Good Article re Vinyl Renaissance

[Lazarus Short]

Don't miss the link at the end to the turntable review.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/07/-sp-vinyls-difficult-comeback

 

[BlazeES]

This is excellent reading.

Thanks for posting Laz !

 

[CASSETTE DECK]

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/07/-sp-vinyls-difficult-comeback

Great news!

I will be watching progress with interest.

Production is still struggling to keep up with demand but hopefully new machines will eventually be built as well as more old machines being reconditioned.

 

[derek92994]

I'll be buying as much new vinyl as possible when I'm back on top of finances and have paid money owed to a couple of people. I want to support the return of the format as much as possible. I also hope that it may encourage more manufacturers (even small) to start making 'decent' blank cassette tapes again.

 

[MarkWComer]

Vinyl is magic. Even Edison's original cylinders were magic. How can sound come from a scratch made by a cutting stylus? I'm still in as much awe over records as I was when the delivery men unboxed my sister's 1963 General Electric console- with a Glaser-Steers GS400 changer fitted with an Astatic 17 ceramic cartridge. I'm soon to turn 57, and I remember that day vividly. At the time, my favorite LP was the RCA Living Stereo pressing of the "Hatari" soundtrack. I have a badly warped copy of it now...

If I could have a dream come true, I'd own and operate a stamping plant. What a fantasy job! From where I live I have to pass an industrial park to get anywhere, and frequently think to myself that this would be a nice place to have my stamping plant: close to three major highways and a railway- perfect for product delivery.

I never liked the sound of tape, didn't like the hiss. Dolby helped. Dolby "C" was a little better. Dbx just didn't sound "real" to me. The original Philips cassette was great for car and walkman, and served well to reduce wear on the vinyl that I used to make the tapes. Elcaset came out, great idea that never caught a foothold against the firmly established Philips format. Dad had an 8-track in the truck- but dammit!- they cut some of the songs in half to make a track switch, and sometimes the song order was changed to fit into the 9- to 10- minute loop of tape. Open reel tapes were just too big and bulky, expensive, and not portable.

Compact Disc hit the market- Damn! I wasted whole paychecks on those suckers! I gave away a Harman/Kardon ST-8 (Shure V-15/III), my beloved Phase Linear 8000 Series II (Micro Acoustics MA2002), and gave my vinyl collection to a dumpster. Yes, that's right- trashed 'em all. I thought for sure that they were obsolete. I still loved them, but I had new digital versions that were supposed to surpass the clarity of the groove, as well as have a 90db dynamic range and 90db channel separation. Such a fool I was! I had the best top-of-the-line Philips CD player (I insisted on Philips/Magnavox solely because they were the developers of the laser tracking technology, first introduced in the LaserVision video disc- I nearly took my VHS recorder to the same dumpster!). I'm haunted by the memory of seeing all those LPs in the metal box- the yellow cover of the original B-52s on top- the memory now causes my stomach to churn.

I've since converted all the CDs to .mp3, stored them on a hard drive, and ended up giving/selling/donating/trading all of them. I have about 20 left- but no CD player other than drives on an iMac and a homebuilt PC. 480Mb of digital files now come and go on the iPod if only for the sake of portability. No tape deck. Twelve years ago, I asked vinyl to forgive me, and renewed the love affair. Occasionally, our technology and pursuit of "better" defeats itself. Sadly, new generations won't experience the original magic and just watch the numbers advance on a display while they think they're having the ultimate musical experience. How sad. "Remastered" CDs only push everything into the upper 30db limit of a 90db dynamic range- we who know better have turned to our half-speed 180g remastered LPs- and possess the original magic.

For Christmas, our family picks names. We don't go through the usual mania of buying loads of presents for people who really don't need anything. All the adults do get something for the kids (there's only one left now- and she made out like the proverbial bandit). My present this year was Pink Floyd's "The Endless River", and I was hit by an irony that was as hard as a skydive jump that went tragically wrong: I've come full circle! I'm twisting up a doober while a Pink Floyd record is spinning on the turntable! Sometimes when you go forward, you end up where you began...

 

[MarkWComer]

I'll be buying as much new vinyl as possible
I want to support the return of the format as much as possible.

Don't completely forsake old vinyl, either- keep you local record trader in business!

 

[derek92994]

Don't completely forsake old vinyl, either- keep you local record trader in business!

Of course, I see great value in older pressings as well.

