The Vinyl Frontier

[Chrispy]

... and it's totally understandable ... real vinyl lovers that extracts the maximum from the format and achieve good results ... well, we're a species in itself

you need to see all the "inconvenience" as a hobby, as something enjoyable ... and mess with antiskating / azimuth / tonearm compliance / headshell materials / plinth isolation / cartridge setup / record cleaning / blah blah ... and be happy doing it

i understand it's not for everyone, and i don't push anyone to that "dark side" (at least to anyone who doesn't want it), but after all that ... hassle? ... the results are very good. There're many using cheap plastic TTs destroying records with dirty conical styluses only following the "analog way" and many others listening more distortion and noise than sound with dirty records / stylus and horrendous configured systems.

Far, far from "plug and play" like a cd player or a streamer. But ... we like it ... and we take an informed decision, many times with better information than a "digital boy only" repeating theoretical mantras without knowledge about the reality in room noise floor, acoustics, recordings, speakers distortion, etc.

Tolerance ... a good quality.

Did the fussing/loving for many years, when it was all we had, and I used good gear (still have it). When digital became an option, vinyl fairly quickly took a back seat. If it's new to you or you get some pleasure from the extra handling and expense, go for it.....that's one of vinyl's "charms". Like the classic cartoon ....

 

[mike70]

Well, I'm with vinyl more than 40 years ... is not a perfect friend ... but is a good friend

Makes me enjoy music in other way than the "hidden black box". In fact, sometimes I use streaming (normally to listen in the background) and sometimes vinyl (when I have the time and moment to enjoy a LP with attention). And I can assure you I'm happy with it

SNR? Dynamic Range? ... oh, my room / speakers / ears equalize everything ... good masters sounds good and bad masters sounds bad (any format). And that's all.

 

[LewisWaddo]

Love vinyl, love CDs.
I never hear pops and clicks on any of my records. I just hear music. I don’t hear 16bit 44khz signals when I play a CD, I just hear music, and in both cases, some sound awesome and some sound shit, depending on how they are mastered. I doubt I’ll ever get into streaming. Seems like a fools game to me. Paying for music as a service!? I’ll waste money on tangible assets I can pass on thanks

That’s my own idiotic opinion.

 

[Sal1950]

I never hear pops and clicks on any of my records.

NEVER? LOL, Please, save your fairy tales for the little children,
They believe in such BS.

 

[KingRolo]

NEVER? LOL, Please, save your fairy tales for the little children,
They believe in such BS. I t

 

[KingRolo]

Fairy tails? Seriously I have listened to albums and yea subconsciously you don’t hear the crackles .. His speaking subconsciously because he enjoys it and you’re speaking analytically because you don’t know any better!

 

[Balle Clorin]

Very few of my records have pops and crackle. I care for my records , never touch the surface, I use a dust brush and needle brush and gel. Always piy them back in the sleve. Static is not a problem in my home. After 50 years of use I can have a pop or two one a few records. But used second hand records can be terrible and sound like a fireplace . It is all about handling the records,

 

[TheBatsEar]

I never hear pops and clicks on any of my records. I just hear music.

I hear them, and they go on my nerves.
The same when the analog radio in the car switches from stereo to mono. Annoying.

Paying for music as a service!? I’ll waste money on tangible assets I can pass on thanks

Ideally my last € would be spent with my last breath. The children have their own assets.
I recently started paying for Spotifiy and have discovered a lot new music through it, i recommend to test it for half a year or so, it's 10€ a month, two month are free, so it would be 40€ for the first half year, the price of a meal.

That’s my own idiotic opinion.

Since you are almost new: Welcome to ASR, I hope you enjoy others idiotic opinions as well!

NEVER?

It was a figure of speech, meant to convey that he chooses to ignore them.
Nothing annoys me more than the Sisters Of Mercy album i got as a gift last Christmas. It has a pop on the lead in for a few revolutions, from the factory.

 

[rdenney]

Sal, just slide on by. Nothing to see here.

It's called listening through noise. Musicians often have crappy sound systems because they listen through the crappiness and hear the music. Even those who know what live music sound like, and even those who have been exposed to superb sound systems. Those who can't stand the flaws of traditional playback media aren't deaf, they are simply focused on the music.

