Wow and flutter, etc. Tape Speed Issues - Tone Poet / Blue Note 80th anniversary vinyl LP problems.

Yes, records that are cut off center are very annoying. I’m not going to try to fix them. I’ll just return them.

 

It depends on the spindle on your turntable as well. The original subplatter of my Rega RP6 had a spindle which allowed pretty much every record fit on easily, typically with a tiny amount of clearance which gives you the possibility of very slightly adjusting your record to be perfectly centered.
After the upgrade of my subplatter, the new spindle is definitely slightly larger in diameter. For many new records (which often have some tiny amount of burr inside the spindle hole), they won't even fit properly on this spindle without some deburring. When I get a new record, I carefully inspect the spindle hole, in about 80% of the cases there is at least some slight amount of burr present, and I use the perfectly sized reamer to deburr that (I think it is 7.2 mm in diameter). Most of the time, when I notice some very slight off-centerness, there is still a small remaining piece of burr inside the spindle hole, removing that gives me a well centered record most of the time. I am very picky with regards to perfect centering.

I am not talking about "machining" of a considerable amount of the spindle hole, so that I end up with a visibly oval centerhole, to fix a new record. I would choose to return it, unless it is not replacable or a used record which I cannot return, then i will take off a bit more off the center hole.

Returning records due to some off-centerness caused by a burr inside the spindle hole, that makes no sense to me.

 

O.k., I hear it ever so slightly.

Wouldn't call that "brutal" and doesn't make me "seasick" the least bit, but I guess perception greatly varies.

I just checked my Heavenly Sweetness pressing, and I think it is not there. But I don't think I am the right person to judge these kind of things.

 

First, I already have a reamer that I use on records that fit too snugly.
Second, what you’re talking about is completely irrelevant to the problem we’ve been discussing for the last few 6 weeks or so. Numerous people are hearing the same anomaly in the exact same places throughout the sides of a record. This is not caused by a microscopic burr on the spindle hole of every single record that just happens to cause the same result. That makes no sense to me.

 

I also use a reamer. In the United States, with our dumb system of measurement, the correct size is 0.286"

 

Sounds extreme to me but not everyone is as sensitive to flutter as others.

6 of 12 AAA pressings ( we don’t count the two digital recordings) in the Tone Poet series have flutter. And in most cases it has not turned up on any prior pressing.

The worst example was Andrew Hill’s Black Fire. I needle dropped my old ‘70s reissue and the Tone Poet reissue. Looks like the samples are still available. If possible, I strongly recommend hearing the samples on some PC speakers as opposed to an iPad or phone. Flutter is a tricky phenomenon and for the human ear most impacts piano. In my experience it is best revealed on an actual stereo but computer speakers also do the trick fairly well.

Blue Note (UA - RVG stampers):

'McNeil Island" (Sample) Blue Note/UA - Clyp

Tone Poet:

'McNeil Island" (Sample) 'Tone Poet' Reissue - Clyp

 

Ok, we can scratch one from the list.

Chick Corea's Now He Sings Now He Sobs.

I just got an OG cut at Bell Sound and it is wobbly as all hell. Shame because otherwise this recording is stupendous. I paid $20 for a supposedly VG+ copy but after cleaning it is NM and plays dead quiet.

From memory, I don't think the TP was this wobbly overall. And the end of "Matrix" on the OG is just about as bad as the TP.

This recording just appears to be screwy. I've now heard two Japanese pressings, the TP and an OG.

 

I do understand that there are some issues related to speed/wow-and-flutter on some of these releases.

I just tried to add an additional perspective to the discussion when talking about vinyl, or music that was recorded on analog equipment.

With vinyl, there is no such thing as noise-free playback, zero wow-and-flutter, etc.

When people talk about records being off-center, this discussion needs to have a quantitive reference. Probably pretty much every record is off-center ever so slightly, in my opinion, it needs a dimension/tolerance associated with it. I think there is even an official tolerance which is probably set way too high for my standards. But when I read discussions/comments about some saying their record is off-center and the other person is saying their record is well-centered, they might come to the same statement when they look at the same record.

