I recently bought a new whizz bang HD TV and decided to connect it up to my Hi-Fi system to hear the sound better. Also, I had had the Blu-ray player connected up to my amplifier using RCA analogue cables. I had the idea to simplify matters by using the TV as a communication hub to pass through the digital signals from the various boxes to my CD player using a Toslink cable. The trouble is my Hi-Fi is situated rather a long way from the TV and the Blu-ray player. I could not get a reliable digital signal from my TV to the CD player. In the end, I solved the problem by connecting a short Toslink cable from my TV to a USB DAC/amplifier and running analogue RCA cables directly to my amplifier. In this way I could hear BBC 3 Radio from a terrestrial source being reproduced fairly well. My wife could also hear continental channels from a satellite source in almost Hi-Fi quality as well. Radio over the TV is broadcast in MP3 at 192 kbps.
For my Blu-ray player, I wanted better performance for playing opera films etc. I ended up connecting up the player directly to my CD DAC using a 5m Toslink cable - this worked perfectly.
I did lots of tests of the sound quality by playing CD quality and 256 Kbps MP3 music files through the various DACs and amplifiers. I concluded that modern DACs and Amplifiers seemed to sound the same - to my ears anyway. I also concluded that if I was to take a double blind test to distinguish between 256 kbps MP3 and CD then I would probably fail to determine which was which other than by chance. To me a big difference between the quality of the sound from various sources could only be perceived when the volume changed. This is a well known phenomenon. I get the feeling that many people including journalists from Hi-Fi magazines can easily get fooled by the Fletcher-Munson curve. The volume of a sound affects the frequency response of the ears. You could easily be fooled into believing that one cable sounds better than another etc. if you do not do your listening tests at equalised volumes.
http://ehomerecordingstudio.com/fletcher-munson-curve/
After all the playing around with digital cables etc. I got a pleasant surprise; a friend of mine gave me some Beatles Mono LPs which were bought soon after they were released in the sixties. We had some friends around for lunch and compared them to the newly re-mastered Beatles mono albums. All of the old records were in very good condition and they sounded almost exactly the same as their modern equivalents. There was no arguing or Hi-Fi hype or snobbishness: we all immediately came to the same conclusion without discussion. I did, however, have to adjust the volume as some of the modern re-masters seemed quieter. The good old Fletcher-Munson curve came into play again, but none of us was fooled that new or old sounded better.
Tuesday 29 November 2016
Wednesday 31 August 2016
HIFI tripe
There is lots of noise in the HIFI press about the revival of LP records and some extraordinary claims which defy scientific evidence and logic.
For some reason HIFI journalists seem to be going over the top when making subjective assessments of the performance of turntables.
Many journalists make reference to timing issues. If the speed of the turntable varies too much you can often hear changes to the pitch of instruments as a result of wow and flutter. If your turntable's speed varies too much then instruments such as the clarinet and piano can be heard to vary their pitch.
The best turntables maintain their speed with sufficient accuracy to ensure that you cannot hear wow and flutter affecting the pitch of an instrument. A mis-placed spindle hole in the actual LP itself can also cause wow and flutter and a mechanical solution to this problem is difficult and expensive.
HIFI magazines of course measure wow and flutter and make comparisons - all well and good. In general most modern turntables keep wow and flutter under control and generally the more expensive tables do a better job than the cheaper ones. However, if you do not set up your turntable with some precision you can suffer from wow and flutter no matter how much money you have paid. Even using greasy fingers on a turntable belt could cause speed variations.
I don't have too much problem with HIFI journalists making comments on wow and flutter from subjective point of view as long as they are balanced by evidence and objectivity.
I do have a problem when HIFI journalists compare turntables with their ability to reproduce the sequence in which notes are played. The wave form of a piece of music is embedded within the grove of an LP record. The only way that the sequence of notes could be varied would be to cut into the vinyl and make splices just as you could do with a cassette tape. This is really not possible. It would be possible to alter the sequence of notes electronically but this defeats the the point of HIFI reproduction. HIFI journalists are talking tripe with reference to this.