 

[derek92994]

I never liked the sound of tape, didn't like the hiss. Dolby helped. Dolby "C" was a little better. Dbx just didn't sound "real" to me.

Dad had an 8-track in the truck- but dammit!- they cut some of the songs in half to make a track switch, and sometimes the song order was changed to fit into the 9- to 10- minute loop of tape.

Open reel tapes were just too big and bulky, expensive, and not portable.

Compact Disc hit the market- Damn! I wasted whole paychecks on those suckers!

As for formats which may have some undesirable characteristics, I have come to accept that as part of the deal and still enjoy them greatly. In most cases Dolby B is fine for me, but if the music is the 'loud' type with minimal quiet passages I sometimes don't use dolby at all and a big grin appears on my face when I hear the hiss between tracks. Its tape and I love it. Dolby C worked wonders recording multiple Mannheim Steamroller and Marantz Audiophile albums which have many quiet passages. I cannot hear any hiss AT ALL unless I turn the volume to max between tracks, even still its very very quiet. This is on my JVC TD-V661 deck, its not a Nakamichi ZX-9 but it just WORKS with ANY tape (Some 1970's BASF tapes being the exception).

DBX I have yet to do more testing with, it worked ok but both decks I have require attention and I need to weigh up whether its worth spending the time on them. I did do a fleetwood mac mix tape on a Sony XR Metal 60 using DBX, it sounded fine but I have not sat there with my eyes closed examining every little detail of the recording.

8 Tracks, well yeah I mean there is only so much they can do in terms of sound quality, but I have learnt to embrace their quirks and limitations and still love plonking one into my Realistic TR-882 player and letting them roll with that very noticeable 'clunk' of the solenoid between the 4 stereo tracks. Yes the split tracks, very common, but so be it. It was either to reduce the amount of blank time between tracks or the manufacturers saving money on tape production (or both).

Open reel I have just gotten into, and have very limited blanks, actually I have used all my good blanks, the rest are too worn. These machines have potential, killer sound quality and high tape speed, can't wait to get a brand new blank or two and do some real high quality recordings. Noise is very very low considering there is no dolby on the machine I use, not that tape noise bothers me anyway.

Compact disc: Yeah it was fun while it lasted, and I still use it for convenience (have 2 X 300 CD stackers), great for when I'm lazy and the sound quality is acceptable. But time permitting I will spin a vinyl every time when possible (or play a cassette). I have put quite a bit of my vinyl into the CD stacker, recording in high resolution then down converting to the cd compatible standard. Ok so its not analog, but some 'goodness' of the vinyl sound does get captured by digital, and I'm not talking pops/clicks, its other properties of the sound which are hard for me to put words to.

I'm still proud of my cd collection and they get played now and again. I look at some cds and they bring back memories of parties and djing where I woke up to find them on the floor, but most still survived and play without skipping. Like a vinyl cover when it gets worn down, its a part of you, its been with you for that time, but less so with a cd as the wear eventually kills them completely rendering them unplayable. Also cds are not as 'tangible', not as much material or artwork, much smaller etc.

There is much more soul in an LP/Tape than there is with CD in my opinion.

Yes I sold records in the past which I regret selling however not too many, maybe 30 or 40, the rest I have hung onto and will do so until my time is up.

I feel your pain re throwing out your records, but at the time you didn't know better and that seemed like the most logical thing to do, maybe to save space or to make it easier to move etc.

 

[MarkWComer]

DBX I have yet to do more testing with, it worked ok but both decks I have require attention and I need to weigh up whether its worth spending the time on them.

I bought an outboard dbx NR box to play around with once. For the most part it worked well with my reel recorder, a few times it lost track of what to expand and what to leave compressed- but it was rare.

Now here's a cool thing: dbx encoded LPs! I had two of them. You heard the point snap into the groove... then... nothing! Absolutely silent until the music started! That was sort of a fore-listen to the noise floor and dynamic range of CD!

Honestly, I have no issue with digital recording in and of itself, but two things should be followed: a high sample rate for accordingly high resolution, and a deep bit depth for more detail in the waveform. In tandem, they produce greater transient response and higher frequency response. The 44kHz/16 bit of the audio CD is the barest passible minimum. On the liner notes of my digitally recorded "Malcolm Frager plays Chopin", Telarc used 50kHz at 16 bits. 16 bits allow 256 values for the shape of the waveform (slope, or rise), and the accuracy of representation depends on the sample rate (transients and wave shapes). Theoretically, digital recording can be absolutely flawless, the only errors being introduced by analog microphones, cable resistance and capacitance, and possible electron noise in preamps.

