One for the Vinyl addicts

[Deleted]

"The RIAA defines acceptable frequency losses for LPs as down to 20 kHz after 1 play, 18 kHz after 3, 17 kHz after 5, 16 kHz after 8, 14 kHz after 15, 13 kHz after 25, 10 kHz after 35, and 8 kHz after 80 plays."

I think I will stick with my CDs !

[tomo]

+1 for excellent information. Save us all money ... in this dark time ... while allowing us to enjoy the same heavenly moments of time.

[Nigel]

Linn have stopped making cd players, yet they continue to produce a turntable.

This is what you need then if your hearing can pick up the supposed frequency losses.

www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/viewpoint/0404/aachapter55.htm

[robertkd]

can anyone actually tell me what was/is so good about vinyl again

[quote
Specifications
System Contact-Free, 5 Beam Optical Record Player
Function
Play



Pause
Display
Drawer system (Open/Close)
Automatic lead-in, lead-out
Programming (Max. 15 songs)
Forward and back scan (2 speed)
Forward and back search
Cueing (Muting)
Total, Elapsed, Remaining time
Record size, Revolution
Record Type Black Records
Drive System Computer Controlled Belt-Drive system

Revolution
Speed Control


Record Size
LT-2XRC LT-1XRC LT-1LRC
30rpm to 50rpm
0.1rpm steps
60rp to 90rpm
0.2rpm steps
7",8",9",10",11",12" 30rpm to 50rpm
0.1rpm steps
60rpm to 90rpm
0.2rpm steps
7",10",12" 30rpm to 50rpm
0.1rpm steps


7",10",12"
Frequency 9Hz to 40kHz
Channel Separation Depends on separation of Records
>25 db (20Hz to 20,000Hz, DIN 45 543 Test Record)
Output 4.3mVrms 5cm/s 1kHz Lateral
9.7mVrms 8cm/s 1kHz 45° Left or Right modulation
11.3cm/s 1kHz Lateral (much like MM cartridge)
Distortion <0.5% DIN45 543 1kHz Ref. Level
S/N Ratio >55db (Weighted) Ref. Level
Wow & Flutter <0.07% WRMS
Output Terminal RCA pin jacks
Power Supply Voltage 100V 50/60Hz, 120, 220, or 240V Available
Power Consumption 80W (Max.)
Size 470 x 480 x 170 (WxDxH in mm)
Weight 19kg
[/quote]

you gotta luv 55db S/N and 25db separation as well as the rest of the p-poor preformance of vinyl, I think tomo is onto something when it comes to vinyl

[Deleted]

can anyone actually tell me what was/is so good about vinyl again

YES, the end product, the sound of music.

IMHO, a high quality, record deck, combined with equally high end arm and cartridge combination, played through the same amp, speaker setup, with GOOD vinyl, will give a more pleasing sound to my ear than my digital gear.

I like my CD player a lot and it sounds great, and the list you have given make using it a much easier convenient way of playing music, and it is used most of the time, but for pure listening pleasure give me my Linn, Zeta ,Koetsu combination any time, it gives a presence to the music that i have yet to hear from digital.

But this is a debate that has been going on for years, no rights or wrongs, just preferences.

[Nigel]

Although CDs have a wider dynamic range, mastering houses are often encouraged to compress the audio on CDs to make it as loud as possible: It's the so-called loudness war. Since the audio on vinyl can't be compressed to such extremes, records generally offer a more nuanced sound.

Another reason for vinyl's sonic superiority is that no matter how high a sampling rate is, it can never contain all of the data present in an analog groove, Nyquist's theorem to the contrary.


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem

www.wired.com/entertainment/music/commentary/listeningpost/2007/10/listeningpost_1029

[Nigel]

Nyquist's theorem.

Obviously I don't understand a word of it. I posted it for our Australian boffins. lol

Bit difficult to argue against Nyquist though. "No matter how high a sampling rate is, it can never contain all of the data present in an analog groove, Nyquist's theorem to the contrary."

[Deleted]

Nov 23, 2009 15:51:12 GMT Nigel said:

Nyquist's theorem.

Obviously I don't understand a word of it. I posted it for our Australian boffins. lol

Bit difficult to argue against Nyquist though. "No matter how high a sampling rate is, it can never contain all of the data present in an analog groove, Nyquist's theorem to the contrary."

