Vinyl Rips: Where analog meets digital and what can they tell us?

[PeterA]

The KLAudio unit has cut down on my surface noise drastically! Some of my rips were mistaken for tape transfers!

Wow, that is quite an endorsement. I'm considering the KL because my Loricraft/4 step AIVS solution process just takes too long, but it does give superb results.

 

[Andrew Stenhouse]

The best rcm is the one you use, and that the KLA is the best one I have ever used.

It is a tad noisy, but you can stick it in a separate room if that is a problem.

 

[Bruce B]

Wow, that is quite an endorsement. I'm considering the KL because my Loricraft/4 step AIVS solution process just takes too long, but it does give superb results.

You'll have to ask Ian how quiet my rips are!

 

[PeterA]

You'll have to ask Ian how quiet my rips are!

I will be sure to listen to them again when I return. I think he has sorted out the computer issue, so they should be sounding great now.

 

[PeterA]

The best rcm is the one you use, and that the KLA is the best one I have ever used.

It is a tad noisy, but you can stick it in a separate room if that is a problem.

I've given it some thought. I would probably use my Lori for really dirty LPs and even new ones to remove the mold release agent, and then the KL Audio for periodic, fast cleanings for frequently used LPs. My cleaning station is next to my computer, so when I pay bills or write emails or surf the web, I can clean in the background. I would love the convenience of an ultrasonic cleaner, but the KL is expensive. I really want the Furutech demag too, but its just too much.

 

[Andrew Stenhouse]

Well The Chinese are making knock offs at the moment - Amari RW 600 looks to be a copy of the AD, except it probably won't break down, being Chinese and all. Mind you it won't last 20 years either.

You wouldn't read about it, just as we are discussing the KLA, and extolling its virtues, I just blew up the one I have been borrowing from a friend.

I was cleaning happily away, while I was doing some other work from home, and as it was transiting from the wash to the dry cycle I heard a loud “pop” and it went dead – no power. Hmmm methinks. Probably a fuse. Anyway I emptied out the water, checked the fuse and sure enough it had blown. I replaced the fuse, filled it with water and boom – this time it really blew the fuse – complete with the socket, lots of smoke and a tripped power board in the apartment. Right. Probably best to leave well enough alone.

So it looks like this one is mine and I owe my friend a new KLA. Oh well. There you go.

No idea if it is still in warranty, but it would just be my luck it isn't. I think by memory it is 2 years, and I'm pretty sure I saw this one around at my mate's house longer ago than that.

 

[Fiddle Faddle]

You wouldn't read about it, just as we are discussing the KLA, and extolling its virtues, I just blew up the one I have been borrowing from a friend.

Well I just have read about it!! I am sorry to hear this. This is why I never borrow stuff (and yes, I realise it was not your fault and it likely could have happened at any time to anyone). I ended up buying myself a very basic new Record Doctor machine as I got sick of relying on others. Even that has improved the clarity of my rips - and by just as much as the expensive Audio Desk ultrasonic cleaner that was being used previously.

 

[Rodney Gold]

One thing I have always wondered about is the fact that ultrasonic cleaners work via cavitation .. having seen boat propellors being chewed up cos of cavitation.. doesn't it have some bearing on on the lp itself.. do the little bursting bubbles not take away part of the walls?

 

[Fiddle Faddle]

One thing I have always wondered about is the fact that ultrasonic cleaners work via cavitation .. having seen boat propellors being chewed up cos of cavitation.. doesn't it have some bearing on on the lp itself.. do the little bursting bubbles not take away part of the walls?

I never really went into the detail of it myself and in actual fact I had a store in another state clean them for me and send them to me after cleaning. I can certainly say every LP cleaned with the ultrasonic cleaner had greater clarity (including a cleaner, more focussed top end), but at the same time, my $500 Record Doctor does exactly the same thing (but is more labour intensive and ear muffs are an absolute must - it's like a Dyson floor cleaner, only from a foot and a half away!!).

I think if the ultrasonic process caused any wall damage, I would certainly hear it as I am extremely sensitive to the "sound" of that type of damage (paranoid might even be a good word).

 

[Andrew Stenhouse]

Oh well FF, as they say in Victoria - "its all good for football!"

Warwick F (the KLA distributor here) is being excellent, as usual. Hopefully it can be repaired. Just one of those things. I'm cursed, I swear.

@ Rodney - I must have cleaned over 2000 records with ultrasonics over the years, some many many times, and didn't damage anything as far as I can tell. It is pretty tough stuff the old vinyl.

