Need advice from the analog gurus

[davidlzimmer]

I finally have a decent turntable, cart, and preamp and am loving the sweet sound and more pronounced imaging of the LPs.

But it seems, even when I buy "still sealed" records, I still get a few pops and snaps. I have 20 year old LPs that are much less pop free than some of the 'still sealed' I've recently bought.

I'm going to give reel to reel a shot. I don't want to get into the argument about which is better. I would just like some advise.

I would like your opinions about :

Why some new records have pops
What would be a good sounding reliable tape deck (used)

PS I'm too poor to be in this hobby!



Thanks!

[240z4u]

Often I find the source of pops/snaps is static. Do you live inj a dry climate?

Try brushing with a carbon fiber brush before playing to see if that helps.

No clue on the tapedeck. May want to ask that over on audiokarma.org if your interested in something vintage.

Evan

[davidlzimmer]

Man, I live in Georgia. It's never dry here!

Is it the actual staic charge that causes clicks and pops or the fact that the static atracts dirt from the air?

[SY]

Unlikely it's static. Give the records a thorough cleaning to remove all the paper dust and mold release, then see what happens.

[240z4u]

yeah in GA thats probabally not the case.

Winter in wisconsin is terrible for static. I learned to live with it. Just had to use the brush alot.

Evan

[hailteflon]

Being the foremost vinyl guru on the block I feel compelled to expound greatly on the subject of POPs.

(1) sealed records are the worst of all gambles. They probably aren't new. When the CD came out in the early 80s record stores had deadlines to return the piles of "returns" in the back room. Either the record companies rewrapped them and sent them out again or the local merchant had a shrink-wrapper do it.

Record companies kept rewrapping records with minor defects until they fell into the hands of a person who did't really care. If you took a warped record back to the store, or one with a factory scratch it eventually made it back on someone's shelf.

The rewraps at the end of the LP era are often store demos. I bought a stack of sealed European classicals with official manuf. stickers on them. They had fingerprints, scratches, and scribbles around the center hole. I suspect the companies sent merchants packages of offical sealed-in-Europe stickers.

(2) Microorganisms eat the oils in vinyl. Also, after records are pressed they are often placed on carts and parked in hallways for days. They have a strong static charge with attracts dust when people walk by. New records are usually filthy and also after 20 years have considerable cultures of microbes. The cultures dry out in to very large pops.

(3) Sealed records also suffer from shelf warps which are buckles at the edge of the record from sitting in a hot warehouse in the same position on a shelf for years. This same sort of buckle warp can occur when a factory worker gets rough when twisting slag off of the edge (so I have read).

At least 50% of all the sealed records I have purchased have been defects, including bad pressings where the silvering is defective and they have tremendous noise.

A lot of defects occur due to the fact that multiple presses are all powered by the same source of steam. By chance, when all of them need steam at the same time the pressure is too low for a decent pressing. They also get in a hurry and don't let the vinyl cool before bringing up the stamper. This results in poor sound and warps.

Quality control is very expensive. Mark

[davidlzimmer]

hailteflon,

Very informative. Thank you. But depressing. So where do I get good sounding LPs?

Possible? Must be. I read too many accounts of people raving about the sound of their LPs.

[hailteflon]

Where does one get good LPs? You have asked the $64,000 musical question.

In a nutshell, get smart and control your rage.

The biggest problems I had (I have so many now I had to stop) were
(1) someone bending over and putting their rear end in my face when looking through a box
(2) someone claiming that all the records within a few feet on either side of them were theirs and I couldn’t look at them.

If you are in a large city you will find the places where records continually come in. You won’t be the only one watching the pile.

Many of the people know the owner and get to look through them before they are put out. Whatever happens, let it happen. If you get into a scrap then you will have a bad reputation. Your train will eventually come into the station and you will be looking for many years.

As far as judging vinyl is concerned, your greatest enemy is not dirt, but the worn stylus. Avoid dealers that wipe off their records. The dirt tells a story. A worn stylus cuts vinyl and severe wear leaves a white dust on the record. If it gets a lot worse near the inside the groove is probably ripped out.

