Turntables - help me understand the appeal?

[TerryO]

The Pacific Northwest Audio Society has done many comparisons over the years and vinyl has nearly always been preferred by the majority of the members.

 

[SIY]

I assume sighted comparisons with no control over making sure the same masters were used?

 

[Sal1950]

T

These type of comments always bemuse me.

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

I've been active in this hobby for close to 7 decades now and the object of this pursuit has always been the same, High Fidelity.
What part of that don't you understand?
If your willing to call the level of fidelity we surpassed 40+ years ago "good enough", or can't hear the difference, that's fine, your choice.

So if I ask: What am I missing that is so important and musically relevant?

Missing or adding? Wow, flutter, surface noise, Rice Krispies crackle, need I go on? LOL
If "good enough is good enough" for you I question why you register for a website that exerts all it's efforts towards measuring and finding the "best of the best" ?

The Indy 500 is only 5 weeks away or so, I hear this ride is available at auction fairly cheap. You might just have time to get it entered to race and see how you qualify?

 

[Soniclife]

I assume sighted comparisons with no control over making sure the same masters were used?

Or levels matched.

 

[RCAguy]

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.

Sine-sweep measurements championed by the University of Parma IT's Angelo Farina (a technology partner of mine for a decade and a half) are wonderful, especially for acoustic analysis. They render an equivalent impulse response, the convolution of which is a spectral (frequency) response. No reason why they could not be used with a test record with an accurate sinewave sweep except I fear that phono pickups are more error prone than measurement microphones in terms of spurious resonances, so I prefer the swept pink noise method, an example of which I've posted on p22.

 

[House de Kris]

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.

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.

Thank you for the reply. As I understand it, you are willing to believe manufacture's claims when measuring phonograph cartridges. Kind of a "faith-based science" then. This is the problem I run into whenever I attempt measurements on phono based systems.

 

[MRC01]

The Pacific Northwest Audio Society has done many comparisons over the years and vinyl has nearly always been preferred by the majority of the members.

That sounds like sample bias. Audiophiles who like vinyl form a club and do listening comparisons that reveal they like vinyl.

 

[MRC01]

... 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. ...

Back in the day my favorite cartridge was the Ortofon MC-30 Super Mk II. It sounded super clean and neutral. The DACT CT-100 I used as a phono amp enabled me to try different resistances and capacitances. I don't have it anymore and only measured the FR with my sound card, but listening to the CDs I recorded from it, even today they still sound great. With some of the half-speed masters and heavy vinyl, you can't tell the CD was recorded from vinyl until you crank it up during the quiet sections.
Here's a sample: Dizzy Gillespie Big 4

 

[sergeauckland]

Thank you for the reply. As I understand it, you are willing to believe manufacture's claims when measuring phonograph cartridges. Kind of a "faith-based science" then. This is the problem I run into whenever I attempt measurements on phono based systems.

In a way, yes, I had to accept that the Decca test LP was right, as I had no way to confirm that. However, as the same LP was used by reputable manufacturers for their own measurements gave me some confidence.
Measurements of phono based systems have always been difficult, or not so much in making the measurements, but in ensuring consistency.

S

 

[MattHooper]

T

I've been active in this hobby for close to 7 decades now and the object of this pursuit has always been the same, High Fidelity.
What part of that don't you understand?

Well, we've been through that before.

Once you reference "music" accurately reproduced, it's fair to talk about whether the *music* is being accurately reproduced. And as the musically relevant information can be well preserved and replayed on vinyl, then...yeah...it does get down to the demands any individual wants to make for going beyond that.

If your willing to call the level of fidelity we surpassed 40+ years ago "good enough", or can't hear the difference, that's fine, your choice.

Never said I couldn't hear a difference. In fact, I've explained the differences I hear. The point is to what degree the difference are *musically relevant* in terms of preserving the content of the music and choices made by the artists. If someone wants to say "If you choose the vinyl version over CD, you really aren't getting an accurate presentation of the art contained on the disc" then that would depend on what one means by "accurate." If you take technically accurate, sure, easy, CD version. But as I said, that version of "accurate" doesn't necessarily speak to the ultimate reason people have sound systems -which is to listen to music, to enjoy it, to apprehend the musically relevant choices made by the artist. In THAT case, it's not so easy to say digital is necessary for accuracy.

Missing or adding? Wow, flutter, surface noise, Rice Krispies crackle, need I go on? LOL

Not nearly the problem for many of us that you imply. The greater proportion of my vinyl has noise that is essentially inaudible when the music is actually playing, and as I said, I'm able to hear all the musically relevant information on the disc.