Many HIFI journalists also seem to be looking at LP sound reproduction through rose coloured glasses probably just because it is an analogue system which they claim to have almost infinite resolution. There is no doubt that you could create an analogue recording system with near infinite resolution. But, not with systems using lathe cutters to produce LP masters and stamping machines to produce the final product. The whole system of LP production is riddled with errors. A turntable and cartridge using a diamond stylus cannot improve upon those errors. To achieve error free transcription we are talking about using non-frictional transcription devices which store the wave form on a storage device to be read by a non-frictional means. Such a system would would probably involve lasers. This type of analogue system would be very expensive and would hardly improve upon digital recording methods such as CD or "HiRes" digital files. Would we be able to hear the difference anyway? Once again HIFI journalists are talking tripe when they claim that LP has a greater potential for HIFI reproduction than well implemented digital sound recording and sound reproduction.
It really is time for HIFI journalists to become more objective and professional in their judgements.
For some reason HIFI journalists seem to be going over the top when making subjective assessments of the performance of turntables.
Many journalists make reference to timing issues. If the speed of the turntable varies too much you can often hear changes to the pitch of instruments as a result of wow and flutter. If your turntable's speed varies too much then instruments such as the clarinet and piano can be heard to vary their pitch.
The best turntables maintain their speed with sufficient accuracy to ensure that you cannot hear wow and flutter affecting the pitch of an instrument. A mis-placed spindle hole in the actual LP itself can also cause wow and flutter and a mechanical solution to this problem is difficult and expensive.
HIFI magazines of course measure wow and flutter and make comparisons - all well and good. In general most modern turntables keep wow and flutter under control and generally the more expensive tables do a better job than the cheaper ones. However, if you do not set up your turntable with some precision you can suffer from wow and flutter no matter how much money you have paid. Even using greasy fingers on a turntable belt could cause speed variations.
I don't have too much problem with HIFI journalists making comments on wow and flutter from subjective point of view as long as they are balanced by evidence and objectivity.
I do have a problem when HIFI journalists compare turntables with their ability to reproduce the sequence in which notes are played. The wave form of a piece of music is embedded within the grove of an LP record. The only way that the sequence of notes could be varied would be to cut into the vinyl and make splices just as you could do with a cassette tape. This is really not possible. It would be possible to alter the sequence of notes electronically but this defeats the the point of HIFI reproduction. HIFI journalists are talking tripe with reference to this.
Many HIFI journalists also seem to be looking at LP sound reproduction through rose coloured glasses probably just because it is an analogue system which they claim to have almost infinite resolution. There is no doubt that you could create an analogue recording system with near infinite resolution. But, not with systems using lathe cutters to produce LP masters and stamping machines to produce the final product. The whole system of LP production is riddled with errors. A turntable and cartridge using a diamond stylus cannot improve upon those errors. To achieve error free transcription we are talking about using non-frictional transcription devices which store the wave form on a storage device to be read by a non-frictional means. Such a system would would probably involve lasers. This type of analogue system would be very expensive and would hardly improve upon digital recording methods such as CD or "HiRes" digital files. Would we be able to hear the difference anyway? Once again HIFI journalists are talking tripe when they claim that LP has a greater potential for HIFI reproduction than well implemented digital sound recording and sound reproduction.
It really is time for HIFI journalists to become more objective and professional in their judgements.
Friday 29 April 2016
Record Store Day
A couple a Saturdays ago I popped down to my local record shop to hear some music and browse through the racks of LPs which were loaded with mainly pop and rock music. There were some blues and jazz records available. I was not tempted to buy anything as I got the impression that the record labels were cashing in.
Yes, it is nice to hold a record cover in your hand and feel the weight of the vinyl and quite often the covert art is spectacular. However, it is the quality of the music that matters both artistically and technically. The music enthusiast has little control over the artistic content except by not buying a disliked artist.
However, from a technical viewpoint the music lover has a really broad choice. Most of the LPs will be available on CD or "on-line" sources. A well mastered CD will always sound better than its LP equivalent. The arguments about dynamic range hardly hold water. Most rock and pop music is recorded and mastered with very little dynamic range compared to orchestral works. Of course there are exceptions such as the Pink Floyd. The Beatles used compressed dynamic range to artistic effect.
You really are better off playing a CD if you you want to hear High Fidelity sound reproduction of any genre of music. The sound reproduction equipment needs to be good however. A good set up should not cost you an arm and a leg. A thousand pounds should be able to buy a good CD player, Amplifier and Speakers - modern technology works wonders.
