Why every music lover needs to buy a turntable - discuss.

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
11,236
81
1,725
New York City
You might have missed where I said:
"I'll grant that the source is "direct" rather than from tape, but it doesn't change the number of steps here."

... in other words, still 5 to 7 steps from source to LP. We're discussing the differences between vinyl production and digital. Everything before the two paths diverge is the same (and out of scope). You're trying to move the goalposts.

You really can't admit you're wrong can you? Not only was step number one oversimplified and wrong but there is no step one with direct to disc. That is arguably the most important step too.

And actually you're misinformed on step five also. Most of the people I spoke with from both old (including RCA) and current companies did not make copy mothers. (Perhaps the commercial dreck did that.) In other words, each pressing comes from a unique stamper. And in fact, I made notes that are in storage documenting around a half dozen master tapes from the RCA Living Stereo LP series and each stamper, cutting levels, dates, etc,
 

mep

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
9,481
17
0
You seem to have changed the subject. Does that mean you have no substantive response to Standard Answer (short version): The noise and distortions of vinyl are measurable, documented and well-known. If that's not what you hear, what do you hear? Vinyl has been around for 70 years. Surely someone has documented what you hear. What is it? Show me.

Tim

Tim-I'm not doing your research for you. You always ask people to perform research to back up your assertions and help prove your point. It reminds me of fathers who required their children to go and fetch something to beat them with. Do you not think the noise and distortions of vinyl playback haven't changed dramatically from what they were at the inception of vinyl?
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
Well, let me qualify that for you, Jack. The additional "goodness" that can be quantified in vinyl is distortion...and noise...and a bunch of it, and I'm going to assume that the difference that we know is the difference that you hear until someone comes up with something else. YM, as always, may vary. At least I'm not telling you you have bad hearing or crap gear for liking what you like. It sounds good to you? I don't really care where it comes from, I'm happy for you. I just can't fathom why so many can't return that favor.

Tim

There's that preconception again! :D Save for groove echo which sounds like a tiny bit of added reverb or room tone there's not much added that is good. What is added that is bad, like small amounts of hum, rumble, are detrimental. These are however easily masked and can easily be listened past if there isn't that much of it. One or two ticks or pops per 15 minutes is easy to live with too. No ticks at all is not even uncommon for many of us here who take good care of our vinyl. Popcorn from groove wear surely can't be considered "added distortion", you call that DAMAGE. So no. Not all goodness is "additional"and not all added distortion is "good".

It has been posited that the elastic properties of vinyl lends to the stylus and vinyl interaction providing a form of noise shaping (which differs according to stylus profile), something applied to some digital. That groove echo is likewise similar in some respects to dither both being random noise. It's also been posited that poor contact is analogous to jitter (pun intended). If all this pans out to be true, BOTH are adding noise and distortion. Analog because it can't help doing it and digital because you HAVE to do it lest it suck. Whichever way you turn it over, it'd be a case of pots calling kettles black.

Remember my educational background in recording is more skewed towards digital. I gave up analog around 1992. Sold my turntable finally around 1994. My view of analog was formed by what I used, an Sl-1200 with a Shure MM DJ cart and a phonostage built into a Numark mixer. It was also formed around my folk's Thorens TD 160 and my brother's Revox linear tracker. Save for Mom, we were all pretty cavalier about record care. By 2000 I was a digital zealot. I missed DJing so I reaquired some SL-1210s. I still felt digital had LP beat. Then I got a taste of "proper" analog. The kind done with proper set up, better gear and again most important of all, clean and pristine LPs. My digital and Analog has been chasing each other ever since.

I think my situation is more representative of the general WBF membership into analog as opposed to that being painted by so called "objectivists". You might be shocked at how objective many of us actually are. We do both and try to do both well. We use a lot of science to do that. We aren't stumbling around with purely trial and error. As a result, we live with comparisons day in and day out. In this scenario, numbers mean very little compared to utilization. The proof is indeed the pudding. Analog and Digital reproduction can still be improved and it is improving. Time didn't stop. That the benchmark for those improvements lie in the other shouldn't be black flags on either.
 

mep

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
9,481
17
0
Another well-reasoned response Jack.
 