And good thing that is possible, because a lot of the most important examples of recorded music in history sound like crap when we are listening to the system instead of the music. An example that comes to my mind is when Ralph Vaughan Williams conducted a performance of his own (astonishing) Symphony No. 4 in F minor. That recording is electric and powerful--RVW was a good conductor which composers often are not. The recording was made in 1937, and the examples that exist now were very likely digitized from the distribution medium, and not from the original masters cut at the performance. Noise abounds. It's in mono (of course) and sounds like it's being played on an old AM radio. But thank goodness we still have it available. I happen to have that recording transcribed onto CD. But I also have other recordings from the 40's and early 50's of RVW's stuff, and some of it is only available now on the original vinyl, whatever its condition. It's challenging and fun to listen to that stuff on its original distribution medium using playback equipment that operates the very best it can possibly operate.

I can listen to that recording and hear through the noise and poor audio quality and hear the music, even though if I focus on the defects, they are abundantly obvious. This is a choice we make as listeners when listening to old recordings on obsolete media.

Of course, there are those who insist the noise isn't there. That's pretty silly--vinyl is so fragile that finding old LPs in truly pristine condition is pretty rare. There are technological ways to minimize clicks and pops, and those can be quite scientific even though we all recognize we are constrained by the performance envelope of the medium. And even if the LP is that pristine and our system effectively minimizes clicks and pops, there is the rumble that cannot be denied, the merging of left and right channel material in the low frequencies to avoid too much stylus excursion in one direction without the other, inner-groove distortion, and the general difficulties of sustaining the best possible operation from the medium. There's no question that anyone who is listening for those artifacts will hear them, no matter how good is the LP's condition.

But there are also those who insist they can hear the "limitations" of 16/44 CD recordings, too. That's also pretty silly. My response to that is to show me the data from properly controlled studies.

So, when someone says they don't hear obvious flaws, it may be that they filter out the flaws subconsciously based on a decision to listen to the music instead of the system. Or, it may be that they claim those flaws aren't there. The statement needs qualification to know, but I choose to interpret it in the former way until someone states clearly enough that they claim the latter.

Rick "listening through noise isn't the same thing as not hearing it" Denney

 

[Sal1950]

Fairy tails? Seriously I have listened to albums and yea subconsciously you don’t hear the crackles .. His speaking subconsciously because he enjoys it and you’re speaking analytically because you don’t know any better!

I think you mean unconsciously, that's what you'd have to be not to hear what he claimed to "never" hear.
Y'all can come to his rescue all ya like trying to reinterpret what he meant. LOL

So, when someone says they don't hear obvious flaws, it may be that they filter out the flaws subconsciously based on a decision to listen to the music instead of the system. Or, it may be that they claim those flaws aren't there. The statement needs qualification to know, but I choose to interpret it in the former way until someone states clearly enough that they claim the latter.

Don't forget Rick, this is ASR. If your going to present hard statements like he did, they need supporting evidence.
Which in this case just doesn't exist.
You'd have to be freakin deaf not to hear pops, clicks and surface noise on the vast majority of LP's.
I was there and well remember the constant complains over the media's failings.
None of them have magically disappeared in the last decades.
That's why digital was invented.

 

[rdenney]

That's why digital was invented.

Were you in the room at the time? I don't think that's the reason digital was invented. I think the real reason is that it's vastly cheaper to get a good enough quality product and vastly cheaper to distribute. And the packaging would work in the automotive environment. And the owners of the copyrights hoped the digital format would pave the way for preventing people from making copies (that it didn't work out that way was fortunate but not assured in those first years).

And the quality improved enough (and there's no question that it improved, at least when the recording, production, and distribution companies took advantage of it, which they didn't always) that in return for the reduced costs, they could charge more.

It didn't hurt their motivation that they would have a way to turn the whole world into a repeat customer, being encouraged to replace their libraries with new media. That's happening again with high-res distributed by download or streamed. Streaming is even better from their perspective because they can turn it into a revenue stream instead of a one-time sale. The convenience factor absolutely trumps the claimed improvements in quality, which is the main reason that CD's actually won the day in the mass market, even though they were demonstrably better.

