Vinyl v. digital curiosity

A single cutter head cuts both channels simultaneously.

The cutter head stylus is a "v" shape with 90º angle - this means that each side of the groove is 45º from the vertical and horizontal (this is where the system gets the name Westrex 45/45). The coils are arranged such that the cutter head can drive the stylus in two diagonal paths, each one perpendicular to the corresponding stylus edge (one for each audio channel).

This orthogonal (perpendicular) arrangement is key since with a single stylus it, in theory, allows the two channel walls to rise and fall on their 45º inclined planes completely independently of each other. If the wall is going down on both sides, the stylus descends. If the wall on one side is rising while the other is falling, the stylus moves sideways. Any motion in the groove wall from either channel can be cut and played back independently with this system.

While mathematically true, in practice nothing is perfect so the channels are not strictly speaking completely independent.

 

Great explanation, thank you. I hope it's accurate.

 

Great explanation. I actually learned something new today!

 

That really misses the forest for the trees.

 

Digital recording and mastering was around for a few years before the CD was introduced here. The early records sourced from digital had an edginess to them. I liked this because I like it when they push the higher frequencies. After CD's were introduced, they were rushing to get out the back catalog titles which had been good sellers on records and cassettes. The problem was, they used the album tape masters as a source for making the CD's. These were often marked "AAD". Using the album masters also means that they usually were using multi-generational sources and not the first generation stereo masters. These CD's tended to have a harshness to them. Rhino was one of the first independent companies putting out compilation CD's. Once they got away from using records for sources and actively researched and located first-generation stereo masters plus even session masters, CD sound started maturing.
I've done hundreds and hundreds of record transfers to digital. The digital transferring programs out there have had a lot to do with the digital copies sounding close to the original records. Most of these programs have internal settings and features which allows you to tweak the transfers even more. Surface noise, ticks and pops have always been a given when playing records. Many sound systems helped cover them up and you may not have been aware these flaws existed. Transferring to digital seems to bring out the adverse effects on records.
I have 1,000's of records and 1,000's of CD's. I wouldn't give them up for the world. CD's are clean sounding and don't have the flaws records have. This is the main reason I jumped into CD's with both feet.

 

Hey, you've discovered the secret. A lot of Vinyl has no added digital mastering compression. When we speak of old CD's sounding like flat transfers this is why as well. No digital compression being used.

 

A good needle-drop will capture the "character" of vinyl playback. I wouldn't waste my time doing needle-drops if this weren't the case.

 

My friend has a really nice analog setup (VPI Mark IV with SME309 / Ortofon Black) and does needle drops of some his rare / best sound vinyl. Those needledrops - to my ears - sound better than most of the normal CD releases.

But we get to the point of not only analog vs digital, but different masterings.... heavy compression (loudness war) versions versus older, less tweaked media. And not to mention the different colorations of vinyl reproduction. So, as far as I can tell, it's hard to make blanket statements. I'm a vinyl collector myself but it's not a medium I would suggest to everyone given it's tweaky nature.

 

They have probably given up, and don't care, before they have had the opportunity.

 

There a more than a few "variables", but that is what is so intriguing about vinyl.

 

Also playback will introduce out of phase information, as most needles areen´t like the cutter head.

 

That's why you start out with good playback gear, and good software...with a skill on how to use it.

 

On the contrary, a proper playback should not produce out of phase information, no more than what os inherent in a typical stereo recording.

If you buy a cart with a Microline or Microridge stylus, or a Shibata, you can get damn close to the shape of a cutterhead. many of we forum owners use such stili. I do.

If you needledrop your vinyl, software can correct for out of phase files.

 

It depends. I'm listening to Simply Red's A New Flame right now on the first CD pressing from 1989. It's a full digital recording and to my ears the CD beats the vinyl record (yes, also in smoothness). Other titles, like most of Chicago's albums pre-1980s are almost unlistenable to me when heard on CD. And even some fully digital titles like Huey Lewis' Fore! sound better on vinyl than on CD for me. Truly case-to-case for me and I couldn't, for the love of anything, settle a final statement in the analog vs. digital discussion.

 

Of course MR or fineline needles with very sharp side radii will be reasonably OK. But these aren´t the only needles that are used, many use conicals and not so sharp radii.

If we can correct for out of phase signals is another subject.

 

I have the CD & a LP Rip of the 2017 Sgt. Pepper LP, and didn't find any warmth captured. Mind you this is a digital LP, not an original LP.

When I used to rip my LPs to Cassette in the 70's, it must have sounded analog'ish, but I don't recall.....

 

Good post, and fair opinions that generally run counter to my own. One thing I always wonder about is the point at which sound reproduction becomes more technically perfect than any source listening environment and what that means for our enjoyment. I listen to music from pretty much every commercially available source but generally speaking I listen to digital out of necessity and analog for fun.

