Turntables - help me understand the appeal?

[Drone/doom]

Anyones opinions on Grado's carts?.

 

[watchnerd]

Yes - my 2nd book after 50+yr an audio engineer & consultant, now in sharing mode. It has 5-star reviews in the US and Europe, but Amazon offers a free preview so you can decide for yourself whether you might need it. - Robin Miller (aka RCAguy)

Which alignment do you recommend in the book and why?

 

[watchnerd]

Anyones opinions on Grado's carts?.

I stay away from them due to their hum tendencies.

 

[Drone/doom]

I stay away from them due to their hum tendencies.

I've heard the can be avoided since not all turntables suffer the issue.

 

[watchnerd]

I've heard the can be avoided since not all turntables suffer the issue.

I'm sure that's true, as some get good results.

But given all the other choices available, I don't see a real reason to even bother if the potential is even there.

 

[Tom C]

After 50 pages of this thread, the score is ~50\50 CD\digital v vinyl\analog. But these are mutually exclusive, as releases on one are not necessarily available on the other - most recorded history is only available in analog form, much of it wonderfully recorded. And while most digital technically is potentially cleaner and playing it is relatively trouble-free, the ultimate audio quality baked in an vinyl groove awaits your properly extracting it. By lowest distortion alignment, stylus choice, and anti-skating; by best frequency response (tone color, timbre) optimizing resonance, capacitive loading, and accurate RIAA preamplification; and by cancelling vertical artifacts by proper mono mixing; etc. Fun for many - and highly rewarding results - with my helpful Phonograph how-to reference book - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VBY71D

I have to think that that’s because, if properly set up, it’s really hard to tell the difference between excellent vinyl playback vs. excellent digital playback. This is to be expected, if the ultimate studio source (i.e., master tape or master digital file) is the same for both, and little or no post processing is applied. If the reproduction system is robust, they should both be transparent to the original studio master.

 

[egellings]

For me, it's the ceremony and the sound. Ceremony predominates.

 

[cjfrbw]

For me, it's the ceremony and the sound. Ceremony predominates.

Yup, antiquarian pomp and ceremony with gold epaulets. Still, the experience is gratifying for those that are into it.

 

[watchnerd]

Yup, antiquarian pomp and ceremony with gold epaulets. Still, the experience is gratifying for those that are into it.

Monday night I exercised using Victorian-era Indian Clubs while listening to an LP.

It was double retro.

 

[John Dyson]

This problem with digital has been around since CDs came out, and no -- I am not a digital nay-sayer, but just the opposite...
CDs, since they came out, are mastered differently than the vinyl equivalent. If you notice some compression in the HF on CD (or even high-res downloads), but not so much on vinyl -- there is a real technical reason for it... The difference is in the mastering.

Early CDs (and still to some extent) were created from material on DolbyA tapes. For some reason, instead of decoding the DolbyA material, they did a fairly cute EQ scheme. That corrected the shreeking, shrill DolbyA (much worse than DolbyB) into something listenable, but no actual DolbyA decoding step was used.

Early on, vinyl was usually mastered correctly using the DolbyA HW.
Why did the CD thing happen? I am still trying to research it -- actually chatting with recording engineers, but SOMEONE chose to make the CDs with the errsatz-decoding scheme.

I have LOTS of existence proof -- I don't want to monopolize the thread -- but I can provide snippet examples of the 'CD' vs. truly decoded material based directly on the CD, undoing the 'errsatz EQ', and then doing a DolbyA decoding operation. Part of the proof is that when trying to decode material that is ALREADY decoded, it really isn't good sounding at all. The corrected material from CD (even some high-res downloads), and then decoded starts reminding me of the vinyl sound.

I put up two example snippets from the Carpenters onto Audiophile Style objective-fi section -- and numerous other examples can be provided -- for example, I just produced the most beautiful copy of Crime of the Century possible (well, I didn't have a real master tape, but only a clean original issue CD.) The CD is certainly going to be slightly lower quality than the master tape, but the results are astounding (and outstanding.)
This is essentially non-commercial and mostly a research effort -- but this whole vinyl and CD and compression matter has often been somewhat confused by the very substantial difference in mastering.

Another very sad situation is happening now -- the errsatz 'decoding' is now appearing on some vinyl, therefore making the difference between vinyl and CD much less.

John

 

[anmpr1]

I stay away from them due to their hum tendencies.

Where is the hum coming from? Stanton/Pickering made MI carts featuring a pull out metal strap on one of the leads. If you encountered hum you removed the strap. I have a Pickering XV15 (Stanton 681)--the body is metal and produced a hum in a metal headshell. The 'bag of parts' that came with the cartridge had some rubber grommets you could slide over the metal flange screw mounts and then secure the whole thing using plastic screws. That solved the hum problem.

It that doesn't work for you, try one of those expensive esoteric directional turntable ground leads from Audioquest. Very high tech planetary models. Jupiter...Saturn... I think the most expensive Up-Uranus cable is supposed to be the best.