CD s are not plagued by pops, clicks, hisses and rumble or wow and flutter. They reproduce the music as it was recorded on the master tape. I never listen to classical music or acoustic folk on an LP.
You may well ask why bother buying and listening to an LP. I do it for a bit of fun playing a Beatles record on a turntable brings me back to my teens. If I want to hear the Beatles in their full glory then I play the modern digitally remastered versions.
Many of the new converts to vinyl agree with me, as 48% of people who buy LPs don't play them. They just look at the cover whilst playing the digital version by you tube or digital downloads. Some people pin the LP to a wall and gaze at it whilst playing the music from digital sources. 7% of LP buyers do not have a a record player at all!
I appeal to all those who love music to actually play their LPs; a turntable is not that difficult to set up and you can buy a decent one for around two hundred and fifty quid. Some turntables have the necessary pre-amp built in. Many modern amplifiers also make provision for pre-amplification. There is nothing to be frightened of when you play an LP. You just have to be careful when dropping the needle and don't play your LPs at a party. There is a slight difference in sound to the CD or MP3 equivalent because the LP itself adds a little harmonic distortion which changes the quality of the sound. If I were to be pedantic then I would consider LPs not to be High Fidelity or " High Definition"- but it is probably best not to continue with this line of reasoning.
Audio cassettes are making a comeback; I have got three players but I only use the one in my older car. I cannot bring myself to use an MP3 player with an adapter. Other than in the car I see audio-cassettes as being a pain in the neck. I have digitised any recordings that I cannot source on CD. I have often bought audio cassettes that have survived only three or four replays. However I have got one cassette that is nearly thirty years old and it is indestructible - it is all very random. Some artists are releasing new material on this medium.
Amongst all the LPs on Record Store day I saw a young man fingering the one lonely cassette on display. He was probably debating with himself whether to buy it or not. The music was also available on LP. I was tempted to say to him not to bother but that would have been unfair on the record shop. There are no such limitations on this blog.
Will the new desire to buy LPs and audio cassettes be a long term phenomenon? The statistics point to an "analogue" revival that will be just a short term fashion. Only time will tell; but one thing is certain digital music sound is here to stay for the foreseeable future.
Yes, it is nice to hold a record cover in your hand and feel the weight of the vinyl and quite often the covert art is spectacular. However, it is the quality of the music that matters both artistically and technically. The music enthusiast has little control over the artistic content except by not buying a disliked artist.
However, from a technical viewpoint the music lover has a really broad choice. Most of the LPs will be available on CD or "on-line" sources. A well mastered CD will always sound better than its LP equivalent. The arguments about dynamic range hardly hold water. Most rock and pop music is recorded and mastered with very little dynamic range compared to orchestral works. Of course there are exceptions such as the Pink Floyd. The Beatles used compressed dynamic range to artistic effect.
You really are better off playing a CD if you you want to hear High Fidelity sound reproduction of any genre of music. The sound reproduction equipment needs to be good however. A good set up should not cost you an arm and a leg. A thousand pounds should be able to buy a good CD player, Amplifier and Speakers - modern technology works wonders.
CD s are not plagued by pops, clicks, hisses and rumble or wow and flutter. They reproduce the music as it was recorded on the master tape. I never listen to classical music or acoustic folk on an LP.
You may well ask why bother buying and listening to an LP. I do it for a bit of fun playing a Beatles record on a turntable brings me back to my teens. If I want to hear the Beatles in their full glory then I play the modern digitally remastered versions.
Many of the new converts to vinyl agree with me, as 48% of people who buy LPs don't play them. They just look at the cover whilst playing the digital version by you tube or digital downloads. Some people pin the LP to a wall and gaze at it whilst playing the music from digital sources. 7% of LP buyers do not have a a record player at all!
I appeal to all those who love music to actually play their LPs; a turntable is not that difficult to set up and you can buy a decent one for around two hundred and fifty quid. Some turntables have the necessary pre-amp built in. Many modern amplifiers also make provision for pre-amplification. There is nothing to be frightened of when you play an LP. You just have to be careful when dropping the needle and don't play your LPs at a party. There is a slight difference in sound to the CD or MP3 equivalent because the LP itself adds a little harmonic distortion which changes the quality of the sound. If I were to be pedantic then I would consider LPs not to be High Fidelity or " High Definition"- but it is probably best not to continue with this line of reasoning.
