The Courteous Vinyl Playback Discussion

[restorer-john]

Does it tell me exactly what the material is?

You're right. It could be a piece of cheese. How silly of me.

Never mind what Roy Gandy (Rega's founder) answers when asked specifically what the former is made of. Did you even watch the video?

 

[Newman]

Please keep this thread especially courteous, as per the OP’s request.

 

[JP]

Did you even watch the video?

Obviously not.

 

[mike70]

Scientific proof about vinyl durability .... many people here in ASR without knowledge about the format repeating preconceptions ... also as audiophiles with cables or class D amplification.

http://korfaudio.com/blog87

Knowledge is the key, we need to be open minded or maybe we're doing the same stuff we criticize in other people.

That experiment corresponds with my practical experience about 40 years properly care records.

 

[Newman]

Scientific proof about vinyl durability .... many people here in ASR without knowledge about the format repeating preconceptions ... also as audiophiles with cables or class D amplification.

http://korfaudio.com/blog87

Knowledge is the key, we need to be open minded or maybe we're doing the same stuff we criticize in other people.

That experiment corresponds with my practical experience about 40 years properly care records.

That is not about vinyl LPs

 

[sergeauckland]

Scientific proof about vinyl durability .... many people here in ASR without knowledge about the format repeating preconceptions ... also as audiophiles with cables or class D amplification.

http://korfaudio.com/blog87

Knowledge is the key, we need to be open minded or maybe we're doing the same stuff we criticize in other people.

That experiment corresponds with my practical experience about 40 years properly care records.

Thanks for that link. Taking the findings at face value, and I have no reason to think it's not genuine, then it came as a surprise to me. I too assumed lacquers were fragile and couldn't support more than a few plays without degradation. Fine for club DJs, or of course LP production, but not suitable as a consumer medium.

It does however, raise the question that if the lacquer is indeed that rugged, what is the effect of wear on the stylus? Is lacquer more abrasive than vinyl?
The 103rd playback is still only some 75 hours or so. Will the stylus still be good for 1000 hours playing lacquers, as it would be (more or less) playing vinyl?

I would need a fair bit more convincing before I would be willing to play lacquers regularly.

I also question the economic sense of lacquers which presumably are cut 1:1 in real time rather than stamped. New LPs are, in my opinion, uneconomic compared with CDs, let alone streaming, so lacquers must be much more so.

Interesting thoughts though.

S.

 

[mike70]

Interesting thoughts though.

that's my intention only ... i don't want to "convince" anyone about nothing.

 

[JP]

Scientific proof about vinyl durability .... many people here in ASR without knowledge about the format repeating preconceptions ... also as audiophiles with cables or class D amplification.

http://korfaudio.com/blog87

Knowledge is the key, we need to be open minded or maybe we're doing the same stuff we criticize in other people.

That experiment corresponds with my practical experience about 40 years properly care records.

That’s an experiment I plan on repeating with one of their lacquers, though with a lot more detail and actual audio samples. There is variation in their FFTs, and there can also be issues not so readily obvious in the way the data was presented. Also want to see the difference between a well-used elliptical vs a line-type, and higher VTF.

 

[mike70]

That’s an experiment I plan on repeating with one of their lacquers, though with a lot more detail and actual audio samples. There is variation in their FFTs, and there can also be issues not so readily obvious in the way the data was presented. Also want to see the difference between a well-used elliptical vs a line-type, and higher VTF.

I saw other experiments about it (i think it was in Vinyl Engine) with an elliptical stylus, using a good microscope and checking the wear after many "milestone" used hours. The results were awesome (always talking about proper clean record / stylus, if you go at 30mph in a fast line you can't blame the car )

Fine line cuts generates even less wear, having much more contact with the grooves (more contact = less pressure at the same VTF)

 

[JP]

Fine line cuts generates even less wear, having much more contact with the grooves (more contact = less pressure at the same VTF)

You’re taking about vinyl and I’m talking about lacquer.

 

[mike70]

You’re taking about vinyl and I’m talking about lacquer.

i know, but everything i said apply in the same way

 

[JP]

i know, but everything i said apply in the same way

Maybe, but doubtful. My direct experience with lacquer doesn’t align with Alexi’s conclusions.

 

[NTK]

Scientific proof about vinyl durability .... many people here in ASR without knowledge about the format repeating preconceptions ... also as audiophiles with cables or class D amplification.

http://korfaudio.com/blog87

Knowledge is the key, we need to be open minded or maybe we're doing the same stuff we criticize in other people.

That experiment corresponds with my practical experience about 40 years properly care records.

0.2 dB is 10^(0.2/20) = 10^0.01 = 1.023. That means a 0.2 dB difference is 2.3%, which is, by our usual standard, huge. I'd also guess the differences are from increased distortions in the playbacks, not frequency response shifts.

[Edit]
To show how insensitive and poor spectral magnitude plots are for showing distortions, here is a comparison of the spectra of M-Noise and its clipped version. Below is the waveform plots of the unclipped and clipped version (the clipping threshold is 3/8 of the max peak value in the unclipped version).