 

[Fiddle Faddle]

I've just attached some examples of my vinyl transcription work over the last fortnight. I pride myself on being extremely meticulous with them and will often spend several hours plus per side if that is what is required for a result that I feel meets a professional standard. All done using my workstation (used as actually intended / designed as opposed to a certain other thread where we pressed it into service out of it's comfort zone!!).

First example is from the Analogue Productions reissue of RCA LSC 2767 - the last minute or so of the Arthur Benjamin Romantic Fantasy (Heifetz and Primrose). Embarrassed to say I had never heard this intoxicating piece until I did this transcription. I now love this piece! This was recorded in the mid 1950s.

Second is a small excerpt from Gounod Faust. Recorded early 1960s. This is again a new Analogue Productions reissue, however for some reason the remastering suffers from significant "wow" problems. Since I cannot believe the remastering engineer would have heard this coming off his tape machine, I suspect it is due to the record lathe and whoever approved the test pressings did not pick it up (though of course it could be a combination of master tape, tape machine, lathe). I know for certain my turntable is very steady on the "wow" test tones on my calibration LP.

So I decided to painstakingly "restore" this particular excerpt using the Celemony Capstan demo, in addition to my normal process workflow. Painstakingly for two reasons: It needs manual intervention relatively frequently. For example, violins tend to "catch it out" if they use wide vibrato for expressive purposes. This is of course opposed to simply hitting the process button and you are done. And with the demo, 7 seconds only every time I hit the "play" button. So I had to "bounce" this from one soundcard to another via the ASIO interface in Capstan, then piece it all back together at the other end....7 seconds at a time!! I have decided I will buy all these titles (even if they are all "wow" effected) then rent Capstan once all titles are out and "fix" them up over the 5 day rental period. Still, this is a very good example that pertains to this very thread - trying to marry the best advantages of vinyl with the advanced DSP capabilities of workstations these days.

Third is a bargain bin find: A late "M5" pressing (early 70s?) of the Grofe Mississippi Suite on Mercury SR90049 (recorded around 1956). Nothing bargain bin about the sound if you ask me!

Last is from a Speakers Corner reissue of Karajan Shostakovich 10 (DG). Again very early 60s. Who said DG sound wasn't top notch?

They were all course done in 24 bit but I have only uploaded 16/44 so you can see how well they still stand up. I have spent an inordinate amount of time (close to a year) trying to mitigate the inevitable losses going down from 24/96 to 16/44.1 and I am now finally happy with the results.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/21d6fs

 

[MadFloyd]

You'll have to ask Ian how quiet my rips are!

OMG, they are insanely quiet! I actually asked Bruce if he used any audio apps to remove noise (which would have puzzled me if he did since I don't think you can edit DSD like you can PCM). Of course he responded that they were completely untouched.

I am now thinking of hiring Bruce to make some vinyl rips for me.

 

[MadFloyd]

Second is a small excerpt from Gounod Faust. Recorded early 1960s. This is again a new Analogue Productions reissue, however for some reason the remastering suffers from significant "wow" problems. Since I cannot believe the remastering engineer would have heard this coming off his tape machine, I suspect it is due to the record lathe and whoever approved the test pressings did not pick it up (though of course it could be a combination of master tape, tape machine, lathe). I know for certain my turntable is very steady on the "wow" test tones on my calibration LP.

I just read this in a review on AcousticSounds website - were you the author?

Thanks for this post, when I'm home I will download the samples!

 

[Fiddle Faddle]

I just read this in a review on AcousticSounds website - were you the author?

Yes and I am surprised they published it. In the past, a couple of uncomplimentary reviews weren't published, but this one was . I actually listened to the "raw" LP again last night on my much more resolving system and the speed variations stick out even more than they did when I listened on my workstation. I now think my 2 star rating is generous because the more revealing the system, the more the wow subjectively appears to interfere with the enjoyment! Seriously, a $50 Crossley has better stability!

I wonder what the hybrid SACD versions will sound like.

 

[MadFloyd]

I just downloaded and listened to your rip samples. I haven't played them on my main stereo yet - only in my studio but I'm very impressed. May I ask what the recording chain consisted of? I'm also going to go listen to my Faust for the wow you described. I certainly can't hear it in your sample (a testament to Celemony I'm sure).

 

[fas42]

Inspired by MadFloyd, I just downloaded Fiddle Faddle's efforts, and can only add my plaudits! Very impressive, lovely detail in the treble and ambience - excellent job!!

