It's usually easy enough to track down the manuals for an audio component. The manufacturer's own specs are a good place to start, though they should be treated with caution.
I don't think those specs are particularly unusual for a direct drive turntable. I see figures such as "below 0.02%" and "less than 0.03% (WRMS)" and "less than 0.04% (NAB)" for three other turntables of mine, and I would expect similar if I looked up some of my others.
There have always been cheaply made turntables out there, and the main Japanese brands tended to have a range that went from (very) entry-level to high-end. And they put up stiff competition against manufacturers in Europe and North America. However, in the 1970s, if my memory is correct, audio equipment of any type was rarely cheap to the average person with average disposable income. And so it was not a casual purchase. That build quality that we can benefit from today if we buy an old turntable, and the vast amounts of money poured into R&D, particularly for direct drive and later on, linear drive technology, was paid in full by consumers.
There is now a plentiful supply of turntables from that era because many were well-built; because even audio gear built out of lighter and cheaper materials can hold up pretty well for a few decades; because repair and restoration is entirely possible; and because today, there simply aren't the numbers of people playing music on vinyl any more to soak up the supply of hardware surviving from the 1970s and 80s. Not everyone wants an old machine anyway, and a lot of people have grown up in the PC/digital/throwaway era where they're practically trained to assume that 5 or at most 10 years is about as much time as you can expect out of anything you buy. If they're under 30, chances are they haven't known anything different, and when so many devices we use today are tied to software, that short product lifespan can be made to come true simply by ensuring that the software running on the device or on which the device depends becomes obsolete. The tradeoff is that a lot of today's products are actually much cheaper than they once were: televisions and monitors being an obvious example.
I had converted some of my CDs to .ogg format to save space, however .wav would be better now.
Looks like most of my CDs have music that has been subjected to compression. The 1974 album I pulled out did not have this - it was a CD but sounded just like tape, with boomy bass and no high distortion. There seems to be a date -1995 - when it all went bad.
I have to now shelve my CDs, back up the mp3s somewhere and return to vinyl in a big way. I ordered my second record album this year from Discogs.
Spotify will held me get through to when the albums arrive.
Not sure about any of this. Brickwall filters implemented in analog was a serious problem originally, suspected of artifacts introduced by poor quality passive and active components being implemented in analog. Brickwall filters still exist today, as often selectable in variant slopes. Phase shifts still exist, though if detectable, aren't necessarily detrimental under any and all circumstances.
CD's played through a CD player feeding into a modern DAC through optical, with brick wall filtering in digital, and likely some ringing, pre-ringing and otherwise can sound very good.
A brickwalled CD never "sounds" good, compared to what it could have been.
Compare a good sounding 1970´ies CD to a later "digitally remastered" version, and you start to cry...... Why?? Why?? why??
Loudness War is what started the rip off´s, trying to convince audiophooles, that highrez was da s**t.
Why the hell have 96dB of dynamic range and then only use 20??
Vinyl is almost impossible to "brick wall" if a proper master is made. Just avoid these shady record labels, that Europe´s copyright laws have
allowed to exist: DOL, WaxTime, WaxTime in Color, NotNowMusic, Vinyl Passion to name a few, who just take a crappy digital file and
make records. Funny, that on these labels, there are never any info on origin of master.... nothing. As their reuputation dwindles, sometimes
they just dissapear, and new labels pop up.
I´m currently running in the high end with 3 turntables, good arms and expensive cartridges, but you can get great vinyl-sound for
500$. A Technics SL-1200 or 1210, and if you are into MM´s try a used Shure V15-IV and buy a new SAS needle.
If you are into MC´s, one of the best kept secrets tracking- and sound stage wise, is the Audio Technica AT33-PTG/II. All very affordable.
Compare a good sounding 1970´ies CD to a later "digitally remastered" version, and you start to cry...... Why?? Why?? why??
Loudness War is what started the rip off´s, trying to convince audiophooles, that highrez was da s**t.
Why the hell have 96dB of dynamic range and then only use 20??
Vinyl is almost impossible to "brick wall" if a proper master is made. Just avoid these shady record labels, that Europe´s copyright laws have
allowed to exist: DOL, WaxTime, WaxTime in Color, NotNowMusic, Vinyl Passion to name a few, who just take a crappy digital file and
make records. Funny, that on these labels, there are never any info on origin of master.... nothing. As their reuputation dwindles, sometimes
they just dissapear, and new labels pop up.
