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Vinyl madness

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svart-hvitt

svart-hvitt

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I have a lot of vinyl rips, both made by myself and others.

Playing back my own rips, they're not even close to listening to the real LP in real time; it's trivial to pass an A/B test.

I think the electro-mechanical nature of LP picks up resonances from the room, sounds from speakers, etc, that creates a euphonic distortion and amplification that doesn't happen when you play back a vinyl rip.

Did you try and put your TT in another room?

Are rips made with or without sound in tve room while playing/ripping?

For a test to be robust, one needs to think through the test procedure.
 

Soniclife

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I think the electro-mechanical nature of LP picks up resonances from the room, sounds from speakers, etc, that creates a euphonic distortion and amplification that doesn't happen when you play back a vinyl rip.
Do you only rip with the volume down? It makes no sense if you use the Devialet to rip that that it would be different in any other way, it should be the same digital data going to it's DAC.
 

watchnerd

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Which do you prefer to listen to, Rips played back loud on speakers, or live playback?

Depends if I'm listening for enjoyment or trying to find problems.

Except for soundstaging, I find it easier to pinpoint issues with headphones than with speakers. Example, listening for out of whack anti-skating, mistracking, or IGD is easier for me with headphones on.

For enjoyment, I prefer to use speakers, but can't always do so if it's too late at night.
 

watchnerd

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It's funny how Ortofon themsleves call it a 'needle'.

"Ortofon Replicant 100 diamond, thin and light, with an extraordinarily large contact surface, tracing accuracy unparalleled by any other needle in existence. "

Specs are so last century or the century before:

Channel balance at 1 kHz - 0.5 dB
Channel separation at 1 kHz - 25 dB
Channel separation at 15 kHz - 22 dB
Frequency response - 20 Hz-20 kHz +/- 1.5 dB

They'll sell some to Russian Oligarchs and tech millionaires with no idea. Hilarious.

Sad...I can buy a $900 Audio Technica AT33Sa with better stats than that.
 

watchnerd

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Did you try and put your TT in another room?

Are rips made with or without sound in tve room while playing/ripping?

For a test to be robust, one needs to think through the test procedure.

Rips are made without sound playing thru speakers.

If I can detect it in my living room, why do I need to test it again in another room?

And, no, I'm not going to move the whole set up to another room to test it.
 

Sal1950

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I have a lot of vinyl rips, both made by myself and others.

Playing back my own rips, they're not even close to listening to the real LP in real time; it's trivial to pass an A/B test.

I think the electro-mechanical nature of LP picks up resonances from the room, sounds from speakers, etc, that creates a euphonic distortion and amplification that doesn't happen when you play back a vinyl rip.
Possible, there's something going wrong with your rips. I did a bunch of critical comparisons back when I was ripping my collection. I could detect no difference between a live play and my rips listening via my best Grado headphones at the time. My main rig had already been torn down and a mini system in a off side bedroom where my main computer system lived was put into use for ripping. Sound levels in the room were soft to none during recording.
 

Sal1950

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I think the electro-mechanical nature of LP picks up resonances from the room, sounds from speakers, etc, that creates a euphonic distortion and amplification that doesn't happen when you play back a vinyl rip.
Rips are made without sound playing thru speakers.
??? You've stated two opposing configurations. With and without speakers during ripping
 

watchnerd

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??? You've stated two opposing configurations. With and without speakers during ripping

Sorry, let me clarify:

Ripping: no speakers, headphones on.

Playback: through speakers, I can easily tell the difference between playing the vinyl rip and playing the live LP
 

andreasmaaan

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Sorry, let me clarify:

Ripping: no speakers, headphones on.

Playback: through speakers, I can easily tell the difference between playing the vinyl rip and playing the live LP

That's interesting. You've mentioned the possible effect of vibrations in the room and the functioning of the turntable as a possible (and also very interesting and plausible) explanation.

You could test this by doing a rip with the speakers playing loudly during the rip. Then you could test whether there's an audible difference between the rip and live LP playback.
 

Sal1950

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Blumlein 88

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That's interesting. You've mentioned the possible effect of vibrations in the room and the functioning of the turntable as a possible (and also very interesting and plausible) explanation.

You could test this by doing a rip with the speakers playing loudly during the rip. Then you could test whether there's an audible difference between the rip and live LP playback.
Yes, this is what you need to do.

I did rips for a friend's LP system without sound. He didn't like them as much. I told him we needed to do rips with sound playing. Those sounded like he expected. In his case at the time he had tube preamps and power amps. They were picking up a little of the sound as was the TT. He was using a MC which meant sound picked up at the TT was amplified a little more.
 

watchnerd

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Somethings wrong?

Is it?

I actually view this as expected behavior, just like the effect putting a turntable lid down can have on the sound. I don't currently have a lid, but did in the past with other turntables, and the recommendation was always to listen with the lid off / up as it could act like an acoustic amplifier and direct sound back into the cart/arm.

Here is my hypothesis:

My turntable is suspended and the arm has silicone fluid damping, but most of those endeavors are designed to deal with resonances in the lower frequencies.

But I have no illusions that the system is completely isolated from all frequencies of airborne sound. My perception is that when I play the turntable with the speakers cranked reasonably loudly (~ 90dB at the TT location), the macro dynamic swings get exaggerated a tad when compared to listening at the same level via digital.

