Hi,
If by optimizing playback you mean thoroughly cleaned records, anti-static treated and played back with a fine stylus tip, all in good condition then yes, noise levels will be less.
You can't do that with a phono-pre unless you lower the S/N ratio somehow.
If all is optimal you won't hear groove noise at all. Tape hiss occasionally.
Ciao,
If by optimizing playback you mean thoroughly cleaned records, anti-static treated and played back with a fine stylus tip, all in good condition then yes, noise levels will be less.
You can't do that with a phono-pre unless you lower the S/N ratio somehow.
If all is optimal you won't hear groove noise at all. Tape hiss occasionally.
Ciao,
My thought is this - rather than give me nominally greater resolution so I can hear better all the booboos on CDs, no thank you, I'm quite happy with a standard Red Book CD with a really well recorded and produced source material.
There are far too few such recrodings in high resolution to justify the cost of a none too cheap surround system. WAY too few.
I'd like to be given back the glory of those moments when somebody not involved in this hobby comes to my place and asks me what's all the fuss about, and I tell him: "Hang on" and throw a Decca Phase 4 stereo LP on my humble Dual CS604 TT with an Ortofon LM20. He listens to it for like 2-3 minutes and usually says something like: "Now I get it."
But even then, in the heyday of the LP, we had relatively few truly well made and pressed recordings, and most were from the classic and jazz arena, both of which were and are of little interest to me. Some of it, but that's all.
Now, I feel the situation is even worse, much worse. Many of the good CD recordings mentioned here date back to the late 80ies and early 90ies, so I don't really see much hope on the horizon. Beofre, not everybody could produce an LP, today literally every idiot and his dog can do that on a home PC. That NEVER spells improvement.
You wouldn't dare.
These were inside of one of your favorites
George
That's just one reason, George. As a matter of fact, I have heard a number of designs using 2N3055, usually in a quasi-complementary circuit, which did and still do sound good.
Ultimately, my old reVox A78 Mk2 integrated amp used them, and used them well until around 1980 when I sold it.
A lot of Arcams used them, but in complementary mode with 2N2955, until the mid 80ies.
Dummy? I don't think so, you're a pretty sharp cookie, Dejan,
Yes, the poor recording remains poor, but that's not what you hear - I'll describe the Gene Pitney CD "monstrosity": in a bizarre attempt to reduce tape hiss or something, the "engineer" used some crude on/off gated treble reduction processing - when the average volume drops below a certain level savage frequency attentuation is switched on with full force, and then it's switched off just as abruptly when the volume rises back above that point. The effect resembles grotesque volume pumping, I was amazed when I first heard it - impossible to hear past, I thought! But, I was wrong - I have had, on a number of occasions, the system of the moment working sufficiently well that this weird "distortion" just doesn't seem to matter - it's still there if you choose to focus on it happening, but it doesn't interfere with appreciating, and enjoying, the musical flow of the track.
Frank, if you can normally hear it, but with a system of choice you hear it much less, then I would suggest one of two possibilities:
1. What you usually hear it with doesn't cut it, and it wouldn't surprise to discover that it was a low voltage slew rate which was to blame, and/or overcompensation, something factories are keen on, just to be sure, or
2. Conversly, your system of choice had a much better voltage slew rate and was able to track better. And if it was smooth about it, with little overshoot and little ringing, there's your answer.
To quote a current Pirelli tyre ad: "Speed without control is meaningless". This closely corresponds with my experience: speed will tend to produce overshoots, but it's not at all the same thing how they are controlled - or not. Back to my favorite sibject - short rise time is pointless without a short settling time.
I feel that if pressed, John could come up with a design which has like 300 V/uS voltage slew rate, if I can do it, he is sure to be able to do it better - yet he doesn't. Ask yourself why doesn't he?
In my view, balance is the key element. But achieving a good balance takes time and hard development work, exactly what the modern audio industry is not interested in at all, as long as it doesn't blow up, or start to wildly oscillate. So they overcompensate, just to be sure, and in the process, quite often manage to kill the sound dead.
Beat me to it, Pavel. I agree.
