My statements about improving analogue playback were mostly about recording to.
If you like vinyl playback and want to improve the playback to suit your taste better, then the sky is the limit. I have settled for a SP1200 with SME 309 and AT33EV. I'm dreaming of a Goldmund reference though.
I found over several years that vinyl is superior to CD or digital, for the following reasons;
It brings back the nostalgia of those evenings spent with friends, having a drink and smoking some "cigarettes", and,
The hiss/noise of the needle playing masked the hiss/noise of the original recording.
Apart from that, I can't think of any reason to play LPs. Before anyone says I had a rubbish player, the TT was sort after when I sold it, the cartridge was a FR101SE (gold plated and all), and the records were kept meticulously clean.
It brings back the nostalgia of those evenings spent with friends, having a drink and smoking some "cigarettes", and,
The hiss/noise of the needle playing masked the hiss/noise of the original recording.
Apart from that, I can't think of any reason to play LPs. Before anyone says I had a rubbish player, the TT was sort after when I sold it, the cartridge was a FR101SE (gold plated and all), and the records were kept meticulously clean.
A shame this has ended up as an entrenched vinyl vs digital argument, but its to be expected seeing as it is in the analogue section.
For the record no CD and vinyl masters are ever the same. The CD is always brickwalled to 20k whereas the vinyl seldom is and the vinyl is always mono'd in the low bass whereas the CD seldom if ever is. Given that almost every studio has used digital delay lines to space the cutting of the vinyl since the late seventies any preference for vinyl has to be notional, psychological/historical or simply because we like the distortion inherent in the process.
I prefer vinyl, but I know it is not technically superior to CD.
For the record no CD and vinyl masters are ever the same. The CD is always brickwalled to 20k whereas the vinyl seldom is and the vinyl is always mono'd in the low bass whereas the CD seldom if ever is. Given that almost every studio has used digital delay lines to space the cutting of the vinyl since the late seventies any preference for vinyl has to be notional, psychological/historical or simply because we like the distortion inherent in the process.
I prefer vinyl, but I know it is not technically superior to CD.
CD's are indeed brickwalled to 20kHz and vinyl isn't brickwalled. But due to the mechanical limits of the medium, vinyl can't have lots of high frequencies and it has to be rolled of in the higher frequencies. My point is what is (more) noticeable, the 20kHz brickwall filter or the more gentile high frequency roll of?
Easy home test: use a sharp lowpass filter on your cd at 16kHz and try to ABX the 2 files. Then do the ABX test with a gentle high frequency roll off at 10kHz.
The first practical application of digital audio technology was indeed in the cutting of master lathes. The irony....
More to the point of this thread: What is the temporal resolution of analogue? And how does it compare to digital?
I didn't consider digitally processed records for this discussion for two reasons:
1) I don't have have one among my vintage record and only have fully analogue among the new and so I really can;t tell the difference
2) Such eventuality is not considered here as it would only drive off-topic more and more.
Also, for the casual reader this can have little importance because there is a huge amount of fully analogue records still available both vintage in near-mint condition and new (like Speakers Corner Records, for example). And the new is growing.
As you say, this might be a problem only for later production or nowadays records that use digital front-end and still anyway the digitalization of the modern records is done with the best formats available, not the CD format.
This is instead my whole point. The links I posted were just an input to think about the fact that time and frequency domains are not interchangable for a listener as for a microphone. Time domain appears to be far more important and I am not really suprised about this as time is a fundamental phycal quantity, frequency is not. In essence, when it comes to music (which practically means a listener is included in the chain) one cannot tell anything unanbiguous about the time domain looking at and, even worse, manipulating the signal in the frequency domain or making assumptions realtive to the frequency domain. Can one forget about frequency domain (which doesn't mean that this has to be disrgarded in the first place) to describe the phenonmenon? Yes, in fact without a listener they are related by a unique transform and the descriptions using either time or frequency are equivalent. One only uses the more convenient of the two!
So one can look at music without using the frequency as a variable. It can be viewed like a temporal evolution of relative (to each other) amplitudes ( i.e. istant by istant a more or less complex "composition" of amplitudes, one for each "object" that creates one relatively to the others. This also means that it is not straightforwad or likely impossible to separate single contributions in the reverse process!).
It might be possible to give a better or more rigorous description than mine but I don't think the essence would be that different.
So one should try to undestand how a modification in the space-time event will influence the attention of the listener and the meaning he attributes to it.
Why do I think this way? Because I set-up my system just looking at the time domain and the methods, the criteria of choice and the results are sensibly different. I repeat this doesn't mean that frequency has been disregarded (for example I don't have vibrations issue in a frequency band quite wider than the audio and some the components like the cartridge and the tweeter display some of best frequency responses one can achieve!). It has been made trying to get the maximum information.