Audio cassettes are making a comeback; I have got three players but I only use the one in my older car. I cannot bring myself to use an MP3 player with an adapter. Other than in the car I see audio-cassettes as being a pain in the neck. I have digitised any recordings that I cannot source on CD. I have often bought audio cassettes that have survived only three or four replays. However I have got one cassette that is nearly thirty years old and it is indestructible - it is all very random. Some artists are releasing new material on this medium.
Amongst all the LPs on Record Store day I saw a young man fingering the one lonely cassette on display. He was probably debating with himself whether to buy it or not. The music was also available on LP. I was tempted to say to him not to bother but that would have been unfair on the record shop. There are no such limitations on this blog.
Will the new desire to buy LPs and audio cassettes be a long term phenomenon? The statistics point to an "analogue" revival that will be just a short term fashion. Only time will tell; but one thing is certain digital music sound is here to stay for the foreseeable future.
Wednesday 6 April 2016
MQA new kid on the block
I shall not be rushing to audition Meridian's MQA sytem even though there is now a lot of interest in this new method of encoding digital music files.
https://www.meridian-audio.com/news-events/meridian-audio-launches-mqa-master-quality-authenticated/
We now have "temporal blurring of transients" to deal with in our calculations. MQA is based on some scientific research which suggests that human beings can detect time differences of around 5 micro seconds and use this time difference to locate exactly where sounds are coming from. A time difference of 5 micro seconds is a very short time for an electro-chemical nerve transmission system to deal with, so I am very sceptical of the neuroscience and I would need to see absolute proof of such a claim.
I am not sure that my ears are capable of handling the extra resolution that MQA claims to provide.
I cannot for the life of me recognise any difference between between a CD music file and a "HIRES" one. Neither can any of my friends or family. I have always wanted to believe that "HIRES" improves on CD but the placebo effect and confirmation bias have failed me. My £24 spent on the HIRES download of "Band On The Run" was a waste of money because when I converted the "HIRES" version to 16/44.1 to make a CD for the car I could hear no difference. The music itself sounds great.
I am not going to try and do a double blind comparison of the 256 kbps MP3 that I made of the same album for fear of failing. The "HIRES" version of the album does not sound better to my ears than the "LORES" versions.
I have got a 24/96 "HIRES" blu-ray version of Supertramp's "Breakfast in America" this came along with free a 320 kbps MP3. Once again I am reluctant to do a double blind ABX comparison for fear of failing. I have also got the vinyl LP version which has remained in very good condition with few clicks and pops and not much record hiss etc. The digital versions sound better to my ears, in a technical sense". The LP sounds slightly different but not so much different that I prefer the LP version to the digital one. This music sounds great too.
Before I buy an album digitised to MQA standards I shall need proof from a measurement point of view that this form of digital conversion is superior to CD. I will then need to satisfy myself that it sounds superior to my ears.
Many of us have heard "Time" on Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and it sounds very realistic to me either in digital or analogue form. The sound of the mechanical alarm clock always gives me a shock and it sounds exactly like the clock I used to have on my bedside table. And what is more to the point, why should I pay thousands more for equipment and newly re-mastered recordings that can only sound very marginally better to my compromised ears? If , they sound better at all!
https://www.meridian-audio.com/news-events/meridian-audio-launches-mqa-master-quality-authenticated/
We now have "temporal blurring of transients" to deal with in our calculations. MQA is based on some scientific research which suggests that human beings can detect time differences of around 5 micro seconds and use this time difference to locate exactly where sounds are coming from. A time difference of 5 micro seconds is a very short time for an electro-chemical nerve transmission system to deal with, so I am very sceptical of the neuroscience and I would need to see absolute proof of such a claim.
I am not sure that my ears are capable of handling the extra resolution that MQA claims to provide.