One can do a simple, very unscientific but also very telling test at home. Take a record you feel has a low noise floor. Chances are you'll find that it has a lot of energy centered around the midrange, in the say 1-5 kHz range for basic tones. Now, leave the volume as is, but decrease the frequency pots to aboslute minimum in the range up to 5 kHz, or 8 kHz, i.e. still in the single number range. Replay and listen to all the wonderful noise in the mid/high range.
Makes me shudder. But that noise is effectively masked by high volume in the range where ur ears are most sensitive.
Hi,
If by optimizing playback you mean thoroughly cleaned records, anti-static treated and played back with a fine stylus tip, all in good condition then yes, noise levels will be less.
You can't do that with a phono-pre unless you lower the S/N ratio somehow.
If all is optimal you won't hear groove noise at all. Tape hiss occasionally.
Ciao,
Actually, quite a few phono RIAA stages already have low noise levels. Obviously, some lower to much lower than others, but by and large, i wouldn't expect their noise to be really bad. If it is, then probably something is not working as it should.
Or one may have a mismatch between the cartridge and phono stage. For example, if an Ortofon LM series cartidge has say half the capacitance it should have, 200 instead of 400 pF, this will cause a hump, a rise of 3-4 dB in the 10-20 kHz range, which will accentuate noise and may subjectvely sound a little shrill.
But give it what it needs, 400 pF of total capacitance, and it becomes a very pleasant cartridge to listen to, surprisingly revealing for its price.
Hi,
Pavel, in all honesty, I just don't hear the stylus tracking the groove. No matter what type of music.
Here's what I use:
- All records cleaned with Keith Monks machine using a homebrew fluid of demineralized water, isopropanol, wetting agent.
- All records treated with LAST preservation product.
- All records iner sleeves replaced with Nagaoka anti-static sleeves.
- Stylast on stylus tip.
- TT Nothingham Analogue (a 60kg machine), can't recall the model's name.
- Air Tangent // tracking arm.
- J.Allaerts MC One Boron cartridge with Fritz Gyger's top of the line tip.
- My own MC headamp using valves. (as publicized on this forum).
- My own design MM phono preamp which also uses valves (ditto as above).
- Croft OTL 100W mono blocks.
- SD Acoustics SD1 speakers (92dB 1W/m).
Just no noise, no ticks or pops ever.
Note that some of my records used to tick and pop and you could hear the stylus track the groove. Some records used to belong to my parents and are over 40 years old, BTW.
Ever since I use this maintenance routine and the fantastic cartridge it's all gone.
Moreover, records just don't seem to wear any longer.
Ciao,
Pavel, in all honesty, I just don't hear the stylus tracking the groove. No matter what type of music.
Here's what I use:
- All records cleaned with Keith Monks machine using a homebrew fluid of demineralized water, isopropanol, wetting agent.
- All records treated with LAST preservation product.
- All records iner sleeves replaced with Nagaoka anti-static sleeves.
- Stylast on stylus tip.
- TT Nothingham Analogue (a 60kg machine), can't recall the model's name.
- Air Tangent // tracking arm.
- J.Allaerts MC One Boron cartridge with Fritz Gyger's top of the line tip.
- My own MC headamp using valves. (as publicized on this forum).
- My own design MM phono preamp which also uses valves (ditto as above).
- Croft OTL 100W mono blocks.
- SD Acoustics SD1 speakers (92dB 1W/m).
Just no noise, no ticks or pops ever.
Note that some of my records used to tick and pop and you could hear the stylus track the groove. Some records used to belong to my parents and are over 40 years old, BTW.
Ever since I use this maintenance routine and the fantastic cartridge it's all gone.
Moreover, records just don't seem to wear any longer.
Ciao,
Frank, you have a magnificent approach to record playback. Me, I'm much too lazy to do it right, but I do know that a really good MC cartridge and a low noise playback makes a great deal of improvement over cheaper vinyl players. I do get an occasional tick and pop, as well as the sound of a scratch (I have mostly used records) but so what? The SOUND is the thing, my feet start tapping (PRaT?) and I may sing along, if I can. That is the essence of vinyl and why we still promote it today.
I am all for digital completely making vinyl reproduction obsolete.