I own a bunch of LPs, and I don't feel the need to replace them all with CD's, let alone pay someone to let me download them again. For many of them, being digitized wouldn't do any good except for the convenience, but I can do that myself.

Rick "follow the money" Denney

 

[Sal1950]

I own a bunch of LPs, and I don't feel the need to replace them all with CD's, let alone pay someone to let me download them again. For many of them, being digitized wouldn't do any good except for the convenience, but I can do that myself.

If you enjoy the noise and distortion, just say so.
No need to dance around the truth.

 

[mike70]

Many people enjoy noise /distortion in many ways ... even digital noise exists (jitter).
Loudness war in CDs is awful, etc etc.

We need to know if we talk only about the theoretical world ... or about the real world. Real world is always more complex than a book formula ... so digital as a perfection and analog as a noise mess ... is also a little "exaggerated".

There're more things in music reproduction than the format itself. Only my opinion and I RESPECT any other opinion.

 

[TheBatsEar]

Were you in the room at the time? I don't think that's the reason digital was invented. I think the real reason is that it's vastly cheaper to get a good enough quality product and vastly cheaper to distribute.

At the time it wasn't cheaper. In fact, it was an immense financial commitment to get digital started. Sony started research into consumer PCM 1975 and only got some fairly popular product out of it in 1981 with the PCM-F1: https://www.kenrockwell.com/audio/sony/pcm-f1.htm

BTW, we dodged a bullet there:

The invention of "digital" as we know it today wasn't done in a year, it took a decade, almost working without financial return at all.
Here are measurements from the magazine "Stereophonie" at September 1982, when 4 manufacturers had PCM processors brought to market, against a Revox A77 tape:

Taken from: http://www.theimann.com/Analog/A77/A77vsPCM/index.html
Translated: https://www-theimann-com.translate....ch=http&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=de&_x_tr_hl=de

In 1990, only 15 years from "the start", all fundamental research into the analog side had stopped, i think one of the last results that came out of it was Dolby S.

Digital was purposefully invented to replace analog technology by being better, not cheaper. Cheaper happened later, almost by accident. It took about 20 or 25 years from 1975 to become cheaper.

That said, @Sal1950 likes to tickle the analog people where they don't like to be tickled. I kept my record player just to spite him.

 

[Thomas_A]

I think you mean unconsciously, that's what you'd have to be not to hear what he claimed to "never" hear.
Y'all can come to his rescue all ya like trying to reinterpret what he meant. LOL

Don't forget Rick, this is ASR. If your going to present hard statements like he did, they need supporting evidence.
Which in this case just doesn't exist.
You'd have to be freakin deaf not to hear pops, clicks and surface noise on the vast majority of LP's.
I was there and well remember the constant complains over the media's failings.
None of them have magically disappeared in the last decades.
That's why digital was invented.

Hm, well some things may actually disappear. I have something called "real-time click repair", which transformed my listening.

 

[DSJR]

If you enjoy the noise and distortion, just say so.
No need to dance around the truth.

I'm not disagreeing here, but have to say that the best vinyl spinning/reading machines with superb diamond styli, relatively inert tonearms, good conventional 'turntable' attributes and top notch phono stages CAN reduce the 'subjective effects' of vinyl noise and distortion to very low levels. Some keen vinyl people have a proper record cleaning machine in pride of place as well.

It's all about suspension of disbelief here and although I no longer have a high flying player (even the Garrard 401 I need to service and plinth up I regard as a fun rumble-box - roll on a Spartan phono stage ), I do remember how damned good a top flight deck can be...

 

[mike70]

I'm not disagreeing here, but have to say that the best vinyl spinning/reading machines with superb diamond styli, relatively inert tonearms, good conventional 'turntable' attributes and top notch phono stages CAN reduce the 'subjective effects' of vinyl noise and distortion to very low levels. Some keen vinyl people have a proper record cleaning machine in pride of place as well.

It's all about suspension of disbelief here and although I no longer have a high flying player (even the Garrard 401 I need to service and plinth up I regard as a fun rumble-box - roll on a Spartan phono stage ), I do remember how damned good a top flight deck can be...

