The Truth About Vinyl Records

[Justdafactsmaam]

Do you have independent confirmation that it is the case? And where do you get direct lathe cut acetate disks?

Atmosphered owned his own lathe.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

The rational used is you can hear tapes hiss on an acetate (and in some cases on the PVC pressings) so the noise floor of the acetate is lower than tape. Not the most scientific test but there is no doubt a lathe cut acetate is much higher performance than current pressed LPs and points to the potential of the format.

I guess you need to buy a lathe or know someone with a lathe

That would be a terrible rationale. Tape hiss and groove noise live primarily at very different frequencies

 

[Robin L]

….and if you are saying that the high volumes of Nimbus Records customers who complained so much about the audible issues with their classical catalog, as reported by their chief engineer and CEO in the 1980s, that the company couldn’t move to CD fast enough and gratefully enough…

As noted elsewhere, Nimbus moved into CD production too quickly, having that run of CD with "CD Rot", where the layer that was supposed to be sealed from the elements would oxidize, rendering those CDs useless. I remember encountering a complete set of Beethoven symphonies with the Hanover Band (great historically informed set) at a used CD shop, only to find the set all rotted out. Nimbus has long been out of business, some of their recordings wound up on Brilliant Classics.

 

[Axo1989]

Of course, excepting your very first sentence, he didn't directly address your arguments at all.

So much discussion that I've only read one side of, I've been suppressing curiosity ... do I ... "show ignored content" ...

*gasp*

Ok, anticlimax.

Funny how it's full of ... anecdotes ... ... and ad hominems like ... "the usual suspects" ... and unintentional humour.

The refreshed 2021 argument over in the Stereophile thread that "no one intended stereo" is quite bizarre. I mean, I've made music and AV soundtrack material targeted at stereo. Completely intentional. And being well aware of other options. I may target multi-channel at some stage. If I do, that will also be intentional. The 1% number is utterly rhetorical and hyperbolic. From someone who will do a shameless volte-face and attack anyone else for not using "the science". It's a farce. It really is.

It's as if they have no awareness at all of the wide range of creative approaches to making music. And the examples appear to be from ancient times. You know, even last century.

 

[egellings]

I said ‘permanently’, and you ask if that means ‘temporarily’?

It doesn’t have to be ‘chiseling’ or removal of material. It could just be plastic deformation, like a dent in a car’s door.

cheers

Sorry. I missed that. Had I seen it, I would not have asked the question.

 

[Haskil]

As noted elsewhere, Nimbus moved into CD production too quickly, having that run of CD with "CD Rot", where the layer that was supposed to be sealed from the elements would oxidize, rendering those CDs useless. I remember encountering a complete set of Beethoven symphonies with the Hanover Band (great historically informed set) at a used CD shop, only to find the set all rotted out. Nimbus has long been out of business, some of their recordings wound up on Brilliant Classics.

Nimbus still exists and publishes records : this month a record of piano music of Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez. And other publishers did it well before him, including Sony, Philips, DGG, Decca, for example. Nimbus pressed these CDs himself from 1984 before becoming an important independent player in CD pressing

The problem you report affected some British and European publishers who had their CDs pressed at Polygram in Hamburg. Including Hyperion, DGG, Appian Recordings.

This phenomenon was called "bronzed CDs" because the pressed side changed to a characteristic champagne color.

These CDs quickly became unplayable after initially producing a characteristic "hissing sound". CDs for example of the complete Beethoven sonatas by Kempff, Michelangeli's Debussy, the historic recordings of Apian have been reached : I may still have some.

But this does not date from the very beginnings of the CD but from a few years later : the official explanation given was that the ink used for the booklets and the printed side of the CD had degassed in the boxes and altered the thin pressed layer which is located between the polycarbonate and the printed layer. another concomitant problem was the decomposition of the small squares of foam placed in the boxes to prevent the CDs from wandering around inside... the debris from this foam could stick to the CD and eat away the printed side which is the most fragile of the CD .

I still have some of the very first Nimbus CDs published (including Vlado Perlemuter's complete Ravel and his Chopin discs): they are free from this defect.

