Vinyl Records and Turntables Are Gaining Sales.

[Infrasonic]

All analogue.
The guys were A grade session musicians in the 70's and 80's and they wanted to get the best possible full bandwidth recording of their own compositions. So presumably 1 pass on virgin tape @ 30ips, no N/R, minimal signal path, no compression or studio trickery (just room mics for reverb), mastered to half inch @ 30ips etc. Sounds great, but not "produced" in the modern sense. Which I like.
Although I used to like Trevor Horns production stuff as well, which is about a million miles away in ideology...

 

[Artisan Fan]

Originally Posted by Infrasonic

All analogue.
The guys were A grade session musicians in the 70's and 80's and they wanted to get the best possible full bandwidth recording of their own compositions. So presumably 1 pass on virgin tape @ 30ips, no N/R, minimal signal path, no compression or studio trickery (just room mics for reverb), mastered to half inch @ 30ips etc. Sounds great, but not "produced" in the modern sense. Which I like.
Although I used to like Trevor Horns production stuff as well, which is about a million miles away in ideology...

I have a few LPs like that including some direct disc efforts. The Neil Young at Massey Hall LP is reference quality.

 

[Infrasonic]

Originally Posted by Artisan Fan

I have a few LPs like that including some direct disc efforts. The Neil Young at Massey Hall LP is reference quality.

I'll have to check it out, been getting more into NY in the past few years. Used to find his voice a bit whiny, but I've realised the error of my ways...

 

[Artisan Fan]

Originally Posted by Infrasonic

I'll have to check it out, been getting more into NY in the past few years. Used to find his voice a bit whiny, but I've realised the error of my ways...

You will really like it. Sounds wonderful. It was a very simply mic'ed performance and all acoustic. Sublime.

Do you like the work that Guy Massey and Alan Rouse's team did on the Beatles remasters? I think it was superb, especially the mono box. I'm trying to get myself invited to Abbey Road.

 

[Nouveau Pauvre]

Originally Posted by harvey_birdman

I picked up Mike Patton's new venture, Mondo Cane. It really is out of this world awesome. Modern orchestral covers of '50s Italian pop songs.

Patton is really undercelebrated, he has been consistently putting out fascinating stuff for the last two decades.

Ehh the sort of people who would like him tend to know about him I think. that being said I agree he is great.

 

[Infrasonic]

Originally Posted by Artisan Fan

You will really like it. Sounds wonderful. It was a very simply mic'ed performance and all acoustic. Sublime.

Do you like the work that Guy Massey and Alan Rouse's team did on the Beatles remasters? I think it was superb, especially the mono box. I'm trying to get myself invited to Abbey Road.

Not heard the stuff.
My peak period in the studios was early nineties, and my visits to Abbey Road later on were with major label bands I was doing live sound for (as most of the commercial studio scene collapsed in the nineties in Manchester), where outside producers and engineers where in charge of the sessions I sat in on. It's a fantastic facility with all the large live rooms and top notch gear.

It's struggling commercially, so if you want to see it in full working order get there sooner rather than later. EMI have said they have no plans to close it, but as a label they were losing money hand over fist (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...ace-the-music), so they may be forced to at least sell it. Bearing in mind it's a listed building in a very expensive part of London, I fear for its future as a studio.

I've never been, but if you can wangle an AR visit see if you can get a look at George Martins Air Studios ( Lyndhurst Hall) not far away in NW3 Hampstead.
http://www.airstudios.com/studios/lyndhurst-hall.aspx

 

[Artisan Fan]

Thank Infrasonic. I am vaguely familiar with Lyndhurst. I will try to visit.

 

[A Y]

Originally Posted by George

But, as you say, you can never recreate the sound of the studio no matter which technique you use to record it. Every stage of the chain is flawed.

I think that's neither here nor there. For the first time in history, we have basically a perfect transmission channel widely available --- 96 kHz/24-bit multichannel BluRay. By perfect, I mean that it is possible to make it completely transparent by any measure of the human auditory system. If you want to recreate the sound of the studio, the parts you have to work on are the source (eg. how do you record the sounds), and the destination (how you reproduce the original acoustic waves again at the listener's home).

Everything in between the two should be made completely transparent, which is why I think it's pretty wrongheaded, from a purely technical point-of-view, to frame media that delivers the stuff (like LP) as some kind of fix for the realism problem, especially when said media can't even get out of its own way. The interesting parts of the problem are in those two ends, and there's some, but not a great deal, research in those areas.