Hi Nigel
To the contrary, I do not want to hear all the rumble, scraping, and other mechanical noises from a stylus plowing it's way through a less than pristine record groove. Even then there are still all those added noise, and mechanical resonances, and of course, unlike the diamond in your wife's engagement ring, those tinly little diamond chips in styluses do wear markedly, much more than people notice because of the slow degradation, which in turn causes further groove wear.
I would prefer a guaranteed lifetime response from a CD of up to
22.05 KHZ than the diminishing returns from a favouite vinyl recording played quite often . In any case, the master tapes often extend WAY past what a vinyl recording with it's limited dynamic range and frequency response is capable of reproducing. That is why there is now a demand for 24bit /96kHZ and MUCH higher, downloads.

mastering houses are often encouraged to compress the audio on CDs to make it as loud as possible:

Nigel
Lest you have forgotten, many vinyl recordings sounded even worse, becaus of vastly reduced dynamic range, in an effort to squeeze a larger album on one side of a record. I had a Bette Midler album, and it was an absolute shocker ! Many pop releases on vinyl suffered a similar fate,especially compilation albums. How soon you guys forget just how bad the majority of vinyl releases had become just as CD was coming in! YUK !!!


Alex
P.S.
I did however love my half speed mastered vinyl recordings from earlier HI FI shows, but I wasn't game to play them too often !

[Deleted]

I'm going to agree with heliharris and Nigel on this one.

My turntable playback is still sonically superior to that of my CD, for me.

YES, there can be noise and yes it's less convenient, and the fact of poor examples, whether that be due to compression, poor media etc.
BUT, there are as many shoddy cds out there as LPs, bad transfers, (remember alot of back-catalogue music being rushed out, after CD was launched, of very iffy quality), loudness wars etc.

The figures don't mean too much, as the recent spate of "check-sum" posts shows only too well.

Given a good recording, well deposited onto its media, it's LP nearly every time for me. There is a depth, realism of tone, expanse and sheer impact that cds usually have less of.

Whether the download medium can finally put this one to bed I don't know, as my equipment for this is of only basic quality. To my mind the potential is there though.

So, for moment at least, LP still rules in my listening room but I am very curious about the HQ downloads and the future they promise.

[rowuk]

Digital gets blamed for a lot of stuff in the chain that is rolled off by a vinyl chain. Most highest quality microphones have a nasty resonance between 20,000 ond 40,000 Hz. Vinyl won't reproduce it, but digital will. Microphones have gotten a lot better since the premium vendors have the audible bandwidth and dynamic range...........

My record deck sounds just fine, but the much lower noise floor on my live digital multitrack masters really is an added dimension.

[bizzie]

I have some vinyl albums that are 50 years old and still play perfectly well with very few pops and clicks if any and sound absolutely fabulous, I also have at least three CD's less than ten years old that have suffered from CD rot and will not play any more they have not been abused and have spent more time sitting on a shelf than being played.

[Deleted]

Dec 7, 2009 19:38:41 GMT bizzie said:

I have some vinyl albums that are 50 years old and still play perfectly well with very few pops and clicks if any and sound absolutely fabulous, I also have at least three CD's less than ten years old that have suffered from CD rot and will not play any more they have not been abused and have spent more time sitting on a shelf than being played.

bizzie
The type of printing ink used with many earlier CDs is the culprit. The best that you can hope for is to use a good optical reader,and EAC in Secure Mode. This sometimes allows recovery of the content for burning to a new CD. However, with such CDs with pinholes, the recovery speed may even drop to as low as 1/10th speed due to massive error correction.
SandyK

[Nigel]

Alex,



I thought of you earlier reading this quote from the latest edition of Hi-Fi World.

"Measurements I made recently show that LP has, in any case, superior performance to CD. CD's 16 bit word is laced with quantization distortion, one reason it sounds so hards & unnatural."

Noel Keywood Hi-Fi World magazine January 2010 edition.

Alex originally wrote,

"The RIAA defines acceptable frequency losses for LPs as down to 20 kHz after 1 play, 18 kHz after 3, 17 kHz after 5, 16 kHz after 8, 14 kHz after 15, 13 kHz after 25, 10 kHz after 35, and 8 kHz after 80 plays."

I think I will stick with my CDs !

