The Truth About Vinyl Records

[Anton D]

Did You miss my last sentence.

People enjoying vinyl must chap you, so bad!

You get credit for playing both leads in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf."

 

[Sal1950]

People enjoying vinyl must chap you, so bad!

Not a bit.

This is ASR, just be truthful about it's technical abilities and weaknesses.
You sound exactly like the guys on the subjective sites when we would offer them the truth about their snake-oil cables.
"Why does it bother you so much that we enjoy the magic you can't hear in our cables?"

 

[Sal1950]

They obvious gripe you, we can see your rage, it's humorous, but kind of sad.

OK, your right. ROTFLMAO

 

[Anton D]

You're more of an ax guy.

How many pairs of speakers and channels of amp and preamp do you use?

Do you need to drill holes in walls or ceilings?

 

[MattHooper]

And what have all those toys cost you in an effort to avoid the inevitable.
Digital recordings suffer none of these issues.

Wait! Are you telling me some other medium became available that doesn't have any damned vinyl artifacts?

When did this happen???

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.

God I feel like such an idiot!

 

[Anton D]

Wait! Are you telling me some other medium became available that doesn't have any damned vinyl artifacts?

When did this happen???



God I feel like such an idiot!

Just open your eyes...and never close them, and you will have arrived at his position on the hobby.

"People saying they enjoy vinyl playback....oooooh....I hate them so much."

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

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.

This was what I did.

WallyTools |WAM Engineering Stylus/Cantilever Microscopic Analysis

WallyTools will identify YOUR cartridge stylus rake angle, zenith angle and azimuth and then offer you a way to very quickly and easily mount your cartridge to ideal alignment parameters at home.

www.wallyanalog.com

 

[Bob from Florida]

You change the subject like a master grumpus.

Enjoying vinyl is not saying magic cables lift veils. You are simply obfuscating from a loser's unhappy position.

They obvious gripe you, we can see your rage, it's humorous, but kind of sad.

It's not rage, humor, or sad - it is simple trolling to get a reaction. Not respecting an individuals preference is an easy way to get the desired "reaction".

 

[Anton D]

It's not rage, humor, or sad - it is simple trolling to get a reaction. Not respecting an individuals preference is an easy way to get the desired "reaction".

You are right, I apologize for feeding the troll. I was kind of hoping to just keep him up until sunrise.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

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



What do you call Mr Atmasphere's claims?

Not “noiseless”

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

So your MO is to provide equal amounts of exaggeration and cherry picking around facts that don’t fit your anti vinyl narrative?

If Johnny jumped off a cliff would you jump off a cliff?

And what have all those toys cost you in an effort to avoid the inevitable.

Is it about cost analysis now? Do you ever get a sore back from constantly moving goal posts?

It’s up to each individual to decide value for the money for themselves.

Digital recordings suffer none of these issues.

Yeah I know. Have quite an extensive library of CDs, SACDs, BluRay audio discs, DVD-As and high res downloads.

I am not being deprived of any of the wonders of digital technology.

Simply wasted money,

You know what’s a real waste of money? Dolby Atmos. What a crap format!

See what I did there? Shoe meet other foot.

just like expensive cables and powercords, noise reducing grounding boxes, and all the rest.

Now you are promoting something worse than hyperbole. This is just audio mythology via false equivalence. And frankly it’s worse. At least audiophiles who buy high end power cords and what not actually believe the B.S. You know this is a false equivalency and that unlike all those tweaks there are real differences with vinyl.

If you guys really enjoy playing with all these snake-oil toys, be my guest.

They are not snake oily. Again you are making intellectually dishonest arguments here.

But hey, if you enjoy that Dolby Atmos crap “be my guess”

If the shoe fits the other foot…

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

No one here is denying it. And back at ya. Stop exaggerating it and plainly misrepresenting it on your end.

These ridiculous arguments end up squeezing out fact based honest intelligent discussions on the subject.

 

[SuicideSquid]

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.

If you want to assert that vinyl is not subject to basic laws of physics like friction, I think it's on you to support that with evidence. I don't bear the burden of proof for the assertion "rubbing two objects together creates friction and will eventually wear them down".

 

[MattHooper]

If you want to assert that vinyl is not subject to basic laws of physics like friction, I think it's on you to support that with evidence. I don't bear the burden of proof for the assertion "rubbing two objects together creates friction and will eventually wear them down".

Did you see the evidence I posted for you, with comparison waveforms as well as sound clips, showing a record can be played 100 times on a decent turntable with negligible effects from that dreaded friction?

 

[Robin L]

OK, your right. ROTFLMAO
View attachment 354667View attachment 354668

Essentially you're a bully - simply can't accept that others enjoy something you disapprove of. What's worse, you're repetitive and boring.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

If you want to assert that vinyl is not subject to basic laws of physics like friction, I think it's on you to support that with evidence. I don't bear the burden of proof for the assertion "rubbing two objects together creates friction and will eventually wear them down".

I don’t want to assert anything about the effects of record wear from each individual playing of a record without really really good objective data.

Anyone who makes claims about the actual audibility of the wear from a single play of a record definitely DOES bear the burden of proof for *that* claim.

If anything I said made you think otherwise hopefully this will set the record straight. Yes yes yes…pun intended

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Essentially you're a bully - simply can't accept that others enjoy something you disapprove of. What's worse, you're repetitive and boring.

The bully part is more amusing than anything. But on a forum that is supposed to be science based, the blatant misinformation is problematic

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Did you see the evidence I posted for you, with comparison waveforms as well as sound clips, showing a record can be played 100 times on a decent turntable with negligible effects from that dreaded friction?

How dare you cite evidence!

 

[Brian Hall]

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.

I don't think a good stylus on a correctly balanced setup will produce enough wear to be detectable before hundreds of plays. If the stylus was putting enough pressure to cause much wear, the stylus would not be able to follow the track as well and would produce a noticeable difference in sound.

 

[SuicideSquid]

Anyone who makes claims about the actual audibility of the wear from a single play of a record definitely DOES bear the burden of proof for *that* claim.

I didn't see anyone do that.

 

[SuicideSquid]

Did you see the evidence I posted for you, with comparison waveforms as well as sound clips, showing a record can be played 100 times on a decent turntable with negligible effects from that dreaded friction?

Sure, I don't think it's very compelling evidence because it doesn't actually reflect real world use and wear of a record.

As I said already, I agree that vinyl can sound great, and you can take all kinds of (expensive, time-consuming) steps to mitigate the inherent flaws of the format. But it's a lot of time you don't have to spend with digital, and no matter how careful you are, the simple process of taking a vinyl record out of a sleeve, placing it on a turntable, playing the record, turning it over, putting it back in its sleeve, storing it, then doing it again, is eventually going to physically degrade the record, whether it's because of dust, oil, warping, scratches, wear, or whatever else. To deny that this is the reality of vinyl is just silly. Everyone who's spent any amount of time with vinyl LPs knows it happens to every record that actually gets played, eventually.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

I didn't see anyone do that.

“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.”

EVERY TIME YOU PLAY IT THE NOISE FLOOR INCREASES. Did you mean it does so inaudibly?

“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.”

“Each time you play the record it will degrade”

Did you mean inaudibly?