It really doesn't have to be that way. Firstly, check carefully Baerwald's papers and don't necessarily trust the numerous online calculators - some are some aren't on the money. Calculate also the tolerance required for alignment (!)..... Secondly, all aspects of alignment contribute to friction, and minimising that is the real key to minimising IGD as groove angles get steep toward centres of records - so VTA, azimuth and tracking offset errors contribute.....Thirdly stylus quality counts, mostly by minimising friction effects.....lastly anything one can do to minimise stylus-groove friction really helps.
It's not about harmonic distortion on inner grooves, it's all about friction induced mistracking, and with care it doesn't have to be tolerated IME !
Yes, but if one cares enough to enjoy the finer things it's apparent pretty quickly when all is not well. And stylus gumming up is by far the most likely cause, stylus damage is rare IME, as are permanently damaged records.
To address the OP, my opinion is that the mastering of vinyl is the art which makes it bona fide and sonically unique. The decisions of mastering engineers using personal judgement of sound, applying studio tapes which don't 'fit' onto the medium, producing the authentic sound from the time. The rest of it is total hard work, but if one wants authentic from the time, vinyl is simply the best there is and often stunning.
I am right there with you Bill! I love finding old, cheap LPs and cleaning them up. Have found scads of fun things and new music that way. My price range is where yours is.
Great fun!
I rarely buy bargain bin CDs, tho. Not as much fun,
The 1988 letters page of HiFiNews has called and wants its confusion about digital audio back....
It most certainly did, but I bought most of my round plastic from Andy's Records in the Market. I believe he later succumbed to religion.
The same way I got most of my records. I love putting on a record from a band I've never heard of. I have found some my favorite albums that way.
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Back in the olden days ( before cd's ) The Audio Armature had a little comment from an Australian psychiatrist who was also an audiophile. He made the observation that the newer
digitally processed records caused the listeners to experience markers of stress including elevated blood pressure.
digitally processed records caused the listeners to experience markers of stress including elevated blood pressure.
Most LPs are mastered with mono or near mono bass to avoid excessive vertical excursion anyway, so nothing much is lost by doing this. Maybe the presence of the anti-phase noise when there in no intentional L-R stands out more obviously with headphones, bass from speakers is not very directional
Vinyl never sounds exactly the same if you repeat playing the same record. cd does.i think our ears like the change, no matter how small. and i remember the ritual of changing a reel on a reel-to -reel after 22 mins, or recording radio broadcasts. the ease of availability nowadays makes music "cheap", the trouble we had to get through to listen to the music we liked earlier made music more precious.
That would seem to be my experience, and also my current tables seem to generate less noise in the vertical plane which helps immensely. I have one needle drop I listen to somewhat regularly on my Hifiman player and Oppo PM-3 phones and am unaware of any substantial LF noise of this sort. Interestingly what stands out about this needle drop is how much better it sounds than the rip off of a CD of the same material, both are 44.1kHz/16 bit (deliberately).. This and similar events persuaded me to give up on open reel analog tape as it was clear the digital recording of my analog setup was better than the recording made on my half track ReVox G36 MKIII.
I have a 'vinyl' front end with up to 6 turntables at my disposal (probably the wrong word, there). However, as I love listening to classical music, especially live concerts, I've been using the BBC Radio3 HD feed of live concerts as a source of enjoyment, to the extent that I record many into the digital domain. Not having a separate monitoring system at the moment, I use a portable radio to find whats happening.
The other evening, I decided to listen to the broadcast 'live' and fed the HD feed to the stereo system. However, I left the radio on (by mistake) behind me, and found, although the radio a much inferior quality source, the enjoyment was more than just a 'front' stereo source. It presented a 'hall-like' acoustic, as if I was in a much larger venue.
