Turntables - help me understand the appeal?

[Frank Dernie]

I'm probably giving away my age, but the first records I ever bought and listened to, were all 78's! Later there were 45s and finally 33 1/3 records. Many records were recorded and much Classical music was available in analog records, but have never been released in a digital format. The best LP's nearly always sound better than CD's although some later digital formats aren't bad at all. I prefer analog LP's as I can't afford the cost of R2R tape like The Tape Project's products, which are far better than digital or anything else, however unfortunately are far too expensive for my budget!

I am probably as old as you...
I otoh have been an amateur recordist for almost 60 years and ONLY digital recorders sound exactly the same as the microphone feed IME. I started with valve tape recorder and upgraded until I have a Revox B77 and whilst each better recorder sounded more like the microphone feed and had less noise the first time I heard the output of the recorder indistinguishable to my ears to the microphone feed was early DAT.
I have lots of master tapes, loads of LPs and 4 turntables but because of my experience making recordings I know that that none are as accurate as digital.
OTOH I enjoy my LPs and, of course, each of my turntables sounds different so I can change the sound to taste - not possible with digital which IME has been audibly transparent for decades.

 

[SIY]

I otoh have been an amateur recordist for almost 60 years and ONLY digital recorders sound exactly the same as the microphone feed IME.

Mine as well. It might bother some that the little $100 Scarlett 2i2 I use these days vastly outperforms my old Ampex 351 two track at 15 ips, but it absolutely delights me. And my back is grateful as well. When I've recorded on location, my entire kit fit in a single attache case.

We live in wonderful times.

 

[Soniclife]

@SIY & @sergeauckland
I feared that only with an unobtanium test record could it be done.

How accurate, in the real world, are things like this, from the box for my cart.

1-2 db lift from 60hz down, and a 2db droop starting at around 1KHz.

 

[SIY]

Fast sweeps tend to smooth things out quite a bit! That appears to be a Japanese cartridge?

The general tendency for a slight upper midrange droop followed by a resonant peak at the top end was the thing that drove people like Gordon Hold away from high end MC cartridges and toward more spectrally neutral units like the Shure V15s and the Technics MMs. And to that I say #metoo. I spent a few years having high end items like Koetsus and Kisekis going through my living room, and I just couldn't warm up to that coloration. And those who preferred it could have saved a boatload of money with a cheaper cartridge and an equalizer, but that wasn't a politically correct solution.

But of course, I repeat my caveat- no two test records will give you the same results. And synthetic approaches like mechanical couplers (there's a name for those systems I can't recall- they directly shake the stylus) give yet different results.

edit: I'm unaware if anyone has done Farina-type sweeps to derive impulse and frequency responses for cartridges. If anyone knows about this, I'd be delighted to hear about it.

 

[Soniclife]

A Dynavector xx2-mk2, so yes Japanese. I'm very happy with it, the peak at the top is not audible to me.

When you say fast sweeps smooth things out, are there some other measurements that illustrate this?

 

[SIY]

Yes. Back in the day (late '70s, early '80s), Audio used to use a slower sweep in their reviews which showed all sorts of wiggles and wobbles. I think it was Ed Long and Barney Pisha who did those, but I'm working off memory rather than having paper and ink in front of me. Perhaps a dig into the archives that @restorer-john linked to... Their cartridge reviews were outstanding, and ditto the speaker reviews. No-one today is doing them that well.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Yes. Back in the day (late '70s, early '80s), Audio used to use a slower sweep in their reviews which showed all sorts of wiggles and wobbles. I think it was Ed Long and Barney Pisha who did those, but I'm working off memory rather than having paper and ink in front of me. Perhaps a dig into the archives that @restorer-john linked to... Their cartridge reviews were outstanding, and ditto the speaker reviews. No-one today is doing them that well.

Back in the 1970s I was a noise and vibration research engineer. We used Bruel and Kjaer analysers at both of the places I worked. On record players at Garrard the cartridge output was full of peaks and troughs due to arm and plinth resonances being picked up via the headshell as well as the rumble mechanical and airborne pickup, rumble and cartridge imperfections. A nice slow pen speed on the plotter output hid them all...
I have never seen a Koetsu FR anything like that btw. Typically they start to roll off around 1 to 2 kHz but continue rolling off and are typically down 6 dB or so by 20 kHz.
I think Miller research have measured FR of at least one on their site.

 

[House de Kris]

You need a test LP with an accurate frequency response sweep or set of individual frequencies, such as the Decca Frequency Response LP, or you can use white or pink noise, but again, this must be accurate. My experience of using several test LPs is that those available to the 'public' are poor in terms of accuracy, as they're meant to be evaluated by listening. Laboratory standard LPs, such as the Decca, JVC or Ortofon I don't think are available any more as new.