I cannot for the life of me recognise any difference between between a CD music file and a "HIRES" one. Neither can any of my friends or family. I have always wanted to believe that "HIRES" improves on CD but the placebo effect and confirmation bias have failed me. My £24 spent on the HIRES download of "Band On The Run" was a waste of money because when I converted the "HIRES" version to 16/44.1 to make a CD for the car I could hear no difference. The music itself sounds great.
I am not going to try and do a double blind comparison of the 256 kbps MP3 that I made of the same album for fear of failing. The "HIRES" version of the album does not sound better to my ears than the "LORES" versions.
I have got a 24/96 "HIRES" blu-ray version of Supertramp's "Breakfast in America" this came along with free a 320 kbps MP3. Once again I am reluctant to do a double blind ABX comparison for fear of failing. I have also got the vinyl LP version which has remained in very good condition with few clicks and pops and not much record hiss etc. The digital versions sound better to my ears, in a technical sense". The LP sounds slightly different but not so much different that I prefer the LP version to the digital one. This music sounds great too.
Before I buy an album digitised to MQA standards I shall need proof from a measurement point of view that this form of digital conversion is superior to CD. I will then need to satisfy myself that it sounds superior to my ears.
Many of us have heard "Time" on Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and it sounds very realistic to me either in digital or analogue form. The sound of the mechanical alarm clock always gives me a shock and it sounds exactly like the clock I used to have on my bedside table. And what is more to the point, why should I pay thousands more for equipment and newly re-mastered recordings that can only sound very marginally better to my compromised ears? If , they sound better at all!
Wednesday 9 March 2016
Sir George Martin and The Beatles
In many ways the death of George Martin is as sad as the deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison.
George Martin was a great musician and a great record producer. He was a generalist in the age of the specialist. He was able to succeed right across the spectrum of music.
As " The fifth Beatle" he succeed in bringing the best of popular music to the masses.
In the 1960s Hi-Fi would have been a luxury; we had to listen to The Beatles on Dansette type record players or over AM radio. There was no MP3, WAV or FLAC to worry about. HD music hyperbole did not exist. Most teenagers played back their records using sapphire needles and ceramic cartridges. They could not have cared less about linear frequency response. Wow and Flutter were every day hazards. Most amplifiers produced mains hum and distorted the music at relatively low volume levels.
The Beatles music shone through all of problems associated with the sound reproduction of the day. It was only the music that mattered and it sounded just as good then as it does today: with or without Moving Coil Cartridges, HD FLAC files or 180 gm virgin vinyl.
George Martin was a great musician and a great record producer. He was a generalist in the age of the specialist. He was able to succeed right across the spectrum of music.
As " The fifth Beatle" he succeed in bringing the best of popular music to the masses.
In the 1960s Hi-Fi would have been a luxury; we had to listen to The Beatles on Dansette type record players or over AM radio. There was no MP3, WAV or FLAC to worry about. HD music hyperbole did not exist. Most teenagers played back their records using sapphire needles and ceramic cartridges. They could not have cared less about linear frequency response. Wow and Flutter were every day hazards. Most amplifiers produced mains hum and distorted the music at relatively low volume levels.
The Beatles music shone through all of problems associated with the sound reproduction of the day. It was only the music that mattered and it sounded just as good then as it does today: with or without Moving Coil Cartridges, HD FLAC files or 180 gm virgin vinyl.
Monday 1 February 2016
The Vinyl Revival is running apace
It looks like the revival of LPs is hotting up. The consumer hi-fi companies are introducing more and more turntables to the market. Panasonic is bringing out an updated model its famous Technics 1200 series complete with a modified direct drive system. You will have to pay big bucks for what is really quite old technology, and the marginal improvement to the sound might not justify the extra expense. Direct drive turntables were introduced to the market in the early 1970s.
Many manufacturers are now producing turntables with built in phono-stages and USB stages so that you can easily digitise your LPs and store the result on a computer drive.
Many of the hi-fi forums have members which pour scorn on the feature of having a phono-stage built in to the turntable. But isn't this where it should have been in the first place? Most modern amplifiers no longer provide a "phono" input. Audiophiles with lots of money to throw away on specialist phono-stages never use an amplifier with a built in phono-stage, anyway.
By having a phono-stage built into your consumer deck you can connect the turntable to any integrated amplifier, powered speakers or even a mini-hi-fi or television sound bar. It's all very convenient and it is all very flexible now and that is the way it should be.
