it. Does anybody remember?
Let's start by looking at the mathematics. That is inescapable and easily verifiable.
Digital is a scarcely known quantity, even to those who consider themselves experts. The engineers are quick to point to Shannon's Information Theorem, but do not quote it, and for a very good reason: it only applies to signals which
1. have repeated endlessly for infinite time already
2. will continue to repeat endlessly for infinite time into the future
3. are sampled with infinite precision
4. at moments which are perfectly spaced to infinite precision
5. and finally, reconstructed after infinitely many signals have been recorded.
Doesn't sound quite so magical any more, does it? Actually, a bit of common sense. But utterly inapplicable to recording a CD.
Then there is the quality of the approximation. By the Fourier Theorem, we need only consider sine waves. So consider that sine wave, chopped up into many pieces. How many samples are necessary to achieve less than 5% RMS distortion? By my count, 250. How many samples per 20,000 Hz sine wave, while sampling at 44,000 Hz. Hmmm...
While we're on the topic, further consider that 20 KHz sine wave being sampled at 44 KHz. Note that the successive sampling points move; i.e. the points on the sine wave are different on subsequent sine waves. That means that a pure 20KHz tone "warbles" through many different representations each second. How's that for distortion?
You can do the simulation yourself. That is the point of mathematics: anyone can check for themselves.
Then, there is the Nyqvist Criterion: no frequencies above half of the sampling rate. That is only possible with filters which shift phase. Not required in analogue.
Then, the psychology. With two younger generations grown up on digital, and one generation with failing senses, it is no wonder that many people prefer digital. It is after all, the Digitally Perfect Medium. Madison Avenue told me so.
Finally, the psychophysics. I cannot abide non-harmonic distortion, so I find that digital (even on my $7000 Linn player) grates on my nerves. SACD is listenable for a time (with filtration), CD not. So I prefer analogue.
One of my friends cannot abide wow. That is inherent in vinyl because the hole in the record cannot be perfectly centred. So he prefers digital.
Your thoughts?
Digital is a scarcely known quantity, even to those who consider themselves experts. The engineers are quick to point to Shannon's Information Theorem, but do not quote it, and for a very good reason: it only applies to signals which
1. have repeated endlessly for infinite time already
2. will continue to repeat endlessly for infinite time into the future
3. are sampled with infinite precision
4. at moments which are perfectly spaced to infinite precision
5. and finally, reconstructed after infinitely many signals have been recorded.
Doesn't sound quite so magical any more, does it? Actually, a bit of common sense. But utterly inapplicable to recording a CD.
Then there is the quality of the approximation. By the Fourier Theorem, we need only consider sine waves. So consider that sine wave, chopped up into many pieces. How many samples are necessary to achieve less than 5% RMS distortion? By my count, 250. How many samples per 20,000 Hz sine wave, while sampling at 44,000 Hz. Hmmm...
While we're on the topic, further consider that 20 KHz sine wave being sampled at 44 KHz. Note that the successive sampling points move; i.e. the points on the sine wave are different on subsequent sine waves. That means that a pure 20KHz tone "warbles" through many different representations each second. How's that for distortion?
You can do the simulation yourself. That is the point of mathematics: anyone can check for themselves.
Then, there is the Nyqvist Criterion: no frequencies above half of the sampling rate. That is only possible with filters which shift phase. Not required in analogue.
Then, the psychology. With two younger generations grown up on digital, and one generation with failing senses, it is no wonder that many people prefer digital. It is after all, the Digitally Perfect Medium. Madison Avenue told me so.
Finally, the psychophysics. I cannot abide non-harmonic distortion, so I find that digital (even on my $7000 Linn player) grates on my nerves. SACD is listenable for a time (with filtration), CD not. So I prefer analogue.
One of my friends cannot abide wow. That is inherent in vinyl because the hole in the record cannot be perfectly centred. So he prefers digital.
Your thoughts?
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