As Promised, I have made dry and wet recordings.
there are two sets, a silent track at the outer side of the LP with radius 13cm and one at the inner side where radius is 7.5cm, giving a difference in tracking speed of almost a factor 2. Both where played wet and dry.
I made several recording to be sure that the results were stable and repeatable.
As you can see, there is no visible difference between playing wet and dry.
There is however a clear difference in noise between the inner track and the outer track.
The inner track has less LF noise but more HF noise.
I already noticed that the "dry noise" in my case is similar in level to LD's "wet noise", so obviously there is no further room for improvement in my case.
However LD's recording of playing dry are much worse.
So the theoretical max dynamic range of 66dBA was not broken , in both cases dry and wet it was 63dBA with my set.
As a last check, I dried the LP an recorded again, resulting however in no visible change against the previous results.
It proves how different various players are behaving and how carefull one must be before jumping to conclusions.
Hans
there are two sets, a silent track at the outer side of the LP with radius 13cm and one at the inner side where radius is 7.5cm, giving a difference in tracking speed of almost a factor 2. Both where played wet and dry.
I made several recording to be sure that the results were stable and repeatable.
As you can see, there is no visible difference between playing wet and dry.
There is however a clear difference in noise between the inner track and the outer track.
The inner track has less LF noise but more HF noise.
I already noticed that the "dry noise" in my case is similar in level to LD's "wet noise", so obviously there is no further room for improvement in my case.
However LD's recording of playing dry are much worse.
So the theoretical max dynamic range of 66dBA was not broken , in both cases dry and wet it was 63dBA with my set.
As a last check, I dried the LP an recorded again, resulting however in no visible change against the previous results.
It proves how different various players are behaving and how carefull one must be before jumping to conclusions.
Hans
It is the LP that comes with the product Adjust+ fom Dr Feickert in Germany.
Dr.Feickert::Adjust+
I still have another test LP with an unmodulated groove that I haven't tried yet from:
Hi-Fi News
cut by Len Gregory, 'the cartridge man'
it has no order number or anything else, probably to be ordered directly
from Hi-Fi News.
On the other hand, you do not really need a blank trace since my recording of a 1Khz 0dB test tone gave almost the same noise below 300Hz as that from an unmodulated groove.
So to test wet/dry, a 1Khz test tone could be used just as well.
Hans
Some contributors have alluded to problems of incompatibility of components. Some speakers and some cartridges have an output level that increases with rising frequency.
Apart from hiss there could well be an emphasis on sibilants in the sound output. Since this is transient it should ease the detective/diagnosis of the components responsible.
Also some speaker cable can upset some amplifiers without blowing them up.
Apart from hiss there could well be an emphasis on sibilants in the sound output. Since this is transient it should ease the detective/diagnosis of the components responsible.
Also some speaker cable can upset some amplifiers without blowing them up.
Hi Hans, thanks that's interesting and I half anticiptated you might obtain such results, which don't tally with mine nor from independent 3rd party recorded sample files.
I think this most likely is because either
a) there is already low friction in your setup and the record, therefore there is no phenomenum to eliminate or observe. I note that you did not measure friction coefficient wet-v-dry, so strictly we not know anything about friction before/after wet play.
Since results were repeated, presumably using the same test disc, the record must have been played dry after being played wet. This is near certain to have raised both friction coefficient and surface noise IME. This is well known and readily verifiable on any record one doesn't mind ruining for dry play. However, your results apparently did not reveal any such change in surface noise on subsequent dry playback, which I think is very hard to reconcile with common experience and my own measurements.
Lack of observation of deterioration of dry play after wet play, I think is evidence something is wrong with the test method, Hans, rather than intrinsic low friction in the set up.
b) something is wrong with the measurement/analysis which masks ability to detect or resolve the effect we are looking for.
I think this most likely, though do not know why. I can repeat previous comments about choice of window and sample length, for example, masking resolution at lf, and suspect analysis may be at the crux.
Since you do not know the reference level for my measurements, Hans, it is impossible to comment on relative noise floor observations between our results, and your own reference level is unclear and perhaps not transferable between your own measurements.
