Vinyl Record Noise Floor - A Call For Measurements

[SuicideSquid]

I have a very specific question regarding vinyl records and noise - not interested in opening up the "does vinyl sound better" can of worms:

I've seen a number of people throw around numbers for what the dynamic range of a vinyl record is or can be. I remember reading years ago that it was around 30dB, but more recently I've seen people cite numbers between 60 and 80 dB. I've never seen concrete measurements cited to back any of these numbers up, though.

My intuition on the subject is that in practice noise floor for vinyl records tends to be fairly high (relative to digital) due to surface noise, rumble, needle wear, variances in pressing of records to different weights of vinyl, age and wear of the record, etc., so I'm more inclined to reach for that 30dB number as representative of what the medium is likely capable of 'in the wild', but I've never seen any hard numbers and measurements to back any of this up, just assertions by various folks as to what the noise floor and dynamic range of the vinyl record is.

So: Anyone have any links to good, reliable measurements showing what the dynamic range of vinyl records actually is?

 

[sergeauckland]

With vinyl, it depends what you mean by 'Dynamic Range'. The noise floor of an LP is very impulsive, for all the reasons you mention above. Consequently, if you just measure the noise floor with an average or especially a peak-reading meter and relate that to the peak levels on the LP, 30dB or so is what you get.

However, due to the impulsive nature of the noise, one hears well into the 'noise floor', so the practical signal to noise ratio is much closer to 60dB, higher on a really good pressing cut hot. This is especially so when the noise is weighted by one's hearing as a lot of it is low frequency.

I've done these measurements over and over again, and the the amount of LF rubbish on LPs is very high, but much less audible than the numbers would suggest. One consequence of this is the difficulty of doing frequency response measurements as they have to be done at low level due to the RIAA equalisation and consequently noise only 30dB down on peaks translates to only 10dB down at HF when to test LP is cut at -20dB which makes it hard to distinguish frequency response errors from noise.

I've not found noise to be an issue when listening to a decent LP, but put a meter on it, and it looks unusable.

S.

 

[MattHooper]

I've not found noise to be an issue when listening to a decent LP,

Same here.

This discussion may be theoretically interesting, but I personally care most about “in practice” and in practice I rarely hear record noise when the actual music is playing.

But on the subject of the thread: there have been vinyl rips posted here by some members, and there’s also vinyl rips posted by Michael Fremer from expensive turntables.

Wouldn’t it be easy to analyze those for dynamic range and noise floor?

 

[SuicideSquid]

Same here.

This discussion may be theoretically interesting, but I personally care most about “in practice” and in practice I rarely hear record noise when the actual music is playing.

But on the subject of the thread: there have been vinyl rips posted here by some members, and there’s also vinyl rips posted by Michael Fremer from expensive turntables.

Wouldn’t it be easy to analyze those for dynamic range and noise floor?

I've done that with old rips of records I did myself, but there are so many cofounding factors as noted in my original post and sergeaukland's response, it's hard to generalize. Curious if someone's done a more systematic review of "best case scenario" (brand new heavy gram vinyl on a good turntable with a new needle and quality preamp) measurements, maybe compared to 'average' (older record, typical turntable, needle that's a few months old).

I just like to be able to point to something concrete when discussing this stuff, recently there was a discussion in an FB group about an article (it's been posted here too) claiming "digital masters are ruining vinyl" or something like that, and a few people were claiming vinyl has better dynamic range than 16bit digital, which I think we all know is nonsense, but it'd be nice to be able to cite something solid instead of "yeah noise floor is somewhere between -30dB and -60dB and dynamic range of the medium is probably somewhere in between, but it really varies", which is probably the truth but is so... wishy washy.

I've not found noise to be an issue when listening to a decent LP, but put a meter on it, and it looks unusable.

I've found it's super dependent on the record, sometimes I don't notice at all and other times surface noise in particular can be very audible.

 

[danadam]

My one foray into that topic was:

BEGINNER QUESTION : Getting "BitPerfect" output in Linux ?