 

[Fiddle Faddle]

Thanks very much guys. I try to put a lot of effort into them because these transfers are "for life". The equipment in absolute terms is relatively modest,, but there is a lot of customisation in the hardware done by me and a heck of a lot of software tweaking (yes, the latter does make a difference).

The source is a Project RPM 9.1 with the Oracle Audio silicon damping attachment to the base of the 9cc tonearm. Cartridge is an Ortofon Rondo bronze. Phono stage is a Heed Quester for which I built a custom power supply (30 volt DC SLA battery based using dual Belleson super regulators). The workstation was built by me from scratch and the capture card itself is an ASUS Xonar ST. It has a lot of attention paid to quality components (power supply, filtering, etc). It has 16 GB of main RAM memory, of which 6 GB is used permanently for audio capture (so nothing actually goes to disk storage until after a recording is actually complete). The captures are made with Reaper (64 bit version) which I have tweaked to produce the most transparent results (it might surprise some how software tweaking can improve audio performance, even when you are not changing basic things like API, bit depths, sampling rates, etc).

The whole thing is connected to a PS Audio Dectet (I needed all ten outlets!) and the cabling all through is Wireworld entry level Reference range except for turntable to phono stage which is one of the high quality interconnects Project sell specifically for turntable to phono stage connection.

The workstation actually doubles as my main computer here at home, so I actually have a desktop icon that I click on to put it into "audio workstation" mode. This single icon click changes a heck of a lot of registry settings, changes to a custom power profile, kills all processes bar about 20 and disables every device not required for audio processing, amongst other things. Then when I am done playing with audio, another click on a different icon turns it back into the mild mannered "normal" computer.

The editing is all done within Sony Sound Forge Pro. That has always been the case with everything I have done, bar the Faust where as mentioned, I used the Capstan demo for the first time. I actually also used the Capstan demo on the Grofe disc but it wasn't nearly as bad to begin with as the Faust. I probably wouldn't have even bothered but I was keen to get experience with it in case I decide to rent it, in which case I'd really want to maximise those 5 days. It was actually that second (Grofe) experience that proved to me that it is quite a labour-intensive application as it gets a lot of things wrong. In the Grofe, it even got the key wrong (went down a semi-tone for the last two movements) and had heaps of trouble with the first violin section and even more trouble again with the violin solo in the Grand Canyon Suite.

I was actually listening to my rip file of the Faust on my good loungeroom system last night. There were some parts of it where Capstan got it so wrong, I decided to cut and paste the original (uncapstaned) version into those segments. Otherwise it would have been hours of editing small sections of 5 or 10 seconds or so. On the one hand, the "fixed" bits show what brilliant work Capstan can achieve. On the other hand, it shows how much work would be required to make a whole recording "perfect". If I were a remastering engineer, I'd probably have to charge for about 10 hours work just for the 45 minutes of that recording, if the client wanted something that was "perfect". Obviously nothing beats fixing the problem at the very source (Plangent) but then again, that cannot be used in every analogue to digital situation such as disc to digital.

As for record preparation, it is nothing special. I just roll the record with my roller cleaner to get rid of obvious debris, then wet clean and vacuum it twice per side using my humble Record Doctor vacuum machine.

 

[Bruce B]

Thanks very much guys. I try to put a lot of effort into them because these transfers are "for life". The equipment in absolute terms is relatively modest,, but there is a lot of customisation in the hardware done by me and a heck of a lot of software tweaking (yes, the latter does make a difference)..

Cool set up you have there. If you pay attention to detail, even the most modest systems can sound like a million bucks!

 

[Fiddle Faddle]

Here is an example where Capstan just falls apart. The effect is typical of what happens and where manual interventions are required. In this case, it could not "lock on" to the incredibly quiet opening of the Grand Canyon Suite. The MP3 here is massively amplified so you don't need to adjust your TV sets to hear the problem From 13 seconds onwards, Capstan is doing it's thing properly but prior to that, it is actually a hundred times worse than the original audio (which as I say, was mildly wow effected, probably because this release was cut from a distribution copy of the master back in the days when they probably made scores of them on semi professional open reel machines to send out to the various cutting rooms).

Sorry about the noise on the vinyl - it was a bargain bin and these signals are actually incredibly quiet in any case, hence the need for massive amplification.

https://www.sendspace.com/file/kbyybf

 

[Fiddle Faddle]

Cool set up you have there. If you pay attention to detail, even the most modest systems can sound like a million bucks!

Coming from you Bruce, that means a heck of a lot. Thank you.