That said, I don't have any problems with people fiddling around with LPs or CDs or open-reel --- it is supposed to be a fun hobby. I have problems when people make up false technical reasons to justify their preferences.

Most people have never heard a studio master and would struggle to listen to it with its 120+ dB dynamic range.

You'd struggle to get more than 40 dB from an orchestra recorded in very good conditions. 30 is more normal, even for audiophile productions, and most things today are well below that, and sound great too.

One exception is a drum kit from up close. It is capable of 120 dB SPL sounds, and if you recorded it in a studio or hall with below-0-dB noise floors (Meyerson in Dallas and Skywalker Ranch in Marin are two examples), then you could in theory produce 120 dB dynamic range. But I'm not sure that'd be very pleasant for listener or player.

Originally Posted by Artisan Fan

Robert Ludwig from Mixonline:

http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_bob_ludwig/

Note: CD sampling rate=44.1 khz

Ugh, what is this, the third time you've brought this up? It's been debunked before:

http://www.styleforum.net/showthread...808#post912808

LP has tons of noise and distortion, and has limited bandwidth in the bass, so it is not equivalent to a 100 kHz sampling rate. That's like saying my telephone is the equivalent of a 6 kHz sampling rate because it can reproduce a 3 kHz voice.

2nd, what records actually exploit the theoretical suprasonic (greater than 20kHz) response of an LP? How about none since the old quad days?

3rd, even if you had a record which had suprasonic signals, how are you going to listen to it? Most equipment and speakers rolls off well below 50 kHz.

Speaking of which ...

Originally Posted by Artisan Fan

It's more about the level of resolution.

Also, are you aware of the AES studies that show audible detection of harmonic overtones beyond 20khz?

Are you aware of Jim Boyk's studies?

And this one again ... There are no good AES studies that show in any credible way suprasonic response in humans. None. Even those that claim to show some kind of effect equivocate about what they actually detected. How about exercising some of that infamous climate-warming skepticism here?

I studied with James Boyk at Caltech when I was an undergraduate there, and am familiar with what he did. He did not show suprasonic hearing. He showed that many acoustic instruments have acoustic output above 20 kHz. If you think about this for a second, it should not be surprising. Strike a block of wood with a stick. That is a sharp impulse response with a very wide bandwidth output. Why should the output of a stick striking a block be limited just because humans have no physical mechanism in their ears for detecting it? It's just simple physics.

Originally Posted by Artisan Fan

Now as far as resonances with platters, speed stability, etc....that has largely been eliminated by modern turntables and is inaudible.

Originally Posted by Artisan Fan

Quality link.

There are also jitter (time-based distortion in digital) spectrum charts that show significant improvement over time to the almost solved spot we are in today.

The juxtaposition of these two quotes is ironic, because in the former you are dismissing the audible effects of things that are 6 orders of magnitude (that's 10^6, or 1 million times) greater than in the latter.

--Andre

 

[George]

Originally Posted by A Y

I think that's neither here nor there. For the first time in history, we have basically a perfect transmission channel widely available --- 96 kHz/24-bit multichannel BluRay. By perfect, I mean that it is possible to make it completely transparent by any measure of the human auditory system. If you want to recreate the sound of the studio, the parts you have to work on are the source (eg. how do you record the sounds), and the destination (how you reproduce the original acoustic waves again at the listener's home). Everything in between the two should be made completely transparent, which is why I think it's pretty wrongheaded, from a purely technical point-of-view, to frame media that delivers the stuff (like LP) as some kind of fix for the realism problem, especially when said media can't even get out of its own way. The interesting parts of the problem are in those two ends, and there's some, but not a great deal, research in those areas. That said, I don't have any problems with people fiddling around with LPs or CDs or open-reel --- it is supposed to be a fun hobby. I have problems when people make up false technical reasons to justify their preferences.
Yes, but its all very well making the source and amplification transparent, but you're undone by the speakers and the acoustics of the listeners room. I can't see how you can overcome this problem even with the aid of sophisticated DSP at this present time. My own view is that you should build a system that you enjoy the sound of, it doesn't have to approach the sound of the master and it doesn't need to be transparent. It just needs to sound good, to you. Engineers sometimes loose track of the concept, that sometimes, something is 'good enough' and further refinement is unnecessary. I should know.