I don't know about ALSA, but you can create your own custom stream and have Google Chrome output to it. On my Ubuntu system, Chrome always resamples everything to a fixed rate, while Firefox passes audio at the audio's native rate.

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[sergeauckland]

which is probably the truth but is so... wishy washy

That's the nature of truth. Not always the way one would want it.

S

 

[DVDdoug]

I agree... The difficulty is defining it. If you have a bad click the "dynamic range" or signal-to-noise could be negative for that instant!

When I used to play records I could ALWAYS hear noise between tracks when wearing headphones. (And usually some preamp noise too when the stylus was lifted out of the groove.) The constant low-level background noise didn't really bother me but the "snap", "crackle", and 'pop" DID annoy me more than it seemed to bother other people. And my records seemed to "develop" defects even though tried to take care of them.

 

[digitalfrost]

Disregarding the vinyl noise floor, this is my Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 with the phono pre connected:

And this is with the cables of the phono pre removed:

So my point is, a lot of phono pres will have some noise already.

 

[MatrixS2000]

I have a very specific question regarding vinyl records and noise - not interested in opening up the "does vinyl sound better" can of worms:

I've seen a number of people throw around numbers for what the dynamic range of a vinyl record is or can be. I remember reading years ago that it was around 30dB, but more recently I've seen people cite numbers between 60 and 80 dB. I've never seen concrete measurements cited to back any of these numbers up, though.

It varies from LP to LP, some are quieter than others. It can also be greatly attenuated once digitized. I can provide examples and measurement for most everything you want.

Here is an example, this one has the surface noise attenuated - so not what you are looking for, but will give you an idea of what can be measured. I also keep an archival copy that does not have any manipulation, so we can get true measurements. I can pull that out if you let me know what you are looking.

Pink Floyd Mother from The Wall (vinyl):

So: Anyone have any links to good, reliable measurements showing what the dynamic range of vinyl records actually is?

DR of the format is not a useful number imo. It just describes the capabilities that engineers need to work into. You need to look at the DR that the mastering provides as that is what you will end up listening to. Having a DR capability for 96dB is great, but when the music is smashed to a DR of 4, guess which one you listen to.

 

[MatrixS2000]

Disregarding the vinyl noise floor, this is my Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 with the phono pre connected:

View attachment 448936

And this is with the cables of the phono pre removed:

View attachment 448938

So my point is, a lot of phono pres will have some noise already.

Agree - another example; here is my phono pre (Whest PS-30) connected to my ADC (Tascam DA-3000):

 

[MatrixS2000]

Oh and if you want to visualize what surface noise sounds like when playing a record:

And here it is after it's been attenuated:

 

[digitalfrost]

Agree - another example; here is my phono pre (Whest PS-30) connected to my ADC (Tascam DA-3000):

I can do that too

So here is a vinyl rip I did a short while ago. Phono pre without needle dropped:

Needle dropped but no music yet:

Pretty horrible actually.

 

[Thomas_A]

This is RMS levels, and peak for a record, with 500 ms window.

Looking at a longer "in-between tracks" session I get around -63 dB average RMS power, which is 47 dB below max RMS power (500 ms) and ≈58 dB below peak. All measurements unweighted.

 

[Balle Clorin]

We should do it in a standard way, using the same record, with RIAA active. The Current Ortofon test record crosstalk track will be easy for all to find

I did not have that at hand but here is the CA TRS-1007 Pilot tone used as reference and RIAA EQ in bass active.
The bottom of the noise floor just beyond the peak is -85db, peak is 0db and low end peak -34dB. so S/N -51dB.
My RIAA shows this on the display with pickup off the record, and in groove -50-60 before music starts

But I have a test record with tones at -80db signal level and at normal listening level I can notice sound at -72db, not sure what 0db reference is

EDIT below is the Ortofon test record track in blue. not neccesaricy same recording level, and MM not MC as above

 

[HalSF]

I’d suggest that anyone attempting this should be making a careful distinction between at least three kinds of vinyl record noise floors;

1) Noise on a clean, unworn LP with very minimal pops and clicks and a relatively low steady noise floor typical of a quality pressing played on good, properly calibrated hardware.