Temporal resolution of analog electronics is all very good; both as found throughout recording and playback chains. Differences arise in noise floor, and from humans auditory perspective, analog tape, digital, and vinyl all are readily capable of fulfilling basic requirements for noise, and also of bandwidth and of dynamic range.
Some restrictions apply to cutting head of record lathe, but overall the mechanical displacements of groove walls are readily made to mimic waveform of signals sent to cutting head. Mass and compliance of cutting bit are easily controlled by power that may be applied. Very little restriction here. Cutting head is telling the groove in no uncertain terms what shape it shall be.
Aside from introduction of defects from environmental contaminants, stamping process is good down to atomic level. This applies to stamping process of CD too.
Transduction of phonograph playback is weak link, compliance of cantilever requisite to tracking bandwidth of groove and associated low frequency resonance lead to unavoidable intermodultaion in the desired bandwidth. This is same fundamental situation with full range speaker drivers. Even smallest centering error to rotational axis of record results in 0.56Hz signal. This pumps resonance of tone arm with cantilever. Off center record hole, even fractions of groove width is all it takes. Lash of over sized center hole with platter center spindle is present with any record that drops on with out need to be pressed down. Other low frequency signal sources are possible, and occur as well; Vinyl is elastic, and hot during stamping process, cooling to room temperature induces a widely random redistribution of vinyl that changes shape of record across all local regions of record. Variation in grooves, by their intended modulations changes heat flow. Much of groove wall rumble isn't due to cutting lathe, but to thermal effects. Release of record from stamper isn't idealized parallel separation of two perfect planes. Various momentary bending happens; a simple shallow bend across diameter of record induces stretch that creates eccentricity of perfect circle to slightly elliptical shape. Once again, tiny fraction of a groove width deviation leads to low frequency signals when records is spinning.
What of temporal resolution with respect to human perception? Brain is complex ripple tank, it produces and responds to a multitude of low frequency signals. Much has been studied about this, and much is well correlated about general human cognition with brain wave frequencies that allows them to be grouped into classic bands of Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta all of which are very low frequencies. Also well studied is the synchronization of brain waves to auditory stimulus. This concept should be a 'no brainer' with how music changes the way we feel.
No need to hear fundamentals at brain wave frequencies associated with arousal, drowsiness, relaxed concentration, etc. Modulation into primary hearing bandwidth is all it takes.
From here, it doesn't take much to realize that turntable distortion is capable of inducing perceptual shifts that have nothing to do with the sound that was originally recorded.
Easy to understand possibility that even 1kHz tone played on record may sound either nicer, or harsher than 1kHz listened to directly from sine wave generator.
Same concept is applicable to speakers.
Post #73 pictures:
make this clear, 1kHz tone has modulation pattern of all the low frequency garbage from the pickup system. View in more typical frequency response plot 1kHz presented in picture looks like nice clean sharp spike with noise floor of at least -60dB. It doesn't tell us how it makes us feel.
I don't want turntable making me feel one way or another, only the recorded music.
Some restrictions apply to cutting head of record lathe, but overall the mechanical displacements of groove walls are readily made to mimic waveform of signals sent to cutting head. Mass and compliance of cutting bit are easily controlled by power that may be applied. Very little restriction here. Cutting head is telling the groove in no uncertain terms what shape it shall be.
Aside from introduction of defects from environmental contaminants, stamping process is good down to atomic level. This applies to stamping process of CD too.
Transduction of phonograph playback is weak link, compliance of cantilever requisite to tracking bandwidth of groove and associated low frequency resonance lead to unavoidable intermodultaion in the desired bandwidth. This is same fundamental situation with full range speaker drivers. Even smallest centering error to rotational axis of record results in 0.56Hz signal. This pumps resonance of tone arm with cantilever. Off center record hole, even fractions of groove width is all it takes. Lash of over sized center hole with platter center spindle is present with any record that drops on with out need to be pressed down. Other low frequency signal sources are possible, and occur as well; Vinyl is elastic, and hot during stamping process, cooling to room temperature induces a widely random redistribution of vinyl that changes shape of record across all local regions of record. Variation in grooves, by their intended modulations changes heat flow. Much of groove wall rumble isn't due to cutting lathe, but to thermal effects. Release of record from stamper isn't idealized parallel separation of two perfect planes. Various momentary bending happens; a simple shallow bend across diameter of record induces stretch that creates eccentricity of perfect circle to slightly elliptical shape. Once again, tiny fraction of a groove width deviation leads to low frequency signals when records is spinning.
What of temporal resolution with respect to human perception? Brain is complex ripple tank, it produces and responds to a multitude of low frequency signals. Much has been studied about this, and much is well correlated about general human cognition with brain wave frequencies that allows them to be grouped into classic bands of Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta all of which are very low frequencies. Also well studied is the synchronization of brain waves to auditory stimulus. This concept should be a 'no brainer' with how music changes the way we feel.