I´m currently running in the high end with 3 turntables, good arms and expensive cartridges, but you can get great vinyl-sound for
500$. A Technics SL-1200 or 1210, and if you are into MM´s try a used Shure V15-IV and buy a new SAS needle.
If you are into MC´s, one of the best kept secrets tracking- and sound stage wise, is the Audio Technica AT33-PTG/II. All very affordable.
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I found this label in Discogs. Thanks for the warning.
https://www.discogs.com/label/100805-Vinyl-Passion
According to Fremer, again, a vinyl record made using a CD 'master' sounds better than the CD. Is this possible, and why?
Here is more info, and what seems an useful database:
....
I have found one or two CDs that are not having this compression thing done to the music. After all, what I want is a perfect reproduction of what is on the master tapes.
Is it possible to obtain CDs that are not having this problem without buying.
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It's possible, because Michael Fremer believes so. I wouldn't really give it any more thought than that.
It's also a useful disclaimer for those times when we overlook (or in the case of MoFi, find out) that the source of some album that we have declared 'amazing on vinyl' is actually a digital master.
I am fine with digital masters, as long as the do not have the loudness compression scheme applied to them.
Is music played through a digital amplifier then 'digital' at some point?
I have come up with an algorithm for my music acquisition program:
- Go through entire CD collection and analyze audio files for 'compression/loudness' effects
- If the waveform from the .wav file on CD looks ok, do a listening test.
- If the music passes the above tests, separate it to an 'acceptable' pile
- For music not found in CD collection:
- Listen albums to online - Order vinyl version
- Order vinyl version of unacceptable CDs
They tell you nothing because they are not spectrum diagrams, you need the flutter spectrum.
Noise specs also don't tell you too much because they're dependent on how the noise was measured. You can't compare a spec from the 1950s with one from the 1980s, for example.
There is a thread on other forum where actual flutter spectrum tests are plotted for some DD, ID, and BD drive turntables, and the results are interesting.
Good enough, however difficult to compare with other turntables, because for the only figure that is truly useful, the "peak" figure, they're using IEC 98A weighting while other manufacturers use the DIN method. Etc.
In any case, good enough not to worry about.
For the price they're trading right now, they don't make sense anymore. You can get better value from competitive contemporary models from other brands.
The good (not to mention the best) 70s-80s turntables from brands from Denon, Sony, JVC and maybe even Kenwood or Pioneer, have nothing to envy the Technics offerings at the same price point. Sony was the arch-nemesis to Matsushita (Technics) and comparable in R&D, if not superior. JVC was partly owned by Matushita but were a fully independent entity and thrived on demonstrating they were the better technical team. Denon in those times was almost exclusively a company dedicated to vinyl playback.
Technics made great turntables, no doubt (i have a SL-10 next to me as I write this), however they have been very overrated in forums and media. Plus the SL-1200 line isn't the best that Technics had to offer.
You may be right. I've never been in the market for one, so I don't know the going price over the years. However, having just looked at a couple of my usual sites in Japan, I see quite a few SL1200s in decent condition offered (fixed price) at 40,000 to 60,000 yen. At current exchange rates, 60,000 yen is just under $420. Doesn't sound terrible to me.
Here's the difficulty when it comes to talking about prices or accessibility: we're often in different countries and making assumptions about what something would cost us personally, or which turntables are easy to find. The OP is, I think, in Sri Lanka/Maldives, I'm in Japan, and you're in Peru. Meanwhile, forums in English are often dominated, numerically that is, by members in the United States. Everyone's experience is heavily based on what they see in their own country, and the secondhand market just isn't the same in each. Nor are the cost of living and standard of living, so we can also have different ideas about the prices we are willing to pay.
I have never seen it suggested that they are, and I don't think the OP needs a 1200. I would simply say that if he went for one, it's a good, reliable choice, and I personally think the turntable has earned its legendary status. I don't know how many have been sold over the years, but it must be one of the more prolific models in turntable history, and as they're tough as hell, many have survived to the present day, even after some heavy use. Parts availability should be good, and because of the deck's popularity, there are 3rd party modifications and accessories.
