How Good Can Vinyl Sound?, Anyone got some sample clips? Options

[sshd]

I do not own a turntable and have never heard the "great vinyl sound" coming from a good turntable handled correctly. I am however sligltly interested in purchasing one, as there are some interesting albums out there unavailable on CD.

Recently I found a small clip on the net: A lossless needledrop of Santana's debut album on the MFSL label. Since I own the CD on same label I had something to compare with: I was very disappointed with the needle drop. There were no pops or clicks, but the sound was dead.

Can anyone provide some sample clips of very good needle drops?

[Cavaille]

So, here they are.

Some of this music is mainstream, some is not. I encoded them with Nero AAC for better convenience. Every track is in 24/96, coming from the 32/192 source. Every track was recorded with the lowest speed the turntable offered, which means that in case of 45 records the recording took awfully long I recorded them with my E-MU 0202 USB interface (with ASIO) that was feeded directly from the turntable. Then I did a first de-clicking and de-crackling and I also de-noised most of the tracks very, very carefully. After that I did the speedup with Sound Forge (after testing of course if Sound Forge would introduce distortions, which it didn´t). By doing the speedup after the first processing steps I was able to move possible distortions from the de-noising process out of the main frequency area. Then I did a second de-clicking & de-crackling and after that I applied the RIAA-curve with iZotope Ozone 4. I did some EQing on every track to adjust the sound to the original (coming from CD) or to my liking.

I did all processing steps very carefully. That´s why I had to remove remaining clicks manually by hand. In some cases this took an awful lot of time. I´ll now list the state of the tracks. Some records were played back wet - how could I have done this? Some records are fairly old and worn out. But listen for yourself.

HIStory, Michael Jackson (rest his soul): very seldomly played, original release (1995), 33 1/3 LP
Im Nin' Alu, Ofra Haza: worn out, severe clicks, 45 single
Theresa, Jan Hammer: original release (1987), seldomly played, 33 1/3 LP
Little Lady, Aneka: completely worn out, severe clicks, severe distortions, played wet, 45 single
Miles Away, Madonna: brand new, never played, coloured vinyl, original release (2008) 33 1/3 LP
Gremlins, Jerry Goldsmith: original release (1984), often played, 33 1/3
Smaointe..., Enya: seldomly played, played wet, severe distortions, 45 single
The Empire strikes back, John Williams: often played, several distortions, original release (1980), 33 1/3
Viva La Felicita, De-Phazz: often played, used for DJing by my boyfriend, original release (2002), 33 1/3
Woman in Love, Barbra Streisand: often played, original release (1980), 33 1/3

Before I forget: vinyls coming from before 1987 are not mine. They were bought by my parents and I saved them from the garbage can.

Equipment used: Grundig PS 3500 (DirectDrive, adjustable speed, rebadged Technics, date of manufacturing ca. 1977 or 1978). Cartridge: the one that came with the turntable (!), the needle was replaced with a new one six years ago. A/D converter: E-MU 0202 USB. Software: Sound Forge 9.0, iZotope Ozone 4, iZotope RX Advanced, Algorithmix DeClicker.

P.S.: thank God the CD was developed.

This post has been edited by Cavaille: Jan 26 2010, 14:18