Phelonious Ponk

New Member
Jun 30, 2010
8,677
23
0
There's that preconception again! :D Save for groove echo which sounds like a tiny bit of added reverb or room tone there's not much added that is good. What is added that is bad, like small amounts of hum, rumble, are detrimental. These are however easily masked and can easily be listened past if there isn't that much of it. One or two ticks or pops per 15 minutes is easy to live with too. No ticks at all is not even uncommon for many of us here who take good care of our vinyl. Popcorn from groove wear surely can't be considered "added distortion", you call that DAMAGE. So no. Not all goodness is "additional"and not all added distortion is "good".

It has been posited that the elastic properties of vinyl lends to the stylus and vinyl interaction providing a form of noise shaping (which differs according to stylus profile), something applied to some digital. That groove echo is likewise similar in some respects to dither both being random noise. It's also been posited that poor contact is analogous to jitter (pun intended). If all this pans out to be true, BOTH are adding noise and distortion. Analog because it can't help doing it and digital because you HAVE to do it lest it suck. Whichever way you turn it over, it'd be a case of pots calling kettles black.

Now we're making progress! Surely all this positioning isn't random? It must be based on something substantive. That takes us right back to:

Standard Answer (short version): The noise and distortions of vinyl are measurable, documented and well-known. If that's not what you hear, what do you hear? Vinyl has been around for 70 years. Surely someone has documented what you hear. What is it? Show me.

Tim
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
Let's back up one step Tim. Where is the pure signal that is getting distorted? We can't just jump to the end. Is it at the instant the mic converts pressure to voltage, the point at which the engineers sign off on it knowing they've signed off on something with allowances made as to how it will be played back? Is it somewhere in between?

To consider distortion, you have to consider what exactly is being distorted.

As to documentation, did you know that cutting is done with optical referencing? Yup, that's why lathes have microscopes on them. They are used to set spacing and to see if cutting is too hot for a record player to handle later on.

Frank+Douglas+EMI+76.jpg

If look at the grooves themselves, it would remind you an awful lot like a standard digital waveform representation. That is NOT a coincidence.

What I hear is flow, continuity. What you will see in a groove, jagged and ugly as it looks, it is continuous. Continuity is something I've found lacking in almost all digital. Something digital set out to do in the first place. Math good: implementation: needs improvement. I guess I have to define continuity. That would be the presentation of the entire sound event envelope from transient, sustain to decay in a manner that does not sound artificial (made of parts). Mind you, I'm not saying there aren't analog products that do just that. There are. Many. I avoid those too. I just find that in the sum total of what I've heard including analog not considered envelope pushing in this ONE department Analog does it and for a lot less too. Analog get's expensive when it goes for doing what digital does best, silence and dynamics. Digital gets expensive when it goes for what analog does best, continuity.

Not all analog sounds good, not all digital sounds good. Stands to reason that at any given point one can choose one that bests the other.

I guess my obsessions for the "whys" of it all is a different obsession from the usual objectivist. I want to know why so I can improve what I have. I'm not out to prove mine is better. Quite the difference, yes? In my case I find my analog better in spite of distortions and not because of them. Analog has some inherent goodness of its own. Something I hope you and Tom can be open to considering.
 
Last edited:

Phelonious Ponk

New Member
Jun 30, 2010
8,677
23
0
Let's back up one step Tim. Where is the pure signal that is getting distorted? We can't just jump to the end. Is it at the instant the mic converts pressure to voltage, the point at which the engineers sign off on it knowing they've signed off on something with allowances made as to how it will be played back? Is it somewhere in between?

To consider distortion, you have to consider what exactly is being distorted.

