The Truth About Vinyl Records

[MaxwellsEq]

The full quote: "Personally — and again, this is just me — I find many Red Hot Chili Peppers albums unlistenable on CD because of over-compression. But uncompressed from vinyl, all the subtleties come through. This is an uncompressed, lossless version of Californication more-or-less equivalent to what you get from a vinyl version of the album. Can you tell the difference?" Missing from this post are the data for the one specific album the author presents in support their argument, Californication:
View attachment 354495
Very clearly that album has higher DN than download or CD (N.B. The author does refer to "many" RHCP albums as well, and that some of the ones presented above in effort to disproove the author's argument, in fact exhibit higher DR than other versions)

This is in fact not a formal logical falacy like "straw man", but a matter of honesty.

This Hoffman forum post apparently covers why the DR database is not appropriate for comparing vinyl and equivalent digital sources:

Is the DR database really accurate for vinyl?

Watch this great video by Ian Shepherd for the answer. I would love to hear your take on it. [media]

forums.stevehoffman.tv

'It's a pity that the algorithm on the DR database is the selected one. EBU R128 Lufs would be more useful.

 

[atmasphere]

Having worked on state of the art professional tape recorders, I can't agree with all of that. Are you comparing LP with 30 IPS tape?

In terms of bandwidth, professional tape supports up to an extra stereo octave at lower frequencies than normal LPs can support.

Ignoring low frequency stereo (which I think everybody accepts is normal LP playback's Achilles heel) and not mentioning wow and flutter, your assertions are only correct in exceptional circumstances. As you have said elsewhere, it's possible to cut very low distortion and low noise masters, but the limitation comes with playback which is not the case with professional tape. I would expect a very well recorded tape to play back equally well on a well maintained tape machine.

All of which is academic since both professional tape and well cut masters drastically poorer than 48kHz 24bit digital.

I amp talking about what the media can do rather than what people make it do because they don't care or don't know. You can press LPs so quiet that the electronics are the noise floor. With 30ips tape the noise of the tape can be heard through the electronics, so yes, LPs can be lower noise than that.

One in a million are.

Most of the LPs I play at home play entire sides without ticks or pops. The secret is 1st: take care of your LPs and treat them with respect. 2nd: don't use a phono section that generates ticks and pops on its own. Most of the phono sections of Japanese receivers and amps of the 1970s and 90s had this problem due to poor HF overload issues.

Once again, your LP's fall into the "boutique" range. You've done everything possible to avoid the most grievous issues.
But how many LP's have you cut and introduced into the market compared against the billions floating around?
You can tweak for almost anything by making sacrifices in other areas.
He fixed a lot of inner groove distortion issues here, but at what sacrifice in playing time? And At 45rpm???? LOL
View attachment 354380


Which one of Bill's specs for "NORMAL REAL WORLD LPs" do you debate.
A S/N of 50db ?
Separation of 25db ?
These guys are generous and will give you 60db or more under theoretical perfect conditions

What is the signal-to-noise ratio? Can we improve it and if so, how? - Son-Vidéo.com: blog

How is the signal-to-noise ratio factors in the quality of electronic devices? What impact does it have on sound?

blog.son-video.com

Comparison of analog and digital recording - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What is Mastering for Vinyl?

Mastering for vinyl is the process of creating a separate master that can be cut into a vinyl record without added unwanted distortion.

www.sageaudio.com

More info

Vinyl Sucks and Your Little Dog Too!

I don't find my posts hyperbolic at all. I may not cover my posts in a politically correct layer of honey.
I just tell the straight truth.
If you're really concerned "to set the record straight" just write with the thought in mind that potential new
entry's into the Hi Fi market can expect to get from the real world medium

You are conflating all the junk out there with the media itself. I am not. But I don't buy boutique records FWIW yet I don't get ticks and pops. None of the projects we did at LP Masters were for boutique labels. The article at the 'little dog too' link is easily debunked. We might have to do a separate thread on all the different problems it has.

The 'signal to noise' link is a red herring having nothing to do with the topic at hand- its simply a noise primer and doesn't explore noise having to do with the LP surface, such as ticks and pops or what causes the LP surface itself to have noise in the first place.