 

[BobPM]

This problem with digital has been around since CDs came out, and no -- I am not a digital nay-sayer, but just the opposite...
CDs, since they came out, are mastered differently than the vinyl equivalent. If you notice some compression in the HF on CD (or even high-res downloads), but not so much on vinyl -- there is a real technical ...

Couldn't agree more. My old albums often sound better than the CD version or various remasters on Tidal. A friend is repurchasing new vinyl of old standards, and we have compared them to pristine original pressings only to find, in my opinion, that the original sounds better.

Audiophile Style often compares various original CD's with various remasters and its fascinating how some engineers butcher the material. It would be great if the comparisons looked at the original vinyl.

 

[anmpr1]

Couldn't agree more. My old albums often sound better than the CD version or various remasters on Tidal. A friend is repurchasing new vinyl of old standards, and we have compared them to pristine original pressings only to find, in my opinion, that the original sounds better.

My guess (and it's only a guess) is that when CDs were new, and in the rush to get out product to sell, AAD discs employed whatever master tapes were used to cut the original record. Because that was convenient and didn't require any extra work on the part of the record companies. I remember CDs where the mix sounded like the record.

Then came 'remasters' and 're-remasters'. Someone in the booth started mucking with the mix, and a lot of stuff no longer sounded like it did when first released. It was all just a marketing gimmick in order to sell product. None of it was 'better'... just different. And a lot of it was ridiculous. Think of the 'hi-res' thing. I always say, does anyone think that Hank Williams' Hey, Good Lookin' is going to sound better in 24/192? Who could think that? But they're selling 'em that way.

 

[John Dyson]

My guess (and it's only a guess) is that when CDs were new, and in the rush to get out product to sell, AAD discs employed whatever master tapes were used to cut the original record. Because that was convenient and didn't require any extra work on the part of the record companies. I remember CDs where the mix sounded like the record.

Then came 'remasters' and 're-remasters'. Someone in the booth started mucking with the mix, and a lot of stuff no longer sounded like it did when first released. It was all just a marketing gimmick in order to sell product. None of it was 'better'... just different. And a lot of it was ridiculous. Think of the 'hi-res' thing. I always say, does anyone think that Hank Williams' Hey, Good Lookin' is going to sound better in 24/192? Who could think that? But they're selling 'em that way.

The real downfall was in the timeframe where loudness wars came into play (about 1994-1995), because before 1994-1995, the CDs were pretty much pure DolbyA with the errsatz-EQ scheme. I coined a term 'FeralA', which is kind of a 'feral' DolbyA recording that got into consumer space.
Even nowadays, some hi-res downloads are 'FeralA' -- I don't know how many, since I haven't purchased many high-res downloads, but a heck of a lot of CDs are the EQed DolbyA.

Interestingly, I have even found two CDs that just might be pure DolbyA in all of it's shrillness - that is 'I've got the music in me' from Sheffield Labs and Nena 99 Red Balloons. (Of course, when speaking of Sheffield Labs, I am speaking only of the CD... My old vinyl copy was beautiful.)

John

 

[anmpr1]

The real downfall was in the timeframe where ... the CDs were pretty much pure DolbyA with the errsatz-EQ scheme. ...high-res downloads, but a heck of a lot of CDs are the EQed DolbyA.

I was reading an interview with Bob Ludwig (Gateway Mastering). Very interesting comments about the transition period from analog to digital. He talks about the shock of recording pianos digitally, as wow in the Ampex and Scully tape machines was audible. How some early CDs were made from LP equalized masters--for LP they would boost treble at the end of the lacquer to compensate for the loss, and how you could hear that same rising high end on the CDs but not on the records. How his remasters for ABKCO sent Mick Jagger for a loop, accusing them of mucking with the mix, when in fact the stuff was there all along but 'buried' in the record so it wasn't audible. But was when digitized. Mick forgot they'd put the stuff in like that.

 

[John Dyson]

Yes, I'd expect that some of the issues about the difference in the 'dgitial sound' (they way that CDs were originallymastered) and the normal vinyl sound was based on a tradition bulit from expediency and might even have been a 'process' mistake -- not really a plan to force a different quality on the digital distribution. As time went on, the companies wanted consistent sound, so indeed kept the sound consistent.

I spent a few years off an on figuring out how to correct this 'feralA' signal from a CD & digital distributions into a true DolbyA signal that can be decoded, thereby corrected into a true recording as created by the mixing, creation process. The method is almost 'trivial' once figured out. I had previously announced the EQ, but was the result of overdesign and over-guessing what the filtering method was...

To correct the digital signals with compressed highs & distorted stereo image:

'digital recording' -> approx 9dB dip in the 500->3250Hz range -> approx 9dB shelf boost at 3kHz -> 1 pole LPF at 3kHz -> 1 pole LPF at 9kHz -> DolbyA decode -> 'vinyl recording sound'.