Ultimately, what is needed is analysis capable of resolving both a calibrated tone and the noise floor at sufficient resolution and dynamic range to show differences and effects. I believe this is lacking, and that is why well known phenomena, such as dry playback noise floor deterioration, are not observed in your results. Whereas they are in mine, and that I think is the most likely difference.
LD
Why and how should I have measured a friction coefficient. The discussion was, does playing wet reduce the noise level, for whatever reason.
Look at the time stamps in my recordings and you will notice that both dry tests were taken before switching to wet. Your near certain assumption is therefore 100% wrong.
You posted a graph in #29, where the noise level is very well visible.
Estimating roughly a 10Hz filter bandwidth, makes relative noise observations very well possible with my #33, where filter bandwidth was 1.5 Hz and where at the same time the level of a 0dB tone was displayed.
So my reference level is as clear as it could possibly be.
All you have to do is to compensate for 10log(10/1.5)= 8db. I am not that far of with this estimate as will be shown below.
I have again taken my figure from #33, now displayed from 100Hz to 2500Hz to bring it on the same linear scale as your figure.
At the same time I have drawn a line 8dB above my measured noise level to simulate your estimated 10hz filter bandwidth.
An top of this figure I have projected your figure from #29.
As you can see the shape of your wet noise follows exactly the same curve as my dry noise curve, but yours is still some 4dB above the 10Hz filter width assumption, so maybe your filter width was a bit more like 15Hz.
It is quite clear however that your wet noise is in the same order of magnitude as my dry noise and that the relative levels are easy to compare.
My test disc has a calibrated tone and my equipment has enough dynamic range as shown in #50, where the noise from the non playing record player is also shown, so I reject firmly your comment on that.
Your comment on neglecting dry playback deterioration, whatever that may be, can be shifted aside as non valid.
To conclude, it seems that you are rigidly rejecting any result deviating from your result.
I offered to perform the test in a more scientific way and do both the same things, like using the same test LP, the same recording length, the same amount of averaged spectra etc, etc.
But you simply refused.
The whole discussion from my side was nothing else but to warn to be carefull in finding the absolute truth based upon just one observation, but that does not seem to meet with a wide response from your side.
That leaves all real possible reasons in the dark as to why your recordings differ so much from mine. Does it have to do with the shape of the needle (3 x 60 in my case) or the fact that my LP is firmly held by a heavy peripheral ring and a heavy clamp in the centre or what? We will probably never know.
Hans
LD,
Since recorded noise levels of an inner track in #122 were noisier from 400Hz and upwards compared to the noise of an outer track, the difference gradually growing to a 6dB max, I suppose the 4 dB difference in the figure above could be because your recording was taken more in the middle of the LP while mine was taken almost at the outside.
If that is the case, the 10Hz estimated filter bandwidth in your recordings is rather spot on.
Hans
Since recorded noise levels of an inner track in #122 were noisier from 400Hz and upwards compared to the noise of an outer track, the difference gradually growing to a 6dB max, I suppose the 4 dB difference in the figure above could be because your recording was taken more in the middle of the LP while mine was taken almost at the outside.
If that is the case, the 10Hz estimated filter bandwidth in your recordings is rather spot on.
Hans
Why? Because the correlation between friction coefficient and surface noise is the point at issue. If, for whatever reason, your setup and record already had ultra-low friction, there would be nothing to observe........as on the face of it you are claiming.
That wet playback typically offers significantly reduced surface noise is a settled matter beyond doubt. Otherwise there would be no point. Not only is it typically plainly audible and measurable IME, it is backed by common knowledge and occasional objective observations such as "A one minute section of an album recorded both 'wet' and 'dry' resulted in half as many impulses detected (Cooledit) in the 'wet' recording (Plastic Revolver).
How? Robert Pardee set out a method in Dec 1981 JAES involving measuring platter free spin down time. JVC published measurements for the coefficient thus obtained between 0.2 and 0.55.
OK so you did not repeat the test, you simply took two contemporary samples. That isn't the same thing ! So now, if you play your test record dry, you will almost certainly note a significant increase in noise floor. This increase will be reversible if you playback wet. If you measure friction coefficient, it will correlate with surface noise.
Unfortunately, you cannot now measure the original friction coefficient, because you have already played it wet, so we will never know.
Well no, Hans.