[Deleted]

"Measurements I made recently show that LP has, in any case, superior performance to CD. CD's 16 bit word is laced with quantization distortion, one reason it sounds so hards and unnatural"

Nigel
Which measurements ? Signal to noise ? Frequency response ? Dynamic Range? Channel Separation? A well recorded CD is far superior in every one of those parameters to a normal LP, and stays that way for the life of the CD, unlike the reduction in performance every time an LP is played. Then of course,with an LP there is groove distortion, minor tracking problems, stylus wear,record warp to some degree,wow and flutter, and every bloody tone arm /cartridge combination sounds different, as do different types of turntable mats.
All the information is there on a good CD, that will enable it to shit all over an LP.
The basic problem is that very few CD players are able to do justice to what is on the CD.There is far too much jitter with a typical CD player due to that flimsy piece of polycarbonate rotating at such a high speed, and a typical CD player is unable to overcome these inherent problems. What I am getting off CD via the PC is now way ahead of the SQ from any affordable CD player. The latest direction is to play back a CD from memory. This type of player is just starting to emerge. The rather expensive Naim HDX is already here.
BTW, it is jitter that makes CD playback sound hard and cold with the vast majority of CD players. Don't forget also, that you have most likely spent greatly in excess of what a good CD player would cost with your own vinyl set up.
Alex
P.S.
Robert has already spelled out very clearly, the limitations of Vinyl.

[Nigel]

OK Alex, I have 500 or so cd's in my collection. Please tell me the equipment I will need, with the minimum expenditure required, in order to make them sound as good as my LP's? If I could achieve an equivalent performance, I'd be well pleased.

[Deleted]

Dec 9, 2009 13:14:16 GMT Nigel said:

OK Alex, I have 500 or so cd's in my collection. Please tell me the equipment I will need, with the minimum expenditure required, in order to make them sound as good as my LP's? If I could achieve an equivalent performance, I'd be well pleased.

You and me both, Nigel. My turntable dumps on my cdp from a great height. However, I've given up on a CDP being able to extract the data to its full potential, as Alex was hitting on. Solid state, flash sticks etc., is definitely the way forward. After we've got the festive season out of the way I'll start chasing this grail. Maybe starting with the SC HQDAC!

[Deleted]

Dec 9, 2009 13:14:16 GMT Nigel said:

OK Alex, I have 500 or so cd's in my collection. Please tell me the equipment I will need, with the minimum expenditure required, in order to make them sound as good as my LP's? If I could achieve an equivalent performance, I'd be well pleased.

Nigel
Why not check with someone like Syd or Will to see how they are progressing ? Leo does of course have more expensive DIY options that quite frankly are beyond my financial reach these days, but SQ that when he says it is sensational, I believe him.
I will have to come back to you on this,as haven't even had breakfast or BP pills yet !
Alex

[Deleted]

Nigel

I can certainly vouch for an awful lot of Alex's findings, AND the quality of his equipment advice. I knew virtually nothing about electronics other than roughly what the components did and looked like. I still don't know much but since coming to this forum via a quest to mod my X-Cans V3 which I did very satisfactorily with Mike's guidance and components, I have so far upgraded my X-DAC V3 to full AK-mods standard. I say full but the upgrade update service (Alex!) has just recommended two further improvements which I have now ordered the parts for. I also have an X-PSU with the MF toroid removed and two lower power replacements installed in the case along with an AK-Mods JLH and Jaycar PSU. The two in combination are 'way up there' for SQ. I have a small collection of fairly expensive hi-fi equipment and of course they all have their own character but I get the most pleasure and use from this modded stuff. Using HD650s, which I never found particularly revealing, I can now make out words in songs that I only guessed at in the past (and I have CDs of some fairly old recordings which I had assumed weren't that clear in the first place). This is because I am now feeding re-ripped (EAC) wavs using a 3M damped BD to my VERY well 3M damped (see picture elsewhere on RG!) HDD. Again following Alex's advice I have added some of the tape around the cradle the HDD sits in and slowed the fans, switching some off and using rubber mounts for others. I have done all this stage by stage as I have been convinced of the improvements gleaned at each point. I don't have quite the sound perception that Alex, Leo, Miguel, Will, Matt etc have but I know what I have now is many levels ahead of where I started.