If we talk about vinyl, some wow-and-flutter is always present. The tape machine it was originally recorded on had it, the playback machine has it, the turntable it is played back also has some. Then we can add some physical effects which might happen to the tape over time (Kevin Gray has shared some insight on this topic). And whether the record is centered with great care before playback.

When you consider this, no two vinyl releases, mastered from the same tape, at different points in time, will yield exactly the same amount of wow-and-flutter. The playback machine used is most likely a different one, and the age of the tape is also different.

I think it is a very legit issue to discuss, and considering "Black Fire" - which is probably the example that exhibits this effect most prominently - I was able to hear something being off when I listened to the one track. It didn't bother me as much as it did some other people, but there is definitely a difference. The discussion about it is absolutely legit and this forum is the right place for it.

Now all of a sudden, it seems to affect a large portion of the Tone Poet/Blue Note 80 releases, it is being represented as a wide-spread problem. Well, scientifically, with graphs etc., you should be able to proof "wow-and-flutter" on pretty much any analog record. As it happens on the internet so often, it multiplies and now we see a lot of posts regarding "this record also has this problem on track x", and then this judgement might be passed when the record is played back on a turntable that might exhibit a bit more wow-and-flutter than other turntables, and the record not being perfectly centered. Add to this that every person being different in how they express their opinion (some more "dramatic" than others), and that everyone hears things differently and has different sensitivity to wow-and-flutter, the discussion sometimes can get a bit out of hand.

These are wonderful reissue series in my opinion, both Tone Poet and Blue Note 80, and when things are portrayed in a way that this and that pressing is "defective", it can become a bit problematic, especially when some of these statements are based on less than ideal playback conditions with regards to speed.

I will continue to follow the discussion with interest and I have many of the records being discussed myself, and I can checkout if there is something that bothers me. Overall, information about these topics is good, I think. And I don't mean to discredit anybody's opinion.

 

I played the clips over and over. I must admit that there is a difference between the two. The UA sample sounded "right" to me. But the TP is not too bad for me as well so it does not affect my enjoying the whole record. I do understand that some are much more sensitive to flutter thus even the slightest pitch fluctuation is magnified therefore is a huge deal breaker. On the other hand, if it is that "off", those not sensitive to it either don't hear it or hear it slightly but not enough to reject the record. Which one is you depends on each person I guess.

 

I’ve been buying records for over 50 years, I’m well aware of the limitations of the format.
Heck, I was the general manager for a chain of record stores in the late 7o’s/early 80’s until they went out of business, and I ended up opening my own store for a few years. I’ve seen every return you can possibly imagine. Before the main thread got split up, and some posts removed....there was data posted about 71 listeners being able to hear these problems on their systems. There were also waveforms posted showing the flutter problem in detail. When multiple people are hearing wow and flutter issues in the exact same spots, on the exact same tracks, it can no longer be any type of pressing issue, or a problem with an individual’s playback system IMHO...it has to be a source issue. We’ve known each other a long time on this forum, and I’ve always respected your opinion on these things. I look forward to your thoughts on future releases as they come out.

 

One of the weirdest things about this particular malady is that I really can’t think of any other records in my past that ever had this insistent piano warble. Maybe at the beginning of certain tracks on old analog cut records like the one on Contours that sounded like a tape starting up too close to the first note. But not randomly all through a song - can you imagine this afflicting a Bill Evans record?
At this point the only rumored Tone Poet I’m worried about is Chet Baker Sings - Russ Freeman’s style is really gonnna show this kind of damage if it continues...

 

Freddie Hubbard - "Lament For Booker" Blue Note/Music Matters (2015)

https://clyp.it/kpowda2d

Freddie Hubbard - "Lament For Booker" Blue Note/80th Anniversay (2019)

https://clyp.it/qn4mubcz

 

Those both sound good. Is there supposed be an issue there too ???