Here are their respective spectral magnitude plots. The differences are tiny.

Zoomed in 200 - 600 Hz.

 

[DWI]

Thanks for that link. Taking the findings at face value, and I have no reason to think it's not genuine, then it came as a surprise to me. I too assumed lacquers were fragile and couldn't support more than a few plays without degradation. Fine for club DJs, or of course LP production, but not suitable as a consumer medium.

It does however, raise the question that if the lacquer is indeed that rugged, what is the effect of wear on the stylus? Is lacquer more abrasive than vinyl?
The 103rd playback is still only some 75 hours or so. Will the stylus still be good for 1000 hours playing lacquers, as it would be (more or less) playing vinyl?

I would need a fair bit more convincing before I would be willing to play lacquers regularly.

I also question the economic sense of lacquers which presumably are cut 1:1 in real time rather than stamped. New LPs are, in my opinion, uneconomic compared with CDs, let alone streaming, so lacquers must be much more so.

Interesting thoughts though.

S.

Devialet sold the lacquers from their releases done with Fondamenta. They had some in their store in Rue Saumur, Paris, €3,000 each. They explained they have a very limited number of plays with rapid degradation.

That said, one customer for their husband's birthday arranged a surprise party which included Devialet installing a system for the event, the highlight of which was he got to sit and listen to one of these lacquers. Apparently he was a very happy bunny indeed.

I also heard one of the Brinkmann copper master discs of one of their own productions, using their state of the art turntable system, Trilogy amplifiers and Sasha DAW. In my experience, that's as good as home audio ever gets.

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

I knew that high output moving coils had more turns of wire but then if the metal core is not used for higher output then what is it used for?

Ferrous metal cores are used to strengthen the magnetic field set up by magnetising current in the windings. As frequency rises the losses in the magnetic core become too big, ferrite cores then air cores come into play. The operating frequencies in phono cartridges are not high enough to be a problem.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

The theory I am testing is "if I can hear a difference, I should be able to see a difference in the capture plots from the microphone". I don't currently have the gear on hand to test electrically. I do have a way to check it audibly for differences in the plots. I have to disagree about checking it at the speaker outputs. The speaker has be able to reproduce the differences despite the distortions the speaker introduces, otherwise we wouldn't hear it anyway.

I'm not saying that the speakers are not able to resolve the differences you hear. What I am saying is that the resolution of acoustic measurements, especially done on something like an app in an iPhone, is so rough that you are unlikely to be able to ferret out the measured differences you want to find. Acoustic measurements can be very detailed and valid, but the instrumentation / software to do that, the quality of microphone, and the experience in doing these types of measurements doesn't appear to be there.

Certainly go ahead and try, but what you find is very unlikely to be consistent enough and specific enough to tell you much.

 

[dr0ss]

The second run sounded better without any demag involved. And the improvement was exactly what we experienced.

The so-called memory effect. Record remembers where it made any mistakes, and avoids them on future plays.

 

[Smitty2k1]

Thinking of upgrading my cartridge/stylus or maybe my phone pre. Here's the complete system:

Technics 1200 turntable
Shure M97xE cart/stylus
Bellari/Rolls VP130 phono pre
Denon X3500H AVR (Audyssey XT32 + bass management)
Hypex NCORE NC252MP based amp
Alexis Sound Rebecca Monitors (Dennis Murphy design)
SVS SB-1000 pro sub

The AVR, amp, speakers, and sub are all new as I moved into a new house recently. Have a bit of upgradeitis and imagine the cart or phono pre are my weak links now.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Have a bit of upgradeitis and imagine the cart or phono pre are my weak links now.

You weak link is most probably how your speaker are set in your room, if you cannot do anything about that, then spend that money that you seem so eager to burn on well recorded and mastered music, it will make a bigger difference than any new cartridge on your present TT.

 

[mike70]

Thinking of upgrading my cartridge/stylus or maybe my phone pre. Here's the complete system:

Technics 1200 turntable
Shure M97xE cart/stylus
Bellari/Rolls VP130 phono pre
Denon X3500H AVR (Audyssey XT32 + bass management)
Hypex NCORE NC252MP based amp
Alexis Sound Rebecca Monitors (Dennis Murphy design)
SVS SB-1000 pro sub

The AVR, amp, speakers, and sub are all new as I moved into a new house recently. Have a bit of upgradeitis and imagine the cart or phono pre are my weak links now.

the best bang for the bucks are ... transducers.That means ... speakers or cartridge.
If you don't want to replace your speakers, upgrade your cartridge.

The Shure is a decent cartridge, but not a high level cartridge ...you can add a jico SAS stylus to the M97 and that goes from an elliptical cut to a fine line, a very good upgrade.
Or ... go to the best priced microline cartridges ... the AT vm95ml / vm540ml / vm740ml ... depending on your budget.
Use the bellari preamp in the 120pF configuration and the lower capacitance cables per foot you can find, as the blue jeans LC1 or something with mogami cables.

Then talk me again