I think what we like about the vinyl product is a cumulative effect of flaws: the snapoff of the magnetic field "loops" as the tape passes the gap of the head, the resistance of the lacquer to being cut by the lateral excursions of the cutter point, everything in the chain contributing a softening and warming of the audio waves. This point was mentioned in the article, and it appears to be true. Pure digital recording is sharp and hard, like a surgeon with a scalpel that's so sharp it cuts too deep- previous surgical skills are insufficient to account for this sharpness, ablating an organ before it's repaired. The downsampling from the digital master to the CD format is the only flaw introduced, and there just ain't enuff flaw to make it warm 'n' fuzzy, so we get eardrum fatigue.

Digital recording made the editing process much simpler as well, but the first recording engineers weren't ready for the hard accuracy, and therefore produced hard sounding final products. The skills improved with time, but digital itself still remained sharp and cold.

The first CD I bought was Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here", actually bought it a couple of months before I found the player I wanted. I noticed that a GOOD pressing of the LP opened with a faint touch of hiss from the master tape. I was surprised that the CD opened with the same hiss. From all the CDs I bought, it seems the best sounding ones were coded ADD or AAD, and the cold ones were DDD.

8 Tracks, well yeah I mean there is only so much they can do in terms of sound quality,
Yes the split tracks, very common, but so be it.

Song fades out, then a low frequency warble, ka-KLIK, and song fades in. No, no, absolutely NO! No noise reduction. Heads misalign with every ka-KLIK. By the way- the low frequency warble was to tell the manufacturing system where to cut the tape as it was wound onto the hub. The tapes were duped at high speed, all eight tracks simultaneously, and the higher speed made that warble into a tone that was monitored by a tape head to indicate that the whole of the program material was on the hub.

I'll give you ONE good application for 8-track, and that's quadraphonic. There were only two programs of four tracks each, each being a discrete channel on the tape. You can identify these tapes by a notch on the front/top/left of the cartridge (as you are looking at the label end). If you find any, play it on your stereo deck and quickly hit the track button twice to hear the difference between the front and back programs. For a shits 'n' grins thought- octophonic could have been introduced adding a height dimension to the music.

 

[derek92994]

Good info there Mark, thanks for the reply. I do stick to 24-bit/96khz for recordings on the PC, mainly from vinyl, to get the best possible result, but its more of a backup thing in case something happens to the LPs, the real thing is always more desirable. I'd do 24-bit/192khz but disk space does not allow for this, even with 7tb of space in the PC.

Interesting re the DBX on vinyl. I wonder how well those hardware de-click/pop processors work. I have got settings optimized on my audio editing software to lightly filter the pop/clicks of records where there is too much of it, however I'd prefer to listen with no filter at all as it can't be 100% accurate and its possible some fidelity is lost using this process, it is very close though and getting better with more advancements in the technology. Most of my vinyl doesn't need it but its good for when you have light scratching on an album you really want to hear from a vinyl source, and cleanly, so that's where the filtering software becomes very useful.

 

[derek92994]

One more thing before I head off for some rest. I played the Led Zeppelin 1/2/3 2014 remasters tonight on vinyl and listened very closely. I could hear imperfections in the aging master they used on some tracks, not many but it was there. This was not bothering me but was kind of re-assuring that the vinyl was reproducing as close to the master/re-master as possible. Before getting the WOPL amp I could not hear these imperfections that much so fidelity and sound quality has obviously increased greatly bringing out as much detail as possible with my current setup.

 

[Northwinds]

If your looking for every imperfection in a recording, your not listening to the music IMO. Your forgetting being a kid and rocking your music the way it was meant to be listened to LOUD

 

[MarkWComer]

I'd do 24-bit/192khz but disk space does not allow for this, even with 7tb of space in the PC.

Yeah- it do eat some drive space, don't it!

it can't be 100% accurate and its possible some fidelity is lost using this process,

I digitize for a different purpose, and that being to make it portable: .mp3 files for the iPod. I use Audacity to record. I pick out the individual pops and repair them (manually?). Even though my method seems a bit slipshod, I get great results, normalizing the album-side-at-once to get peaks at 0db and encoding at 320kbps. I cut the tracks 22,050 samples before the music begins to give a half-second pre-gap.