 

Ugh. I hear several wavy notes in the first 20 seconds of the BN80 clip that are not in the MM clip. Why does this keep happening???

 

Pretty crazy to think the same guy at the same studio with (presumably) the same tape mastered this 4 years ago and now it sounds like this.

 

The plot continues to thicken. I almost feel the best way to go forward would be to compile all the evidence and send a well thought out and respectful email to KG and the team at BN

 

Just got my copy of Chant.
To my ears there are obvious pitch anomalies, most obvious in the piano.
I would be interested to hear Herbie Hancock's opinion of these reissues.
Also got Hustlin, and Una Mas (BN80), which appear problem free. Praise be.

 

Interesting. Here’s where I start to get confused. If it is an issue with the tape play back or cutting equipment, wouldn’t it be present on all reissues? Why are only some affected, even if it is a significant potion?

 

Could be every playback of these old tapes adds some stress and damage?

 

How about the MMJ SRX titles as point of comparison? Those were all cut in the same fashion as the Tone Poet series probably about a year ago. Anyone notice issues with those?

 

Isn't SRX just new vinyl with old plates?

 

I believe the SRX 12 album release titles were all new to 33 RPM for MMJ (so not old plates), but they are also doing a small run of Blue Train on SRX, which I'm guessing is the old plates.

 

Blue Train was, but that’s the only one I can think of.

The others were new. No speed issues that I remember.

This seems to a new phenomenon at the worst possible time.

 

I am not hearing it on the recent samples posted, but that by no way means that I am saying it is not there.

The first thing I would like to know would be the "frequency" of the pitch variation, the "wow" (I think "flutter" is something different).

I noticed that several of my new releases (Tone Poet, BN80) were a bit off-center, and I had to use the reamer to get them centered.

If a pressing is off-center, it affects the whole batch, the way I understand it.

By checking the frequency of the pitch variation, it would be possible to definitely exclude the influence of a not perfectly centered record.

I am not saying the posted samples were recorded in such a way, but in root cause finding, one needs to follow all possible branches and conduct some kind of testing/measurement to either confirm or reject the respective influence.

Since I can't even hear it in most cases, I can't contribute much with regards to this.

Playback of a test record on a belt driven turntable can often look something like this, which is another influence, but that shouldn't be an issue when comparing two differnt pressings played back at the same time (no effect of belt being worn) on the same turntable.

This is not my chart and not my measurement, and I don't know how it was measured. What I am seeing in this chart (I believe), the yellow curve has the frequency of the 33 rpm, and the frequency various roughly between 3150 Hz and 3146 Hz. This would be a result of a record being off center, causing a pitch fluctuation of approx. +/- 0.06%. Then, superimposed to these fluctuation, is an overall fluctuation which can be better seen by the green curve. Not sure what would cause this, perhaps instability of the motor which drives the turntable.

And I don't know if these issues could also happen not just on the playback end, but also during cutting of a record. Of course one would expect top of the line studio equipment to have this influence be at the minimum of what is reasonably achievable.

 

My samples were made on a Technics SL1200MK2.

Just a note of clarification for those just joining us as we have been dealing with this for a couple of months now. The issue people are hearing is mainly flutter.

Also keep in mind that these samples uploaded online will definitely make the issue obvious if you have some small computer speakers hooked up, but on an iPad or something of that nature it will be much harder to hear. On an actual system with speakers in one’s listening room, the problem will be blatantly obvious to anyone who hears pitch fluctuation. Not everyone does, of course. I envy those who don’t but I don’t for the life of me know how they don’t.

I bought the BN80 of Hub-Tones thinking that if it was decent I would sell my MM, so I was actually kind of rooting for it to be ok. Side 1 was good but like Black Fire, Side 2 was problematic. In this case, however, it was mainly the first half of Side 2 as opposed to Black Fire where the problem really gets bad during the last half.

This video is excellent as explaining how wow and flutter differ in only about a minute.....