So the Cartridge Warmer is real. Had to see if such a beast does exist. Makes sense if you have deep pockets and want to hear what you're playing sound right from the drop of the needle on. I'll just warm it up as I go as I have been since I'm ripping not playing to listen. Even then, I would try using a small lightbulb first if I really had the need.
So the Cartridge Warmer is real. Had to see if such a beast does exist. Makes sense if you have deep pockets and want to hear what you're playing sound right from the drop of the needle on. I'll just warm it up as I go as I have been since I'm ripping not playing to listen. Even then, I would try using a small lightbulb first if I really had the need.
Years ago towards the end of my days of ripping to cassettes, I heard the advice to always play the album 3 times and use the 3rd play as the keeper copy.
The primary reason behind it was to play the album and in the process the nasties on the vinyl surface would be loosened to be cleaned away with primitive process of brushes, pads and various mystery cleaning solutions. Along the way you would hear the scratches and what ever issues the vinyl had. Maybe just simply stop the record before a bad track or even just eliminate a song that you didn't like. Also the process would allow you to set the ideal levels for recording using the good ole VU meters. There were other benefits and the final one only came to be realized as I go through the process of breaking in the new cart mentioned below in an earlier post.
The same rules kept working going digital with the same primitive cleaning processes. But now with a better turntable, this also included setting the VTA (Vertical Tracking Angle) of the cart to the particular piece of vinyl being played. Too low, extreme bassiness, muted vocals and high end, too high too trebly and sibilant with the loss of bass. And vocals can be muted or brought forward in that process as well. That could sometimes take more than 2 spins. Would have to play back different takes keying on certain parts of a song to make the decision. The better the cart the more this matters. Just a .25mm height adjustment can sound profoundly different on some albums. Now also with adding a full tilt RCM to the process, playing though and finding ticks and what not and an occasional once more through the RCM to try to get rid of what ever the source might be. Sometimes you get it and sometimes you don't or it is simply a defect, there forever, to be removed later in the editing process now that we are full digital.
Now for the final revelation and reinforcement for the Rule Of 3.
The break in time for a new cart or stylus can run up to 50 hours. What you are actually breaking in mostly is the suspension. This is the compound that joins the cantilever / stylus to the "motor" or the internal parts of the cart that generate the electrical signal from the vibrations received from the stylus. Used to know the usual components but forgot them long ago. The suspension must be used / played in order to get the suspension loosened up and properly conditioned for accurate signal generation. As the stylus ages through playing, the suspension does get worn out and will cause sagging of the cantilever resulting in the need for higher VTA's to compensate for the sag.
The cart I just retired had 2344 album sides on it or nearly 800 hours, which approaches the end of life for a Shibata stylus. Hard to say how worn it actually is without going back and playing earlier rips using the same cart. I will eventually as I do record everything I play, every time. I do need to know, but for now I have a rough idea.
The first listen of the new cart was truly amazing, just because the resolution was so improved. As a few hours began to accumulate it became apparent that the suspension was loosing up and the VTA had to adjusted. After about 80 sides (@20 minutes per side) or about 26 hours total time it started to sound much better. Bearing in mind that this cart dates back to the early 80's so it has sat for 40 years and how well the suspension compound holds up after all those years can be hit or miss. But this being AT's flagship cart of the day, they put the best they had into. So far, so good.
I am now in the process of re ripping the first albums played during break in. The first eye opener was doing Todd's WATS album again. The first 5 minutes of side 1 are really full of all kinds of scratchy noises and it still sounded pretty bad. After about 15 minutes it started sounding like it should. Hmmm. Light goes on time. A few years ago doing research and poking around I heard of a thing called a cartridge warmer. A small light used as a heat source is put next to the cart for a half an hour or so to warm up the cart. What it turns out that it actually does is warm up the suspension to the point where it is like it has been used for a half an hour or so.
So I finished up side 1 and went to side 2 and it was sounding as expected. Afterwards I went back and replayed side 1 and the difference was night and day. The cart was now at its optimal warmth needed for the suspension to operate properly. Also using a direct drive TT, it generates heat from the platter motor which helps this process as I have come to conclude. Belt drives stay cold and do not ad heat to the platter. So if you want to hear an album properly from the beginning with a cold start, if you do not preheat the cart, it won't sound right until you're nearly done listening to side 1. Never gave it any thought before. The Todd album made this obvious.