I am about to re-cap my venerable MF A3 amp with considerable support from Matt, who has already guided me through the modding of its PCB to take removable opamps which brought the A3 up to a high standard of detail and musicality.

I started off to put an opinion on how to assemble a reasonably-priced high definition PC together but decided I would like to set out an appreciation of the folk who helped me get to this point.

I'm delighted with the sound from my PC but still liked the idea of a small even quieter dedicated HDD music source.

So, I read Will's artcle on his proposed miniature ITX system but things move fast in the PC world so I got advice from my PC-enthusiast son regarding later updates to what is available since Will wrote his ideas down. Consequently Santa is bringing the following- (Will gave it his Seal of Approval )

Zotac ION-ITX-C Fanless 1.6GHz Atom N230 Mini-ITX Board with DC Input £136.85 inc. VAT

M350 Universal Mini-ITX Enclosure £40.25 inc. VAT

Add 4GB Crucial memory, £76 and a remote from Kustom PCs, about £30. For now I decided on a WD Blue 2.5” 500GB HDD £60. I chose this, and it will be 3M'd, as it is reputed to be one of the quietest drives out there and has the lower 5400RPM. I was on the point of ordering a 160GB Intel SSD but I have read some scare stories of late on SSD so I'm holding off for now. This set-up is fanless so I'm hoping for even better SQ but certainly quieter in the room. It can't do above 24/96 but I'm happy with that and it has optical and SPDIF out. I intend to position this on my hifi stand with the LG BD ripper beside it. I'll use a netbook for communicating. This latest board can also play HD movies via the LG, which is a bonus for me.

Finally for now, by Christmas I'm hoping that my Buffalo DAC will be assembled, following a LOT of assistance from Will to ensure I don't blow it up and from Leo for some very welcome technical guidance concerning an issue with PH buffers. A final ? Drawing and explanation from Will has enabled me to order the last bits. I bought the Buffalo board back in April as there was so much talk about it but I have to say it will need to be very good to beat my present DAC.

I have a fairly high-end TT and phono amp but I couldn't live with the surface noise and clicks and pops that infest LPs no matter how careful I am with them. I miss its ornament factor but the sound I'm getting now, I don't miss its music. Its in the garage. This is better.

Juke

[Will]

Syd, what a great post! It pretty much sums up how I feel with what I have attained with my own system. For a PC based player, it's the removal of moving bits (especially fans) that is the main improvement. This coupled with a motherboard that can be fed by a single DC supply, which can be a DIY linear job (coming eventually, just need to pull my finger out), cuts a load of background hash out.

The drawback is that you do have to DIY, it seems, unless you are happy to splash on a Naim HDX or similar. I expect to drop £300-400 on my musicPC over the next year or so, and you can guess the costs to bring my Buffalo32 upto scratch. (Mind you, the next version will be much more user DIY friendly www.diyaudio.com/forums/twisted-pear/143315-twisted-pear-audio-buffalo32s-73.html#post2003348, thanks Phil!) On top of this is the work before hand to get the music onto disk ready to play, carefully ripped etc. I'm writing this to give a balance to the benefits that I perceive.

One thing I would say is that years ago, a mate of mine had a TT system. Roksan Xerxes, Audiolab Pre/power and Epos ES11. It sounded awesome, much better than my systems ever have. With music fed by PC to my Buffalo, and then onto my AK Class A HA, I'm now getting that same 'Oohh!' factor that I had when listening to the TT. Obviously, I can't compare directly, as his system got sold off, but the impact form memory is there.

All's Good!

[Deleted]

Will
Have you gone to +-20V supply rails in the HA yet ? It does get noticeably better.
Alex

[Will]

All the bits arrived yesterday. I'm away next week, so will be taking the relevant parts with me, and making use of the evenings in the hotel to play catch up with my diy.

[Nigel]

Many thanks.

So at the moment it's a choice between a patchwork quilt of computer peripherals or a £4 500 Naim hard disc player?

[bigtony]

I'm confused about all this PC technology used for streaming music off your HDD.
WHy not use a dedicated music stremer, like a Squeezebox3, that wirelessly streams the FLACs off your HDD and decodes it next to your DAC/AMP?