Consumer turntables now sound very good. And, because the limiting factor to quality is the LP production process itself the marginal benefits of spending thousands on a turntable probably do not justify an expensive outlay. A die hard audiophile, who loves his LP, will never acknowledge this fact. Let's face it, LPs are old technology where a diamond is scrapped against a piece of plastic at a fixed speed - it's a minor miracle that an LP can sound very good. A turntable and all its accoutrements could cost you thousands - all that to play a piece of plastic worth 10 pence.
Phono-stages have been around since the 1950s. It is easy for electronics companies to mass produce ones that work very well.
The phono-stage acts as a means of amplifying the rather weak signals generated by a moving magnet (and coil) cartridges. The phono-stage also applies RIAA equalisation to accentuate the bass response and attenuate the treble response. Thus it reverses the equalisation applied when the master vinyl pressing plate is cut.
The circuitry to produce a phono-stage is as cheap as chips, just like the DAC circuitry found in even the most expensive CD player or network streamer. Millions of these hi-fi chips are produced in factories and all hi-fi makers benefit from the economies of scale of modern manufacturing.
One consumer electronics manufacturer is associating its turntable with high definition sound and it provides users with the means to digitise their LPs to 24/192 high definition music files. Don't be fooled by this; the LP is not high definition. LPs cannot reproduce music to a higher definition than CD. The whole process of producing an LP and playing it is flawed. What is more, 24/192 "high definition" files do not sound better than a 16/44.1 CD music file when all other factors remain equal. Double blind listening tests prove this time and time again; no one can hear a difference at safe listening volumes.
Hi-fi magazines perpetuate the myth of using high definition music files to digitise your LPs as if this was going to make the LP sound better - it won't. You can use software to remove the clicks and pops on an LP but doing this actually removes some of the music frequencies. You have made the flaws of vinyl more acceptable but you have not improved frequency response or dynamic range by using noise removal software.
I am not suggesting that those new to LPs should throw away their vinyl and ditch their turntable. I am appealing to their sense of reason so that they can see through all the marketing hype and myths perpetuated on forums. Hi-fi magazines should know better as the vinyl revival will not lead to improved sound reproduction over CD.
I have got two turntables and my wife and I like to sit down and listen to an LP every now and then; just for old time's sake. To this end, I recently bought my wife David Bowie's Blackstar: it cost me a lot of money, £25 as compared to £10 pounds for the CD, but I got a voucher for a 320 kbps mp3 download.
When I played the record it sounded fantastic. The LP was well produced in "180 g virgin vinyl", there were no scratches and there was only one pop which I heard on one of the quiet parts of the album - of which there were few. When I played the digital version it sounded almost exactly the same. Why was that ? I used the same amplifier and speakers and I matched the volume and I also played it back in the same room. Over time the LP will wear out and it will collect minor scratches and ingrained dust, despite cleaning, so the sound will deteriorate. I shall save playing the LP for special occasions or when we feel in the mood. In the main I shall play the mp3 download. There will be no need to digitise the LP to 24/192 high definition. The download will be free of pops and clicks.
There is no doubt that the Blackstar album would have been recorded digitally and then transposed to analogue for the production of the LP. There is nothing wrong with this and this is one of the reasons why the LP sounds so good.
The LP production process degrades the sound by introducing harmonic distortion, clicks and pops and sometimes audible wow and flutter. Playback adds further harmonic distortion and sometimes extra and audible wow and flutter too. Playback also adds surface noise to the sound reproduction just from the stylus rubbing against the plastic disc. Playback can also introduce static electricity pops and dust can land on the playing surface to introduce further hissing noises.
Despite all the hype most modern LPs will have been recorded digitally and you will not be hearing so called analogue purity.
For pop music, most of the faults of LP playback are inaudible because the music is much louder than the surface noise. Wow and flutter can be audible though. For classical music, which usually has a much wider dynamic range than pop, the surface noise intrudes into to the quieter sections of the performance. I cannot stand this, and for this reason I never play classical music on a turntable. I always use digital sources.
Please do not fall for all the hype and if you do not have lots of money to spend on new equipment then you might be better off sticking to CD. There is also the time overhead of setting up your turntable and making sure it runs properly. LPs can sound very good and it is great to see a mechanical device spinning your music around. But, there are many pitfalls and if you do not look after your records they will eventually sound awful.
