So there was a post talking about how vinyl out sold CD's. And the guy went mentioned how superior to CD's they are. So I posted a counter argument - based on technical reasons.
I eventually posted it on my Facebook page. I got one comment.... from the guy that wrote the book on disc mastering - Larry Boden.
He stated:
Larry Boden "I wrote the book “Basic Disc Mastering” and you have nailed the flaws of disc playback perfectly. My hat is off to you, sir. Well done."
Wow... I find that fascinating... I guess I was right about something... weird for me since I'm typically just an idiot.
Here's the post I wrote:
www.facebook.com
So i did a rant on some comment concerning vinyl out selling CD's - here it is in it's entirety:
Uhhh. I worked on silly expensive turntables back at Opus One... we were so happy when CD's came out. Why? I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, but vinyl/turntables suffer from quite a few issues:
- tangential tracking error caused by a pivoting tone arm - masters are cut radially see this group : https://www.facebook.com/groups/2116299488450938. Unlike the cutting head of a mastering lathe - which travels at a perfect 90d tangent to the groove - a stylus is constantly changing it addressing angle to the groove walls. So the modulations of the groove are not faithfully reproduced since the playback stylus is always moving at a non-perpendicular direction as to how it's cut.
Pivotal tone arms also lead to:
- Skating. As a disc rotates it impinges forces on a contacting surface that cause it to be drawn to the center of the spinning disc. In the shop, we had blank records with no groove that we'd use to set the antiskate mechanisms (usually a spring or weights) that would try to counter act that force. Problem is under compensation causes the stylus to ride up on the side closest to the hub (the left channel) and proper compensation causes the groove closest to the outside (the right channel) to have to drag the stylus against the antiskating force, which causes the stylus to ride up on the outer wall of the groove. It's a real problem that's very hard to deal with.
- low frequency modulation caused by the slight warpage - causes the woofers of a system (or the panels in planar speaker like an Acoustat or Magnepans) to modulate signals above it. You can see it on a Lissajous display on an oscilloscope. it cause the center dot on a blank groove to bounce. You can also see it in larger woofers moving at super low freq (~1-10Hz).
- mismatched RIAA equalization curves - this is the reason you hear about how records sound "warm". That warmth is a mismatch between the RIAA curve that was used to cut the master, and the inverse one used in the consumer's gear. See Larry Boden's book. The RIAA curve was developed to increase the play time on an album side. So during cutting it rolls the bass off and increases the treble. On playback, the consumers reproduction system is supposed do the opposite - increase the bass and roll the treble off. Unfortunately, getting two filters to do a perfect inverse is impossible. Just won't happen. See this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization
- Reduced elasticity of the groove walls on subsequent passes of a stylus. You see, records are made with polyvinyl materials that have plasticizers mixed in. The problem becomes that as the tiny radius of the stylus impinges on the groove wall, it compresses it. That can be an issue if enough time has not elapsed on subsequent plays of the same section of the groove. That can lead to fracturing of the groove wall, since it's already compressed.
- Asperities in the surface of the vinyl. These cause the noise heard. It's because there's no way to make a perfectly uniform material, so slight variations in the surface are unavoidable.
- Limited channel separation - a few issues lead to this - one the aforementioned skating forces in addition to the limitations of the groove geometry. An groove with stereo information that is in-phase and monophonic swings the stylus left to right. Channel information is realized by a 45 d up pitch of the stylus movement - which is limited so it limits the separation of the left/right signals.
But what's really bad is left and right channel signals that are out-of-phase. This causes the cutter head to move vertically. If significant low frequency information is out-of-phase in the audio signal it can cause lift out of the groove path which leads to skips in the groove.
See the attached photo. Note this is what happened to an early pressing of an early Led Zeppelin release. Why we used scopes set to show Lissajous/X-Y when mixing.... BTW - wanna hear what Whole Lotta Love REALLY sounded like - and no fade out - check this out: https://www.ajawamnet.com/ajawamnet/remixoflz.html.
- Decreasing circumference as the groove goes toward the center of the record. This is obvious as the record is spinning at a constant RPM (revolutions per minute) so that means less material is available for groove modulation.
So yea - records suck - sorry. Even the guy that won seven Grammy's for engineering Steely Dan -- the stuff all the golden ears vinyl people seem to like (and it is really good, analog or digital) - hated vinyl - Roger Nichols. He wrote an article called "Snap, Crackle, Pop" that explained the reasons for his becoming an audio engineer (he was originally a nuke engineer)
https://www.ajawamnet.com/ajawamnet/Vinyl_Sucks_and_Your_Little_Dog_Too.html
I eventually posted it on my Facebook page. I got one comment.... from the guy that wrote the book on disc mastering - Larry Boden.
