30 years on...

Hi,

Of this list only Electronica, Hip-Hop (maybe, most current Hip-Hop/Rap is real awful) and folk would have much truck with me.

Can you suggest interesting independent record stores to go to (I refuse for the most to shop over the internet), north london would be good. I'm probably a little out of touch here in the 'burbs, the indepent shop I regulary pass on the way to work certainly does not have "shedloads" of vinyl and what they have is almost entierly DJ 12".

CD and LP are formats with different strength. One can make and produce exceptional recordings in either format, I have examples of both. A problem I note is that the introduction of the CD seems to have come at a time when also the standards in sound engineering seem to have declined and/or moved into directions I personally find disagreeable and it also seems that the duplication process does often do much to (irecoverably) mess up the masters.

The resulty is that I find around 50% of the LP's I own to be recorded to very high standards while maybe at best 20% of the CD's are.

FWIW, PCM Recording at 24Bit (nominal) and 96KHz or higher sample rate done well outperformd both LP and CD and truely gives you "master-tape" at home, for better or worth, but on the evidence of many SACD's and DVD-A's I hear at friends (and the few I got) too many sound engineers seem to be unable or unwilling produce recordings that show what is possible, not surprising given that few CD's explore the limits of what CD can manage.

Well, it looks like downloads will kill off physical music pretty soon, MAYBE this will get a really solid independent szene back who make excellent recordings of really good music. LSO Live is a good example (sadly with a bad sounding hall - I wish they could record in the RFH, not the Barbican).

Ciao T

 

Its not north but go to Soho, theres plenty there. Selectadisc is quite good, their recommendations are ususally worth following. Its no piccadilly records though

 

3D, also check out SisterRay is Soho, and Rough Trade is one of the best record shops in the country (the late John Peel was a regular apparently), one of which is based in Notting Hill, the other in Neal's Yard, just off Covent Garden. If ever the urge grabs you, one of the best internet shops is www.boomkat.com, lots of interesting stuff and you can listen before you buy too, and they are also very reliable - I have bought 'shedloads' of stuff from them

 

Name please - sounds interesting!

DVD is the superior format, but if you're gonna go for the LP/CD analogy, Laserdisc is also far superior to VHS, full analog picture, only 100 lines off of DVD's res, with no compression artefacts, a built-in toilet break at end-of-side, and LP size cover art.

...and at 12-1500 RPM and a fair old weight - it makes DVD look like a toy

As to pendulam/wow in suspended decks, no idea, but torguing a subchassis with a belt has to have some effect. And the comment about the British turntable with the problems that was fixed with a revised design - if that was the Rega Planar 3, than my mid-80s one never had that problem before I got the motor/PSU updated (the mod that solved the problem with some of the latter-made Planar3s). If it's another deck, tell us which one

 

The "no idea" bit is right.

The LP12 measures extremely well for speed stability.

 

Two things belts can do...

The motor/belt/platter is itself a springy subsystem (there was an article about the influence of belt elasticity years - decades - ago in HiFi News). It does the same sort of self-correction that servos do.

A belt can interfere with the symmetry of a spring suspension.

Designers may or may not take these factors into account, which will affect their audibility (or not); the second can be a significant factor when setting up a sprung suspension (again, depending on how the designer has specified tension and elasticity).

 

That's why it's so important to ensure that the platter is dead level when it is rotating. There was a joker here some time ago, who wrote off his LP12 without even bothering to get the platter level.

 

Hi,

A lengthy discussion of the shortcomings of various turntable principles is contained in a "review" by IAR's PM of the Rockport Turntable:

http://www.iar-80.com/page12.html

I would only add a few minor comments, first PM excludes the record cutting and production side, including (bit not limited to) wow & flutter of the cutting lathe (Neumann Lathes are speced @ 0.05% without accounting for cutting stylus drag variations) and tape, as well as centerhole excentricity.

One should also note that the rotating platter forms a flywheel which will have a gyroscope effect stabilising the subchassis, IF the platter is sufficiently heavy (Michell, Orcale, SME).

All in all as said before, as long as wow and flutter are reliably below that of the lathe we know we get as good a reproduction as we can, in terms of speed stability. Of course, removing or reducing the stylusdrag induced speed variations by using a heavy platter driven by a fairly powerfull motor will remove some of the percieved "pace" induced by it, an aquired taste I would say.

Ciao T

 

How much stylus drag is there? Is it a significant contributor to wow? Bear in mind that the LP12's platter weighs 9 (nine) pounds.

 

Hi,

I'm sure you learned enough math to work it out. But as DIY builders of turntables with DC motors (eg. Teres) discovered sufficient to give material differences in speed between the arm off & on the platter. With synconous motors this effect does not take placed the same way, instead the belt tension changes. As stylus drag changes with modulation, the belt tension will change too.