I tested it out, BIT by BIT by streaming FLAC and then taking the coax digital output into my PC as a WAV and comparing the bits, and they were a 100% match. I currently run the SB3 in an Audio-gd DAC 3SE, and its a pretty impressive sound - better than I've ever managed from my vinyl - and without the usual vinyl woes (pop's, skips, jumps farts etc - or 'jazz clicks' as my mate likes to call them).

I also have an Onkyo IPod dock that outputs BIT perfect from Apple lossless - which is a simpler system, and with 160GB of stoarge on the IPod, a decent size and a competive price for a system if you don't want the bother of a PC in the mix. Just hook up a DAC/AMP and your good to go.

[Deleted]

Dec 10, 2009 11:27:51 GMT bigtony said:

I'm confused about all this PC technology used for streaming music off your HDD.
WHy not use a dedicated music stremer, like a Squeezebox3, that wirelessly streams the FLACs off your HDD and decodes it next to your DAC/AMP?

I tested it out, BIT by BIT by streaming FLAC and then taking the coax digital output into my PC as a WAV and comparing the bits, and they were a 100% match. I currently run the SB3 in an Audio-gd DAC 3SE, and its a pretty impressive sound - better than I've ever managed from my vinyl - and without the usual vinyl woes (pop's, skips, jumps farts etc - or 'jazz clicks' as my mate likes to call them).

I also have an Onkyo IPod dock that outputs BIT perfect from Apple lossless - which is a simpler system, and with 160GB of stoarge on the IPod, a decent size and a competive price for a system if you don't want the bother of a PC in the mix. Just hook up a DAC/AMP and your good to go.

bigtony
Put simply, with higher resolution gear, many of us are able to hear clear differences between the original .wav file and a reconverted "lossless" file,despite the checksums being identical. The differences have also been verified by Peter St. who is the lead designer off XXHE software player, which plays audio files from system memory,(www.phasure.com) and a German Mastering Engineer. Claudius from Computer Audiophile has a brother who is a Recording Engineer, and he asked his brother's friend to listen to comparison files that I had uploaded. Sorry, but a Squeezebox is of insufficient resolution to hear these kind of differences unless you have far better than average listening abilities. Also, spinning HDDs "muddy the waters" in comparison to SSD. That was reported also by the Editor of Computer Audiophile. The culprit is Jitter , (although the actual binary files are a binary match.) which is usually caused by noise and vibration from fans, PSU, HDD activity etc. The more fans you have running, the worse it is likely to be.To make matters worse, a couple of fans running at not quite the same speed , cause a beat note, which can vary from a couple of HZ to considerably higher in frequency. As well as which, there is internal vibration in the Optical readers and HDDs.
SandyK.

P.S.
Dozens of comparison files have been uploaded over a period of time to interested RG members and others.

[Will]

Dec 10, 2009 11:01:52 GMT Nigel said:

Many thanks.

So at the moment it's a choice between a patchwork quilt of computer peripherals or a £4 500 Naim hard disc player?

That's a pretty succinct way of putting it

What Syd and I are doing is building a PC specifically to playback music on. I always built my own PC's, so all it takes for my is a change of approach. My end result will be a modushop type case, with a touchscreen for control, with a mini-itx pc motherboard inside. Eventually it will have no harddrives, playingback from ssd/memory. The output will be SPDIF, from the soundcard plugged into the motherboard. So a collection of pc components rather than peripherals (As I am a pedant ) Great care will be taken to minimise jitter causing vibration, and also clean PSU.

Another approach is to use your existing PC, and see what it can do. Yours may already have a spdif output, which you can plug into your existing DAC (If you have one). If you don't have a spdif out, then you can pick up a decent soundcard for £35 (I bought one detailed in the computer section) Alex will have some files that you could try, which you could download onto a USB stick, and playback, to have a taste. If you like it, set about quieting your PC, reducing vibration using the methods that are floating about on the forum. It does seem that the more you put into quieting the PC, the better the music out.
My current combination of a £35 sound card in the PC I built several years ago (albeit to be very quiet (passive heatsink, two slow 120mm fans), with no further vibration reduction, is much better than my Arcam Alpha CD player, when you feed either of them spdif into the Buffalo.

I think personally that this kind of discussion can rumble on (ZX Spectrum vs. Commodore64, Valve vs. Silicon, Blond vs. Brunette..) but I think it's great we all get musical satisfaction from different things and ways of reproduction, otherwise we'd all have the same stuff, and that'd be boring!