2) Noise on a new or unworn but relatively noisy clean pressing to measure how low-quality pressing practices with mediocre quality control adds extra noise.

3) Noise on a typical used vinyl record from the bins in which a history of play on poor quality gear and careless handling has added wear and things like scratches and scuffs, contributing a significant amount of noise compared with when the record was new.

As an avid vinyl listener those are the three types and degrees of noise I generally experience, and to lump the three together and average the results would be a misrepresentation of the various levels of vinyl noise as experienced in the wild. Measuring a dirty record or a lousy pressing or a somewhat trashed used record, or doing so using a playback set-up that adds unnecessary noise, means measuring elevated noise levels increased by factors extraneous to decent-quality pressings in good shape.

 

[Thomas_A]

Given test records, SNR is given only relative to the 1 kHz mono signal on CA-TRS1007. It is given relative 3.54 cm/s RMS or 5 cm/s peak for the original JVC, and should be the same on the Clearaudio copy. Around -55 dB unweighted. Combined with the music example above, it would range between -55 to -60 dB to peak and -35 to -40 dB to RMS music power. If A-weighted, it is lower. That said noise figures are probably not static but vary with level, so those -55 to -60 dB levels are not reached in practice.

TRS-1007

 

[MaxwellsEq]

... those are the three types and degrees of noise I generally experience, and to lump the three together and average the results would be a misrepresentation of the various levels of vinyl noise as experienced in the wild

I agree. However I feel that @SuicideSquid wanted to know the "good" result, i.e. what the format can realistically achieve on a new, well pressed release.

 

[Thomas_A]

I can add that the noise in quiet sections is -60 to -70 dB for good vinyl, relative what is possible for music peaks. But noise is dynamic in nature and varies with music power.

 

[MatrixS2000]

Measuring a dirty record or a lousy pressing or a somewhat trashed used record, or doing so using a playback set-up that adds unnecessary noise, means measuring elevated noise levels increased by factors extraneous to decent-quality pressings in good shape.

Agree. The below measurements for are for raw vinyl rips. The only changes are to bring the levels up to approx. 0dB level as I record low and removing the needle drop and remaining songs of the side. This is seen in the bottom right corner - Clip gain and delete(s). Each record spent 20 minutes in an ultrasonic cleaner, except for the used record which also received a scrub stage and a second trip back into the ultrasonic cleaner after the scrub stage.

1) Noise on a clean, unworn LP with very minimal pops and clicks and a relatively low steady noise floor typical of a quality pressing played on good, properly calibrated hardware.

Here is the first song from King Buffalo’s Regenerator album. I bought this record new and this recording is the first play on the record.

Zoom in on the song lead in measurements:

Full song measurements:

2) Noise on a new or unworn but relatively noisy clean pressing to measure how low-quality pressing practices with mediocre quality control adds extra noise.

First song from Tool’s Lateralus. I bought this record new and this recording is the first play. It is also a picture disc which are notoriously noisy. Note that I measured the noise at the tail out for this one for reasons explained below.

Zoom in on lead out measurements:

Full song measurements:

Zoom in on lead in below. The start of this song is actually at the red arrow. There are also tones indicated by the green arrow. Both of these are buried in the noise. They are audible but heavily masked by both clicks and surface noise.

Here is the same lead in portion with declick and denoise applied (note I did not include the start of the song in the measurement as there is a fade there that would skew the noise measurement).

3) Noise on a typical used vinyl record from the bins in which a history of play on poor quality gear and careless handling has added wear and things like scratches and scuffs, contributing a significant amount of noise compared with when the record was new.

Fleetwood Mac’s Monday Morning below. I bought this record used so I have no idea how many plays are on it. This is the one the got the scrub and the extra ultrasonic cleaning time:

Zoom in on the song lead in measurements:

Full song measurements:

 

[sergeauckland]

It must be me, but I have no idea what the above graphs are showing. The bright orange field just looks like noise. Could someone tell me what the above mean?

I have no trouble with a conventional time on the X axis, Amplitude on the Y axis, or Frequency on the X axis, amplitude on the Y, but just don't get the above.

Thanks.

S