Objective measurements of phono cartridges

[Analog Scott]

No, go back and read up on cutting lathes, the exception would be an LP that had the same information on it as a CD. Almost none ( I seem to recall there are a few) of the LP versions remotely at that, nearly match the CD masterings. They are two different creatures, in all ways. Good luck finding us a handful of these so called LP and CD masterings that are the same. In fact, my memory can be wrong, maybe there are none.

I can cite well over 500 records off the top of my head that have no limiting, no compression, no EQ and no summing of the bass to mono pretty easily. I don't need to read up on cutting lathes to know these specifics about actual records that were cut this way. They are well documented. Whether or not CDs of the same title were mastered using the same source tapes and the same lack of proccessing is pretty hard to say in many cases with the particular recordings I can cite. And with most of these recordings one can find multiple variations on vinyl and on digital media with many different masterings.

 

[tomelex]

I can cite well over 500 records off the top of my head that have no limiting, no compression, no EQ and no summing of the bass to mono pretty easily. I don't need to read up on cutting lathes to know these specifics about actual records that were cut this way. They are well documented. Whether or not CDs of the same title were mastered using the same source tapes and the same lack of proccessing is pretty hard to say in many cases with the particular recordings I can cite. And with most of these recordings one can find multiple variations on vinyl and on digital media with many different masterings.

Go ahead and cite a few! No way can you master to LP the same as CD unless you are almost virtually doing tones, and then, no way can the LP match the CD for fidelity. Perhaps a simple guitar or something, but since you don't need to read up on cutting heads then not much to be gained following this line of reasoning. No way will a master tape done to LP and done to vinyl be the same when played back. If your master is mooned, limited, compressed and EQed to start with (which most are in some form or another) even then the controls and requirements of the cutter guarantee you will not get the same sounds from LP and CD. They are two different processes.

 

[Analog Scott]

Go ahead and cite a few! No way can you master to LP the same as CD unless you are almost virtually doing tones, and then, no way can the LP match the CD for fidelity. Perhaps a simple guitar or something, but since you don't need to read up on cutting heads then not much to be gained following this line of reasoning. No way will a master tape done to LP and done to vinyl be the same when played back. If your master is mooned, limited, compressed and EQed to start with (which most are in some form or another) even then the controls and requirements of the cutter guarantee you will not get the same sounds from LP and CD. They are two different processes.

the entire Decca classical catalog on King Super Analog. The entire Fantasy top 100 Jazz series from Analog Productions. Every LP produced by Performance Recordings, How is that for a start?

 

[tomelex]

The master is not cut direct to the disc, the cutter has filters, feedback, feedforward, etc and no matter what you present to the cutting engineer, he has to make changes to it. You can not compare CD to LP, they are two different animals. Here is what a well know cutting engineer says: John Golden: “Before CDs became available,” Golden explains, “when a vinyl record was cut, the only source to compare it to was the master tape, in a studio that had a machine that could play it. After the CD was introduced, people started saying, ‘The vinyl record doesn't sound like my CD.’ And to some degree, that still happens today. The fact is, it will never sound like the CD — it's the ‘vinyl version’ of your music.”

As I said, there are reasons you can not compare between CD and vinyl that had the same master. It matters not what the master was, by the time the cutter gets done with it, it is not the same. the master can go direct to digital, no problem. the digital will sound very close to the master, the vinyl playback will sound more different, and thus LP and CD from the same master can not be compared directly.

 

[tomelex]

the entire Decca classical catalog on King Super Analog. The entire Fantasy top 100 Jazz series from Analog Productions. Every LP produced by Performance Recordings, How is that for a start?

Where is the documentation? And lets be clear, I am saying you can not compare digital to vinyl, even if they have the same master tape source.

 

[DonH56]

Any record has EQ, there's that pesky RIAA curve to contend with, both when cutting the disc and when playing it back.

 

[tomelex]

Any record has EQ, there's that pesky RIAA curve to contend with, both when cutting the disc and when playing it back.

Dude! there you go bringing science and electronics into the conversation, is this called audio science review or something.. ahahah

 

[March Audio]

Scotty,

Not saying this is a definitive article, but it does cover the basics of the limitations and requirements of cutting an LP.

http://www.recordingmag.com/resources/resourceDetail/113.html

Good luck getting an lp to actually sound like the original master tape - very unlikely.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Scotty,

Not saying this is a definitive article, but it does cover the basics of the limitations and requirements of cutting an LP.

http://www.recordingmag.com/resources/resourceDetail/113.html

Good luck getting an lp to actually sound like the original master tape.