I'm not saying what you hear is the distortion, Jack. There is more than enough measurable distortion in the vinyl media to account for the difference between digital and vinyl, but maybe that's not the difference you hear at all. Maybe it's something else. Variation on standard answer (short version): If that's not what you hear, what do you hear? Vinyl has been around for 70 years. Surely someone has documented what you hear. What is it? Maybe it's noise-shaping elastic vinyl and stylus interaction. Show me.

Tim
 

mep

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
9,481
17
0
I'm not saying what you hear is the distortion, Jack. There is more than enough measurable distortion in the vinyl media to account for the difference between digital and vinyl, but maybe that's not the difference you hear at all. Maybe it's something else. Variation on standard answer (short version): If that's not what you hear, what do you hear? Vinyl has been around for 70 years. Surely someone has documented what you hear. What is it? Maybe it's noise-shaping elastic vinyl and stylus interaction. Show me.

Tim

Do you ever tire of repeating yourself?
 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
11,236
81
1,725
New York City
There I don't think is a preconception, its a fact, vinyl (for MEP, notice I said vinyl, not analog) source and playback systems introduce measurably more distortions, FR being a big one, IMD being a big one, crosstalk and phase being another big one, etc. Actually, rumble can IMO contribute to room pressurization or lets just say filling the room, and creating an ambiance. So, if we take these distortions down to digital levels...........and get a near perfect cartridge to play them back, is it going to sound like digital all of a sudden? When I replay an LP digitally recorded, dude, it sounds like the original LP. So, we can add if someone cared to, vinyl distortions to a digital mix and then IMO , due to particular processing in the mix/master, have that vinyl 'sound' at will.

I also enjoy both worlds, I have stated that I would prefer the bass and mids of digital with a splash of vinyl highs if I could get what I wanted, most of the time.

Both add noise and distortion, the fact that seems to be faught with religious fever by a few on this forum is that vinyl measurable adds a great deal more distortion using test equipment. It is undeniable and discussed ad nauseum in previous threads but still we have our doubters, of course, no facts just doubts, and why is it so hard to admit? These same folks will not argue that one speaker brand sounds different than another (why...different distortion patterns among other things) or same for different types of electronics, but no, it cant be that more distortion sounds better to some, or different distortions sound better to some......and then these same folks claim to be "open". It buggers belief.

Perhaps you can begin by detailing how you align your cartridge.
 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
11,236
81
1,725
New York City
Of course, by the 1950s Skully lathes with vari pitch compensation made manual gain riding obsolete, and mercury recording used this stuff. No one I s looking through the scope but only for verification purposes in any 1950 advanced studio..

I would argue that continuous is hard to describe, but in fact, the moment we introduce a microphone, by its nature, we have killed continuos.

Actually Mercury used a Westrex head on a Scully lathe feeding 200 wpc Mac amps.
 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
11,236
81
1,725
New York City
what does cartridge alinement have to do with vinyl being a more distorting medium, hands down, no matter how sophisticated the alignement... Myles.

check this out: Wilma Fine, in an interview, and what did she know about LP vs CD?

RAB: CD is a completely different medium. How do you perceive it? Do you think it has its restrictions?

WCF: Yes, my husband always said that the sampling rate was too low. But the CD's are closer to the masters, the original tapes, than the LP's.

Because you're hearing all these distortions and sure sounds like either your cartridge isn't set up properly or dead. Funny others don't and interestingly today's tables sport rumble specs that are below the limits of detection of test equipment. So how do you align your cartridge, adjust azimuth and VTA/SRA. You do know that side band distortion products are directly related to VTA/SRA. (Oh that wasn't controlled for I'm pretty sure in anything you reference.)

You also do know that it's a myth that vinyl is noisy? No it's how reflections interact with the cantilever. Go listen to a strain gauge cartridge that lacks this issue and vinyl is as quiet as digital. Yes a jet black background.

