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HD Vinyl

Stump909

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Seems like snake-oil, but a standardized needle shape is probably overdue.
 

Sythrix

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I know next to nothing about vinyl, but I thought the point was that it was pure analog media with an immeasurable resolution. Doesn’t transitioning to digital then back to vinyl eliminate that aspect? Why not just play the high resolution digital file that they’ve gone and recorded onto the vinyl? I don’t see the point. It’s no longer an analog medium, it’s digital transcribed onto analog... which is just digital with the added effect of eventual analog wear and tear,

...unless I’m missing or misinterpreting something? Is that no longer why people buy vinyl?
 

Cosmik

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One thing strikes me when I look at the the 'perfect fit' image: don't you need some gap to allow dust and dirt to squish past the needle?
 
OP
Wombat

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One thing strikes me when I look at the the 'perfect fit' image: don't you need some gap to allow dust and dirt to squish past the needle?

Just ride-up-over it. :rolleyes:
 

Cosmik

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Cosmik

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I know next to nothing about vinyl, but I thought the point was that it was pure analog media with an immeasurable resolution. Doesn’t transitioning to digital then back to vinyl eliminate that aspect? Why not just play the high resolution digital file that they’ve gone and recorded onto the vinyl? I don’t see the point. It’s no longer an analog medium, it’s digital transcribed onto analog... which is just digital with the added effect of eventual analog wear and tear,

...unless I’m missing or misinterpreting something? Is that no longer why people buy vinyl?
I agree, but it's an argument that has long been dismissed by people such as Michael Fremer who, as I recall, sees 'vinylification' (my word) as a real thing that, through subtle mechanisms that can't be duplicated electronically, adds soul to digital audio and rids it of its artificial 'sheen'.
 

Frank Dernie

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I know next to nothing about vinyl, but I thought the point was that it was pure analog media with an immeasurable resolution. Doesn’t transitioning to digital then back to vinyl eliminate that aspect? Why not just play the high resolution digital file that they’ve gone and recorded onto the vinyl? I don’t see the point. It’s no longer an analog medium, it’s digital transcribed onto analog... which is just digital with the added effect of eventual analog wear and tear,

...unless I’m missing or misinterpreting something? Is that no longer why people buy vinyl?
No analog medium has as much resolution as current digital because of its high noise level, LPs are equivalent of around 11-bit digital resolution (though there isn't a precise figure since manufacturing and mastering has an effect) and reel-to reel tapes not much better unless Dolby noise reduction has been used.
Some of the finest sound I enjoy at home is FM BBC radio 3 live broadcasts and they have had digital links from broadcaster to transmitter mast since 1972 in 32kHz/13-bit, which was audibly a lot better than the old analogue systems. I recorded most live broadcasts to cassette back then as well, which is how I learned new music! They changed to NICAM 3, effectively 14-bit, later.
I am quite sure the SQ I enjoy is due to the skill in microphone positioning and mixing at the BBC than anything else, but it shows that 13/32 digital is not limiting for musical enjoyment, at least not for me.

Jim Lesurf has an article about it on his very worthy web site:

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/BBC/PCMandNICAM/History.html

People buy "vinyl" for a multitude of reasons but it can't be because it is "pure analog" even if that is what they tell themselves. Almost all good recorders have been digital for 30 years and the delay system used to adjust cutting pitch on the record lathe, so large modulations don't crash into each other and small modulation doesn't waste space, have been digital for this long too, so unless an LP is pre 1983 or so it is unlikely to have no digital in it at all, and likely to have been digital at every stage up to and including the record lathe process.
 
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Frank Dernie

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This won't work in practice. Even the system we have now is very, very sensitive to alignment and manufacturing accuracy. There is zero chance of manufacturing a working system like this in quantity.
It reminds me of academics getting excited about cycloidal gears 50 years ago. Their theoretical load carrying capacity was way more than tweaked involute (the standard gear tooth) but it relied on the greater contact area to achieve the potential and that was neither manufacturable to the accuracy needed nor would work when load deflections were accounted for.
 
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Wombat

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This won't work in practice. Even the system we have now is very, very sensitive to alignment and manufacturing accuracy. There is zero chance of manufacturing a working system like this in quantity.
It reminds me of academics getting excited about cycloidal gears 50 years ago. Their theoretical load carrying capacity was way more than treaked involute (the standard gear tooth) but it relied on the greater contact area to achieve the potential and that was neither manufacturable to the accuracy needed nor would work when load deflections were accounted for.

You have just rekindled my Applied Mechanics subject nightmare - complex gear design. Arrrgh. :rolleyes:

I think it was the ME faculty's revenge for having Ohms Law included in their curriculum.
 
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Soniclife

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Some of the finest sound I enjoy at home is FM BBC radio 3 live broadcasts
Do you know how FM compares to the digital streams for these broadcasts? I don't have a FM tuner to compare.
 

Soniclife

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'vinylification' (my word) as a real thing that, through subtle mechanisms that can't be duplicated electronically
I've long been surprised that someone hasn't built a box that takes a digital signal and puts it through some physical/analog stage that mimics the whole vinyl production and replay process, that produces a signal that's ready for a phono stage input. Something like a long cantilever with a cutting head at one end, and a pickup at the other.
 

Frank Dernie

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You have just rekindled my Applied Mechanics subject nightmare - complex gear design. Arrrgh. :rolleyes:

I think it was the ME faculty's revenge for having Ohms Law included in their curriculum.
I did my apprenticeship at a gear manufacturer (David Brown Gear Industries) including a summer 1970 exchange at the Falk Gera Corp in Milwaukee.
I am a mech eng but used electronics and computing a lot during my career for measurement data analysis and control.
 

Frank Dernie

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Do you know how FM compares to the digital streams for these broadcasts? I don't have a FM tuner to compare.
I have never checked, I listen to enjoy the music and once it is pleasurable I stop dicking about. FM works fine here whereas streaming takes more boxes and is by no means a fixed standard, so I rarely bother with it. My Devialet Phantoms can run digital radio fairly simply but I don't use them often for music, more the tv.
 

Sal1950

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It reminds me of academics getting excited about cycloidal gears 50 years ago.
Frank your making my brain hurt again. I'm too old and retired to try and wrap my thought pattern around stuff like that. This crap is burning up the few working cells I still have in reserve. o_O

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