All the reasons described in that article are why there was such a thing as mastering. It is why mastering is done on two channels and not on mixes of multiple channels. It lists all the things absent in digital distribution which is why at least some people believe there no longer is an actual need for mastering. So much modern music gets a squash and go mastering I wish less were done rather than more.

 

[Analog Scott]

Where is the documentation? And lets be clear, I am saying you can not compare digital to vinyl, even if they have the same master tape source.

Let me be clear. I am saying that the records I cited and many others were cut without the use of the limiter, any compression, EQ or the bass summed to mono. Many others have been cut without the limiter, compression or the bass summed to mono but have had EQ and other sorts of processing to imrpove upon the master tape. Do you not believe that the records I cited were cut with no use of a limiter, no compression, no EQ and no summing of the bass to mono? If you don't believe it what would you accept as proof? And most importantly, will it really matter to you if I do satisfy your standard of proof on how these records were cut? No point in my proving this unless you and others really don't believe it's true, are willing to accept reasonable proof and actually will change your stance on the subject in light of such proof.

Any record has EQ, there's that pesky RIAA curve to contend with, both when cutting the disc and when playing it back.

RIAA EQ Doesn't count. The net result once the signal goes through a phono preamplifier is zero EQ

 

[Frank Dernie]

It is very, very unlikely for a CD and LP to come from the same master.

The CD has one major limit, requiring an anti-aliasing filter to make sure there is no information at frequencies greater than half the sampling frequency in order to comply with the sampling theorem.

The LP has multiple limits. Firstly, in order to be sure the groove remains continuous, the bass must be converted to mono. Secondly there is a limit to the maximum level the cutter can actually cut due to mechanical and thermal limits. This varies from machine to machine but means that the maximum recordable level is higher at mid frequencies than higher, which usually means a level dependant roll off at high frequencies. Thirdly compression is used to keep the signal above the noise. Ironically CDs now seem to be balanced to be listened to on portables or in cars and most pop CDs I have heard recently have been terrible, even though it is not necessary from the pov of the medium.
So whilst it would be possible to make a CD from the LP master plus an aliasing filter, it would not necessarily be possible to cut a LP from a CD master.

The mono bass does have the benefit of using both speakers and both amps for the bass making a low powered system less likely to run out of steam. A bit of compression also lifts the ambient information nearer to the music, which may be liked too. It is clear some LP fans like a rolled off top end Koetsu cartridges, for example, roll off from 2kHz, so the inability to cut high levels of high frequency may be no loss for many.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I can cite well over 500 records off the top of my head that have no limiting, no compression, no EQ and no summing of the bass to mono pretty easily. I don't need to read up on cutting lathes to know these specifics about actual records that were cut this way. They are well documented. Whether or not CDs of the same title were mastered using the same source tapes and the same lack of proccessing is pretty hard to say in many cases with the particular recordings I can cite. And with most of these recordings one can find multiple variations on vinyl and on digital media with many different masterings.

Can you direct me to one LP without summed bass? I suppose for music with not much bass, or bass only at a very low level one could get away with it, but strong bass in one channel will cause the groove to cease to be continuous so is technically impossible to play. Anyway why would anybody bother?

 

[Purité Audio]

Koetsu’s rolling off from 2kHz !
No wonder their ‘midrange’ is often remarked upon!
Keith

 

[watchnerd]

if one believes that the turntable and arm are more important to overall sound quality than the cartridge itself (as I do)

Curious as to why you think that.

In my mind, the TT and arm are sources of noise, distortion, and speed instability. Once you eliminate those as much as possible, you're still left with the sound of the cartridge which, as a transducer like a microphone or speaker, always adds some coloration.

recently incorporated a Nagoaka MP50s into my turntable. When doing such cart changes, I go a few steps further than most, in that I also adjust the phono pre-amp internally to accomodate load and a more precise gain per each channel. It takes me quite a while to get things correct, especially azimuth, bias, and SRA. Much is done by hearing, but ripping and comparing is a great indicator of how accurate the setup.

Nice attention to details. I've found that a well configured modestly priced cart will usually beat a mediocrely configured expensive cart.

Rather than doing it by ear (so hard), have you tried using oscilloscope (either physical or software) or a Fozgometer?