 

[Haskil]

OTOH if you are saying that Floyd Toole, in making his comments that I reported, lacked actual experience listening to vinyl playback….and if you are saying that the high volumes of Nimbus Records customers who complained so much about the audible issues with their classical catalog, as reported by their chief engineer and CEO in the 1980s, that the company couldn’t move to CD fast enough and gratefully enough…if you are saying they also lacked actual experience listening to vinyl playback…then that is your perfect right! But IMHO you just might look a bit silly in the eyes of the unbiased readership, if you do hold to that line.

Les faits parlent d'eux mêmes. L'histoire de Nimbus Records est révélatrice : le marché de l'écoute musicale le plus exigeant a fui le vinyle aussi vite que possible, et ce, pour des raisons inacceptables au niveau sonore. Et ils ne sont jamais revenus.

Nimbus 33 rpm records never had a very good image in terms of sound recording due to two problems. The sound recordings made in their castle were natural but often too distant and too global, which was made worse by the BBC's own Ambisonic UHJ encoding which was not as compatible as expected for stereo playback on two channels: the his was confused...

But yes, classical music fans more quickly abandoned the LP for the CD for an obvious reason: the sound quality was much greater. No adjustments were necessary to listen to a CD, whereas to have a decent reading of 33 rpm, it was necessary to make a whole bunch of precise adjustments to the positioning of the cartridge on the tonearm to minimize the angular reading error, downforce and anti-skating. The same turntable, the same cartridge could thus go from good to execrable... without counting on the impeccable condition of the LPs to avoid knocks and knocks... And any piano lover could not fail to hear that the sound was adorned with a very annoying flutter echo which on the other hand was inaudible with the strings which play with vibrato...
And as I said earlier in this discussion, composers had a bad habit of ending their fortissimos symphonies and operas with the entire orchestra, choir, etc. And with an LP, the sound is bad most of the time for reasons related to end-of-side distortion (this can be avoided with a tangential tonearm) and very limited bandwidth due to the reduction in speed. scrolling of the furrow under the diamond...

 

[Robin L]

Nimbus still exists and publishes records : this month a record of piano music of Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez. And other publishers did it well before him, including Sony, Philips, DGG, Decca, for example. Nimbus pressed these CDs himself from 1984 before becoming an important independent player in CD pressing

The problem you report affected some British and European publishers who had their CDs pressed at Polygram in Hamburg. Including Hyperion, DGG, Appian Recordings.

This phenomenon was called "bronzed CDs" because the pressed side changed to a characteristic champagne color.

These CDs quickly became unplayable after initially producing a characteristic "hissing sound". CDs for example of the complete Beethoven sonatas by Kempff, Michelangeli's Debussy, the historic recordings of Apian have been reached : I may still have some.

But this does not date from the very beginnings of the CD but from a few years later : the official explanation given was that the ink used for the booklets and the printed side of the CD had degassed in the boxes and altered the thin pressed layer which is located between the polycarbonate and the printed layer. another concomitant problem was the decomposition of the small squares of foam placed in the boxes to prevent the CDs from wandering around inside... the debris from this foam could stick to the CD and eat away the printed side which is the most fragile of the CD .

I still have some of the very first Nimbus CDs published (including Vlado Perlemuter's complete Ravel and his Chopin discs): they are free from this defect.

Thanks for clarifying all of that. One more thing - Nimbus has a wonderful series of recordings of Classical Hindustani music. The recordings of bansuri player Hariprasad Chaurasia feature ragas that go on for longer than an hour, lovely stuff.

 

[Orfanik]

Aaah Nimbus Records! Their recordings were actually splendid and very demonstrative, provided you owned an Ambisonic decoder. The real problem is that these set-top boxes were never widely available and unfortunately Nimbus recordings were most often perceived as undecoded ones.

 

[atmasphere]

How dare mean ole Sal tell the truth.
Look guys, I really did have vinyl rigs .

View attachment 355294

I've always been crazy, and the trouble that it's put me through
Been busted for things that I did, and I didn't do
I can't say I'm proud of all of the things that I've done
But I can say I've never intentionally hurt anyone

I've always been different with one foot over the line
Winding up somewhere one step ahead or behind
It ain't been so easy, but I guess I shouldn't complain
I've always been crazy, but it's kept me from going insane

No doubt this setup put you through a lot of pain. I can go into the defects of this setup with a fair amount of ease (for example the preamp is likely to generate ticks and pops all on its own); none of it reflects on defects of the media so much as it tends to exacerbate its weaknesses. I'd want to go digital too having suffered that.