The Sage Audio link contains misinformation. For example, we see (as we did in the 'dog too' link) what happens if you have out of phase bass. But there's no explanation about what to do about it when its encountered other than using a mono bass processor (which in most rooms works fine since bass below 80Hz is 100% reverberant and so can be played by a mono source like a subwoofer without messing things up). Turns out you don't need the processor if you look at how to solve the problem. Here are a couple things to do:
1) change the groove depth. If you have track ball on your cutter this is easy to do. Some cutters have variable groove depth and others have to be readjusted. The track ball, which is an older tech used by the Westerex cutter, makes this a snap. The problem you can see though is that this takes time to mess with it till you get a trackable groove. Many producers don't want to spend the money. I pointed that out earlier, several times. Don't conflate someone being cheap with the media itself- they are two different things.
2) change the groove modulation. Here's an interesting fact: when you double amplifier power you double groove modulation. But to the signal that's only a 3dB difference. So a 1dB change can have quite an impact on the groove modulation.
There's more but you get the point- Sage mentioned nothing about that.

So so far, yes, your comments about the LP appear to me as hyperbolic. If you don't wish to do that, then you need better information to work with.

 

[SuicideSquid]

I amp talking about what the media can do rather than what people make it do because they don't care or don't know. You can press LPs so quiet that the electronics are the noise floor. With 30ips tape the noise of the tape can be heard through the electronics, so yes, LPs can be lower noise than that.

Most of the LPs I play at home play entire sides without ticks or pops. The secret is 1st: take care of your LPs and treat them with respect. 2nd: don't use a phono section that generates ticks and pops on its own. Most of the phono sections of Japanese receivers and amps of the 1970s and 90s had this problem due to poor HF overload issues.

Point 1- I simply don't believe you. You're physically dragging a needle across a groove. This creates surface noise. The most pristine record in the world playing the most perfectly-mastered recording on a brand new SOTA turntable with a brand new expensive needle might have imperceptible surface noise, but every time you play it the noise floor increases and the peaks decline because you're physically scraping away a small amount of the material that makes up that groove. In normal use listening to normal records you're going to hear surface noise. This is not an issue with digital media.

Point 2: No matter how carefully you treat your LPs, they will degrade over time. I doubt you're listening in an industrial clean room. Dust will get in the grooves. Each time you play the record, it will degrade as the needle scrapes away a small amount of vinyl. A bit of oil or residue from a fingerprint will get into a groove. It's the nature of the media, it will happen. You'll eventually get ticks and pops. It's not an issue with digital media.

You can take a lot of steps to reduce the inherent flaws in the vinyl LP format and you can get a system that sounds really good, but it takes a huge investment of time and money. You can get a system that's objectively better while investing a fraction of the money and none of the time with digital media. I can pull a CD off the shelf I've listened to literally 200 times over the past 25 years and it still sounds exactly the same as it did 25 years ago. That's not true of an LP, no matter how expensive your turntable is or how delicately you handle your records.

 

[antcollinet]

This is not an issue with digital media.

I think the comparison was with tape not digital.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Point 1- I simply don't believe you. You're physically dragging a needle across a groove. This creates surface noise. The most pristine record in the world playing the most perfectly-mastered recording on a brand new SOTA turntable with a brand new expensive needle might have imperceptible surface noise, but every time you play it the noise floor increases and the peaks decline because you're physically scraping away a small amount of the material that makes up that groove. In normal use listening to normal records you're going to hear surface noise. This is not an issue with digital media.

Point 2: No matter how carefully you treat your LPs, they will degrade over time. I doubt you're listening in an industrial clean room. Dust will get in the grooves. Each time you play the record, it will degrade as the needle scrapes away a small amount of vinyl. A bit of oil or residue from a fingerprint will get into a groove. It's the nature of the media, it will happen. You'll eventually get ticks and pops. It's not an issue with digital media.

You can take a lot of steps to reduce the inherent flaws in the vinyl LP format and you can get a system that sounds really good, but it takes a huge investment of time and money. You can get a system that's objectively better while investing a fraction of the money and none of the time with digital media. I can pull a CD off the shelf I've listened to literally 200 times over the past 25 years and it still sounds exactly the same as it did 25 years ago. That's not true of an LP, no matter how expensive your turntable is or how delicately you handle your records.