That's the real world ... vinyl today is a niche of the niche ... and people with knowledge and care can get very, very good sound from vinyl.

I don't talk about millennials buying records, I talk about analog systems adjusted to get the maximum possible from the format.

I think "digital people" here in ASR always talk about analog as the grandpa turntable with dirty records ... and generally analog people here aren't ignorant millennials buying records.

I don't listen to any rumble between tracks, I don't listen to crackle or IGD ... even, many times I find analog sounding much better than my CDs. So, I'm a stupid? An ignorant? I listen to angel's voices?

We need to understand the REALiTY, to use other people shoes (empathy?) and use practical science ... vinyl can have enough fidelity. Even you don't like it, many of your own CDs (taking recording, compression, acoustic problems, etc) have the compared fidelity of the LP.

 

[Jack Harrison]

TNEVER? LOL, Please, save your fairy tales for the little children,
They believe in such BS.

Oh another vinyl thread, let’s crap all over it, and turn it into a digital is better thread.

 

[TheBatsEar]

people with knowledge and care can get very, very good sound from vinyl.
I don't talk about millennials buying records, I talk about analog systems adjusted to get the maximum possible from the format.

I don't see why millennials can't buy records, be knowledgeable and adjust their analog systems at the same time.

I think "digital people" here in ASR always talk about analog as the grandpa turntable with dirty records ... and generally analog people here aren't ignorant millennials buying records.

What are analog people here, generally? You say they are not ignorant millenials, but what are they?

 

[DSJR]

That's the real world ... vinyl today is a niche of the niche ... and people with knowledge and care can get very, very good sound from vinyl.

I don't talk about millennials buying records, I talk about analog systems adjusted to get the maximum possible from the format.

I think "digital people" here in ASR always talk about analog as the grandpa turntable with dirty records ... and generally analog people here aren't ignorant millennials buying records.

I don't listen to any rumble between tracks, I don't listen to crackle or IGD ... even, many times I find analog sounding much better than my CDs. So, I'm a stupid? An ignorant? I listen to angel's voices?

We need to understand the REALiTY, to use other people shoes (empathy?) and use practical science ... vinyl can have enough fidelity. Even you don't like it, many of your own CDs (taking recording, compression, acoustic problems, etc) have the compared fidelity of the LP.

Like one or two others here, I play the MUSIC on whatever format I have to hand and no longer do comparisons as it's such a boring waste of time where digital (if I have the digital to compare) almost always wins!

There was an era when pickup cartridges had such bad responses (usually a falling top with a peak at the high 'sizzle' frequencies, this when 'we' were young enough to hear much over 10kHz and of course, as we UK peeps had 'optimised/bodged' our amps and speakers around a very coloured sounding turntable system (it's VERY much better now - and at a severe price too - but back then we had no idea!), anything 'neutral' used to sound bass-light and screaming in tone.

Those days are well behind us now. Good amps generally have less distortion (especially IMD) and are designed to drive loudspeakers rather than 'merely' an 8 ohm resistor, the better speakers are better balanced by skilled engineers (some popular pricey ones aren't sadly, but there ya go) and the more considered phono stages are designed by people who understand that low overload margins coupled with 'ringing' when faced with a snap or a tick isn't a good idea at all!

I LIKE playing records and the entire rigmarole in the process of setting up a turntable system and playing a record (hell, it was my effin' JOB for most of my working life), my ageing eyes prefer to read a record sleeve rather than tiny text in a CD or DVD jewel case BUT, my admittedly more limited pro experiences tell me beyond any doubt how good digital can be with it's sometimes different demands on the playback system (bigger speakers with plenty of dynamic headroom helps both formats no end I discovered).

Just enjoy what you have and NEVER take vinyl for granted. A mid 70's or mid 80's cheaper deck sat on a cabinet with no other isolation and played with hinged lid in situ and worse, open when nearby speakers are in use is NOT a good way to enjoy vinyl A bit of care in record cleaning, cartridge choice and careful siting of said turntable systems really does pay dividends here -

The rest of you can just tap on a screen a few times and get music with no connection at all to the gear and that's fine as well