21–30 of 107 posts
These are so wonderfully distorted . I am getting somewhere between the signal in the movie "Contact" and whispers of the hive mind of the Borg. Amazing sounds, even if they aren't true to the recording.
Stero channels aren't encoded in the depth and radial axes. They're encoded in the same plane, but rotated 45 degrees, so a mono record player (depth only) plays a balanced sum of each channel. Edit: mono is radial only, not depth.
For anyone else who was intrigued by this, I found this helpful animation: https://www.vinylrecorder.com/stereo.html
Stero channels aren't encoded in the depth and radial axes. They're encoded in the same plane, but rotated 45 degrees, so a mono record player (depth only) plays a balanced sum of each channel. Edit: mono is radial only, not depth.
You mean horizontal only?
Old Edison disc records encoded single-channel audio in the vertical axis (varying the depth), but regular 78s and single-channel vinyl records encode the audio in the horizontal axis.
Every other record plays fine, except some new records play slow and/or some carve out a thin hair of lacquer/enamel the first time. This always makes me think some sort of damage is happening from a misaligned cartridge. But, other good quality and used records don't do this and work fine.
It's an AT microline cartridge.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
not cheap, but yeah it works great. https://www.elpj.com/ I actually got to hear one once. Extremely neutral and high-res, but the record has to be super clean because with the laser, you will hear every little speck of dust. Also it doesn't work with colored vinyl, iirc. edit: they use 5 different lasers to get the data out of the groove, go read the section on their site, it's actually really intricate and cool > t…
"The record has to be super clean..." Audiophiles likely know of this, but I'm still surprised. Clean vinyl records with glue... https://everyrecordtellsastory.com/2015/05/25/how-to-deep-cl...
If you want to thoroughly clean a vinyl record though, then an ultrasonic cleaner is the way to go (it is expensive though).
Random Q: do I have a damaged/bent stylus if a certain record (Toots and the Maytals' Pressure Drop picture disc) goes silent at several different times? I checked the stylus force scale at the different test points, and it's right in the middle of the cartridge specs. Every other record plays fine, except some new records play slow and/or some carve out a thin hair of lacquer/enamel the first time. This always makes…
If records are playing slow make sure if your table is belt driven your belts are still in good condition. Also make sure your tonearm height and anti-skate are properly adjusted.
Cleaning your records before you play them (even brand new records) is important.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The funky EQ is the RIAA curve[1] - by essentially rolling off the bass and boosting the treble you can fit more on a disc, it attenuates some of the clicks and pops and is kinder on the vinyl and needle. It's trivial to invert in software, and as another response points out, there is indeed a working laser record player - although the record needs to be extensively cleaned before playback or it doesn't work very wel…
This is part of what people hear when they say "vinyl sounds better."
What people "hear" regarding LPs is generally their biases + their particular analog setup. My setup is going to sound totally different than yours, regardless if it's from a CD or an LP.
There are some cases where an LP had a better -master- than a CD for the same release, but that is due to the publisher/owner of the master tracks and not the actual medium itself.
I remember wondering whether a laser "needle" could work. IIRC the format has some funky EQ and other things to make a physical needle work better.
not cheap, but yeah it works great. https://www.elpj.com/ I actually got to hear one once. Extremely neutral and high-res, but the record has to be super clean because with the laser, you will hear every little speck of dust. Also it doesn't work with colored vinyl, iirc. edit: they use 5 different lasers to get the data out of the groove, go read the section on their site, it's actually really intricate and cool > t…
Almost all the noise on a record is high frequency...so by applying a strong treble rolloff most of it just disappears.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The record has to be super clean..." Audiophiles likely know of this, but I'm still surprised. Clean vinyl records with glue... https://everyrecordtellsastory.com/2015/05/25/how-to-deep-cl...
Cleaning with glue seems like much more of a hassle than using something like a SpinClean. If you want to thoroughly clean a vinyl record though, then an ultrasonic cleaner is the way to go (it is expensive though).
Silly putty can also work in a pinch but some of them leave an oily residue.
Spin clean works but the cheap machines can easily break the record and the expensive ones are expensive as fuck and can still result in damage due to user error.