No need to hear fundamentals at brain wave frequencies associated with arousal, drowsiness, relaxed concentration, etc. Modulation into primary hearing bandwidth is all it takes.
From here, it doesn't take much to realize that turntable distortion is capable of inducing perceptual shifts that have nothing to do with the sound that was originally recorded.
Easy to understand possibility that even 1kHz tone played on record may sound either nicer, or harsher than 1kHz listened to directly from sine wave generator.
Same concept is applicable to speakers.
Post #73 pictures:
make this clear, 1kHz tone has modulation pattern of all the low frequency garbage from the pickup system. View in more typical frequency response plot 1kHz presented in picture looks like nice clean sharp spike with noise floor of at least -60dB. It doesn't tell us how it makes us feel.
I don't want turntable making me feel one way or another, only the recorded music.
45, you do realize almost every record since 79 has been through the delay line. Even those that hail their "Analogue mixing and mastering" on the record sleeve. I don't think there had been a truly analogue record pressed in the last 3 decades until Ben Folds did 'Lonely Avenue' with all analogue recording, mix and mastering and no delay line on the lathe. I know of some have been done since but am not aware of any before that, but am keen to expand my knowledge if any exist.
Speakers Corner used a digital delay line, not sure if they have changed in the past couple of years. Big thread on Hoffman forum.
Speakers Corner used a digital delay line, not sure if they have changed in the past couple of years. Big thread on Hoffman forum.
I don't care. The discussion is not about this Since there is plenty of material that is not affected by this.
Spekers corners don't use digital delays. They state it very clearly in their website. They have vintage machinery.
Again.....you are mixing apples with oranges! But you are so sure of your (distorted) conclusion that you could explain HOW you quantify the EMOTIONAL meaning you associate with music in mathematical terms?
I understand that it is pointless discussing with peolpe who cannot or, even worse, don't want to see beyond their nose.
I think this discussion is closed for me.
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How can you waste so much of your time extolling a medium that is by your own admission, reduced to 'rummaging'?
Lurking around junk shops hoping to pick up a " near mint" disc of interest must be very time consuming. On another tack, who would invest in a high end record player with no hope of ever being able to build up a record collection of pre-digital 'hens teeth'?
Remember, it is only in the UK that just about every other store is now a Thrift Shop!
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Post #73 pictures:
make this clear, 1kHz tone has modulation pattern of all the low frequency garbage from the pickup system. View in more typical frequency response plot 1kHz presented in picture looks like nice clean sharp spike with noise floor of at least -60dB. It doesn't tell us how it makes us feel.
I don't want turntable making me feel one way or another, only the recorded music.
Now to that, add all the garbage from magnetic tape noise and distortion. It's somewhat of a miracle we used to be able to make out anything from old recordings.
Unfortunately I have never found the answer. Do you think I don't know about those? That's why I start from the wrost case scenario so that I can at least be sure I make less mistakes.
That's an extrapolation of yours. Vinyl is actually better for me because I can get the most of it?
It's not.
On another tack, who would invest in a high end record player with no hope of ever being able to build up a record collection of pre-digital 'hens teeth'?
Remember, it is only in the UK that just about every other store is now a Thrift Shop!
This is not a problem of mine. Besides I would like to achieve the same or better with digital. Otherwise I could not find any other reason to have such discussion? As I am really NOT expert in digital stuff but I listen to it as anyone AT LEAST I thought it would be a good idea to talk a bit more in general and NOT to start from the usual assumptions that have been making and still make people going round in cirles for their entire life...if they don't lose interest first!!
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The psychoacoustic effects of the artefacts that vinyl adds are very well known. I have given a short summary of some here: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/anal...er-turntable-compared-cd-309.html#post3695501
Mixing and mastering engineers use these to make recordings sound nicer all the time. Its not rocket science, although you seem to think it is.
My turntable is not a conventinal one, regardless of the cost....you might consider that I really don't get the garbage many people think? It works on really different concepts from several points of view. To achieve this it has been done resetting the basic assumptions because it was found that otherwise it couldn't get better. It worked brilliantly and it took a long time. When I got it I learnt to do the same and still have to learn a lot (because the full system has to work like that to get the best out of it). Just work in one domain (time) and don't move from it, at least until the end. Have you done it? I don't think so otherwise you would never buy a SL1200 or even dream a Goldmund Reference....
But you could just do it for digital, if you can, and save time and money!
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The multitrack tape from witch the mastertape was mixed has added harmonics.
The mastertape from witch the record is cut has added harmonics.
The cutting head is an electrical to mechanical transducer witch adds harmonics.
If your record player uses a mechanical to electrical transducer, it adds harmonics.
There is just now way to avoid these. Just embrace it, its why you like vinyl playback.
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