Haven't listened to that particular record player combination, but master tapes of that age will be severely degraded. That may not bother you, but distortion and veiling it is nonetheless.
Unless the Second Law has been overturned, the megabucks setup won't get rid of vinyl compliance, head bumps, cartridge Johnson noise, tape wow and flutter, tape hiss...
Unless the Second Law has been overturned, the megabucks setup won't get rid of vinyl compliance, head bumps, cartridge Johnson noise, tape wow and flutter, tape hiss...
Still better than most of the contemporary digital mastering output (except for classical music). I blame it on sound engineers, they shrunk under commercial loudness pressure.
That is deeply unfair and misdirected.
I have spoken to many a sound engineer and every single one hates the loudness wars with a passion which runs far deeper than that of those who merely consume music!
The poor guys are trapped between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand it goes against everything they hold dear on the other hand they have to earn a living and that is only done by pleasing the client.
The problem was started by the record companies but by now it is largely (but not solely) the artists themselves who want their album to sound 'just as loud as the latest Green Day album'.
The people benefitting the most are mastering engineers like the Lord-Alges who rake in large sums by catering to the artists, producers and record company execs by catering to their lust for ever louder releases.
Don't hide behind earnings and income, professionals should have enough of personal courage. If not, results are always awful.
Easy to say, if you don't have to earn a living. Not so easy when you have to put bread on the table.
In theory, yes but in practice, no. Those faults you describe may be there, but do you really believe you can hear Johnson noise in a one ohm cartridge above music playing at 85dB with 98dB peaks? I've never heard any fault during record playback that could be ascribed to "vinyl compliance". And certainly, severe degradation of properly stored tapes is more than a little bit of an exaggeration. A friend of mine owns a safety from the 'fifties that he purchased from the estate of Faron Young (of all people) that sounds better than any recording of anything I've ever heard.
John
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Depends on the output. See my phono stage article on this site and Joachim's excellent paper in Linear Audio.
Now, you're claiming that the vinyl system is audibly perfect, not to mention miracle magnetic tape that doesn't have transient spreading, print through, and demagnetization. Let's see some data.
Now, you're claiming that the vinyl system is audibly perfect, not to mention miracle magnetic tape that doesn't have transient spreading, print through, and demagnetization. Let's see some data.
True, and the fact that CDs can also degrade over time, with or without being played, is also something that seems to get ignored.
Best Regards,
TerryO
I never said perfect. I said "sounds better than" and "sounds pretty spectacular". No data on earth can prove that. I think it would be up to the person who claims that cartridges are too noisy for practical use is the one that needs to be showing data.
John
John
It doesn't take any special data. It's well known that in general there is a lower limit to the level of distortion that a person can distinguish and certainly any distortion generated by a cartridge retrieving data from a record falls below that threshold. With the cartridge I mentioned (one ohm resistance and .4mV output), intrinsic noise drops below audibility as well.
John
John
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Repeating the claim is not data. Let's see distortion data as a function of frequency (especially intermod and FM), level, and position on the record, sidebands on single tones, frequency response from mike to phono stage output... Oh, yes, and S/N, especially when actually tracking a groove.
Now repeat that the tenth time you play the disk.
John, you may like vinyl (so do I), but it's not an accurate medium for translating the voltage signal at the mike to the voltage signal feeding your power amp.
No, it's not as accurate as digital in general, but is it more accurate than cd? Cd doesn't necessarily sound less distorted, but there certainly seems to be something missing, not to mention a certain edginess sometimes that could be characterized as distortion. The other day we were listening to a master dub on a Studer studio tape recorder and in his excitement my host shouted out, "See, that's what digital was supposed to be like!"
You see, the listening experience is one of comparisons. A person generally compares his system to his own experiences in listening to live performances. Nobody in their right mind would listen to equipment that measures flawlessly but compares unfavorably to their live experience and say that the perfect equipment in fact represents true reproduction.
John
You see, the listening experience is one of comparisons. A person generally compares his system to his own experiences in listening to live performances. Nobody in their right mind would listen to equipment that measures flawlessly but compares unfavorably to their live experience and say that the perfect equipment in fact represents true reproduction.
John
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That has nothing to do with personal courage whatsoever and everything with (financial) survival.
There are substantially more capable sound engineers than paying jobs these days. You either do what the client wants or your new catchphrase will be 'Do you want fries with that?'.
You appear to be naive to the extreme when it comes to what is really going on in the music business. Not even Bob Dylan had enough clout to stop his record company from squashing the last ounce of life out of his latest album.
Do you really think a largely replaceable engineer working from his own studio, earning $15-20 per hour can afford to turn any job down?
Not so fast :
HowStuffWorks "Is the sound on vinyl records better than on CDs or DVDs?"
This means that, by definition, a digital recording is not capturing the complete sound wave. It is approximating it with a series of steps. Some sounds that have very quick transitions, such as a drum beat or a trumpet's tone, will be distorted because they change too quickly for the sample rate.
In your home stereo the CD or DVD player takes this digital recording and converts it to an analog signal, which is fed to your amplifier. The amplifier then raises the voltage of the signal to a level powerful enough to drive your speaker.
A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's waveform. This means that no information is lost. The output of a record player is analog. It can be fed directly to your amplifier with no conversion.
HowStuffWorks "Is the sound on vinyl records better than on CDs or DVDs?"
This means that, by definition, a digital recording is not capturing the complete sound wave. It is approximating it with a series of steps. Some sounds that have very quick transitions, such as a drum beat or a trumpet's tone, will be distorted because they change too quickly for the sample rate.
In your home stereo the CD or DVD player takes this digital recording and converts it to an analog signal, which is fed to your amplifier. The amplifier then raises the voltage of the signal to a level powerful enough to drive your speaker.
A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's waveform. This means that no information is lost. The output of a record player is analog. It can be fed directly to your amplifier with no conversion.
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