Unfortunately your assertions lack context and objective data.

Each play adds to the surface noise? Where’s the objective measurements that show this AND tells us the severity? I don’t believe you if you are saying the actual groove noise of a record audibly goes up with the very first play and each subsequent play.

When you say vinyl loses “peaks” I’m going to call B.S. There is no objective evidence that playing a record permanently deforms the groove much less does so in a way that reduces the amplitude of musical transients.

Miss tracking adds noise to a record. It’s not groove noise. It’s different and easy to identify.

 

[krabapple]

I amp talking about what the media can do rather than what people make it do because they don't care or don't know. You can press LPs so quiet that the electronics are the noise floor. With 30ips tape the noise of the tape can be heard through the electronics, so yes, LPs can be lower noise than that.


[etc]

You still haven't rolled back your utter nonsense about LP having wider bandwidth than 'digital', have you?

 

[MaxwellsEq]

You can press LPs so quiet that the electronics are the noise floor. With 30ips tape the noise of the tape can be heard through the electronics, so yes, LPs can be lower noise than that.

Whilst I find this unlikely, I can accept that it's not impossible. You may have done this before, but I've searched your posts and can't find it. So, please can you share (again if necessary), the measurement data supporting this?

 

[Punter]

Where do I get one of these noiseless LP's from???

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Each play adds to the surface noise? Where’s the objective measurements that show this AND tells us the severity? I don’t believe you if you are saying the actual groove noise of a record audibly goes up with the very first play and each subsequent play

This is a good question. Some people have investigated using microscopes to search for record wear. There was a very interesting thread on ASR on this subject recently.

Record wear from frequent plays is "common knowledge", by that I mean that "everyone knows it". I had a good LP playback system before digital became domestically common and so absolutely everybody was an "LP expert" because it's all we had access to. You would not find a single person in the 70s who would disagree with the statement "frequent playing wears records out". Why did they believe this? Because they experienced it at first hand. I certainly have, but in those days I didn't have the test gear domestically to prove it.

Professionally I've experienced it first hand. In my experience, test records measurably degrade with frequent playing, especially the highest frequency cuts. However, recently, in a different ASR thread some tests have challenged this. So I have to assume there's something different about my studio experience and modern domestic playback systems.

Of course, on the other hand I can demonstrate that playing a digital file 1,000 times won't degrade it.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

This is a good question. Some people have investigated using microscopes to search for record wear. There was a very interesting thread on ASR on this subject recently.

Record wear from frequent plays is "common knowledge", by that I mean that "everyone knows it". I had a good LP playback system before digital became domestically common and so absolutely everybody was an "LP expert" because it's all we had access to. You would not find a single person in the 70s who would disagree with the statement "frequent playing wears records out". Why did they believe this? Because they experienced it at first hand. I certainly have, but in those days I didn't have the test gear domestically to prove it.

Professionally I've experienced it first hand. In my experience, test records measurably degrade with frequent playing, especially the highest frequency cuts. However, recently, in a different ASR thread some tests have challenged this. So I have to assume there's something different about my studio experience and modern domestic playback systems.

Of course, on the other hand I can demonstrate that playing a digital file 1,000 times won't degrade it.

Anecdotal evidence is unreliable. We can make long lists of things that are “common knowledge” and believed by people who are professionals with years of experience. That also simply are not true.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Where do I get one of these noiseless LP's from???

Who said anything about “noiseless” LPs?

Why do these discussions have to degenerate into misleading hyperbole?

 

[Anton D]

Who said anything about “noiseless” LPs?

Why do these discussions have to degenerate into misleading hyperbole?

It's the only thing the vinyl haters can cling to.

Your enjoyment of vinyl seems to outrage them. One of them even realized how bad he looked and pretended that he plays records.

 

[MattHooper]

.

Point 2: No matter how carefully you treat your LPs, they will degrade over time. I doubt you're listening in an industrial clean room. Dust will get in the grooves. Each time you play the record, it will degrade as the needle scrapes away a small amount of vinyl. A bit of oil or residue from a fingerprint will get into a groove. It's the nature of the media, it will happen. You'll eventually get ticks and pops. It's not an issue with digital media.