And actually if you read other interviews with Wilma, she said that both mediums were right, just different perspectives on the original recording.
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
I don't know your angle Tim. I really don't. I don't because I don't know WHAT you consider UN-distorted. When you spout about people preferring distortion you A) have to be clear what it is being distorted and B) know what undistorted sounds like in the first place. Now be honest with me. Do you? EVERYTHING is manipulated. The choice of microphone is a manipulation. Let's leave analog out of this for a minute. DACs do not all sound alike. Would you say people like a particular DACs more because it is distorted? I bet not huh. Yet you are eager to pounce on another medium that also sounds different and project this very reason. When you choose say one type of dither over another on Amarra, sound will differ. Which one is "more distorted"? Can you tell me? Have you not manipulated the signal at it's very core when you do this? There are samples on youtube where dither is not used versus used. un-dithered SUCKS. If you leave settings at default, you've just left the decision to somebody else. That's exactly what Tim has done by going to a fully integrated system. That is not wrong. It is not. Just don't fool yourself that it is anymore true because NOBODY and I mean NOBODY has ever HEARD what the truth is because ALL monitoring chains are compromised.

So let's talk pudding. End results. Referencing what Tim asks, WHAT DO YOU HEAR? It's not so much what I hear but what I SHOULDN'T hear. The vinyl distortion, from a well sorted rig playing a clean, unworn LP TO ME is less offensive than poorly implemented digital. It is the type of noise easily filtered and listened past compared to a character that is in a nutshell, artificial. Noise shaping and dither work under the same framework, it should be low enough to be effectively masked during playback. That doesn't mean I like the distortion of analog and that is the leap you've made that frankly IMO you have not supported. All gross playback distortions suck, it's provenance matters not. What matters is getting it low enough so as not to be so damned bothersome.

Everybody is free to theorize but man, you want to ram this down our throats you have to come armed with a full controlled study with a sample size large enough to support an acceptable level of confidence. Get that peer reviewed while you're at it. Until then IMO you are in no place to make us admit to nothing more than an untested theory on your part.

Vinyl has more distortion. Sure. People like vinyl BECAUSE of this distortion? Hang on buddy, that's a reach and you know it. cum hoc ergo propter hoc.
 

Don Hills

Well-Known Member
Jun 20, 2013
366
1
323
Wellington, New Zealand
Really? Prove it has less steps?? Do you not realize that D2D doesn't use tape and the signal is being fed to the cutting lathe in real time?

I realise that perfectly well. I repeat:

"I'll grant that the source is "direct" rather than from tape, but it doesn't change the number of steps here."
The number of steps between cutter and LP, which are the steps I listed, is the same.
 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
11,236
81
1,725
New York City
I realise that perfectly well. I repeat:

"I'll grant that the source is "direct" rather than from tape, but it doesn't change the number of steps here."
The number of (unique to vinyl) steps between cutter and LP, which are the steps I listed, is the same.

No it does change the overall number of steps of which #1 is the most important.

Not to mention you've conveniently ignored the fact that you're relying on erroneous information eg. the problem is not with the mastering but the playback process. But you'd need a turntable to appreciate and explore that end of the equation.
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
Show me.

Tim

Someday I pray to be able to show you in person. Not to convince you I am right or you are wrong. Just for you to understand where I am coming from.
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
And hopefully, even MF knows that means that the two mediums will never sound the same, not counting that the cartridge adds its own distortions anyway.

spring forward tomorrow, always feels better to me to fall back,...

Since ADCs of the same make using different settings make digital recordings that don't sound alike either, I fail to see your point.
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
Tim I'm calling you out on the fallacy of circular cause and consequence. You simply assume too much with too little.

By saying "vinly does not get distortions low enough to not be bothersome" you are illustrating that. See this is the point where your personal reference would get dragged into this. This is not linear and it certainly isn't absolute, level of "bothersomenss" for the lack of a better word, that is. You and I can enjoy a song over a boombox, so can I listen past some vinyl distortion. It still doesn't mean I'm enjoying the music becuase of the boombox or because of the distortions.

