Besides the fundamental limitations of vinyl playback there are so many ways to do it poorly. And there has been the paucity of really good vinyl itself.
However, for LPs, unless one has been sampling the recent ones and the recently remastered ones, I think those who were so quick to discard their playback equipment will be in for a surprise. Although the fundamental limitations are still present, such as at least always some lack of concentricity, and differential effects due to the nature of the tracking angle changing as the arm moves inwards, and the challenge of the inner grooves (often coinciding with the higher level material in classical works), and always some surface noise, I have been astonished at how good some new vinyl does sound.
You still have to be meticulous in keeping it clean and be careful when handling, and the pressing may still have the odd defect here and there. But I still have friends who believe vinyl aficionados are strictly seeking nostalgia, even to the point of desiring clicks and pops. Sorry --- that's simply rubbish. I know of no one who ascribes his/her interest to that attribute. It's in spite of that, not because of it, that we enjoy the medium.
It will always be a two-channel medium, although those wanting some added ambiance recovery can do some simple signal processing to get some additional signals. I don't expect to have vinyl reproduce the precise experience of a good concert hall, and I'm usually quite happy with two-channel given that lack of expectation.
Good vinyl playback will never be as cheap as a level of digital that many find acceptable. But I had one audiophile who has excellent equipment (and is not per se a fashionista) say that the trouble and expense he has gone to seeking the best digital reproduction suggests that vinyl (or reel-to-reel tape even) is easier and cheaper to come close.
I still have some EMI's pressed in the 80's from various super disk lists (still kicking myself for parting with my "Things to Come" soundtrack) that have not only been played only a handful of times often use only 1/2 or 2/3 of the side.
Brad
I am not discarding my record playing equipment for the reason that I value the performances recorded on many of my old records, not because the medium is technically superior to CD.
I do transfers to CD. The sound is indistinguishable to my ears.
Some official CD transfers (same performance with the vinyl) that I have, are acoustically degraded.
It is a matter of care in the production, not a problem with the CD medium.
I wish that everyone would do some home CD transfers from vinyl for to be able to form his own opinion.
George
Agree on both (strongly), this begs a lot of questions.
The problem for me is that my personal transfer process is extremely tedious, I insist on hand removing the ticks and pops.
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The biggest problems with digital are the recording and mastering engineers. I have only a handful of modern CDs that do not light up the clipping indicator on my EMU 1820m.
When I buy an album that has a DVD or DVD-A included with the CD, it seems that it is common to find a less compressed version of the audio. Sometimes it's the multichannel mix though which is unfortunate for stereo listening.
When I buy an album that has a DVD or DVD-A included with the CD, it seems that it is common to find a less compressed version of the audio. Sometimes it's the multichannel mix though which is unfortunate for stereo listening.
If you ask me, it is only a matter of musical education of the people who are responsible for the production. There are some parameters outside the strict technical domain that have to be respected/considered. It requires understanding of and familiarity with the musical content as well as appreciation of the original (usually live) recording conditions.
This way, you study in detail the attributes of real music waveforms which I think is very important for one who is dealing with audio.
I too hand remove ticks and pops but only when I find them acoustically disturbing.
I have done some extended detailed hand removal just to test and acoustically compare with the partial removal. I can live with some minor such noises.
George
A major part of my "battle" is to get material, CDs, that the majority dismiss as poorly recorded, hard to listen to on a "good" system, reproduced well enough to thoroughly enjoy. I've spent years listening to other people's systems that are downright impressive running through their "demo" tracks, then when I put on them some music that I relate to it sounds bloody awful -- well, that ain't good for me, I not interested in audio that only sounds good on the "right" recordings ... everything has to sound good. As an example, I took a couple of CDs to that hifi show, quite excellent live recordings in fact, no excuses about studio fiddling ... and some of the best units did a very reasonable job with that material ... but most, especially a few of the latest, relatively expensive, hyped bits of gear were downright pathetic ... just louder kitchen radios ...
So, until I can just walk into a place selling audio gear and any unit there can do a half decent job of getting playback right I'll keep making noises ...
At least part of the story there, I believe, is that the vinyl version was mastered, "cooked", to "work" well on that medium, whereas the CD transfers are much closer to a straight copy from the master tapes ...
Ironically, clicks and pops reproduction is a real test for the dynamic behavior of the cartridge. See an example with some very low amplitude disturbances
Good one!
There are numerous problems with the vinyl. When I look at the phase-scope while playing a mono record and observe the extend of deviation from the 45 degrees, I understand that clicks and pops is the easiest problem to correct. Other issues are almost unresolvable.
Yes, the fact that bad ones usually come exactly 60/33.3 sec. apart helps to.
Good one!
There are numerous problems with the vinyl. When I look at the phase-scope while playing a mono record and observe the extend of deviation from the 45 degrees, I understand that clicks and pops is the easiest problem to correct. Other issues are almost unresolvable.
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In one of my other lives' attempt at music production, I did location recording in the San Fransisco bay area. It was quit startling to find that the recording when played back from master recorder sounded SOOOOO much better than LP's. The most noticable was the clarity of the high freqs which are never so good on LP for a variety of reasons. Over time, i have been convinced the recordings - either tape or digital are not the biggest problem .... it is most definitely trashed in the recording production side.
[No. Thats not an indorcement for iPODs]
-Richard
[No. Thats not an indorcement for iPODs]
-Richard
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When removing clicks and pops, one has to use the appopriate tools. Cutting away samples or using some $100 shareware won't do.
Edit: I aso agree to what Richard says - it's mostly artists, producers and record labels who are responsible for screwing up the sound - they dictate what sound they want, not mastering engineers.
Edit: I aso agree to what Richard says - it's mostly artists, producers and record labels who are responsible for screwing up the sound - they dictate what sound they want, not mastering engineers.
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That's why I did my own third order spline interpolator. When you add the actual judgement and observation of the user to set the cut points the results are amazingly invisible and inaudible.
Third order matches the slopes at the cut points as well as the fit. I've tried some demo versions of much more than shareware with much worse results. The worst are the frequency domain fixers which don't work very well on an essentially time domain problem.
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Ah, the man of many skills
Does it work on all content or only on periodic waveforms? The manual declicker I'm familiar with has 5 different algorithms for different material.
Ah, the man of many skills
By manual I mean manual, you listen, back step at every annoyance, select the region by hand where the slope before and after click/pop looks "good" and push go. The actual fit is the classic third order spline (you can find it on the web). I'm not sure that a higher order fit would help.
This is not for really bad matierial but my very clean < 50-100 or so pops per side stuff. I have worked on automating it but now the C++.net environment is too much like a second job (maybe a SoX add on in gcc would do?)
I'll see if I can make a picture.
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Scott
I understand that you approach is more cautious than mine (my method can be called “spline reforming”
). I would like to ask you if you have tried to apply dither after spline interpolator treatment, your version and/or all the software you tried.
True and spot on! (SY will come and point that this frequency/time domain mismatch is false
). My understanding is that “judgment and observation of the user” sets some criteria which are flexible and variable (click and pop wave shapes are really multishape), to the extend that it is difficult for now to be encoded in an algorithm.
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George
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