Now I have an OPPO 105, (stock) and with the best headphones, I STILL prefer vinyl playback, even compared to CD's, SACD, or DVD playback on the OPPO. Perhaps it is a problem with the digital playback circuitry, and it can be upgraded, like some are doing here, but 'stock', we have to improve further to get it right.
I am all for digital completely making vinyl reproduction obsolete.
Now I have an OPPO 105, (stock) and with the best headphones, I STILL prefer vinyl playback, even compared to CD's, SACD, or DVD playback on the OPPO. Perhaps it is a problem with the digital playback circuitry, and it can be upgraded, like some are doing here, but 'stock', we have to improve further to get it right.
I find lots to not like with Neutron, including its sound. I use Deadbeef, which has the cleanest audio processing of the Android players and the simplest, least cluttered interface. I guess that is the curse of being over 25.
I do get decent results using full duplex 192 KHz measurements using the EMU Tracker Pre on Windows XP through 8.1 and the native Windows sound engine. Win 7 and up does require confirming all the settings from device to program or it will insert a poor quality sample rate converter.
32 or 64 bit processing is only relevant if you are changing the audio, otherwise its unnecessary overhead.
On long measurements there is always the opportunity for something to pop up and drop a frame which wrecks the measurements. Its really obvious on FFT's.
Also, given the sharply dropping prices of memory sticks, and the fact that most newer car audio, let alone home audio, all have USB connections, the whole story of compressing to whatever format becomes rather obsolete for even half serious attempts at listening to music.
I admit I do not understand the folks who will spend months in debate about which method of compression sounds most life-like, in these days of cheap terabyte hard disks.
I admit I do not understand the folks who will spend months in debate about which method of compression sounds most life-like, in these days of cheap terabyte hard disks.
There are valid uses for all the different compression options. MP3 is a great storage medium for historically important spoken word/aural histories etc. FLAC has both error checking and reduced storage and bandwidth requirements which are helpful when moving content across networks etc. Wave is untouched data BUT lacks standardized metadata, error checking etc. However some challenged systems seem to sound better playing wave files.
I find all the ESS DAC implementations I have heard somehow lacking. They measure nearly perfect but have some quality that interferes with the music. They have a lot of fans however.
If memory serves, a long time ago, I read a paper from Sony, clearly stating that MP3 was intended for background music in public places, such as hotels, airports, in-plane entertainment, etc, while its key advantage was the sheer number of numbers one could pack oto a standard 700 MB CD.
No doubt this has all evolved tremendously since those days, and as you say, it does have its uses for truly mass storage.
However, for sheer music playing, I honestly see no need for it any more, unless one wants to download tons of music. Personally, I don't need that, just transferring the contents of my CD collection is a Herculean job, and although I have been hoodwinked a few times, I still can hear the difference between compressed and uncompressed music. Given that currently a 4 GB memory stick costs locally something around $4, I honestly have no need of any compression scheme. Thanks to the fact that my GM supplied audio system in my Chevy Cruze has a USB connection, and that it is way better sounding than I dared hope for (from a budget system).
John, I suspect the biggest problems are still well inside the analog section.
Hark back to your own words, with which I agree: op amps have come a long way, but for the best, a discrete circuit will still do better.
Well, it's like that in I suspect most CD players today, but in return, their prices have gone down a lot. I suspect so because of my old Yamaha CDX 993 player, which has an I/V stage as an op amp, but that is followed by discrete buffer and output amp stages. As a result of that, straight out of the box it never sounded like a CD player, more like a reasonable mid price TT, and only the total absence of clicks and pops, plus the dead black silence between the tracks tell you it's not a TT.
In fact, it was so analog sounding that it irritated me a bit, because I found that the rather slow 15 V/uS NJR op amp acting as the I/V stage was missing out on fine detail. That was cured by swapping it for an AD 828, which at 450 V/uS is kinda faster. That brought in much of the missing fine detail and ambience, without changing the basically analog sound. Other than that, I honestly didn't see anything else as being problematic.
My point is that your job is not nearly done, there is still a lot you can do with this medium, free of the RIAA curve you have to get just right.
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