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HD Vinyl Is Coming...
- Thread starter Don Hills
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According to the story and accompanying graphic, my take on it is that the process:
- Digitises the input if it isn't digital already.
- Mathematically transforms it into a "topographical map" of the required record surface / groove profile. According to the graphic, this map is inverted. The "grooves" are represented as "mountain ranges".
- Uses a laser to carve it directly onto the record stamper.
They get more information on the disc by bypassing the mechanical limitations of the cutting head, and lose less information by bypassing many of the steps required to make the stampers.
The standard record cutting process is like this:
1: Cut the tape to the lacquer (grooves).
2: Plate the lacquer and separate to make the matrix (hills).
3: Plate the matrix and separate to make the mother (grooves).
4: Plate the mother and separate to make the stamper (hills). Repeat for more stampers.
5: Use the stamper to press the vinyl.
If a large release is anticipated, copy mothers are made from some of the stampers before they are used.
5: Stamper to copy mother (repeat as required).
6: Copy mother to stamper (repeat as required).
7: Stamper to vinyl.
Quality degrades at each step. I'm a little doubtful about them burning the stamper directly. But if they burn earlier in the process, they lose some of the quality advantage.
We need more details...
- Digitises the input if it isn't digital already.
- Mathematically transforms it into a "topographical map" of the required record surface / groove profile. According to the graphic, this map is inverted. The "grooves" are represented as "mountain ranges".
- Uses a laser to carve it directly onto the record stamper.
They get more information on the disc by bypassing the mechanical limitations of the cutting head, and lose less information by bypassing many of the steps required to make the stampers.
The standard record cutting process is like this:
1: Cut the tape to the lacquer (grooves).
2: Plate the lacquer and separate to make the matrix (hills).
3: Plate the matrix and separate to make the mother (grooves).
4: Plate the mother and separate to make the stamper (hills). Repeat for more stampers.
5: Use the stamper to press the vinyl.
If a large release is anticipated, copy mothers are made from some of the stampers before they are used.
5: Stamper to copy mother (repeat as required).
6: Copy mother to stamper (repeat as required).
7: Stamper to vinyl.
Quality degrades at each step. I'm a little doubtful about them burning the stamper directly. But if they burn earlier in the process, they lose some of the quality advantage.
We need more details...
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Had no idea this was coming. I supposed with the format getting another life, such improvements are to be expected.
And you know what fascinates me, is the analog die hard folks, if you asked them to describe how an lp stores two channels of information and how it is read off the lp they could not tell you, they don't understand their own favorite technology but just know that digital is bad just because it is digital. Crazy.
Digital, It's all stair steps, everyone knows that.
TBone
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well, who am I to suggest otherwise; perhaps certain vinylheads are not nearly as clued as you may suggest, maybe some of us actually possess a tad more ability to comprehend ...
l hope you not offended, my comment is directly about the idea of a new way of doing vinyl, that is the particular thing I was replying to. Is vinyl vinyl, even when it gets there in a totally different way? While their cartridges and rumble and inbuilt distortions etc will still impart a sound they like, the vinyl in that post is different, more accurate to the source. I would only think better. You might have read elsewhere that I do appreciate the imaging, however embellished, that vinyl does provide. I do swing both ways with ease, maybe I should not have quite put it that way, but oh well. ahahahahah
Yep that's the analog only crowds war cry, and everyone knows that tape is digital too, when you get right down to polarity directions (magnetization). Its just that its only what, 12 or 13 bits.
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TBone
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No offense taken ... I mean how could anyone possibly be offended when inferred as a group having less gray area matter for such comprehensions?
Look, some of my vinyl (certainly not all) offers very real-world advantages, but for those who default-think those advantages are ALL easily summed by the formats inherited distortions ... then fine, who am I to argue, fisher-price away ...
No offense taken ... I mean how could anyone possibly be offended when inferred as a group having less gray area matter for such comprehensions?
Look, some of my vinyl (certainly not all) offers very real-world advantages, but for those who default-think those advantages are ALL easily summed by the formats inherited distortions ... then fine, who am I to argue, fisher-price away ...
Well, I do sense you took some offense, but then, we are talking about a whole new way to generate a vinyl record AND in the context of this thread and what FrantZ said which I agree with actually. So, in your opinion, will that new record as described in the OP of this thread, will it actually have the same vinyl sound, without the effects of the cutter, and degradations of the actual physical reproduction process? If not, would you expect it to sound better or worse?
Fisher-price indeed Sir. In my opinion, it will not image as well, because I do believe that what vinyl does, even better than the master tape, is describe an image that is more interesting over two channel plain old stereo including the cutting process especially, and it is not because it is accurate to the source, as the source is the tape, and vinyl does not image the same as tape does.
How do I know?, my son owned a recording studio for about a year and a half. That is what I surmised from listening to master tape (DAT) and a cut record of the recording.
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Well, if someones cartridge and TT was truly state of the art, it might be hard to distinguish, but no ones cartridge, even state of the art, is comparable to digital in separation, dynamic range, quietness, and such, but it could be close though, so you make a good point.
TBone
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No doubt, digital is the more accurate medium, that's why I rip analog to digital archives. However, considering I own a library of original LPs that simply can't be replaced by most subsequent dynamically-challenged digital version(s) in any format ... well, I very much enjoy those "advantages" provided my superb table ...
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I believe to truly advance the vinyl state of the art we need dual mono. You record left and right channels on separate discs. Have a synched clock for each platter or better yet a single belt drive so both by necessity are running at the same speed. You will need index marks on the discs to place them in synch on the platters. This way you can likely have quieter vinyl, more room for mono signals to be louder thereby increasing dynamic range, you can have true stereo even in the bass, and you will have channel separation equivalent to digital. Even better the same approach can be used for 5.1 channel surround. This would be a boon for vinyl lovers and for vinyl playback gear makers. All the platters, cartridges etc. It should truly put us in a new age of sound.
On the other hand, if successful in creating vinyl quality approaching the fidelity of digital the result would sound like digital. Oh well sometimes you cannot win even when you do.
On the other hand, if successful in creating vinyl quality approaching the fidelity of digital the result would sound like digital. Oh well sometimes you cannot win even when you do.
AJ Soundfield
Major Contributor
Hmmm, but what if a smidgen of crosstalk is perceptually pleasing?
People are not able to change a flat tire on their car.
Do you think this would work?
iridium.
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