He stated:
Larry Boden "I wrote the book “Basic Disc Mastering” and you have nailed the flaws of disc playback perfectly. My hat is off to you, sir. Well done."
Wow... I find that fascinating... I guess I was right about something... weird for me since I'm typically just an idiot.
Here's the post I wrote:
Wayne Mitzen
So i did a rant on some comment concerning vinyl out selling CD's - here it is in it's entirety: Uhhh. I worked on silly expensive turntables back at Opus One... we were so happy when CD's came...
www.facebook.com
So i did a rant on some comment concerning vinyl out selling CD's - here it is in it's entirety:
Uhhh. I worked on silly expensive turntables back at Opus One... we were so happy when CD's came out. Why? I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, but vinyl/turntables suffer from quite a few issues:
- tangential tracking error caused by a pivoting tone arm - masters are cut radially see this group : https://www.facebook.com/groups/2116299488450938. Unlike the cutting head of a mastering lathe - which travels at a perfect 90d tangent to the groove - a stylus is constantly changing it addressing angle to the groove walls. So the modulations of the groove are not faithfully reproduced since the playback stylus is always moving at a non-perpendicular direction as to how it's cut.
Pivotal tone arms also lead to:
- Skating. As a disc rotates it impinges forces on a contacting surface that cause it to be drawn to the center of the spinning disc. In the shop, we had blank records with no groove that we'd use to set the antiskate mechanisms (usually a spring or weights) that would try to counter act that force. Problem is under compensation causes the stylus to ride up on the side closest to the hub (the left channel) and proper compensation causes the groove closest to the outside (the right channel) to have to drag the stylus against the antiskating force, which causes the stylus to ride up on the outer wall of the groove. It's a real problem that's very hard to deal with.
- low frequency modulation caused by the slight warpage - causes the woofers of a system (or the panels in planar speaker like an Acoustat or Magnepans) to modulate signals above it. You can see it on a Lissajous display on an oscilloscope. it cause the center dot on a blank groove to bounce. You can also see it in larger woofers moving at super low freq (~1-10Hz).
- mismatched RIAA equalization curves - this is the reason you hear about how records sound "warm". That warmth is a mismatch between the RIAA curve that was used to cut the master, and the inverse one used in the consumer's gear. See Larry Boden's book. The RIAA curve was developed to increase the play time on an album side. So during cutting it rolls the bass off and increases the treble. On playback, the consumers reproduction system is supposed do the opposite - increase the bass and roll the treble off. Unfortunately, getting two filters to do a perfect inverse is impossible. Just won't happen. See this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization
- Reduced elasticity of the groove walls on subsequent passes of a stylus. You see, records are made with polyvinyl materials that have plasticizers mixed in. The problem becomes that as the tiny radius of the stylus impinges on the groove wall, it compresses it. That can be an issue if enough time has not elapsed on subsequent plays of the same section of the groove. That can lead to fracturing of the groove wall, since it's already compressed.
- Asperities in the surface of the vinyl. These cause the noise heard. It's because there's no way to make a perfectly uniform material, so slight variations in the surface are unavoidable.
- Limited channel separation - a few issues lead to this - one the aforementioned skating forces in addition to the limitations of the groove geometry. An groove with stereo information that is in-phase and monophonic swings the stylus left to right. Channel information is realized by a 45 d up pitch of the stylus movement - which is limited so it limits the separation of the left/right signals.
But what's really bad is left and right channel signals that are out-of-phase. This causes the cutter head to move vertically. If significant low frequency information is out-of-phase in the audio signal it can cause lift out of the groove path which leads to skips in the groove.
See the attached photo. Note this is what happened to an early pressing of an early Led Zeppelin release. Why we used scopes set to show Lissajous/X-Y when mixing.... BTW - wanna hear what Whole Lotta Love REALLY sounded like - and no fade out - check this out: https://www.ajawamnet.com/ajawamnet/remixoflz.html.
- Decreasing circumference as the groove goes toward the center of the record. This is obvious as the record is spinning at a constant RPM (revolutions per minute) so that means less material is available for groove modulation.
So yea - records suck - sorry. Even the guy that won seven Grammy's for engineering Steely Dan -- the stuff all the golden ears vinyl people seem to like (and it is really good, analog or digital) - hated vinyl - Roger Nichols. He wrote an article called "Snap, Crackle, Pop" that explained the reasons for his becoming an audio engineer (he was originally a nuke engineer)
https://www.ajawamnet.com/ajawamnet/Vinyl_Sucks_and_Your_Little_Dog_Too.html
. And I have been slowly digitizing some of the more rare stuff I have, as digital is so much easier to maintain and playback. 