Originally Posted by A Y

You'd struggle to get more than 40 dB from an orchestra recorded in very good conditions. 30 is more normal, even for audiophile productions, and most things today are well below that, and sound great too. One exception is a drum kit from up close. It is capable of 120 dB SPL sounds, and if you recorded it in a studio or hall with below-0-dB noise floors (Meyerson in Dallas and Skywalker Ranch in Marin are two examples), then you could in theory produce 120 dB dynamic range. But I'm not sure that'd be very pleasant for listener or player. --Andre
That was my point, I have heard masters that peak out over 120 dB, close miked stuff and they are unpleasant to listen too, I also know that most recordings never approach that level.

 

[idfnl]

Just scored an original pressing of Harry Belafonte's Calypso and a copy of Al DiMeola / John McLaughlin / Paco DeLucia - Friday Night in San Francisco.

 

[A Y]

Originally Posted by George

Yes, but its all very well making the source and amplification transparent, but you're undone by the speakers and the acoustics of the listeners room. I can't see how you can overcome this problem even with the aid of sophisticated DSP at this present time.

There are various ways to take the room mostly out of the equation using DSP, room treatment, speaker design, and taking advantage of some psychoacoustic effects. The realism problem has to do more with capturing and reproducing a particular acoustic space. Multichannel (>2 channels) is the first key, but there doesn't seem to be widespread consensus on what should be done with it specifically. This is really interesting stuff and is ripe for research. Trying to build ever more complicated Rube Goldberg playback devices isn't, but it's fun in the same way people have fun restoring and driving Model Ts.

My own view is that you should build a system that you enjoy the sound of, it doesn't have to approach the sound of the master and it doesn't need to be transparent. It just needs to sound good, to you.

Agree.

--Andre

 

[montyharding]

Originally Posted by George

I know that, but most people cant hear over 20 kHz anyway.
Well, that's still probably >8khz over Artisan Fan's hearing threshold, going by his posts... \t

I like spinning vinyl. But I wouldn't pretend to listen for the outright quality: I listen for the ambiance, and the ritual + visual pleasure involved in playback.

 

[Artisan Fan]

Originally Posted by montyharding

I like spinning vinyl. But I wouldn't pretend to listen for the outright quality: I listen for the ambiance, and the ritual + visual pleasure involved in playback.

You are doing it wrong.

 

[montyharding]

It's funny how ego colours the opinions of the deaf and inexperienced

Been to an audiologist recently? I'd start with that. Like so many sadfartophiles I've met at hi-fi shows (as a former equipment co-developer, and also as an enthusiast), there's not much point in yammering on about superior highs and so forth if you can't actually hear it to start with. It also helps to be able to separate the mode you're in when you're appreciating music (subjective/emotive), and the mode you're in when you're deciding which of something is better (objective). In audio, tone is alterable - underlying quality is not. Unfortunately, too many people like you (and yes, going by your posts I've met hundreds - if not thousands - like you. You lot are a depressingly uniform bunch) equate changes in the former with latter, with opinions coloured further by conjecture and too much reliance on piss-poor audio memory. On top of that, ego prevents movement of viewpoint. If you like something, say you like it. There's no need to say it's better if you aren't objectively sure.

 

[Artisan Fan]

Originally Posted by montyharding

It's funny how ego colours the opinions of the deaf and inexperienced

Been to an audiologist recently? I'd start with that. Like so many sadfartophiles I've met at hi-fi shows (as a former equipment co-developer, and also as an enthusiast), there's not much point in yammering on about superior highs and so forth if you can't actually hear it to start with.

It also helps to be able to separate the mode you're in when you're appreciating music (subjective/emotive), and the mode you're in when you're deciding which of something is better (objective). In audio, tone is alterable - underlying quality is not. Unfortunately, too many people like you (and yes, going by your posts I've met hundreds - if not thousands - like you. You lot are a depressingly uniform bunch) equate changes in the former with latter, with opinions coloured further by conjecture and too much reliance on piss-poor audio memory. On top of that, ego prevents movement of viewpoint.

If you like something, say you like it. There's no need to say it's better if you aren't objectively sure.

I just went to an audiologist, I can hear to 18khz. Why do assume I have poor hearing just because I disagree? If you had more experience with analog and a decent turntable then you would know that much vinyl is fairly silent, some completely so. And you would know that the resolution of a good LP on a good rig surpasses the CD. Most recording engineers I know, and I know a lot since I worked at a record label, believe the LP has resolution on par with 24/176 or 24/192 DVD-Audio discs.