So once again playing an album side 3 times served as a proper warm up of all of the moving parts making sure to get and keep the best sound. That is the purpose of ripping anyway, to record the album in its best possible conditions and archive it. It will likely never sound as good again if recorded properly. Never have to set it up to properly play it again, and to preserve the vinyl by not using it. Which was the initial reason of ripping going back my 8 Track days. I don't need the physical part to be happy. I am collecting the actual sound itself. That is all that matters. I get the physical touchy feelie part going through the recording process and quite frankly it is a PITA, but in the end it's worth every second of it.
These are my observations of the break in process and putting a whole bunch of acquired knowledge along the way into a context and conclusions based upon observation over 4 or 5 decades of indulgence. So grateful that I actually reached this level and still have my hearing so that I can enjoy it.
As of this hitting submit I've logged 112 album sides since I began about 13 days ago.
So here's what I am up to. Finally installing my NOS AT20SLa cart. Its been sitting waiting for at least a couple years. Started last night. Just got the new headshell but none of the mounting screws I have sitting around work ... so I'm waiting for Amazon to deliver some any minute ish.
The chart at the bottom of the picture is graph of a test the cart went through prior to selling. It shows a dead flat frequency response from 20 hz to about 18 khz damn near to the 20 khz point. The glass plate is the Mint Tractor cart alignment protractor. That takes a few hours to get right. Then about 50 hours of break in and hoping that the cantilever suspension is still good after sitting on a shelf for 45 years. I've got two more factory styli sitting in reserve.
Last night as I was editing a rip on the old (getting real old) XP rig I got an error message of a write to drive failure. Then about 20 or 30 click ok warning boxes mostly about corruptions. When I got done clicking them all, the desktop disappeared leaving just the wallpaper and then the mouse went dead ... Forced shutdown and reboot.
Restart and blue screen message. Shit. Tried again. Same thing. Corruptions ? Ok, I have the previous OS SSD drive parked in my cloning HD dock as a master so let's take old the borked drive, reclone it and try again. Same error messages and now with formatting problems added. Ruh, roh. Tried the master, same messages. F. Broke out the OS disc and tried a repair. Wasn't happening. Said reformat and reinstall. Ok, through that and then format error. Huh ? It just got done reformatting. Tried one more time, same. Got out another SSD sitting. Same results. Starting to think about the definition of insane.
I just replaced all the other HDD drives last August so I had some brand new spares to try including another SSD. So let's try starting from scratch with a new HD and taking out the good old OS disc and start all over, sigh. Tried XP Home first. It started loading and then got to the partitioning part. Same problem with formatting error. Now I'm wondering which version it was. Ok let's try XP Pro. Got to the partition / formatting part. Would not make a new partition, so just went with the whole drive. Wouldn't do it, different blue screen and new error messages. Tried each one again, same result. The definition of insane again. Stuck a fork in me fearing the worst being XP and zero support anywhere anymore. Start to think about the bios and how they can get corrupted. Take out the battery on the motherboard and flash the bios. Original battery, I'll get a new one first before going further.
The plan was go to Microcenter in the morning and get brand new HD's that were clean and untouched, a new battery, go home and try again. Meanwhile I earlier noticed that the GFI wall sockets in both bathrooms failed, yet the one in the kitchen, on the same circuit was still green and functioning. ???? Was there some major event I slept through ?
So off to Microcenter in the morning after stopping at Home Depot first for new sockets and a badditery. Get there, go back to the DIY section and ask the guy who greeted me with do you still speak XP ? He was in his late 30's or early 40's, I can't tell anymore and here I am a 70 year old grizzly and frazzled old fart asking about XP. His pain was shown immediately. I get it being on his side of the counter. So once I explained why I still used XP and we both understood there is no longer any support I asked a few more questions like might there be a problem doing a fresh install on a SDD, instead of a conventional HDD ? He said there was an NTFS update awhile ago. Asked about the possibility of the processor being corrupted. No only physical damage can hurt one. Ok, relief there. So picked up 3 SDD's and 1 old school WD Black HDD, just in case. Better to have more than you need and return the extra then not have it and make another trip. Better just 2 trips instead of 3.
Got home about 3 said eff it and went to bed. Woke up around 8 and said here goes nothing. Sigh. repeated all of the above efforts for about 2 hours. Same results. Time to pull out the old school HDD and give it one more go. Same thing. Grrrr/ groan. For some reason I thought could the SATA cable between the drive and the motherboard be a problem or the motherboard itself ? So I was going to plug in the drive into the board with the cables from a different drive and try. Then I remembered I had some new spare cables sitting around and used one of them instead of disconnecting one from a drive. So I put the new cable on the new drive and plugged it back into the motherboard in the disk 0 socket.