It is singificant enough for a fractional percent change in speed between full level and a tone near the noise level. The only turntables without this change use rigid drive systems (where the belt has minimal elasticity) and powerfull syncronous motors or servo-looped turntables.

Equally, the lower the platter mass the less kinetic energy is stored in the platter which would have to be dissipated by the stylusdrag before the platter slows down a given relative degree, which effects both timing and amplitude of of the modulation, the lighter the platter the quicker and the more does the platter slow down.

Exactly.

Bear in mind that modern high performance Turntables have generally platters in the 20Kg or higher (44pound or higher) range, which reduces the modulation around fivefold and reduce increase the interval in which the modulation occours is increased fivefold (you are aware that the ear becomes less sensitive to pitch-shift the slower it is) compare to a 9lbs latter.

L8er T

 

3D

Kings Of Leon are a superb band,I recommend you check them out,Placebo err towards Indie tbh,but they have released some great material.

I also have an original Made In Japan,but after 30 years its past its best,hence why I bought a new pressing.I bought my original aged ten,but if you looked after yours at that age I politely suggest you should have played out a bit more.

I'm not a huge Ian Anderson fan,but I agree with you re Meatloaf.BOOH has a place in rock history,so much energy and as you say,pathos.

 

A group called Cattle Decapitation on Deep Six Records, the album is called 'Humanure', on double coloured vinyl - the colour is what I can best describe as 'vomit'. Check out the album cover too (which I believe is banned in this country ):

http://shop.relapse.com/store/product.aspx?ProductID=21187

 

No, I haven't, it's a genuine question. I would guess the effect is very very small, and almost certainly inaudible.

What fraction of a percent?

 

Hi,

If you cannot even estimate the various forces involved, how can you guess? On the strength of "Linn Engineering"?

If you actually want to know, why not do some basic experiments?

Take an LP with test tones, at different levels (HiFi-News test LP with -20db and +16db should be fine) and play them on your Linn, record the output of your naim pre to a PC with a resonable soundcard from the no signal part and analyse the resultant file, first of all for pitch shift with level and time (select the FFT windows suitably) and secondly for general pitch accuracy and any wow & flutter?

Then you will actually know the exact degree by which a sudden shift in level on the LP will shift the platter speed.

Having established the exact degree, you can then proceed to consult the various references as to the audibility of the observed degrees of the various speed/pitch shift effects.

I do have some experience in the field from my days servicing HiFi gear, but I much prefer for people to make their own experiences.

L8er T

 

Let's suppose that forumites follow your instructions and carry the experiment out.

And the result is that a number of totally happy music lovers discover that their source has alledgedly audible wow and flutter. Where does this actually get us?

 

First off, I don't have any test tone records, so an experiment is not possible here.

I am asking a simple question. Can you answer it?

The stylus drag argument has always seemed highly unlikely to me, mainly because I have never heard any dynamic wow with any turntable, ever.

 

I think that this is what is commonly known as 'overkill'. I really don't believe that a MC phono stylus tracking at 2 grammes is capable of generating sufficient frictional forces to cause any audible slowing of a nine-pound turntable platter.

A physicist would be handy!

 

Devil, you obviously don't listen to much piano music - piano passages are very sensitive to flutter. The LP12 with it's lightweight four-Kg platter has noticable wow & flutter when playing sustained notes.

Listen to some piano music played on a top-notch record player, such as a Verdier, and you will hear the difference.

 

Hi,

That is up to people themselves.

If they wish to continue to believe in the alleged superiority of what they have it may be wise to avoid such tests (1) and also to avoid too publically parrot the marketing slogans that where used to sell them their gear, which may be challenged by those who actually subscribe to a less of sonic monoculture and who are less willing to live with being ignorant of the workings of their stuff. And if they cannot accept such criticism, of either the charateristics of their equipment or of the opinions they present then they may be better off leaving public discussion boards and the like alone.

(and other tests - note that Stereophile measured the Linn LP-12 as having significantly more wow & flutter + rumble than an inexpensive pioneer direct drive turntable)

As I always have said, whatever gives people enjoyment of music is fine with me, no matter how full of imperfections of any kind it may be. And I recognise that certain types of technical imperfections may subjectively be percieved as adding something to the music that is desirable to some in some conditions.

One of my pasttimes is to find what causes these subjectively desirable effects and how to correlate them with objectively observed performance and make them easy to replicate. In some cases I find that these effects are additive or subtractive in nature, in others the causes seem related to areas of physio- and psychoacoustics not yet too well understood as well as effects not sufficiently charaterisable by traditional measurements.

L8er T

 

I've heard that one before, a long time ago, and I and checked it out. There is no audible dynamic wow on my LP12, nor any other turntable I have ever heard. I have an enormous collection of piano, and other music, on vinyl.

The whole thing is, I think, a myth.

Just look at a cantilever. How much force can that impart on a record, before it's pulled clean out of the cartridge body?