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Topic: Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl (Read 23934 times) previous topic - next topic
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Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

The most amusing read I had in 2013 was Alan A. Shaw, the founder of Harbeth Audio UK mercilessly trashing vinyl for what it is. I had no idea this man is such a devoted rationalist, objectivist, proud engineer and a professional. I always had the BBC LS3/5A + LP12 stereotype about Harbeth, the quintessential British flat earth arrogant company. He convinced me that Harbeth is the absolute opposite of this, yet not shy of its engineering heritage.

I sound like a damn pamphlet.

On his Harbeth User Group Forum he is debunking the Vinyl vs Digital myth with logic, engineering knowledge and he got so ramped up and mad he went on and did actual measurements and just kept trashing the woo woo.

An honest appraisal of vinyl v. digital - romance v. reality?

I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. Demonstrably I went and threw my turntable in the bloody garbage bin and was pretty chuffed. Thank you Alan! Screw B&W and Tannoy, my next speakers will be HARBETH!

I am sick of diplomacy and making the battered wife toe tapping around self important subjectivist, tube amp and vinyl aficionados. They should be the ones ashamed for listening to the inferior media, not me. I don't care if they enjoy the collecting and ritual of it, but claiming it superior?!

Anyway...

Alan also has a video on page 9 in that forum thread. But for convenience and palate cleansing before you dig in, here it is as youtube preview.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFxiLeQmb5k


Sincerely,

I Hate Michael Fremer

Quote
"At this juncture, a passing space alien would conclude that the concept of stamping a vinyl record and replaying it in the unfiltered atmosphere with a contact tip was going to subject the vulnerable grooves to degradation, and rightly speaking, the discussion should stop here and now. Any replay system, whether mechanical, electronic, optical, chemical or whatever that introduces such variability into the replay process - no two discs are alike - has to be considered a stepping stone towards a system that can mass produce identical media which do not degrade over at least one human lifetime.

We all have a romantic attachment to events, and equipment, from the past. Old cars, old motorbikes, old girlfriends, old books, old photographs, old films, old shoes: an endless list. And long should we collectively applaud and respect the efforts of our forefathers who truly believed that they were living at the very pinnacle of technology. A look at the audio ads from the '50s proves that point. But we do have to draw a line between fulfilling our deep emotional needs - a highly personal and essential activity - and expanding the umbrella of legitimacy beyond ourselves, embroiling others in our personal dream. I hear comments like 'I told you that vinyl was better - the proof is that vinyl record sales are dramatically increasing' transforms an entirely personal position into a society-wide justification, which in marketing/revenue terms, is complete rubbish.

I'd wager that there is not one single recording engineer at the peak of his powers in the late 50s who would not have sold his very soul to the devil at that time to get his hands on digital technology. He, and the performers, would have struggled against the chronic limitations of the technology, and we today would have a far richer and more faithful legacy had we jumped directly from 78 shellac to digital. And now those great artists have departed the stage, and all we have is a shadow of their magnificence."

Alan A. Shaw
Designer, owner
Harbeth Audio UK

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #1
Big thanks to the mods for helping out with allocating my posts. I'm still a bit new in navigating my way around HA.


Cheers.


Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #2
I agree about the points, and I'm probably not even qualified to kiss Alan's shoes, but there are a couple of issues...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFxiLeQmb5k
I don't think that shows amplitude modulation. It's low frequency noise (rumble) superimposed on a high frequency tone. The amplitude of the tone is preserved just fine. Any distortion is inaudible on that tiny speaker and invisible on a linear scale waveform plot like that.

Quote
I'd wager that there is not one single recording engineer at the peak of his powers in the late 50s who would not have sold his very soul to the devil at that time to get his hands on digital technology. He, and the performers, would have struggled against the chronic limitations of the technology, and we today would have a far richer and more faithful legacy had we jumped directly from 78 shellac to digital. And now those great artists have departed the stage, and all we have is a shadow of their magnificence."
I think recording engineers of the past would have loved digital - but from the late 1950s onwards, the equipment existed to make more that good enough recordings of non-classical music, albeit at a very high cost to start with. It wasn't always done, and it wasn't often delivered to the consumer, but CD re-issues of the best older stereo recordings today are more than good enough IMO. I don't listen to them wishing that they'd been recorded direct to digital.

If we're being really picky, I don't think we do a great job of reproducing large scale classical music even to this day, but clearly far better than we could in the 1950s. Tape hiss often spoilt it back then. Now it's "just" transducers and 2-channel stereo that still take us a long way from the real thing.