Boot time. It lit up and kept going. No errors and let me install the XP Home OS which is the one I had been running. Yay !! Hmmm. It's midnite now. Let me try cloning a brand new SSD from the master and try that. Yay !!! Effing cable the whole time. Had to reseat the soundcard I removed to get the battery out after the first start up. Sound again. Sigh, of relief. So it's now 3 AM and I have piles of boxes, discs and drives scattered about. I'll deal with that in the later today after I take the extra stuff back.
Kinda what I expected. I'm pretty certain that about a week ago (I've been AFK) I bumped the table and the arm came out of the holder and hit the base pretty hard. My fault. Oh well - and gave me a chance to upgrade the stylus without (too much) guilt. Thanks for the 1st press offer, too. I'll hold off for now.
Turntable 102. If not actually on the vinyl playing or locked in the holder, always, always, always keep the cueing lever up all other times. I still have moments and if not for that, it would be disaster. My carts were discontinued 40 years ago and I have scoured the net to build up a stash of spare styli. I use a little click counter by the TT to keep track of how many albums sides I play so I can keep track of the hours on the stylus. I figure every three sides is an hour. This way I'll have an idea when it might be getting spent and time to replace it. Cleaning the records is just as much for keeping the stylus from wearing out too soon as it is for good listening.
Definitely a bootleg. I have heard many stories over at discogs about unofficial releases being dangerous to a stylus because of poor QC. You have to clean any vinyl before playing, even new, to avoid these dangers. Chunks of vinyl deposited on the surface. One guy reported having the stylus ripped right off because of snagging something.
Kinda what I expected.
I'm pretty certain that about a week ago (I've been AFK) I bumped the table and the arm came out of the holder and hit the base pretty hard. My fault. Oh well - and gave me a chance to upgrade the stylus without (too much) guilt.
Thanks for the 1st press offer, too. I'll hold off for now.
I just parted with my last CD - 4 Discreet Quad album. I ripped it again before parting with it like everything else, but now with my new preamp theoretically I can capture all of the signal on the vinyl which goes up to 30 khz ripping in 24 bit / 96 khz. From poking around the web I have learned that these should be decodable with either Dolby Pro Logic or DTS in any AV receiver that has these available. I am not currently doing any surround, just listening in good old fashioned 2.0 stereo, so I am unable at this time to see how they work. I did set my headphones for Dolby playback and it sounded much different and better, but still the phones are only stereo.
If anyone is set up with a functioning surround system I have put up links below to the album for anyone to try out and see if it works. It is a well known highly regarded double album from a band based in Macon, Ga and each link is about 1.5 gigs. The links expire in 5 days from now. Do let me know how well and if they even work, by either a post here or a pm. If this works, I may try and offer a transcription service for Quad vinyl, since few have the equipment to play them properly to reveal the sound. They do require special cartridges which I have. If nothing else the rips sound great in stereo.
I look forward to any thoughts and feedback. Cheers and happy listening !
Asking the guru and his acolytes: I was in a vinyl store today and saw a new copy of Buckingham Nicks but not on Polydor - Anthem PD 5058 instead. I'm gathering this is a knock off, but is it gonna be a bad knock off, like I shouldn't have gotten it because it'll be mastered lousy or something? edit: holy smokes, it's orange vinyl and, looks like something bent my stylus. Had to order another one. Sheesh
Definitely a bootleg. I have heard many stories over at discogs about unofficial releases being dangerous to a stylus because of poor QC. You have to clean any vinyl before playing, even new, to avoid these dangers. Chunks of vinyl deposited on the surface. One guy reported having the stylus ripped right off because of snagging something.
You can have an original 1st press if you like. We can make a deal at a much better price. You already have the rip on the USB drive, with the few clicks removed so you know what it sounds like overall. I can even send you the warts and all before rip if you would like to hear it. I would even be willing to send it to William (the cleaned up copy) if he would like to add this to the library here. . https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/14772428?ev=rb
Asking the guru and his acolytes:
I was in a vinyl store today and saw a new copy of Buckingham Nicks but not on Polydor - Anthem PD 5058 instead.
I'm gathering this is a knock off, but is it gonna be a bad knock off, like I shouldn't have gotten it because it'll be mastered lousy or something?
edit: holy smokes, it's orange vinyl.
and, looks like something bent my stylus. Had to order another one. Sheesh.
