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Trying to understand the turntable/vinyl world...

TheBatsEar

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Sure, but is the ukelele really necessary?
When is it not necessary?
1619794389471.jpg


It's cute!:p
 

levimax

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Thanks for posting the link to this. I also looked at some other cartridges they reviewed. The distortion graphs are more similar between cartridges than different. Twelve to fifteen percent distortion is "high" no matter how you wish to describe it. Even differing technologies showed similar distortion curves - optical and strain gauges cartridges that were tested. This raises the question - how much distortion in the results is "baked" into the test record? Another question is - what is the distribution of the harmonics? I tried to locate more information regarding their methodology without success. An interesting observation - the distortion graph is linear scale with the frequency response being log scale. The linear scale makes the distortion components look - while bad - worse from a visual perspective. If you have been focused on "ruler straight" digital test results, these must look truly "horrible".
Pretty amazing vinyl can sound as good as it does.
Over on another thread members have downloaded software developed by a member to measure TT / Cart FR and distortion using a test record. The scales are different so they look much better but tell a similar story in more detail. From this perspective a TT has "good enough" FR and distortion for human beings to enjoy listening to the music. I wish my digital music sounded "orders of magnitude" better than my LP's like it measures but it doesn't. To me the real scientific take away is that people don't hear as well as they think they do. See bellow results for an AT33PTG-2 on an old technics SL-1310.

AT33PTG2_SUT_SL1310_STR100.png
 

Angsty

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3. Content above 10 KHz is relatively low in level and related to specific details, not a fundamental part of the timbre of musical instruments. If I were to brickwall content at 10KHz, I'll lose some ambience and maybe a bit of the characteristic sibilance of metallic percussion instruments like cymbals and bells. It would not have the same effect as removing any of the other octaves above maybe 40 Hz. (The 20-40 Hz octave is arguably more important, and yet we by my observation spend less energy defending its importance.)

Actually, psycho-acoustic curves show that we are relatively insensitive in hearing frequencies below 50 Hz, too.

applsci-09-02854-g003.png
 

Robin L

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Actually, psycho-acoustic curves show that we are relatively insensitive in hearing frequencies below 50 Hz, too.

applsci-09-02854-g003.png
One can have an impression of deep bass in spite of distortion. However, it's more to the point that phono cartridges are lucky to get as low as 1% midband and many phono cartridges exceed that level of distortion across the board. I've noticed headphones with lower levels of distortion midband, a few speakers as well.
 

MattHooper

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…and which is immediately countered with statements like, “vinyl is the only intelligent way to collect music”. So, no. Unless you call that balance. ;)

Did someone say that in this thread? It doesn't seem so. I just did a search of the thread and didn't find it, except from your post.

Speaking of balance: What kind of ratio do you actually see in this thread with people saying something silly like that vs more reasoned posts that acknowledge vinyl's shortcomings?

Are you sure you are taking a "balanced" view of the conversation?

That’s the power of confirmation bias for you. Not amazing at all.

Never give an inch! :facepalm: ;)

It seems most on this forum including those who prefer digital, and understand vinyl's limitations, have remained un-dogmatic enough to acknowledge even vinyl can sound impressive.

Dogmatism is never a good look, either from vinyl True Believers or Vinyl Denigrators ;-)
 
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Angsty

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One can have an impression of deep bass in spite of distortion. However, it's more to the point that phono cartridges are lucky to get as low as 1% midband and many phono cartridges exceed that level of distortion across the board. I've noticed headphones with lower levels of distortion midband, a few speakers as well.
Heartly agree. And 1% is at least 100x worse than an average DAC. But 1% distortion is not necessarily a dissatisfier in actual listening which is why vinyl can provide a competitive experience to digital, even if it is technically inferior.
 
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Bob from Florida

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Granted, this is a -30dB sweep.
View attachment 196194
JP - thanks for posting this. Can you provide some more info on the graph? I can understand the harmonics traces versus the fundamental. If you could elaborate on the details - test record used, cartridge arm table used, phono preamp used, and anything else used to generate the graph. Just want to fully understand this.
 

rdenney

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Actually, psycho-acoustic curves show that we are relatively insensitive in hearing frequencies below 50 Hz, too.

applsci-09-02854-g003.png
Yes, but not to the harmonics of those tones that result from harmonic distortion.

If a 40-Hz sine wave is distorting at 1% THD (i.e., 40 dB down), the distortion products get a 15-25 dB boost from the fact that their frequencies are easier to hear.