Great thread though.

Cheers,
David.


Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #4
Some great links later in the thread, especially in this post...
http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/showthr...26216#post26216

FWIW I have the same test disc...
http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/showthr...26282#post26282
...and the same track on CD. The problem with such tests is that you only need to play the test disc once with a cartridge that's mistracking, and the damage is burnt into the LP. It'll never sound correct again. Having been played in the late 1960s, these test discs (unless sealed/unused) are now hopeless for getting the best out of a modern cartridge. They all have 1960s-quality-cartridge mistracking burnt into them.

He's got some very noisy and damaged LPs.

Oh, he's lost me now - he's posted a link to some 1960s Decca Phase Four Stereo Edmundo Ross LPs. I grew up with this stuff. Though it sounds better on CD (when mastered from decent tapes) but more kitsch (which it obviously is!) from a scratched LP.

EDIT: and he makes the best point about the damage modern audiophiles obsession with vinyl has caused in this post...
http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/showthr...26350#post26350

Cheers,
David.

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #5
EDIT: and he makes the best point about the damage modern audiophiles obsession with vinyl has caused in this post...
http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/showthr...26350#post26350

If you are referring to where he apparently lays the blame for the loudness war on vinylphiles putting their heads in the sand, I strongly disagree. The loudness war is a mainstream phenomenon driven by the iPod generation. The beliefs of fringe communities such as vinylphiles count for nothing.

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #6
If you are referring to where he apparently lays the blame for the loudness war on vinylphiles putting their heads in the sand, I strongly disagree. The loudness war is a mainstream phenomenon driven by the iPod generation. The beliefs of fringe communities such as vinylphiles count for nothing.


Driven, maybe, but it didn't start with them, it started sometime in the nineties, around a middle.
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Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #7
EDIT: and he makes the best point about the damage modern audiophiles obsession with vinyl has caused in this post...
http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/showthr...26350#post26350

If you are referring to where he apparently lays the blame for the loudness war on vinylphiles putting their heads in the sand, I strongly disagree. The loudness war is a mainstream phenomenon driven by the iPod generation. The beliefs of fringe communities such as vinylphiles count for nothing.
Not just vinylphiles, but the entire part of the audio community that used to care about actual sound quality, but somehow started caring more about placebo and snake oil. If they hadn't been distracted by all that, we might have seen greater success with decent surround formats, and far more recordings issued in an alternative (more dynamic) release to complement the compressed-to-death releases "for the masses".

"The masses" have done quite well. Loudness war aside, "normal" audio reproduction has gone from the Dansette to the Music Centre to the iPod. I still own all three, and it's one heck of a jump in sound quality! I'm not sure the high-end has jumped so far.

Cheers,
David.

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #8
I had no idea this man is such a devoted rationalist, objectivist, proud engineer and a professional.

He is also such a devoted proud and professional businessman - whose marketing phrases are so much different from those of his competitors:

Quote
Harbeth: made in the UK since 1977 - the world's most natural sounding loudspeakers

For people having all their buttons Shaw expresses only what the general consensus is for a long time. So why that going into raptures about him?
This is HA. Not the Jerry Springer Show.

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #9
If you are referring to where he apparently lays the blame for the loudness war on vinylphiles putting their heads in the sand, I strongly disagree. The loudness war is a mainstream phenomenon driven by the iPod generation. The beliefs of fringe communities such as vinylphiles count for nothing.


Driven, maybe, but it didn't start with them, it started sometime in the nineties, around a middle.


And flourished mainly by the hands of a certain Mr. Rick Rubin. 
Listen to the music, not the media it's on.
União e reconstrução

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #10
For people having all their buttons Shaw expresses only what the general consensus is for a long time. So why that going into raptures about him?
Because so few people in the audiophile market seem to have "all their buttons"?

I can't imagine many audiophile companies writing a FAQ like this...
http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/showthr...arbeths-at-home

I guess the history of the designs in a broadcast environment help.

I guess some of it could be clever marketing. I've never heard their speakers so can't comment.

Cheers,
David.

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #11
http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/showthr...arbeths-at-home
[blockquote]"Furthermore, we have heard of users who start a burn-in CD as they leave for work and return home to find that the noise has driven their dog frantic"[/blockquote] ... already at item #1. Gotta love the British.
(I recall some UK magazine's amp review, warning that your cat would love the design of the lid more than you would, unless you happen to appreciate the smell of tube-fried cat's hairs.)

