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

[jamie_P84]

So, here they are.

Despite my having registered and logged in, these downloads do not work for me.
The filenames are listed but they are not links. Am I missing something here?

However, one thing I can say without playing them is that all the years you've listed for those records are post-1979.

The problem here is that between approx 1975 and 1979, the vast majority of record cutting plants installed digital "cutting delays" in-line between the analogue open-reel tape recorders and the cutting lathe. From what I've been told by an ex-engineer, these were originally 12-bit and 32KHz, and they added an audio delay to the tape output of several seconds. Later models (in the 80s) used higher bit depths and sample rates.
These devices were installed for work saving reasons; When cutting a record, the engineer has to manually press a button which generates the "shiny space" we see between tracks on the surface of LPs. The "cutting delay" was used to give him advanced warning of the end of each track (by monitoring the live output from the tape recorder), so that he knew when to press the button.
Prior to this, the engineer had to listen to the tape once-over in full and write all the timings down, before firing up the cutting equipment.

So basically, all of the records you've listed have been mastered from a digital source, negating most of the potential advantages of vinyl.

Before someone points it out, I have found that when looking at the output of my digitally-mastered records on a spectrum analyser, there is content above 16KHz (and even above 24KHz) when in theory there shouldn't be. However, I can only assume that this is some form of distortion from my playback equipment, because it's even present on records which have been cut from digital studio masters (where the CD version is marked DDD or ADD).

This post has been edited by jamie_P84: Feb 3 2010, 21:50

[Arnold B. Kruege...]

The problem here is that between approx 1975 and 1979, the vast majority of record cutting plants installed digital "cutting delays" in-line between the analogue open-reel tape recorders and the cutting lathe. From what I've been told by an ex-engineer, these were originally 12-bit and 32KHz, and they added an audio delay to the tape output of several seconds. Later models (in the 80s) used higher bit depths and sample rates.
These devices were installed for work saving reasons; When cutting a record, the engineer has to manually press a button which generates the "shiny space" we see between tracks on the surface of LPs. The "cutting delay" was used to give him advanced warning of the end of each track (by monitoring the live output from the tape recorder), so that he knew when to press the button.
Prior to this, the engineer had to listen to the tape once-over in full and write all the timings down, before firing up the cutting equipment.

So basically, all of the records you've listed have been mastered from a digital source, negating most of the potential advantages of vinyl.

The digital cutting delays that I'm familiar with were all 16/44 or better. We did an ABX of Ampex ADD1 and found that it was undetectiable by ear.

There is an ad for the Ampex ADD-1 digital delay for cutting rooms in the Oct 6. 1979 issue of Billboard.

The purpose of the delay was to facilitate automated setting of groove pitch. The delay provided a "look ahead" signal that was used to increase groove pitch for loud passages beofre the louder, wider pitch groove was cut. About a half second delay would suffice.