FWIW:

Here's a test showing the sonic consequences of playing a new record 100 times, with a decent turntable. The particular record chosen has some noise to begin with. But after 100 plays, it seems the degradation is negligible:

 

[MattHooper]

Where do I get one of these noiseless LP's from???

I have plenty of records where I don't hear noise even in between tracks.

But even when there is some audible artifacts in between tracks, it's effectively "noiseless" when the music plays, in most instances.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

FWIW:

Here's a test showing the sonic consequences of playing a new record 100 times, with a decent turntable. The particular record chosen has some noise to begin with. But after 100 plays, it seems the degradation is negligible:

And that’s a “decent” turntable. We now have the capacity for unprecedented stylus alignment accuracy and pickup arm performance which has the biggest effect on record wear

 

[MattHooper]

And that’s a “decent” turntable. We now have the capacity for unprecedented stylus alignment accuracy and pickup arm performance which has the biggest effect on record wear

I use a Mint Tractor, which is a custom made alignment tool (custom to one's arm/turntable) and it's allows high precision:

Best Tractor / Arc Protractor / Mint Tractor / tonearm alignment / Yip Mint Protractor / Mintlp Protractor

I also use the Degritter Ultra Sonic Record cleaner. So a record gets a deep clean before playing. (I only US clean a record once, then it's just using a record brush if necessary from then on).

I've played many of my records tons of times, especially some of my reference tracks. There may be some level of degradation going on, but if so it's not at a level I've noticed.

 

[Sal1950]

So so far, yes, your comments about the LP appear to me as hyperbolic. If you don't wish to do that, then you need better information to work with.

Your claims, as usual, are at odds with almost everyone else in the industry.
IMHO , it's you that are hyperbolic, making exaggerated claims.

Who said anything about “noiseless” LPs?

I amp talking about what the media can do rather than what people make it do because they don't care or don't know. You can press LPs so quiet that the electronics are the noise floor. With 30ips tape the noise of the tape can be heard through the electronics, so yes, LPs can be lower noise than that.

What do you call Mr Atmasphere's claims?

Point 1- I simply don't believe you.

Me either, it's the same ole, same ole linec of exaggerations and ignoring the facts of what exists in the real world.

I use a Mint Tractor, which is a custom made alignment tool (custom to one's arm/turntable) and it's allows high precision:

Best Tractor / Arc Protractor / Mint Tractor / tonearm alignment / Yip Mint Protractor / Mintlp Protractor
I also use the Degritter Ultra Sonic Record cleaner. So a record gets a deep clean before playing. (I only US clean a record once, then it's just using a record brush if necessary from then on).

I've played many of my records tons of times, especially some of my reference tracks. There may be some level of degradation going on, but if so it's not at a level I've noticed.

And what have all those toys cost you in an effort to avoid the inevitable.
Digital recordings suffer none of these issues.
Simply wasted money, just like expensive cables and powercords, noise reducing grounding boxes, and all the rest.
If you guys really enjoy playing with all these snake-oil toys, be my guest.
Just don't continually try to deny or minimize the negative sonic effects of vinyls inherit problems to those of us that know better.

 

[Anton D]

I also use the Degritter Ultra Sonic Record cleaner. So a record gets a deep clean before playing. (I only US clean a record once, then it's just using a record brush if necessary from then on).

I've played many of my records tons of times, especially some of my reference tracks. There may be some level of degradation going on, but if so it's not at a level I've noticed.

Same, but I use a different model.

My kid has a Humminguru and it does a great job, as well.

 

[Anton D]

And what have all those toys cost you in an effort to avoid the inevitable.
Digital recordings suffer none of these issues.
Simply wasted money, just like expensive cables and powercords, noise reducing grounding boxes, and all the rest.
If you guys really enjoy playing with all these snake-oil toys, be my guest.
Just don't continually try to deny or minimize the negative sonic effects of vinyls inherit problems to those of us that know better.

Hey, look! A cloud! Go yell at it.

If you are gonna say "be my guest," then please STFU about it.

"Be my guest"means something. Not that hard to understand.

 

[Sal1950]

If you are gonna say "be my guest," then please STFU about it.

Just don't continually try to deny or minimize the negative sonic effects of vinyls inherit problems to those of us that know better.

Did You miss my last sentence.