Location: Really deep in the heart of South California Gender:
Posted:
Feb 9, 2023 - 9:42pm
kurtster wrote:
I've been so busy with work and issues with my brother, I haven't had time to much other than those two things.
Thankfully, my brother is back to normal... we thought he had Parkinson's... all the symptoms. Come to find out he was severely depressed!
Now if work would subside a bit... I'm getting a little to old for these tough jobs.
I will press on!
So that put to rest any doubts about my efforts and quality going forward.
Hey Kurt, I've been poking around the thumb drive you so kindly sent out to us RPMCC members. The sound quality is outstanding! I'm no audiophile expert but with a pair of headphones on and cranked up the songs I've listened to have been most enjoyable. Keep up the good work, it's obviously a labor of love.
Thanks. Yes, it really is a labor of love. I average about 30 hours a week playing with music. Lockdown, I was averaging 40 to 50 hours a week. Stay at home and play music all day ? What better to occupy time and be productive. Most of the time spent is just plain grunt work cleaning up the rips of all the noise and ticks. I draw them out manually with a mouse pencil tool, one by one. Takes about an hour for every minute of music.
I've pretty much reinvested most of the bucks I've made selling my collection back into equipment upgrades. I'm using the same programs I got back in 2006 when hippie taught me how to use them for working on audio. They still work with the all the upgrades. I'm pretty much done getting my stuff together I need to make it to the finish line, unless something breaks. A spare preamp just incase, another NOS AT20Sla cart and two factory styli to boot. The sound will remain the same from here on out. My biggest dead was having to find a new cart to replace what I have always had and the sound I have become accustomed to. You really cannot try out a cart to make sure that you're gonna like it at this point in time.
I've learned so much over the years and still know very little about this other than I know when it's good or good enough sometimes ... there is only so much that can be fixed with some music. Wouldn't have got this far if I hadn't stumbled on RP all these years ago. RP took music appreciation to a higher level and the peeps I've met here have taught me most of what I am doing today.
And then the RPMCC, a place to put all of this to a test and share the music.
This is pretty much what I planned to do as my retirement hobby years ago as a 20 something year old kid. I'm doing it, as best as I can until I can't.
I highly recommend the Momentary Lapse of Reason and the 2016 original mix of Animals if you haven't got to them yet. They blew me away.
I also just got done listening to what is linked up down below for the first time on the big rig and can say that it blew me away too. Play it LOUD.
So that put to rest any doubts about my efforts and quality going forward.
Hey Kurt, I've been poking around the thumb drive you so kindly sent out to us RPMCC members. The sound quality is outstanding! I'm no audiophile expert but with a pair of headphones on and cranked up the songs I've listened to have been most enjoyable. Keep up the good work, it's obviously a labor of love.
I just parted with my last CD - 4 Discreet Quad album. I ripped it again before parting with it like everything else, but now with my new preamp theoretically I can capture all of the signal on the vinyl which goes up to 30 khz ripping in 24 bit / 96 khz. From poking around the web I have learned that these should be decodable with either Dolby Pro Logic or DTS in any AV receiver that has these available. I am not currently doing any surround, just listening in good old fashioned 2.0 stereo, so I am unable at this time to see how they work. I did set my headphones for Dolby playback and it sounded much different and better, but still the phones are only stereo.
If anyone is set up with a functioning surround system I have put up links below to the album for anyone to try out and see if it works. It is a well known highly regarded double album from a band based in Macon, Ga and each link is about 1.5 gigs. The links expire in 7 days from now. Do let me know how well and if they even work, by either a post here or a pm. If this works, I may try and offer a transcription service for Quad vinyl, since few have the equipment to play them properly to reveal the sound. They do require special cartridges which I have. If nothing else the rips sound great in stereo.
I look forward to any thoughts and feedback. Cheers and happy listening !
Question : Anybody have any trustworthy connections or contacts to produce a high quality vinyl Test Record ? I have an idea. It would be using public domain sources.
Comment here or pm me. This is a serious project if viable.
Just parking some thoughts from Discogs over here for safe keeping.
I've got a few observations and conclusions made from using all the recently learned information mentioned here regarding hard drives and ripping and what not. In addition I had the opportunity to compare rips of the same album done by me and a pro done in his recording studio using his console. I sold him the album and he was kind enough to rip it for comparisons. He listened to mine in his studio playback and said that given the equipment I have that it was well done and would be hard to improve any further and was worthy of comparison to his rip. His was audibly better but we both agreed not by very much. We both used 24 bit 96 khz wav files for comparison. So that put to rest any doubts about my efforts and quality going forward. He also provided me with a link for reading about pro recording and about how audio needs to be considered for frequencies above 20 khz. That just because you cannot hear something does not mean that you don't notice it as part of the listening experience. Music is both heard and felt by the body. The piece is very lengthy and involved but has a great deal of information that is relevant to this ongoing debate about the mediums we use to listen to music.