Now I'll tell you what I can't listen to and enjoy myself when I'm actually hunkering down for FOCUSED listening. Bad analog AND Bad digital. Unacceptable levels of nasties from both. Truth be told, there are some recordings I like so much but sound like crap, I just enjoy them in a different setting. Social settings are best. Deals with the OCD quite nicely. LOL.
 

Don Hills

Well-Known Member
Jun 20, 2013
366
1
323
Wellington, New Zealand
You really can't admit you're wrong can you? Not only was step number one oversimplified and wrong but there is no step one with direct to disc. That is arguably the most important step too.

You really can't admit you're wrong, can you? Before you tried to move the goalposts, we were discussing the different number of steps involved between producing an LP and producing a digital stream. (There are a quite a few steps involved in pressing a CD too, but they arguably don't cause any degradation unless the result is so poor it causes actual CU errors.)

And actually you're misinformed on step five also. Most of the people I spoke with from both old (including RCA) and current companies did not make copy mothers. (Perhaps the commercial dreck did that.)

I'm only going on what I was told. They didn't do it here because our market was too small. (And our small market means that NZ pressings are well regarded by collectors because there were relatively few pressings per run. Ironically, it also means that the tape we received to cut the lacquer from was often a generation or two down from the original distribution tape. The process was that several duplicate EQ'ed masters would be made and sent to the overseas pressing plants. Each plant would cut their lacquer and make a safety copy of the tape. They were supposed to keep the safety copy and send the master copy on to the next plant in the chain, but they sometimes sent the safety... I had quite a few LPs in my collection where an overseas sourced copy (usually from Japan) was much better quality than the local pressing.)

In other words, each pressing comes from a unique stamper. ...

I am quite sure you did not mean to say that. (That each stamper is used only once.)
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
My apologies, yes I meant you Tom.

You're doing it again Tom. Has it occurred to you that I might prefer one over the other for reasons other than distortion? Let me illustrate. I have two boomboxes, lets assume that they have the same distortion figures, high. I might like one over the other just because one can play louder. They'll both suck but I can get a party started with one of them and not the other. That's what I mean when I say utility. What am I trying to achieve? What am I looking for?More succintly, what do I require for this particular goal and scenario? That is the central question. Now I choose the louder one just because it fits. Ok. Of course we in this hobby never know when to leave well enough alone. LOL. Are there ways I can lower the distortion? Sure. For one I could run it off batteries. That will help a bit. I could position it in the room in such a way I can get broader coverage and the least offensive acoustic reactions with the room. That could help too. I still end up trying to lessen the gross distortions. Of course there are limits.

Do you see where the leap is? Preferring one thing over another does not always relate to just one variable. I met two women. I married the woman with some chinese features, she has demonstrable chinese features therefore I like chinese looking women. If she was purely chinese I would prefer her even more? No man! No, no, NO! Circular cause and consequence. The problem is I believe "distortion" is being used WAY too loosely here. There are different kinds with different thresholds. There would be no problem if digital didn't have nasties of its own. If we want to make progress, break down and weigh what these distortions are in as much as the whole package is concerned.
 

Phelonious Ponk

New Member
Jun 30, 2010
8,677
23
0
Do you ever tire of repeating yourself?

In the past, asking the unanswered questions in different ways only seemed to create opportunities for diversions. I'm trying a new technique, confident that all but a few of you are intelligent, reasonable men, capable of seeing that you have no answers to the most fundamental questions in the topic, and concluding that it is unreasonable, then, to insist that you're right. And FWIW, I don't expect you to concede that you are wrong. Simply accepting the possibility of informed, legitimate, alternative points of view would be such great proogress (see standard answer, long version)!

Tim
 

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu

Steve Williams
Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator
Ron Resnick
Site Co-Owner | Administrator
Julian (The Fixer)
Website Build | Marketing Managersing