A worn tip has a flat spot that has a cutting edge. The tonearm is swinging an arc and the orientation of the stylus in the groove is always rotating a bit. When the edge of the flat spot on the stylus swings into position it starts shaving off the tips of the wave form.

Don’t fall for the “get a line-contact stylus” advice. With few exceptions a worn tip wipes most of the groove, top to bottom. A line-contact traces the whole groove wall and will usually trace the damage. A line-contact can help under certain circumstances depending on where the damage is, but they are almost always noisier than an elliptical or conical.

An advantage of a common turntable with detachable headshell is the ability to change cartridges with different tips. It helps to have a line-contact around, but they are often worse.

I concentrate on late 70s reissues. By then many people had replaced the box record player or console (with a chipped sapphire stylus) with a light tracking belt drive or such. I will add here that the average belt drive has very poor speed accuracy due to the fact that the platters are not round.

Much of the collectible vinyl from 50s, 60s, and early 70s is worn and one must keep buying copies to find a good one. If the price is right it can be worth it, if one has the shelf space and the time. They all have to be cleaned first. A record from a house that was with fried food fumes everyday can have a tremendous bacteria culture that grew on it and died. The dead cultures are extremely noisy, but a proper cleaning with proper chemicals can unveil a quiet record.

When a tempting batch of records is located buy a few and take them home. If they have a good groove then buy more.

A vinyl dealer usually grades a record by appearance. They don’t care or even understand what sound quality is. It is a collectible and mint means that someone will give them mint price for it. If I were a dealer I would take all the really good stuff home for me.

Keep checking church sales, garage sales, etc. The boxes that are all $1 are the best place to find vinyl.

Older vinyl from the heavy-tracking era can appear to be ultra-mint. These may be records that were played once for a tape recorder. The groove is massacred by a chipped stylus on a box record player or console.

One last word of advice about record dealers and patience. Some of them have the customer find the good vinyl. If you find something of value in the dollar pile they may jerk it out of your hand and claim it shouldn’t have been in there. This is how they have you do their work. Forget John Wayne (and also Elvis) and calmly walk away. They probably have a security guard ready. They do this all day long and they are good at it. Don’t talk to anyone or show any excitement at what you find and they may not notice. Lying to a customer is not illegal.

Be ready to walk at any time. It will seldom be necessary, but be ready. Sooner or later the word will get around that you are a record collector and someone who doesn’t want to give their records to a dealer or a junk shop will let you have them for little or nothing. Some people bought records and played them very little. If they had a changer with an unworn diamond then they will sound great. 5 grams on a console with a new diamond will not damage a groove, if the cartridge has some compliance. Everything needs to be cleaned, if for no reason because of the wear on the diamond. Dirt cuts diamond life by about 60%.

Also, if you are into classical, the early 80s Columbia Great Performances reissues/remasters are not digital. They are some of the best standard issue vinyl Columbia ever made and they are pure analog. Don’t get them if they have a DBX sticker on the back.


Beware of any record with a DBX sticker on the back or front. DBX was a dolby-type noise reduction that requires extra circuitry purchased in a black box. They sound very bad due to a heavy mid-range peak.

Most vinyl pressed after 1980 is actually digital as are most of the expensive audiophile pressings starting in the late 70s. Beware of the direct-to-dick trick. Unless they didn’t use groove depth control on the cutting head there is no such thing as an analog direct-to-disc.

RCA and Columbia sound best with a large tip radius, .3 mil or more. Mark

[Panicos K]

Two things improved such problems for me lately.One is cleaning suspect LP's the moment I notice a problem with pure isopropyl(only the first time)and second,I was surprised by the very low noise of cartridges with pathfinder styli(in my case a dynvector model),although I agree with most of hailteflon's comments on styli of these shapes.Very low noice is said to have with microridge tips also.Has anyone had similar experience?

[davidlzimmer]

hailteflon,

Fascinating! You should write a book!


Thanks for the comments guys!