USB turntables aren't worth the cardboard box they're packed in...

 

[derek92994]

If your looking for every imperfection in a recording, your not listening to the music IMO. Your forgetting being a kid and rocking your music the way it was meant to be listened to LOUD

Not so much looking for it but noticed it, and lets face it those masters are old so there is going to be some imperfections which will show only on a good audio setup. I did have it loud but not to the point where my ears were ringing or the neighbors were calling the cops. I also wanted to have a 7 hour listening session and at extremely high volumes that would have left my ears buzzing for days. One must show restraint for the sake of their hearing sometimes (I already have tinnitus but that could be caused by my medication so not sure if its hearing damage, wouldn't be surprised if it was though). Low level listening is just as enjoyable IMO.

 

[derek92994]

I pick out the individual pops and repair them (manually?). Even though my method seems a bit slipshod, I get great results, normalizing the album-side-at-once to get peaks at 0db and encoding at 320kbps. I cut the tracks 22,050 samples before the music begins to give a half-second pre-gap.

USB turntables aren't worth the cardboard box they're packed in...

Yes on vinyl that only has a few major pops/clicks and you can clearly see this in the waveform, manual editing is optimal for this purpose. Many USB turntables are cheap shit, they may be some good ones out there but I don't feel the need for one. The Thorens 160 Super does fine, good old analog.

 

[MarkWComer]

If your looking for every imperfection in a recording, your not listening to the music IMO. Your forgetting being a kid and rocking your music the way it was meant to be listened to LOUD

No- you're missing my point- I'm not looking for imperfections- in fact, deep listening won't reveal the imperfections that I'm talking about. What I'm trying to say is that the imperfections in the analog recording process to produce LPs give the sound its character- it doesn't subtract quality, it enhances the depth!

Imperfections are on EVERY LP pressed- it's inescapable- records are a mechanical medium. I'm not talking about those, but my MFSL disc of The Cars "Candy-O" had a freakin' HOLE in the vinyl that affected three wraps of the spiral that sounded like a M-80 blast through the speakers. Inexcusable! SOME imperfections warrant an exchange of the disc! Hey- a clump of (whatever) in the atmosphere settled on the stamper, and the POP made me cringe. Not listening for it, but it was like jerking a steering wheel at 90mph- something that's blaringly obvious and unwanted.

LOUD? Yeah- you're damned right on that one! I'm an old sucker, but I still spin Black Sabbath from time to time!

 

[derek92994]

Imperfections at two levels, the master level and the vinyl level itself which can be pleasant unless its a major flaw like the example you just mentioned. I'd be exchanging it too =)

 

[MarkWComer]

I played the Led Zeppelin 1/2/3 2014 remasters tonight on vinyl and listened very closely. I could hear imperfections in the aging master they used on some tracks, not many but it was there. This was not bothering me but was kind of re-assuring that the vinyl was reproducing as close to the master/re-master as possible.

Thanks for that- off to the record store for LZII on Wednesday.

BTW- How did you get a WOPL 1000? I assume you started with a PL700 and changed (transistors?). 300 watts above specs!

 

[MarkWComer]

Imperfections at two levels, the master level and the vinyl level itself

...And... I really don't mean any errors in mastering, either. What I mean deals with the physics of the process, the inherent inability of analog electronics to flawlessly record the signal from compression/rarefaction waves in the air. I know it sounds like I'm saying that the process is woefully inadequate, but the core of what I'm trying to say is that the electronic inabilities actually sound good to us. Perhaps the level of exactitude that digital approaches/represents is offensive, like having an exact clone of your brother or sister. Just unnatural, therefore, offensive...

Corollary: No speaker reproduces from 20Hz to 20,000kHz with a perfectly flat response. Even if that ideal were achieved and the acoustics in the room were to exact perfection, we'd start fiddling with the equalizer bands or tone controls. In the same way, vibrating vocal cords will always sound different from vibrating speaker cones.

 

[Northwinds]

USB turntables aren't worth the cardboard box they're packed in...

Agreed, I got a Innovative Technology about 7 years ago for Xmas, used it once and boxed it back up. Have not used it since. It's still sitting in the bottom of my rack. It did make a decent recording of the Burnt Suite testpressing but the cheap stylus was a total turnoff