 

[atmasphere]

Do you have independent confirmation that it is the case? And where do you get direct lathe cut acetate disks?

Just for clarity, acetate is a reel to reel tape medium, what was out there before polyester tape.

LPs used to mostly be cut from lacquers. A lacquer is an aluminum disk coated with lacquer. Most of them were mode at the Apollodisc plant in California, which burnt to the ground about 6 years ago. I sold my lathe a few years later as the Westerex cutter doesn't do direct metal mastering and the only other source was a Japanese guy in his 80s that made the other 20% of the world's supply out of his garage. it helped if you were on his good side getting lacquers. Most LPs today are direct metal mastered as a result.

 

[JP]

Majority of the folks I know are still cutting lacquers and have no issue getting them. Some are selling lacquer cuts direct to consumers and are sourcing several hundred a year.

 

[levimax]

Just for clarity, acetate is a reel to reel tape medium, what was out there before polyester tape.

LPs used to mostly be cut from lacquers. A lacquer is an aluminum disk coated with lacquer. Most of them were mode at the Apollodisc plant in California, which burnt to the ground about 6 years ago. I sold my lathe a few years later as the Westerex cutter doesn't do direct metal mastering and the only other source was a Japanese guy in his 80s that made the other 20% of the world's supply out of his garage. it helped if you were on his good side getting lacquers. Most LPs today are direct metal mastered as a result.

Thanks, I know that but I got lacquer and acetate mixed up. I heard about the lacquer factory fire. What process creates a better "master" the lacquer system or the direct metal system? I can see there are less "steps" in the direct metal process but it seems like it must be hard to cut something direct to metal accurately.

 

[levimax]

the preamp is likely to generate ticks and pops all on its own

This subject comes up a lot when ever a phono preamp is reviewed and generates a lot of discussion back and forth ranging from 20 dB of headroom is required to few pops and clicks are more than a few dB above the peak music level so only a few dB of headroom is all that is needed.

Reading some other more nuanced comments like yours it seem that the issue is not absolute headroom but rather high frequency headroom because a "click or pop" resembles a square wave with a lot of high frequency content and many phono stages have low HF overload margins and when they "clip" on HF they make a pop or click. I have seen in @amirm measurements of phono preamps that most of them do indeed have lower overload margins at HF.

Is this the right way to think about how a phono pre can create it's own clicks or is there more to it? What measurements / design goals are required to prevent this?

Thank you.

 

[Jaxjax]

Just for clarity, acetate is a reel to reel tape medium, what was out there before polyester tape.

LPs used to mostly be cut from lacquers. A lacquer is an aluminum disk coated with lacquer. Most of them were mode at the Apollodisc plant in California, which burnt to the ground about 6 years ago. I sold my lathe a few years later as the Westerex cutter doesn't do direct metal mastering and the only other source was a Japanese guy in his 80s that made the other 20% of the world's supply out of his garage. it helped if you were on his good side getting lacquers. Most LPs today are direct metal mastered as a result.

Was just reading on this & it's a crazy read to be sure, So is there really only 12 Neuaman DMM lathes left in the world.? Were in the heck does Chad get his lacquer's for his nicer projects? The secrecy in this end of the industry is almost as bad as Formula 1 it seems from what I just read......Well maybe not as bad as Formula 1...lol

 

[egellings]

No doubt this setup put you through a lot of pain. I can go into the defects of this setup with a fair amount of ease (for example the preamp is likely to generate ticks and pops all on its own); none of it reflects on defects of the media so much as it tends to exacerbate its weaknesses. I'd want to go digital too having suffered that.

The setup wasn't painful; it was part of the charm.

 

[atmasphere]

Majority of the folks I know are still cutting lacquers and have no issue getting them. Some are selling lacquer cuts direct to consumers and are sourcing several hundred a year.

'Lathe cuts' don't use lacquers- they use something called a 'dubplate' made of polycarbonate or the like. They require a different stylus too.