You are guessing badly about my analysis parameters, and reference levels in my plots. Those IMD test tones are not at '0dB', and in any event do we not learn that there is no definitive 0dB, so we need always to state a reference velocity?
In the case of my plot in post #29, the point that there is a clear broad noise floor spectrum difference between dry and wet playback, where wetting was the only variable. This is observable no matter what reasonable fft parameters one uses. It is about the size of an elephant in a small room !
What you are trying to do, Hans, is reconcile results which are fundamentally different, rather than try to explain why.
Your plots and analysis, unfortunately, lacks several characteristic signatures of vinyl playback and that makes it tough to grasp and recognise or even guess what might be at issue.
OK, we shall really ignore what doesn't fit
Subsequent dry playback should show significant deterioration in noise play after your test, Hans. The silent track will no longer be silent, so you should be able to test this record again quickly, and observe the difference. If you do not, suspect measurement/analysis. You should see c 10dB deterioration or so.At the same time, if you look in detail at the sub-audio 1Hz-30Hz range, you should see stark difference in amplitude of the cart-arm resonance before/after. You record should have more friction, it should be ruined, says experience.
I hope not, but I could level the same comment about your position, Hans !
If you had measured the friction coefficient, the answer would probably be obvious. It's hard to imagine that either of us would muck up such simple measurement and analysis. If you post a link to your sample recordings, I'm happy to analyse them? But I'm not into ruining any more test records with wet playback !
LD
This discussion seems to make no progress at all.
All at the sudden 0dB on my test record cannot be regarded as 0dB, and because I displayed only one version of all 4 tested versions, this would implicate that I haven't tried more than 1, the displayed amplitude levels in your posting #29 are suddenly irrelevant, wet playing ruins a disc but wet cleaning does not, and so on and so on.
And I'm sorry, but I am not impressed by "common knowledge"
and for whatever reason you never released the title of the test LP that you used making a 1:1 compare impossible.
So unfortunately this is how it has to come to an end without any results.
Hans
All at the sudden 0dB on my test record cannot be regarded as 0dB, and because I displayed only one version of all 4 tested versions, this would implicate that I haven't tried more than 1, the displayed amplitude levels in your posting #29 are suddenly irrelevant, wet playing ruins a disc but wet cleaning does not, and so on and so on.
And I'm sorry, but I am not impressed by "common knowledge"
and for whatever reason you never released the title of the test LP that you used making a 1:1 compare impossible.
So unfortunately this is how it has to come to an end without any results.
Hans
Hans, it's not like LD is alone making this up. Just spend an hour or so with google. I for one have a friend with 1000's of used and abused rock LP's he's been saying this for 20yr. They all need a good "bow wave" when playing and once wet always wet.
On the other side of the coin so to speak it would be interesting to see some comparative results between types of turntable mat - a question of how a disc is suspended, rubber versus felt etc.
The only circumstance I can think of where the act of wetting the vinyl might have an effect is if there was an electrostatic charge on the disc. I prefer to use a brush before playing.
I have to say finding this a fascinating discussion and convinced that a consensus can be found. I haven't had enough thinking time to work out what tests could be done to align the sets of data presented. I certainly don't think anyone is wrong here.
It has increased my interest in setting up a way of doing my own measurements.
It has increased my interest in setting up a way of doing my own measurements.
Hi Bill,
Thanks for your positive contribution.
I'll give you some details of what I did, maybe it could help you as a starter.
1) Sampling frequency 96Khz, to prevent aliasing
2) FFT of 65.536 points, giving a filter bandwidth of 1.5 Hz and a sampling time of 0.7 sec per FFT.
3) A Hann Window to supress side lobes of a known fundamental in amplitude making it possible to have an absolute reference to the measured noise (in my case 0dB @ 1Khz)
4) Averaging of 32 FFT calculations to flatten the noise spectrum.
The total sampling time therefore is a minimal 32 time 0.7 sec = 22 sec
So the test tone has to last at least 1 minute giving you the time to properly start and stop the recording.
5) Measure the noise from the recording chain, i.e. Arm in the air, platter running. If this noise is not at least 12dB below the surface noise of your test LP in the measured spectrum, you will have to correct the measured surface noise for this extra noise contribution.