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #12
After watching the youtube clip and reading the linked comments I have no words at all.

Who on Earth needs vinyl which cannot even properly record the audio stream, not to mention that there's no way to read the audio track without horrible distortions induced/introduced by the stylus?

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #13
For people having all their buttons Shaw expresses only what the general consensus is for a long time. So why that going into raptures about him?
Because so few people in the audiophile market seem to have "all their buttons"?

Assuming it were true that
  • Shaw is an audiophile (*),
  • audiophiles are normally idiots (*),
  • Shaw holds moderate opinions compared to other audiophiles:
This wouldn't justify to praise him to the skies (like the OP does) just because Shaw's views aren't as extreme as the average audiophile's opinions.

(*) Let us please avoid the vague, imprecise word "audiophile" in this context: you can take that term as a compliment or as a reproach as you know. Audiophilism [does that word exist?] isn't an occupation which you can take up. It's nothing, it says nothing about the professional qualifications and skills someone may have or may not have. Mr. Shaw isn't an audiophile! Mr. Shaw is in fact an academic person and has a broad education. So what has happened is that the university graduate Mr. Shaw has written something reasonable - not really impressive for an academic - and the OP sells that banality as a sensation, carrying Shaw's glorification to its limit, wants now to buy his speakers and don't even shrink from saying:

Quote
Demonstrably I went and threw my turntable in the bloody garbage bin

Both painful and grotesque.

Quote
Harbeth: made in the UK since 1977 - the world's most natural sounding loudspeakers

Replace that with "Jplay: the world's most natural sounding software"

No, I don't lump everything together, but I would like to keep my feet on the ground and wish the OP the same.
This is HA. Not the Jerry Springer Show.

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #14
EDIT: and he makes the best point about the damage modern audiophiles obsession with vinyl has caused in this post...
http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/showthr...26350#post26350

If you are referring to where he apparently lays the blame for the loudness war on vinylphiles putting their heads in the sand, I strongly disagree. The loudness war is a mainstream phenomenon driven by the iPod generation. The beliefs of fringe communities such as vinylphiles count for nothing.



The loudness war goes back to no later than the early days of the Vinyl LP and FM stereo.

Why was that?  For FM stereo the problem was that it vastly decreased the  usable range and dynamic range of DM stations. Vinyl LPs were arguably the first mass market medium that had what we would recognize as pretenses to high fidelity. Stereo LPs also had degraded dynamic range, partially due to lackings of pickup cartridge technology.

This timeline says that it was being addressed by purpose-built commercial signal processing products in 1967:

http://www.orban.com/about/timeline/

"That which has been is that which will be,
And that which has been done is that which will be done.
So there is nothing new under the sun."

Ecclesiastes 1:9

Well, kinda-sorta! ;-)

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #15
For people having all their buttons Shaw expresses only what the general consensus is for a long time. So why that going into raptures about him?
Because so few people in the audiophile market seem to have "all their buttons"?

I can't imagine many audiophile companies writing a FAQ like this...
http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/showthr...arbeths-at-home

I guess the history of the designs in a broadcast environment help.

I guess some of it could be clever marketing. I've never heard their speakers so can't comment.



In some sense you have heard their speakers. Really now, how many distinct ways are there to put a dome tweeter and miniature woofer in a stout little wooden box with a passive crosover?

Their claim to fame was that they produced a nice sounding version of the LS3/5a which was at the time or became essentially public domain, open source technology.

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #16
Stereo LPs also had degraded dynamic range, partially due to lackings of pickup cartridge technology.


... compared to ...?

Anyway, a limitation of the format is by no means the same as deliberately compressing in order to sound louder and make the competition sound flatter. Compromising due to technical limitations was the rule from day 1 of consumer audio - literally.

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #17
Stereo LPs also had degraded dynamic range, partially due to lackings of pickup cartridge technology.


... compared to ...?



Mono LPs. 

LP technology is relatively strong for information cut laterally, but inherently weak for information cut vertically. The strength of lateral cutting is such that for mono recording it was the chosen methodology after years of experimenting with both. The limit to lateral modulation is usually length of program material cut on a given diameter piece of media, not the geometric limits of the media like it is for vertical modulation.  Vertical modulation gets bit at both ends: You can't make a groove deeper than the thickness of the medium and environmental mechanical vibrations tend to be stronger in that direction.