Edit: Yes, one still hears the deep bass, because the harmonics of musical instruments are spaced at intervals of the fundamental. The saving grace for bottom-octave distortion is that musical instruments rarely produce sounds like a simple sine wave. But that distortion can make a tuba sound like a euphonium, or a french horn played low sound like a trombone. (And a horn in F has the same bugle length as a bass tuba in F.)

Rick "so, 1% THD in the bottom two octaves sounds like maybe 10% relative to the apparent strength of the fundamental, compared to tones in the hundreds of Hz" Denney
 
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JP

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JP - thanks for posting this. Can you provide some more info on the graph? I can understand the harmonics traces versus the fundamental. If you could elaborate on the details - test record used, cartridge arm table used, phono preamp used, and anything else used to generate the graph. Just want to fully understand this.

That's feedback from a channel on a Neumann SX-74 cutter.
 

JP

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Ah, so not as much distortion baked in as compared to what HiFi news is measuring. Thanks.

Maybe. There's still a bit of hardware between the feedback coil and the lacquer. Playback of the lacquer with an AT440MLa put 2H at around -20dB at 20kHz (extrapolated as the sweep was to 15kHz), which is right in the ballpark of typical. I can't say how much contribution from either process.
 

Bob from Florida

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Maybe. There's still a bit of hardware between the feedback coil and the lacquer. Playback of the lacquer with an AT440MLa put 2H at around -20dB at 20kHz (extrapolated as the sweep was to 15kHz), which is right in the ballpark of typical. I can't say how much contribution from either process.
Interesting data. Have you run across any data showing real world data supporting any of the "non-standard" cutting processes? Sheffield Labs direct to disc or MFSL Half-Speed masters for example having any better performance in this context.
 

Newman

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Did someone say that in this thread? It doesn't seem so. I just did a search of the thread and didn't find it, except from your post.
Yes, in this or other current ASR thread. So…..maybe drop the nit-picking BS. It was YOU who was making sweeping statements about ASR-wide. Now suddenly you switch focus to this thread only, and say that you not seeing the comment in this thread is evidence of MY lack of balance. Moving the goalposts, cheap debating trick. :facepalm:…right back at you.

PS it was in this thread, and on a day that you posted comments, so…who is unbalanced now? Perhaps the person who can’t see posts that don’t suit his OTT/unbalanced claims that virtually everyone in vinyl threads acknowledges the liabilities of vinyl in every single vinyl thread?
 
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MattHooper

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Yes, in this or other current ASR thread. So…..maybe drop the nit-picking BS. It was YOU who was making sweeping statements about ASR-wide.
You actually started the nit picking.

Did you not notice the qualifiers in the very sentence you cherry-picked?

The implication that vinyl discussions on ASR, this one in particular, don't have any "balance" is belied by the fact that virtually everyone has acknowledged the liabilities of vinyl. In literally every thread.

That means that you will find in the vinyl threads here that most people ("virtually" everyone) have acknowledged the liabilities of vinyl. This thread in particular.

I also further qualified this in the next sentences, regarding ASR members (which you cut out):

There are very few people (if any that I've seen) operating under illusions of vinyl superiority or some such thing, and plenty of members (who spin vinyl) have contributed technical insights.

The point is that on ASR the vast majority of discussion about vinyl is already quite "balanced" in terms of people acknowledging the limitations of vinyl. As rdenny implied, it's not like this place is suffused with people touting how "vinyl is technically superior to digital" and we constantly need someone reminding us that it isn't.

Now suddenly you switch focus to this thread only, and say that you not seeing the comment in this thread is evidence of MY lack of balance. Moving the goalposts, cheap debating trick. :facepalm:…right back at you.

See above. I'm not the one using debating tricks like cherry picking, avoiding the meaning of what others write, and evading the point. To paraphrase my earlier post:

Vinyl talk just seems to tick some people off, making them see red rather than what is actually being written, unfortunately.

(Fortunately I find most of that is now behind us in this forum)
 
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Newman

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See my PS above. It was this thread. Keep digging.
 

billyjoebob

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That’s the power of confirmation bias for you. Not amazing at all.

To boot, Stereophile IIRC rate those particular carts right at the top of their A list. The worse, the better, you know.
Rinse, repeat
Rinse, repeat
 

JP

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Interesting data. Have you run across any data showing real world data supporting any of the "non-standard" cutting processes? Sheffield Labs direct to disc or MFSL Half-Speed masters for example having any better performance in this context.
I've not seen any actual data on either.
 
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