As @MLutthans pointed out, it's pre-echo most likely. I just recently read that DMM LPs are immune to this (not like it's an issue, in fact I think it's funny) and sure enough, none of my 80's rock LPs with DMM have this phenomenon present, at least not that I've ever noticed.
To me, groove pre-echo is one of the most musically destructive and distracting things about vinyl. I can listen past the occasional tick and pop; I can get a turntable with vanishingly low levels of rumble and I can damp other kinds of resonances; and if those sounds are more constant anyway, I can kind of get used to them, they're also something different from the music so I'm better able to psychologically separate them from the music, but when there's a quiet passage or a dramatic rest followed a pre-echo before a loud musical reentry, it's not just a distraction but it's a musical give away, completely ruins the drama of the musical moment. I just hate it. I can thing of a bunch of otherwise great sound albums of some of my favorite music -- the great '70s Nonesuch recording of Varese' Ionisation mastered by Bob Ludwig may be the worst, the piece has a big pause where the sound is allowed to ring out and decay before a slamming re-entry and it's totally telegraphed by groove pre-echo. I don't think of it as totally harmless at all. Really bugs me.
Pre-echo - I rank it up there with wow and flutter. The latter are pretty miserable if you care about pitch.
I'm not that sensitive to pitch, I must say, plus most good turntables have really low wow and flutter I must say, though pitch warbling from off centeredness of records is a big pain for sure. But man, pre-echo really does bug me in those big dramatic moments.
Right! Most good turntables are not the problem. But if one listens, one often can hear the pitch instability (flutter) of, say, solo piano when recorded on magnetic tape vs. the solidity of pitch when recorded digitally. This even carries through to CD remasters from analog sources. I I believe it's part of the analog recording process, and thus it's impossible to eliminate entirely. See, e.g., this page about flutter. Lower-rate pitch variation (wow), are IMO more likely to come from the off-centeredness of LPs that you mentioned. In my experience, most LPs are OK, but a few are really bad. You probably are aware of the Nakamichi auto-centering turntables that attempted to correct this. I think that any un-flatness (warp) in an LP will also cause wow. Perhaps warp is less a problem now that new LPs have become luxury items, and presumably are made to higher standards.
Maybe not the place to mention this but, last night I was playing 45's on my 1200 TT. This unit is located where a sub sits below the components. It's my kitchen pantry actually. It's a nice place in terms of having sliding shelves. But anyway, because a sub is near, feedback is unavoidable without paying attention to volume levels. But, while playing 45's, it seemed like I could play them at a higher volume level than a typical 33 rpm record. If a record is spinning faster, would that have any effect on sound being fed-back? I wonder if the feedback is slower than the record spinning so it doesn't get a chance to reverberate as easily?
OP, assuming the pre-echo isn't right on the tape, there is an expand button on the mastering console that the operator pushes before a loud musical note or climax. The loud note shows up on the preview meter just before it actually strikes to give the operator time to push it. The button widens the groove at that point to prevent pre-echo. The operator has to be paying attention instead of reading Mad magazine.
This happened on Give It Up To Love by Mighty Sam McClain, one that was recently remastered by Kevin Gray, although the version I have isn't the one he did for Analogue Productions but rather the original released on AudioQuest Music. There are other albums but that one is the one which popped into memory. I'd be curious to buy the AP version just to see if I hear the same thing.
I noticed this listening to The Beatles Second Album recently (both a rainbow original and a 1978 purple label reissue).
Well, if you're bothered by pre-echo, can you look past something such as inner groove distortion? If so, count yourself as one happy vinyl player overall. I for one couldn't care less about pre-echo; I've got plenty of other reasons to be annoyed by the vinyl format.
So, last year I purchased the vinyl version of Avenged Sevenfold's "The Stage" mainly because I heard how it was mastered pretty good. So, a few days ago I was recording it for digital usage, and I noticed it had a pre-echo on side A and B! Now, from my understanding, this only happens on an analogue to analogue format transfer from print-through. Due to this being an album recorded in 2017, I'm pretty sure it was recorded on digital. So, does anyone have any clue what would be the cause of pre-echo on this?
All-analogue records aren't quite as rare in this day and age as some would make them out to be. If only because they're not always advertised. I have no idea if yours is, mind you. Never heard of it.
The mastering engineer has a big button on his mastering console. It expands the groove when a loud section is coming up (and the engineer has to be looking at the preview meters to see this). The engineer pushes the button. Should do so before the start of every song, etc. Reading a magazine sometimes gets in the way of that though.
I have pre-echo on probably 80% of my albums. Doesn't matter if they're recent or not. I've learned to ignore it but I'd obviously prefer not to have it.
I suspect that it could be a mastering or pressing problem. Even going back decades, I have noticed this. Sometimes it is also influenced by what the records are made out of. All vinyl is not the same and not all records are made out of the same material. As an example or two, back in the 70's, it was common to find Columbia 45's made out of both polystyrene and vinyl. One of these was Janis Joplin's "Me And Bobby McGee". The West coast pressing was vinyl and other CBS U.S. plants used polystyrene. The polystyrene pressings had that pre-echo while the vinyl pressings did not. The same situation went with Pacific, Gas & Electric's "Are You Ready?", but even moreso with the polystyrene pressing as there were several quiet passages at the beginning of the record. Another West coast pressing company, Monarch Records, used a cheaper harder quality of vinyl on their LP's and I noticed that pre-echo on those, especially if they opened with a loud note. When recording a record for digital usage and storage, I just edit the pre-echo out by chopping it off while splitting tracks.
I've also heard the same reasons as the posts above. I am curious if any cartridge alignment issues might also contribute to this?
I know my cart is aligned correctly though, even checked it after this, so it shouldn't be the reason.
Cartridge alignment shouldn't be a consideration. Pre-echo is affected by material type and next-groove push-back. Also, as a record is pressed with the material starting in the center and flowing outward, possibly an inner groove might be rolled into the next groove out? There are so many inexperienced start-up record pressing companies out there that they don't know how to press a record properly.
I think Jimmy Page went to great lengths to get pre-echo on some of the LZ material if only he knew....he could have just sat back & read a magazine instead!! (joke)