I have done this on 'Carly Simon', 'Simon & Garfunkel', 'Judy Collins', 'ABBA', 'Carpenters', 'Linda Ronstdt', 'Supertramp', 'Burt Bacharach Gtst Hits', 'Brasil'66', 'Tijuana Brass', 'Anne Murray', "Suzanne Vega', "The Cars', 'Queen', and more. (Some S&G, Carpenters 'singles', etc were downloads from HDtracks.) There is a Nat King Cole Story that also *appears* to have this encoding. Being from a premium label does NOT innoculate from this encoding, but does increase the liklihood that the correct decoding methods were used. (I have a Carly Simon MFSL recording that IS properly decoded.)

If these recordings didn't have the base level DolbyA encoding, then the result would be the typical 'over decoding' sound of DolbyA.

Every one of my example recordings does have the stealth DolbyA encoding in them. I am NOT claiming that every release has this encoding, but many of the original CDs (and even some HDtracks downloads) do have the encoding.

I can make 100's of snippets available for proof, and can do decodes of snippets of recordings for those who are curious. My new methodology now has one simple adjustment and the normal DolbyA calibration -- it is pretty much automatic nowadays.

John

 

[Wombat]

The real downfall was in the timeframe where loudness wars came into play (about 1994-1995), because before 1994-1995, the CDs were pretty much pure DolbyA with the errsatz-EQ scheme. I coined a term 'FeralA', which is kind of a 'feral' DolbyA recording that got into consumer space.
Even nowadays, some hi-res downloads are 'FeralA' -- I don't know how many, since I haven't purchased many high-res downloads, but a heck of a lot of CDs are the EQed DolbyA.

Interestingly, I have even found two CDs that just might be pure DolbyA in all of it's shrillness - that is 'I've got the music in me' from Sheffield Labs and Nena 99 Red Balloons. (Of course, when speaking of Sheffield Labs, I am speaking only of the CD... My old vinyl copy was beautiful.)

John

I found the original Thelma Houston IGTMIM Sheffield Direct-To-Disc LP to be shrill enough to cause me to sell it. It was my first and last DTD LP.

 

[John Dyson]

I found the original Thelma Houston IGTMIM Sheffield Direct-To-Disc LP to be shrill enough to cause me to sell it. It was my first and last DTD LP.

All I know is that when directly decoding the CD version, the results were *really good* when compared with the irritating sounding CD. I just did a retry with the latest version of my decoder -- it almost sounds live.

I just re-decoded the file, and created a snippet of the recording. Note that the original was even brigher than this. The CD was truly PURE DolbyA, but it was recorded with lots of headroom, about 6dB lower than the usual DolbyA level. (I can distinguish these things without DolbyA tones.) There is a little loss with the .mp3, but having to chop off 3/4 of the recording is a bigger impairment .

* The decoder that I have produces much cleaner results than a true DolbyA because of MD and IMD avoidance... I'd suspect that they left the recording as DolbyA encoded because the sound with a true DolbyA might be disappointing and 'foggy'.

Here is the snippet:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tmajr4bn6i6u89n/07 Thelma Houston,I've Got The Music In Me.mp3?dl=0

 

[Dimitri]

I just re-decoded the file, and created a snippet of the recording.

Could you also post a clip of the "un-re-decoded" version?

 

[John Dyson]

Could you also post a clip of the "un-re-decoded" version?

First -- I have a major mea culpa -- I made a mistake. I looked back at my records and recognized that I made a mistake decoding the material, plus looked at the logs and there was some clipping in the output...
I erroneously used a mixed version of the old method and new method for decoding. Also some checks even show that I was wrong about the material being 'DolbyA", but instead it was 'FeralA' (eq'ed DolbyA as normally used on CDs.) Because the material is so intense, I made some mistakes about some of the tellls. This decode is finally correct (the other one has been erased), and is also in 88.2k/24bit quality, directly converted from the floating point decoder output.
The 'raw CD' version is just a conversion from a .wav CD file.
I make mistakes all of the time, probably the most ham-handed at 'mastering' as you can get. My hearing goes dead quickly, then I make mistakes. This is NO LONGER a mistake.

So -- the ACTUAL, ACCURATE decoded snippet is the --decoded version, and the 'rawCD' version is raw from CD. The new decoded version is VERY different, sounds much more normal, and no clipping happened on output.... (Even though the decoder cannot really clip, the flac conversion from the floating point out to 24 bit can clip.)

Note that a major tell about FeralA or raw DolbyA on this kind of material is that the high-hats are swishy and the midrange is compressed. It can get so bad sometimes that it becomes an ugly-woody sounding.

I apologize for being mislead and my previous decoding mistake!!!

Also, in about 1HR or less, I'll have a classical FeralA recording and the properly decoded version -- much nicer. Trying to choose which one.
After this, I'll fall back and stay focused on 'turntables'. I am extending this part of the discussion a little because this FeralA thing might be one reason why vinyl is still very important.

Decoded:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/v4aytoff1ipafty/07 Thelma Houston,I've Got The Music In Me-decoded.flac?dl=0
Raw CD:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ahpvo9khuo1s0ws/07 Thelma Houston,I've Got The Music In Me-rawCD.flac?dl=0