For accuracy, the Decca test LP specified that it was guaranteed only for 5 plays each side, and whilst that's probably excessively pessimistic, LPs do wear at HF, so a test LP that's been used many time is unlikely still to be accurate.

This brings up one of the biggest questions in evaluating phonograph gear, how do you know the accuracy of the test LP? You stated that your experience is that those available to the public are poor in terms of accuracy, how did you measure/determine the accuracy of these discs?

 

[RCAguy]

One of more than a hundred illustrations from my how-to book The Better Sound of the Phonograph, this shows my measured response of a Stanton 881S with Sii 0.2x0.7mil Stereohedron (line-contact) stylus. It is flat within <±½dB 40~15kHz except for a +1dB bump around 10kHz. The cartridge was loaded with the manufacture-specified 275pF, however a slight reduction would likely flatten the 10kHz bump, and might extend the HF response. (Note the 2dB channel imbalance, which underscores the need for balancing in the preamp for best stereo "soundstage" and precise cancellation of vertical artifacts for mono.) Not exactly the "easy" measurement you seek, I use (for a living as a consultant) a pink noise sweep that avoids spurious resonances, even though "flat" is rendered as a -3dB/octave downward slope, as shown. Add the response irregularities of many RIAA preamps. This cartridge, with its original 0.3x0.7 stylus), was a mainstay reference of vinyl mastering engineers, who describe its "sound" is neutral (uncolored therefore undistorted ), i.e. it imparts little sound of its own, which is my preference listening to acoustic classical, jazz, and well-recorded pop\rock music. (In my book I make clear that vinyl is inferior technically to say CD-quality digital, however recordings in the vinyl era were much better made before the loudness wars wrecked modern SOP of digital media.)

 

[JP]

And synthetic approaches like mechanical couplers (there's a name for those systems I can't recall- they directly shake the stylus) give yet different results.

Pg. 25: https://www.bksv.com/media/doc/TechnicalReview1976-2.pdf

 

[SIY]

Pg. 25: https://www.bksv.com/media/doc/TechnicalReview1976-2.pdf

Mr. Jones comes through again.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Pg. 25: https://www.bksv.com/media/doc/TechnicalReview1976-2.pdf

This was a new text when I was working for Garrard using this kit...

 

[Soniclife]

I have never seen a Koetsu FR anything like that btw. Typically they start to roll off around 1 to 2 kHz but continue rolling off and are typically down 6 dB or so by 20 kHz.
I think Miller research have measured FR of at least one on their site.

This one looks bad
http://www.milleraudioresearch.com/download2013/reports/jul13/koetsu_urushi_sky_blue.html
but this looks good.
http://www.milleraudioresearch.com/download2006/reports/sep06/koetsu_black_(mc).html

Somehow they both pass his tests.

 

[Soniclife]

From a quick skim through the tests on the Miller site MM is no more accurate then MC, MM typically has a slight rise where MC has a slight droop, not that there is anything typical about any of them, they are all over the place.

 

[Sal1950]

-- like it, and good luck to them. Get over it.

I'm well over it, close to 2 decades now.

 

[Frank Dernie]

This one looks bad
http://www.milleraudioresearch.com/download2013/reports/jul13/koetsu_urushi_sky_blue.html
but this looks good.
http://www.milleraudioresearch.com/download2006/reports/sep06/koetsu_black_(mc).html

Somehow they both pass his tests.

Never managed to successfully register for the site, and also had problems with HiFi Hews when I was subscribed via pocketmags so gave up in the end, so I can't look at these. I have to remember the graphs published in HiFi News and some were a long time ago...

 

[617]

Very much analogous I think to reading newspapers or books vs the internet. There is no question but that there is more information accessible faster online. But our understanding of that information, and our ability to incorporate it to enhance understanding, is another thing entirely.

I completely agree with this. Most of my favorite music I listened to as a kid on CD, and although I could select tracks easily, it's not like now where I can instantly make a playlist of the songs I like. There are a few albums I originally had on vinyl, and I listen to those the whole way through most of the time. I'm looking forward to getting my TT set up again; I have a lot of great recordings on Vinyl and it's a fun way to consume music.

 

[MattHooper]

Like SET tube amps, vinyl sounds wonderful to those who would rather listen to nostalgic distortions than accurately reproduced music

These type of comments always bemuse me.

They leave me wondering "what is 'accurately reproduced music?" In other words, "to what end, accuracy?"

I don't mean that to be a screed against accuracy, but rather a question as to how much accuracy is needed to reproduce the music?