Even though the radio source was mono and barely detectable (I have to check whether the radio is on or not) I am very aware of the 'new acoustic'. This may be similar to the experience with vinyl, where 'ambience' is added by the vinyl record vibrating under the influence of sound pressure from the 'speakers. Valve (tube) amplifiers may be preferred for the same reason.
I must add that the radio source was about 50msec delayed compared with the main 'speakers, not detectable on music, but easily discerned with speech.
The other evening, I decided to listen to the broadcast 'live' and fed the HD feed to the stereo system. However, I left the radio on (by mistake) behind me, and found, although the radio a much inferior quality source, the enjoyment was more than just a 'front' stereo source. It presented a 'hall-like' acoustic, as if I was in a much larger venue.
Even though the radio source was mono and barely detectable (I have to check whether the radio is on or not) I am very aware of the 'new acoustic'. This may be similar to the experience with vinyl, where 'ambience' is added by the vinyl record vibrating under the influence of sound pressure from the 'speakers. Valve (tube) amplifiers may be preferred for the same reason.
I must add that the radio source was about 50msec delayed compared with the main 'speakers, not detectable on music, but easily discerned with speech.
Also if turntable/plinth is DIY having a second arm with elliptical stylus aligned to the inner grooves would be helpfull. Isn't it ?
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Agree with others. Vinyls are great way to find new music. Though I don't listen to Opera music and sometimes western classical. I found Joan Sutherland vinyl which I some times listen to. (my first introduction to Opera music.) Incidentally it is considered best mastered vinyl by BBC. I also confess I don't understand intricacy of these genres. I listen to what feels good to my ears.
Regards.
Does anyone have documentation of this?
A fews years back in a diyAudio thread I showed pretty conclusively that this is not the case for CDs. Many people thought it was, and had been carried over from LP mastering, but it had not. Unfortunately I did not test any vinyl. I can understand why bass might be mixed to mono on vinyl, but is it really?
We've been told that bass is mono, back has anyone checked?
Yes, I have checked and generally below 200Hz or so there really is little intentional vertical modulation. I've read of a standard equipment module used in vinyl mastering which performed this role, though it could be overridden and sometimes was. It doesn't show up on re-issue CDs because there was never either a studio or mastering master tape with this effect on it, the module was in the feed to the cutter amplifiers.
Nothing holds the stylus in position vertically except for VTF applied via the suspension mechanical impedance - all other directions are retained by a wall, at least in part!
Because it is. Theoretically (well predating general use in audio by several decades) and experimentally. Over and over and over. If you don't understand the basics, it's probably a good idea to learn them, repeat basic experiments to prove things to yourself, and try to work through your fundamental non-understanding.
Ignorance about the basics of digital among audiophiles hasn't disappeared entirely, but thankfully it's far less prevalent these days than in the '80s, when one regularly saw stunningly ignorant scribblings in pop magazines. Part of the reason is that the tools to do simple experiments are now free and simple- anyone can digitize a 20kHz sine wave at a 44.1k sample rate, play it back, and measure the distortion, thus preventing silly comments about "5% distortion" before making them embarrassingly public.
Surely the main difference between vinyl and digital (CD or whatever) is that with vinyl the level of distortion starts low and increases with amplitude whereas with digital media the distortion level Increases as amplitude Decreases (less bits in play). Given the dynamic range of most music and the need for a DAC not to clip, most low level detail isn't using that many bits.
With vinyl the level of distortion at low level is probably quite low (excluding surface noise etc, which the brain is probably quite good at tuning out).
We are accustomed to loud noises being more distorted in the real world (certainly that's what our ears do) Experiencing the opposite is probably unsettling.
Why not a simple as that????
With vinyl the level of distortion at low level is probably quite low (excluding surface noise etc, which the brain is probably quite good at tuning out).
We are accustomed to loud noises being more distorted in the real world (certainly that's what our ears do) Experiencing the opposite is probably unsettling.
Why not a simple as that????
Well, like I said, ignorance about the basics of digital among audiophiles hasn't disappeared entirely.
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