I'd be making a far bigger deter from "accuracy" merely by moving from floor standers to a stand mounted speaker - that is even if the stand mounted monitor were accurate within it's frequency range, I'd be cutting away a significant portion of the musical signal. But people make these decisions all the time (listening to smaller monitors instead of full range speakers) without hand-wringing they have distorted the musical message.
A crackle here or there is much less deleterious than many of the decisions even some purely objectivist audiophiles may make. In the real world where we all can't afford whatever we want, it's hard to end up with a system that is not in *some* way compromised. If someone says "I'm dedicated to accuracy, you're not!" it's worth a look around to make sure the walls aren't made of glass ;-)

If "good enough is good enough" for you I question why you register for a website that exerts all it's efforts towards measuring and finding the "best of the best" ?

I don't listen to vinyl exclusively. I listen to digital as well. I find they both have something to offer.

The reason I'm on this site is because I'm sick of the unfounded technical claims based purely on subjectivism found in most other audiophile sites. Which is why you won't see me making bogus technical claims. Not my area of expertise and I can learn things from this site.
But even when one is informed, personal value choices remain defensible.

The Indy 500 is only 5 weeks away or so, I hear this ride is available at auction fairly cheap. You might just have time to get it entered to race and see how you qualify?

And of course the warrant for wanting to drive such a car would depend on the question. If the question is "do I want a car that would win against the fastest cars available?" then the answer would be "no, that's not a suitable car."

But if the question is "Which car provides the BEST driving experience?" Then the term "best" merits some reflection, to see what is being assumed. That car may well provide the "best" driving experience, given certain goals or desires, vs a new race car. Which is on reason why there are old car enthusiasts. Both a new car and an old sports car will get you from "here to there." The old car may not do it as quickly or in exactly the same way, but it will get you "there," and some may find the ride sometimes more enjoyable. ;-)

 

[Hypnotoad]

The title of this thread is "Turntables - help me understand the appeal?", I think a lot of people have misread it and think it says "Vinyl - the flawed medium, lets take a stick to it!"

It's nostalgia mainly, taking people back to when they would go by their favorite record shop, sift through new albums, take one home and put it on the turntable while looking at the cover and reading the notes. Of course we can get better SQ out of digital, but to some it's not only about SQ, and some of those "black pizzas" can sound pretty darn good.

And don't forget the best SQ is at live performances, anything we have at home is only an approximation. If you don't like vinyl good luck to you, but don't go out of your way to denigrate people who do, that's just bad form IMO. YMMV.

 

[JP]

Mr. Jones comes through again.

Whenever you need completely useless info, I'm your guy.

 

[Sal1950]

And don't forget the best SQ is at live performances,

That's highly debatable. Maybe for some Classical music, but in most cases the PA systems for most popular forms doesn't measure up to what's been recorded in the studio.
And then reproduced by a digital source.

 

[restorer-john]

chasing greater minutea

Minutia or minutiae.

 

[Hypnotoad]

That's highly debatable. Maybe for some Classical music, but in most cases the PA systems for most popular forms doesn't measure up to what's been recorded in the studio.

The much lauded Melbourne Arts Centre which is where we go most with the acoustically optimized auditorium and for non classical events uses Meyer Sound active speakers, which sound pretty good to these old ears.

You're like my dad always on the negative side of things. We took him to see a musical and in intermission he bellowed "Is this the place with only one small bathroom?", gotta love him.

 

[SIY]

You're like my dad always on the negative side of things. We took him to see a musical and in intermission he bellowed "Is this the place with only one small bathroom?", gotta love him.

Sal tied onion to his belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Gimme five bees for a quarter," he'd say.

 

[LTig]

The title of this thread is "Turntables - help me understand the appeal?", I think a lot of people have misread it and think it says "Vinyl - the flawed medium, lets take a stick to it!"

It's nostalgia mainly, taking people back to when they would go by their favorite record shop, sift through new albums, take one home and put it on the turntable while looking at the cover and reading the notes.

Nostalgia does not explain why one of my younger colleagues, who never had any vinyl, bought LPs and then a turntable.

 

[SIY]

Retro cool.

I linked earlier what I think is a definitive paper on the subject, "Analog Hearts, Digital Minds." Worth linking again. And here's a cheaper version of the same paper. Mike Uwins did some remarkably clever experiments. Here's a synopsis.

 

[Hypnotoad]

Nostalgia does not explain why one of my younger colleagues, who never had any vinyl, bought LPs and then a turntable.

"Retro cool."

Yep some people also like to see a record spinning and making sound I guess. Probably why they sell those cheap USB turntables. There's a store near here that restores old console stereo's and sells them for huge sums, I guess the Retro crowd likes them.

 

[Sal1950]

You're like my dad always on the negative side of things. We took him to see a musical and in intermission he bellowed "Is this the place with only one small bathroom?", gotta love him.

Nope, we just happen to have many years of experience and knowledge on you.
Someday when you mature you'll understand.