The chosen stereo LP technology puts the information on two tracks that are at 45 degrees, allowing you to enjoy the pleasures of the technical problems related to trying to achieve clean and dynamic modulation  in both directions. IOW, you get the worst of both worlds.

Quote
Anyway, a limitation of the format is by no means the same as deliberately compressing in order to sound louder and make the competition sound flatter. Compromising due to technical limitations was the rule from day 1 of consumer audio - literally.


Compression is generally driven by a lack of dynamic range. With portable digital audio, the technical problems are external to the medium - they are in the context in which it is listened to. IOW people tend to listen to portable audio in noisy places - like on streets and in airplanes, cars and subways.

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #18
After watching the youtube clip and reading the linked comments I have no words at all.

Who on Earth needs vinyl which cannot even properly record the audio stream, not to mention that there's no way to read the audio track without horrible distortions induced/introduced by the stylus?



Consider the engineering problems associated with trying to create something as cheap, good sounding, reliable and all-around practical like a Sansa Fuze, only with vinyl LP technology... ;-)

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #19
The chosen stereo LP technology puts the information on two tracks that are at 45 degrees, allowing you to enjoy the pleasures of the technical problems related to trying to achieve clean and dynamic modulation  in both directions. IOW, you get the worst of both worlds.

Just to clarify, each track is at 45 degrees from vertical, so they are at 90 degrees to each other.

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #20
*sigh* opening so many cans of worms...

OK, so Vinyl. I like Vinyl. I collect records, and I like listening to them.

The debate what's better and what's not, has been going on since I can remember, and it is usually down to one's preference. Can you get superb quality out of Vinyls? Well, sure, you need a good quality Vinyl (not that Dynaflex crap), you need a decent record player, a decent amp, and a decent set of speakers or headphones. Any one of those things in the chain, can be the limiting factor.
OK, now what about digital? And I'm assuming the non-compressed version here, FLACs from masters or CDs if you want. Can you get superb quality out of that? Well, sure again, you need a decent player (with decent DACs in it), a decent amp, and a decent set of speakers or headphones.

Hmm, so what's the difference?

Well, digital is lifting the content from the media. It doesn't really matter if you're listing to a CD, or a lossless copy of a CD, that is bit-for-bit copied. This won't happen with Vinyl. There are things, that might lessen the quality of a Vinyl, things like age, mold of either the Vinyl itself, or the pick-up system. So there's a whole plethora of extra things that can get wrong when using Vinyl records. Also, a Vinyl isn't really portable, it is rather fragile and nowadays, quite expensive. It is almost impossible to copy, too.

Digital music is easier to archive, it just comes down to the DACs and everything after that that may lessen or improve sound quality, with Vinyl, there's the extra of the record may be making noises (apart from the music, duh...), or the pick-up system.

We've been developing digital encoding and decoding for decades now, the DACs and ADCs are of good quality these days, you can look into that if that's your thing, but even the mediocre DACs will do usually. Vinyls however, not so much. Sure, there are new polymer mixtures that produce less static, and don't age as as fast, and pick-up systems that aren't as susceptible to static and damage the record less, but still, it isn't seeing as much development as digital coding equipment, that's a given.

There's yet another can of worms that can - or maybe should - be opened: Mastering. I think by now everyone (at least everyone on here) has heard of the "loudness war". I don't remember exactly the psychology behind making a song as loud as possible. The last thing I've heard, was that a "louder" song sells easier because it sounds more memorable when listening to samples before buying. It seems as if music production moves more and more towards louder and louder tracks. For some people Vinyl is "better" exactly because of this fact. The better dynamic range, not due to technological limitations, but due to better mastering in the good old days.

So, what's about quality then? Well, it's down to limiting factors, obviously. But those limiting factors you're gonna find, are usually more down the line, a cheap amp or cheap speakers. When talking about value for money, digital is always the way to go. Quality really comes down to ones preference, though. This is why you really have to look at test results, not just sensor measurement, but also ABX test. Doing ABX tests to equipment, rather than sound files is even more tedious and boring.

A Vinyl is incredibly cumbersome in so many ways: It is fragile, even to the touch, it is definitely not mobile, it perishes after a while (although Vinyls can live seemingly forever when handled and stored correctly). So it is a good sounding novelty, if you're into the expensive stuff.