 

[watchnerd]

Recording Magazine, "Mastering for Vinyl":

"The disadvantage of the whole stereo LP scheme is that although the mastering engineer can adjust the groove pitch for loud or soft passages, the maximum and minimum depth of the groove are constant. Cut too much low frequency information with a wide stereo spread, and you get a lot of deep peaks and valleys in the groove and styli tend to pop out of the groove. Turn that down, and your stereo image collapses.

So the amount of stereo information has a lot to do with the level that can be cut to disc. No matter what you do beforehand, out-of-phase low frequency content will lift the stylus from the groove or drive it into the substrate. On the other hand, in-phase low frequency information causes lateral excursions wide enough to cut into the previously cut groove and into the area where a groove would be cut in the next revolution."

"Mastering today has become a catch-all term for any kind of post-mixing audio processing, but LP mastering is the process of making an acetate out of the original tape. The processing is secondary. However, the processing is almost essential to get the most out of the limited channel.

There is a lot of poking and prodding that is often done to get the stereo signal to fit into place, because the LP has less information on it than the original master tape does. Often, you’ll see mastering engineers roll off a lot of the very low bass and add a false bass peak around 200 Hz or so, just to compensate for the mechanical limitations of the equipment."

"Another issue here is that the frequency response of the disc is different in the outer grooves and in the inner grooves, because the stylus is moving much faster across the outer grooves (it goes through a greater distance per revolution). This means that the mastering engineer may have to tweak the high end response up progressively during the cutting process."

 

[watchnerd]

And most importantly, will it really matter to you if I do satisfy your standard of proof on how these records were cut? No point in my proving this unless you and others really don't believe it's true, are willing to accept reasonable proof and actually will change your stance on the subject in light of such proof.

For wide dynamic range, high volume bass below 100 Hz, I really don't believe it is true.

It is physically impossible due to the limitations of the LP.

I love my vinyl, but the medium has well known limitations that have been documented for decades.

 

[watchnerd]

More from a Gearslutz thread on stereo bass on vinyl:

"Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Reierson
Doug Sax at a recent AES meeting said he never once summed bass to mono.

It's not because Doug somehow knows something magical which everyone else doesn't. It's because Doug Sax never once was requested by a client to cut a 12" single with hard panned bass synths playing hocketing parts with stereo flanging effects on them to a +6dBVU level!! You can get away with lots more out of phase bass frequencies if your cutting level is kept low (which would likely happen with the longer sides kept at a level which guarantees clean playback which is what I would say Mr. Sax was doing when he was cutting sides). And if you're provided a mix where the bass frequencies are phase coherent (which used to be a lot more emphasized as good practice "back in the day") then you don't need to use an EE or VAL (vertical amplitude limiter) at all. "

 

[watchnerd]

Quote from Doug Sax and Mike Wells on CD vs LP mastering:

"Doug Sax, owner of The Mastering Lab in Ojai, Calif., and veteran mastering engineer recommends, “You don't want to cut vinyl from a CD master — that's just the way to make the worst-sounding vinyl. When the client wants a vinyl cutting master, we re-transfer the album — after everyone's approved the changes we're making — at 96kHz/24-bit, with no digital limiting and without pushing the A-to-D converters in any way. We put tones on it and a sidebreak, and send it to someone, preferably Bernie Grundman, who's set up to do a flat transfer to vinyl, going through a minimum amount of equipment.”"

As far as mastering to both CD and vinyl, Gold echoes the practices of Kutch, Sax and Wells, noting, “If I'm mastering the record [for CD], I always cut off a 24-bit un-peak-limited file, but otherwise the master I make for the CD is the same as the master I cut.” Special circumstances do come up, says Gold, where the dual-format mastering is not so seamless. “I've mastered records of experimental music, and sometimes there will be elements like superwide stereo bass, which is very difficult to cut onto a record,” he notes. “So I may do two versions of that, but that's the really odd case.”

 

[Analog Scott]

Can you direct me to one LP without summed bass? I suppose for music with not much bass, or bass only at a very low level one could get away with it, but strong bass in one channel will cause the groove to cease to be continuous so is technically impossible to play. Anyway why would anybody bother?

Already cited several hundred such records. The King Super Analogue Decca LPs and the Analog Productions top 100 Jazz series.

 

[Analog Scott]

For wide dynamic range, high volume bass below 100 Hz, I really don't believe it is true.

It is physically impossible due to the limitations of the LP.

I love my vinyl, but the medium has well known limitations that have been documented for decades.

OK what would you accept as reasonable proof that such records exist?