This subject comes up a lot when ever a phono preamp is reviewed and generates a lot of discussion back and forth ranging from 20 dB of headroom is required to few pops and clicks are more than a few dB above the peak music level so only a few dB of headroom is all that is needed.

Reading some other more nuanced comments like yours it seem that the issue is not absolute headroom but rather high frequency headroom because a "click or pop" resembles a square wave with a lot of high frequency content and many phono stages have low HF overload margins and when they "clip" on HF they make a pop or click. I have seen in @amirm measurements of phono preamps that most of them do indeed have lower overload margins at HF.

Is this the right way to think about how a phono pre can create it's own clicks or is there more to it? What measurements / design goals are required to prevent this?

Thank you.

You're on the right track.

What isn't obvious here is what is causing the overload. The cartridge is an inductor and the tonearm cable has capacitance. This creates a resonance at the input of the preamp. If a high output cartridge, the inductance is high too so the resonance (which might be a 20dB peak is at the extreme upper end of the audio band or barely ultrasonic. Noise at those frequencies is boosted - that 20dB peak can have information that is quite a lot higher than the signal itself.

If a LOMC cartridge is used, the resonance is much higher- 100KHz to 5MHz. But owing to the higher 'Q' of the inductor, the peak is higher (and tighter around the center frequency); as much as 30dB above the cartridge signal. If the preamp wasn't designed to handle this sort of RFI at its input, all sorts of bad things can happen. This phenomena is why the LOMC 'cartridge loading' resistor myth has occurred, where the resistor is supposed to load the cartridge to reduce high frequency ringing or some such nonsense. What is really happening is the cartridge inductance is so slight it can pass a perfect square wave at 10KHz so its not the cartridge ringing. By putting a resistor in parallel with the resonance, it is detuned and so there is far less RFI. But the resistor also causes the cantilever to become stiffer, and the loss of the ability to trace high frequencies is quite measurable. If you really want to hear what's on the LP you'll use a preamp that doesn't have RFI sensitivity. Such a preamp won't have a switch for cartridge loading.

You do need loading for MM cartridges though! This is because they have enough inductance to ring and you have to do something about that resonance also. More

Was just reading on this & it's a crazy read to be sure, So is there really only 12 Neuaman DMM lathes left in the world.? Were in the heck does Chad get his lacquer's for his nicer projects? The secrecy in this end of the industry is almost as bad as Formula 1 it seems from what I just read......Well maybe not as bad as Formula 1...lol

I know nothing about the 12 lathes thing- this is the first I've heard of it. To my understanding the lacquers (if not DMM) come from Japan as I mentioned earlier.

 

[JP]

Lathe cuts' don't use lacquers- they use something called a 'dubplate' made of polycarbonate or the like. They require a different stylus too.

And yet I was specifically talking about lacquers.

 

[JP]

And Public Record Co is the remaining lacquer manufacturer. They’ve a nice little factory video on their home page.

パブリックレコード株式会社

音楽会・演奏会・卒業記念のブルーレイ・ＤＶＤ制作、各種印刷、アナログレコードラッカー盤製造のパブリックレコード

www.pbr.co.jp

 

[levimax]

If a LOMC cartridge is used, the resonance is much higher- 100KHz to 5MHz. But owing to the higher 'Q' of the inductor, the peak is higher (and tighter around the center frequency); as much as 30dB above the cartridge signal. If the preamp wasn't designed to handle this sort of RFI at its input, all sorts of bad things can happen. This phenomena is why the LOMC 'cartridge loading' resistor myth has occurred, where the resistor is supposed to load the cartridge to reduce high frequency ringing or some such nonsense. What is really happening is the cartridge inductance is so slight it can pass a perfect square wave at 10KHz so its not the cartridge ringing. By putting a resistor in parallel with the resonance, it is detuned and so there is far less RFI. But the resistor also causes the cantilever to become stiffer, and the loss of the ability to trace high frequencies is quite measurable. If you really want to hear what's on the LP you'll use a preamp that doesn't have RFI sensitivity. Such a preamp won't have a switch for cartridge loading.

Thank you. I am using a LOMC cart with a SUT. I added a zobel network to the SUT output to prevent ringing as recommended by Jensen. How well does a SUT work for RF suppression and cantilever stiffness issues?