OK, let's open up yet another can of worms before we end this: Audiophiles. Now, in the mere sense of the word, being an Audiophile isn't a bad thing, it just means someone who "likes sound" or is "attracted to sound" - which is pretty much everyone of us... However the Audiophools, as I like to call them, is a different story.
On the plus side, Audiophools are present on the digital side of things as well! I've seen Audiophile Ethernet cables, IEC cables, everything. There's even some sort of felt pen, you're supposed to mark the outer rim of CDs, this will supposedly "trap" the laser beam inside the CD polymer and hence improve sound... Yeah, right. For some reason, Vinyl records became an object of great interest, which spawned a market next to the Audiophoolery market: Hipsters. There's a wide range of cheap, very bad quality record players out there right now, that try to cash in on the current surge of Vinyl records being in these days. In contrast to Audophiles, this will go away quickly, I believe.

To me, it is surprising how well a 70's record sounds today, if it's stored and handled well. It is quite comparable to current digital recordings in many ways, yet it is such an old medium. Put an old cassette in a player, and you wish you didn't. Reel-to-Reel is pretty expensive as a recording device, and takes up quite a lot of space, too. This is even more of a novelty.

So in conclusion, is good quality achievable with Vinyl: yes. Is it cheaper and easier (better value for money) with digital means: definitely so! Does digital music remove a lot of the headache you have with Vinyl: no question about that. Which is Vinyl better than digital: That's like saying "it's colder at night than outside", or "earlier everything was better, than TV", or the infamous "Oranges are better than Apples".


OK, I was writing this comment for two days now, and it got way longer that I wanted it to be. Then again I don't do many posts...

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #21
That vinyl is mastered differently from CD in terms of the usage of dynamic range compression isn't exactly a given.

Furthermore, considering that the most popular means of measuring this is bogus, I'd say the reported quantity of vinyl pressings that are more dynamic than their CD counterpart is grossly exaggerated.

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #22
@polemon, I don't think it's reasonable to be anti-vinyl or anti-audiophile and a lot of members here are neither. What I like about this site is that what's important is being honest about what we hear and verifiable audio phenomena. Weirdly this view is usually at odds with the conventional wisdom at many other enthusiast and manufacturer sites. Maybe not-so-weirdly.

The useless debate rages on almost daily. Here another recent article by Steve Guttenberg--just check the comments for terrifically misinformed (and some factual) information:
Want to get more out of music? Listen to LPs

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #23
That vinyl is mastered differently from CD in terms of the usage of dynamic range compression isn't exactly a given.

Well, what I was getting at, that arguably, the "loudness war" is a new thing. Back in the days where Vinyl was the primary way of distributing music, it wasn't as prominent, hence people get those, or use that as an argument.

I'd say the reported quantity of vinyl pressings that are more dynamic than their CD counterpart is grossly exaggerated.

If we'd compare contemporary Vinyl to a contemporary CD, this might be true, but again, I was comparing a vintage Vinyl to a modern CD repressing or a downloadable track. As in, the difference from mastering media in the 70s and now.

Alan A. Shaw on Vinyl

Reply #24
This thread made me listen to some records last night. I hadn't touched my turntable since before Christmas. Too busy. I still listened to CDs, FLACs and mp3s over Christmas though.

I wanted to hear something better than the really nasty vinyl transfers that YouTube is full of. Sadly, I found just the same flaws on my records. I always knew they were there, but it reminded me that when I listen to records a lot, I forgive the imperfections - whereas when I don't, and then I go back to records, the flaws really stand out. The opposite happens too: listen to records a lot (I've not listened to records exclusively for a very long time, but I remember a period when my CD player broke down and I did) then go back to CDs; the clarity is startling, unnerving, and somehow wrong.

Carefully declicked transfers of records sit somewere in the middle. Closer to a CD if the record was unworn. Closer to a record if there's some clearly audible distortion. Surprisingly good for a record. Surprisingly bad for a CD (though honestly, I've bought worse "real" CDs!).

Human perception is a funny thing.

Cheers,
David.

P.S. I couldn't enjoy records if I was looking for perfection. I realised this a few years back when I started taking it far too seriously I realised I wasn't enjoying it at all as a result. Whereas thinking "I am listening to the sound of the 1960s: it's cool for what it is, and it might not sound quite the same as last time you played it" is fine. Listening to music shouldn't be ruined by the worry about when the next click, pop, or distorted note is going to come. Get a different mindset or stick with CDs to solve that problem.
P.P.S. I find the barrage of constant noise on "pop" 78s far less annoying than occasional (relatively loud) clicks on classical LPs. The constant noise can be ignored. Isolated clicks can make you jump out of your chair.