So if I take my digital version of a Talk Talk album, and the vinyl version and compare, and I listen to the *musical information* and compare, what am I missing? Er...not much if anything for all I can tell. On the vinyl version every instrument is clearly represented, ever lick of reverb added by the mixer, all the imaging choices made by the mixer/artist are there, I hear the same musicians, all the fine details in regard to all the choices made in creating the sound. It's all there. Whatever technical deviations exist seem to be utterly SWAMPED by the amount of musically relevant information that is retained in the vinyl version.

So if I ask: What am I missing that is so important and musically relevant? What's the answer? "accuracy?" Well, again...to what end? Is the point of having a nice audio system to do science, or to enjoy music? For me, it's to enjoy listening to music. The science is important, but for me only in it's role of reaching the goal of allowing me to enjoy the music, in such a way as the musical message makes it's way through the system.

Again, that's far from an anti-science/engineering screed. Rather, it concerns the question of, if we are talking about reproducing MUSIC and musician's intent, then how much "accuracy" is necessary for that to happen? When I compare many vinyl albums to CD versions (as I did again last night - Kind Of Blue on CD and on vinyl) I find that virtually all the musically relevant information seems to occur on the vinyl. As an audiophile myself in no way do I begrudge anyone chasing greater minutea in terms of performance. I still do it myself because that in itself can be fun or intoxicating. And if you have a deep technical knowledge and can know how to chase that minutea to an objectively verifiable degree, go for it! But the idea that in spinning vinyl I'm not hearing with sufficient accuracy the musical/production content of the artist...that's a claim that to me starts to miss the forest for the trees.

 

[sergeauckland]

This brings up one of the biggest questions in evaluating phonograph gear, how do you know the accuracy of the test LP? You stated that your experience is that those available to the public are poor in terms of accuracy, how did you measure/determine the accuracy of these discs?

I was getting different results between the Decca frequency response LPs I once had and the test LPs sold through various magazines such as HiFi Sound and HiFi News. The 'consumer' LPs had white or pink noise bands or 20-20kHz sweep bands rather than individual spot frequencies as the Decca LP did. I consequently assumed that the Decca LP was correct, albeit with no evidence other than the manufacturer's reputation and their use by turntable and cartridge manufacturers, and the other LPs were wrong.

Some years ago I emailed Len Gregory, who published a test LP, as I was convinced his white and pink noise wasn't, and his response was that his LP was for listening to, not for measuring, so it didn't have to be accurate.

I no longer have the Decca LP, and anyway, its accuracy was only guaranteed above 10kHz for 5 plays, which is why they had the same frequency response bands on each side, so one side could be the 'working' side, the other other kept as a reference. I currently use The Ultimate Analogue Test LP published by Analogue Productions, but I can't be sure that's especially accurate, it just seems to provide results more consistent with my expectations.

Measuring turntable systems is fraught with difficulty, as for example, wow and flutter is influenced both by the W&F of the cutting lathe and how concentric the centre hole is, as even small amounts of 'swing' can easily swamp the inherent wow, although there's software that can notch out wow at 0.55Hz. Rumble is another problem measurement, and I suspect that cutting lathe rumble is the cause, as I get very different measurements when measuring rumble on a 'silent' groove or with the stylus coupled to the chassis and bearing. It's considerably lower when not through the LP, when if anything I would expect it to be higher as there's not the modest isolation of the mat and LP compliance.

When LPs was all there was, I spent a lot of time measuring my turntables, and also tape machines (I had a full set of test tapes too) but since digital became available, I measure RIAA accuracy etc of my phono stage and cartridge frequency response when first put into service, and perhaps measure W&F whenever the fancy takes me, or I (think) I hear some. For recorders now, a quick loop test just to confirm nothing's wrong is all it needs. 5 minutes compared with an hour or so setting up a tape machine for every recording.

S.

 

[sergeauckland]

From a quick skim through the tests on the Miller site MM is no more accurate then MC, MM typically has a slight rise where MC has a slight droop, not that there is anything typical about any of them, they are all over the place.

The main issue I have with MMs is that their performance is very largely dictated by the loading the arm cable and phono stage provides. MCs are pretty much immune to loading, what you get with an MC is what it does, for good or ill.

I currently have three cartridges in regular use, an EMT TSD15 which is part of my EMT turntable that can't really take anything else easily, and an AT33ML and Shure V15V-SAS which get used in the AEG TRS9000. The AT just works, using it's own AT630 transformer, no problems with loading. When I fit the Shure, it's because I feel like a play, and I'm forever fiddling with loading to try and get a flat frequency response, which of course is determined by the test LP I'm using to try and determine what the cartridge is doing. Mostly I can't be bothered, so the AT stays in the arm.

S