Part of my argument has been about listening to files made from ripping either CDs or Lps. Overall I have long concluded that I prefer the mastering done for vinyl as a rule versus CD. And when ripped the source is removed from the process and the files are what you use going forward. I finally learned what the sampling rates really are and what they are about. A 44.1 khz sampling rate cuts frequencies above 20 khz. A 48 khz sampling rate cuts off at 24 khz, a 96 khz sampling rate cuts off at 48 khz, a 192 khz sampling rate cuts off at 96 khz and so on in multiples. I also learned about the dithering process when changing the bit rates of files. That was a big thing to finally understand and put into use when I take my master files down to 16 bits so I can listen to them in my car and other devices.
Vinyl we know has an upper resolution of up to 50 khz because of the frequencies used in Quad recordings and retrievable using a Shibata stylus. For overall audio reproduction of all frequencies, vinyl is superior to CD because of this ability since CDs arbitrarily cut off everything at 20 khz just because of the format. Doesn't matter how good the playback devices are, they will never have anything above 20 khz to offer.
On to files over everything else. The recent release of the 2018 remix of Animals has been my test case. The vinyl is simply awesome, yet it sucks because of the ticks, as usual, sadly. In the past, few if any corners were cut with Floyd vinyl releases making them some of the most reliable pressings out there. This time they did. The defect rate is 40% from what I have heard. Paper sleeves and 60% of the pressings have issues, even though the sound itself is simply amazing. So I finally went and found a source for hi rez files and downloaded the "factory" 24 bit 96 khz wav file for comparison of the overall sound. This was my first experience with these files, ever. Never had a need or desire until now. I was happy with my vinyl rips. But I am getting really tired of repairing audio, taking out the clicks and ticks and other glitches. Thankfully I can, but with new stuff, I shouldn't have to.
So when I compared my vinyl rips of the album done at 24 / 96 to the downloaded files at the same rates, I was happy to discover that the file was very, very nice and enjoyable and that the vinyl was still very good and if I had never heard the factory file I could be satisfied with the vinyl version. Of course there was a difference, but not enough to experience FOMO. That said, I find that I can live with the factory files and when considering a new pressing of an album versus the file, I will now consider getting the file first because of all of the issues with new vinyl. I got files of 5 other albums and overall I am happy with them and will certainly get more. Also because I have divorced myself of the need or interest of having any physical media once I have ripped it, it is even easier to accept. I want the music more than the artwork and all the other stuff. The music itself is what matters most to me. I can get all the info about the music that I don't know or forgot, here.
That's my story (for now) and I'm sticking with it :)
The article cited above is very lengthy and involved but anyone who is really interested in audio recording and reproduction principles will find it very informative. Parts 1 and 2 are background pieces and the technical stuff comes in the last 3 parts. It took me a couple of weeks to make it through, but it was well worth it. I ended up bookmarking the page to make it easier to find when I could spend some more time reading it. I am going to go through one more time just to make sure it gels and sticks. Rupert Neve made recording consoles that worked at up to 200 khz. George Martin's legendary Montserrat recording studio AIR Montserrathad one of Neve's custom built consoles that allowed for some of the finest recorded music ever. It was the heart of the studio.
I've also found some of these hi rez files to have glitches and clicks still in the masters that need to be addressed. Fortunately from my experience with vinyl, I can repair most of these as well. Most notable so far of a master with issues has been BOC's Agents of Fortune. Clapton's 461 Ocean Blvd has issues as well. I still have plenty of vinyl to go through and clean up and will continue to do so, but finally finding a US source for hi rez wav files that will sell to US customers has been a game changer.
Yep. 80's metal is really, really hot now and just about anything pressed in the 90's at the tail end of the original vinyl run is through the roof. There is also this genre of which I know very little about called Northern Soul. The stories that come with it are really amazing, too. Stories of thefts of collections and the chases afterwards could be soap operas. There are several well known characters that have their pictures on the walls of many shops world wide, that handle this kind of music.
The first guy who inquired was good enough to inform me about the 80s metal and made me a "fair" offer. Still intrigued by the metal value, as some of the stuff wasn't particularly rare, being still mostly pre mass produced cd.