Hans
Hi Scott,
I don't think anybody is making anything up by purpose, but when you are biased in a certain direction, chances are that you observe things differently and see "proves" that are no proves at all.
Quite a number of scientific papers were discarded many years later because of this.
It is not at all my intention to prove anything, other than showing that "wet playing reduces noise" is not always the case.
Why, I don't know but it would be interesting to find the cause.
Is it because of friction reduction, then why not always, is because the vinyl compound differs from one LP to another or are they all made from plain PVC, no idea.
What is the influence of the shape of the needle, round, eliptical, shibata or whatever, I have no idea.
Or could it be a combination of many factors together, who knows?
And don't forget to mention that the groove speed at the outside of the LP is twice the speed of an inner groove, does this give twice as much friction or what.
So the least one should do is to measure on different spots.
In my case I measured more noise above 400Hz on the inner track, quite against the expectation that halve the speed results in lower noise.
Is my cartridge not aligned correctly or what possible cause can lead to this counterintuitive result?
But in the end the all important question is, does it affect the sound reproduction in a positive way and again, difficult to get a reliable answer.
The experience of your friend with 1000 Jazz Lp's is also described in my posting #83.
At first I thought I had to play forever wet, but "scraping" the LP several times while constantly cleaning the needle and thoroughly cleaning the LP on a cleaning machine afterwards seemed to have solved that problem in my case.
But again, that is just the experience of one guy, making no prove at all.
However I'm curious to hear if anybody reading this thread had similar experiences.
If that would be the case, than the fluid causing the harm could be doing this in an indirect way by helping to solidify mud in the groove but not by changing the characteristics of the PVC.
But again it could just as well be a combination of both or because of something that nobody has thought of so far.
So the attitude that is best in things like this, keep your mind open and take nothing for granted.
And I could not agree more with your phrase: It does not matter who is right, all that matters is to get it right.
Hans
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One time I tried wet playback, using tap water and playback was less noisy when wet but very noisy afterwards. Next time I used distilled water mixed with limescale removal substance (stuff you use in a coffee machine) and after that I didn't get extra noise when playing the vinyl again when dried up.
I got two identical vinyls that I could use to do testing on. One for reference, other the guinea pig, but I lack means to record anything with reasonable quality for the time being. I also got mono test disc with variety of test tones (30, 50, 100, 315, 500, 1000, 3150, 5000, 10000Hz), it is in a rough shape though, couldn't find any info on the internet. изм-0281/0282
I got two identical vinyls that I could use to do testing on. One for reference, other the guinea pig, but I lack means to record anything with reasonable quality for the time being. I also got mono test disc with variety of test tones (30, 50, 100, 315, 500, 1000, 3150, 5000, 10000Hz), it is in a rough shape though, couldn't find any info on the internet. изм-0281/0282
One thing to add to the list, explore thorough vacuum cleaning before/after wet play. I'm fairly sure some of the stories are based on wet play of used LP's some even with mold or heavy smoke contamination without any pre-clean. This was certainly the case with my friend. I am skeptical myself about once wet always wet being a hard and fast rule.
I believe from a demonstration to an audio enthusiasts group of which I was a member that temperature can affect the compliance of the rubber sleeve supporting the stylus inside the cartridge.
On the night in question the lecture room had cooled down and the system being demonstrated sounded awful. One of the members took the cartridge into an adjoining kitchen to use some gentle means of applying some warmth.
His comment on this was that the stylus suspension rubber was responsible and while this would become more compliant in use as the night progressed - the consensus of those present was this trick had an obvious and immediate effect.
On the night in question the lecture room had cooled down and the system being demonstrated sounded awful. One of the members took the cartridge into an adjoining kitchen to use some gentle means of applying some warmth.
His comment on this was that the stylus suspension rubber was responsible and while this would become more compliant in use as the night progressed - the consensus of those present was this trick had an obvious and immediate effect.
Albeit not a chemist by trade or education, I'm still scratching my head how the vinyl surface could be so affected by wet playback to dramatically change its characteristics (that wouldn't happen due to other possible environmental insults). At least with something like distilled water on an already-cleaned record.
Then again, I don't have a good grasp on the local thermal situation at the tip-record interface.