You can see elsewhere in this thread that I do not urge any particular model on the OP, but did suggest some advantages, or strong points at least, of vintage turntables in general. Every major Japanese brand had premium models by the late 1970s and through the 1980s, so I'm well aware that the SL1200 is not such a model.
I found the Japanese blog en_ide cart blog. It is written in Japanese. There are thousands of analog sound files you can listen to. Here is a comparison between an Audio Technica at2000 art cartridge and a CD file. I believe the cd is compressed in the mastering and it sounds ugly to my ears.
https://en-ide-cart.blog.ss-blog.jp/2015-06-03
https://en-ide-cart.blog.ss-blog.jp/2015-06-03
You're wrong, they do tell ME something. Also, you forget the experience part. Why don't you post the interesting results, "other forum" is not much to go by.
Anyway, I agree on the SL-1200, there are many competitive models from "other brands" in the higher price range.
However, for a tt in this price range, the chance of finding a good one is better from Technics than any other brand - in my personal experience. Technics are found in big numbers worldwide, and the models also share many parts. Easier and cheaper to source, should need be.
I'd still start with the free Sony or JVC...
Sorry but it doesn't make sense to me: wether compression is here or not it's the end result which mater.
The issue with dynamic compression happen when it is overused or used on source material ( music genre) which doesn't require it.
Doing a first selection by visual clues will never tell you if that sounds good or not. At best it'll tell you if limiting ( or 'shredding' technique was used) but in no way how it'll sound.
So i would forget the idea right now if your plan is to focus on 'quality recordings'( except if you wan't to make statistic on how your librarie was mastered but usually a look at date of release is enough to 'know'): we have ears/brain as quality test equipment and this is what maters in the end.
Doesn't make any sense: 'normalizing' take the highest peak into an audio extract and then change the volume of the whole extract to bring it at 0dbfs.
It can't restore peaks which have been limited ( nothing can, it's a destructive process= it modify the original signal definitely).
It's a bad habit because when an album is mastered we seek the track which need the highest SPL on the whole tracklist then define the relative level of other tracks with the louder one as a reference to have a 'coherent' experience.
Iow if this particular track isn't the loudest on the record it'll be boosted in level ( which is enough to give you the impression it sounds 'better' than the original) and if you play the album as a whole loudest track will sound quieter and softer tracks louder... no more coherency.
Lastly, normalising will introduce a technical hazard: DAC doesn't all behave well when reaching 0dbfs and especially entry levels one ( which normalize does as it brings the highest peak at this 0Dbfs level).
They will bring harmonic distortion which can modify the sound of the track...
That's why we master at max output level between minus 0.1 to minus 0.3 dbfs as a safety practice.
What you see by inspecting only visual clues without being used to what is displayed is a change in the 'zoom' in the waveform visual representation: your software changed the vertical scale of the waveform display...
About what you call 'clipping' it isn't: it's a limiting technic called 'shredding'.
We use the behavior of a given gear to introduce a kind of limiting effect. It can 'looks' ugly but sounds good on some material with the 'good' gear choosen to apply this effect.
The overuse of the technic can sound bad. But when used by an experienced M.E. it can do marvels.
Last thing how do you compare the end results?
I mean listen to end results? Have you compensated for the change in rms levels introduced? If not your comparison are moot: the small gain change will gives you the feeling the louder track sound better even if in reality it sound worse than the initial track...
Mastering tweaks need experience and a lot of knowledge. Homebrew results usually doesn't makes sense if you don't know how and what to compare, hence you'll often see recomendation to not do it by yourself.
Sounds like a bit of a process, you have more patience than me...
Many of our CDs, particularly the classical ones, aren't available on LP anyway. Those CDs which have awful sound are either in the 'throw out one day' or 'the music's so good I don't care about the sound' categories. I wouldn't part with my Naxos CD of Rachmaninov playing his piano concertos or my Django Reinhardt or Charlie Christian discs, but Red Hot Chili Peppers would go in the former category: the LPs couldn't sound much worse, or could they?!
I wouldn't just rely on the Audacity wave forms: some of those I've looked at look as though they should sound overly compressed etc are OK
Geoff
Ok, here they are. Warning: More than 100 pages in total and, yes, you DO need to read through the threads.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/turntable-speed-stabilty.309349/
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/fun-with-vinyl-measurements.20278/
Now go away, you rude, ungrateful person.