My hypothesis is that this is sound effecting the TT/arm/cart -- I thought this was a known and expected behavior of vinyl playback.
 
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watchnerd

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That's interesting. You've mentioned the possible effect of vibrations in the room and the functioning of the turntable as a possible (and also very interesting and plausible) explanation.

You could test this by doing a rip with the speakers playing loudly during the rip. Then you could test whether there's an audible difference between the rip and live LP playback.

I could certainly try that and it would be an interesting experiment.

However, it would sort of defeat the purpose of why I rip to digital in the first place.

I don't rip vinyl to digital to archive content, or to save wear and tear on LPs by listening to vinyl rips instead of the actual LPs.

I rip to digital so I can do A/B listening comparisons between carts in my collection, which is pain to do with live LP listening given the short length of acoustic memory and the time it takes to put on a new headshell, rebalance the arm, adjust the loading, etc.

My hypothesis in this method was to remove as many variables as possible, including the room, so I could just focus on differences between carts. This has allowed me to test a lot of internet claims that seemed like dubious hyperbole.

Example: AT-OC9ML/II and AT33PTG/II use the same MicroLine stylus, both have a boron cantilever. Impedance is 12 ohm vs 10 ohm. Both have a nude square shank. They're priced within about $80 of each other. Compliance are 9 vs 10 cu at 100 Hz. The bodies are different, though.

Given the common parts, same manufacturer, similar pricing, and incredibly similar spec sheets, I would find it surprising if there was a radical sound difference, unless AT voiced them differently on purpose.

And yet the internet is full of 'OMG the heavens opened up it's such a huge upgrade to move from one to the other, I could hear things I've never heard before in my life, my daughter/wife walked into the room and said it was just like the musicians were in the room."

In my system?*** They're really, really damn similar, according to comparing the vinyl rips. And doing the comparison via digital rips helps me avoid placebo effects. There are subtle differences, but they're so small I'm not even really sure which I prefer, which means if I have to listen that hard, I should pick between them based on some other criteria -- which one looks cooler, or has better resale value, or likes a lower tracking force, etc.

***(The classic audiophile response to this is "Your system isn't resolving or expensive enough to hear the differences and / or your hearing sucks and / or your listening skills are terrible." I could respond like a gear slut and point out how technically awesome the Devialet 400 is at both RIAA and digital. Or I could just respond with, "GTFO. My gear, my room, my ears -- it's the only scenario that matters to me.")

So, yes, I could do the experiment....but for what purpose?

For science?

:)
 

watchnerd

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Yes, this is what you need to do.

I did rips for a friend's LP system without sound. He didn't like them as much. I told him we needed to do rips with sound playing. Those sounded like he expected. In his case at the time he had tube preamps and power amps. They were picking up a little of the sound as was the TT. He was using a MC which meant sound picked up at the TT was amplified a little more.

Oh, that's a double acoustic impact -- cart and tube microphony.
 

TBone

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Yes, this is what you need to do.

I did rips for a friend's LP system without sound. He didn't like them as much. I told him we needed to do rips with sound playing. Those sounded like he expected. In his case at the time he had tube preamps and power amps. They were picking up a little of the sound as was the TT. He was using a MC which meant sound picked up at the TT was amplified a little more.

Not certain that story is as funny as it is sad.

A turntable should be setup to minimize vibrations from the speakers when playing (but when ripping, it makes far more sense to use headphones).

Unlike the old days of wondering ... today a simple app can help determine how much vibration is arriving from speakers to platter ...
1534532926290.png
 

watchnerd

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Not certain that story is as funny as it is sad.

A turntable should be setup to minimize vibrations from the speakers when playing (but when ripping, it makes far more sense to use headphones).

Unlike the old days of wondering ... today a simple app can help determine how much vibration is arriving from speakers to platter ...
View attachment 14821

That looks to be an accelerometer app?

Are you using the accelerometer in the app or an external one?

How are you using in the context of LP playback?

Resting it somewhere on the TT?
 

TBone

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That looks to be an accelerometer app?

Are you using the accelerometer in the app or an external one?

How are you using in the context of LP playback?

Resting it somewhere on the TT?

If you look at the picture, the phone is sitting on the platter. In the background; a compressed CD (the only thing a compressed CD is good for is warming up a system, pissing of the neighbors, and testing) is played at various dB levels which are noted. The results are recorded within the app. I use a few different accelerometer apps, some are better than others ... the one shown above is not my favorite but for some reason that's the one I used at that particular time / picture. I don't have my S3 handy (it and my amplifiers are on temp loan for the summer) so I cannot verify the apps functionality and name - at this juncture.
 

watchnerd

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If you look at the picture, the phone is sitting on the platter. In the background; a compressed CD (the only thing a compressed CD is good for is warming up a system, pissing of the neighbors, and testing) is played at various dB levels which are noted. The results are recorded within the app. I use a few different accelerometer apps, some are better than others ... the one shown above is not my favorite but for some reason that's the one I used at that particular time / picture. I don't have my S3 handy (it and my amplifiers are on temp loan for the summer) so I cannot verify the apps functionality and name - at this juncture.

Is there a reason for using a compressed CD as opposed to pink noise?
 
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