It's been touched on elsewhere in this thread, but clicks/pops/surface noise is somewhat overstated to me. For one thing it is partially avoidable - through visual inspection, research on this forum, etc; and correctable. "If you buy vinyl make sure you have a good RCM, anti-static brush, and inner sleeves" is just the analog version of "don't write-off digital without listening through a high quality DAC"

I might agree regarding streaming's effect on music, but for me it's been fantastic as a compliment to vinyl. It's basically replaced radio as a try before you buy source.

 

I see

 

"Lets jump"

 

I have e $700 invested in a quality TT & cartridge. Far superior to my inexpensive CD player. Likely have to invest $2K in CD player & DAC to equal TT.

 

Both can be quite good. I find more bad CD's than I do records, but they both have duds and both have exceptional examples.

 

The profile of the playback stylus will influence the reaction to whatever imperfections and obstacles there are in the groove and so will change the character of the out-of-phase noise I was talking about (surface noise shared on both channels that is picked up and then inverted in one-channel by the stereo cartridge, ie. the output of the same noise signal phase-shifted 180º in one-channel with respect to the other).

The shape may introduce other phase errors - nothing tracks perfectly. These errors will be frequency dependant becoming more problematic at higher frequencies (as the wavelength gets closer to the physical size of stylus).

All of this imperfection adds to the difference stereo vinyl playback has over other formats (vinyl mastering practices are a factor too of course). The fact that the channel walls aren't completely independent (due to practical limitations) and with the limitations of the playback stylus/cartridge, the out-of-phase (180º) "noise" will actually contain a small amount of the original program material.

Of course, the fact that any working 16/44.1 ADC can capture these added vinyl artefacts tells you that the digital system is significantly better in terms of noise floor than any vinyl system. Capturing at higher word-lengths and sampling-rates may reveal improvements in the fine details (YMMV) but 16/44.1 is clearly doing an excellent job compared to the LP...

I am talking about added out-of-phase (180º) content on playback of stereo LPs here, a product of the polarity inversion used in the Westrex 45/45 system. Stereo masters will normally have some out-of-phase program content on them but the added random out-of-phase content is unique to the stereo LP (or copies made from it).

 

By the same logic, why are folks spending million of dollars for paintings when we have analog film and digital cameras?

 

Snap (no "crackle and pop" pun intended). From the very first LP that I bought (40 years ago!), I never heard a single click, pop, IGD or any W&F. Admittedly, I lived in Britain (which meant quality vinyl, unlike the US apparently) and had an 'audiophile' TT (in the STD/Hadcock), but even the handful of S/H discs that I bought had no problems on that front.

Honestly, if all you hear is "...clicking, noise, sibilance distortion, inner groove distortion and wow and flutter", then either get yourself a better TT source, have yours set-up properly, buy higher-graded vinyl, or stop buying modern reissues. The last of these seems to be the biggest problem, reflecting more the loss in the digital-purge of 1983 of all those clean-air pressing facilities and the people who knew what they were doing in them than Quality sound reproduction at the present-day.

Just go to the Discogs entry for Scott Walker's 'Tilt' and see the number of people asking why their brand-new sealed copy of the vinyl is covered in scratches and jumps (and that was in 1997!), or the recent Gold vinyl of 'Hunky Dory' which apparently jumps in the same place on every copy, thus is a problem with the lacquer, mother, etc. Can anyone honestly remember it being like this in the 70s and 80s? None of my discs were like this, ever. The only defective vinyl that I ever had was Frank's 'Fireside Favourites', which was punched super-off-centre but which the Hadcock still tracked like a champ (the memory of the arm swinging back and forth across that disc's surface makes my eyes-roll when I see people advocating parallel-trackers -- put the stylus on a disc like that without having played it on a pivoted arm first to check, and watch your expensive cantilever snap in two revolutions, screwing your vinyl in the process!).

There's a reason that people buy sealed and vintage (and yeah, that's a plug for my Trades and an invitation to you, Dear Member), and it seems to be captured entirely in the subject of this thread. If you buy VG+ vinyl why would you not expect lousy quality reproduction from the multiple-mistracked plays that it suffered on the cheapo record-deck that anyone who let their disc get in such a poor state must have used?. Modern repressings were meant to sort this out for today's LP buyer -- they didn't (mostly, they just gave us incompetently-pressed, usually-from-digital junk).

Buy vintage and sealed! Be happy (and poor!)

 

This assumes summing of the channels for mono playback.

If you don't sum the channels for playback of a mono record (mono or stereo cut) with a stereo cartridge then you will still have the random out-of-phase stereo content.

On a clean mono record, while not technically correct, some may prefer to leave the stereo cartridge output alone since the summing collapses the 3D effect (not accurate to the master but pleasing to the ear) - although there will be more noise, of course. On a noisy mono record, summing the output of the stereo cartridge can drastically improve the playback.

The worst thing you can do is just listen to one channel from the stereo cartridge playing a mono record (mono or stereo cut), unless the other channel has severe damage. One channel has all of its surface noise embedded in the program material, no 3D effect to help the listener separate it and no cancellation of this unwanted vertical noise.