Many manufacturers are now producing turntables with built in phono-stages and USB stages so that you can easily digitise your LPs and store the result on a computer drive.
Many of the hi-fi forums have members which pour scorn on the feature of having a phono-stage built in to the turntable. But isn't this where it should have been in the first place? Most modern amplifiers no longer provide a "phono" input. Audiophiles with lots of money to throw away on specialist phono-stages never use an amplifier with a built in phono-stage, anyway.
By having a phono-stage built into your consumer deck you can connect the turntable to any integrated amplifier, powered speakers or even a mini-hi-fi or television sound bar. It's all very convenient and it is all very flexible now and that is the way it should be.
Consumer turntables now sound very good. And, because the limiting factor to quality is the LP production process itself the marginal benefits of spending thousands on a turntable probably do not justify an expensive outlay. A die hard audiophile, who loves his LP, will never acknowledge this fact. Let's face it, LPs are old technology where a diamond is scrapped against a piece of plastic at a fixed speed - it's a minor miracle that an LP can sound very good. A turntable and all its accoutrements could cost you thousands - all that to play a piece of plastic worth 10 pence.
Phono-stages have been around since the 1950s. It is easy for electronics companies to mass produce ones that work very well.
The phono-stage acts as a means of amplifying the rather weak signals generated by a moving magnet (and coil) cartridges. The phono-stage also applies RIAA equalisation to accentuate the bass response and attenuate the treble response. Thus it reverses the equalisation applied when the master vinyl pressing plate is cut.
The circuitry to produce a phono-stage is as cheap as chips, just like the DAC circuitry found in even the most expensive CD player or network streamer. Millions of these hi-fi chips are produced in factories and all hi-fi makers benefit from the economies of scale of modern manufacturing.
One consumer electronics manufacturer is associating its turntable with high definition sound and it provides users with the means to digitise their LPs to 24/192 high definition music files. Don't be fooled by this; the LP is not high definition. LPs cannot reproduce music to a higher definition than CD. The whole process of producing an LP and playing it is flawed. What is more, 24/192 "high definition" files do not sound better than a 16/44.1 CD music file when all other factors remain equal. Double blind listening tests prove this time and time again; no one can hear a difference at safe listening volumes.
Hi-fi magazines perpetuate the myth of using high definition music files to digitise your LPs as if this was going to make the LP sound better - it won't. You can use software to remove the clicks and pops on an LP but doing this actually removes some of the music frequencies. You have made the flaws of vinyl more acceptable but you have not improved frequency response or dynamic range by using noise removal software.
I am not suggesting that those new to LPs should throw away their vinyl and ditch their turntable. I am appealing to their sense of reason so that they can see through all the marketing hype and myths perpetuated on forums. Hi-fi magazines should know better as the vinyl revival will not lead to improved sound reproduction over CD.
I have got two turntables and my wife and I like to sit down and listen to an LP every now and then; just for old time's sake. To this end, I recently bought my wife David Bowie's Blackstar: it cost me a lot of money, £25 as compared to £10 pounds for the CD, but I got a voucher for a 320 kbps mp3 download.
When I played the record it sounded fantastic. The LP was well produced in "180 g virgin vinyl", there were no scratches and there was only one pop which I heard on one of the quiet parts of the album - of which there were few. When I played the digital version it sounded almost exactly the same. Why was that ? I used the same amplifier and speakers and I matched the volume and I also played it back in the same room. Over time the LP will wear out and it will collect minor scratches and ingrained dust, despite cleaning, so the sound will deteriorate. I shall save playing the LP for special occasions or when we feel in the mood. In the main I shall play the mp3 download. There will be no need to digitise the LP to 24/192 high definition. The download will be free of pops and clicks.
There is no doubt that the Blackstar album would have been recorded digitally and then transposed to analogue for the production of the LP. There is nothing wrong with this and this is one of the reasons why the LP sounds so good.
The LP production process degrades the sound by introducing harmonic distortion, clicks and pops and sometimes audible wow and flutter. Playback adds further harmonic distortion and sometimes extra and audible wow and flutter too. Playback also adds surface noise to the sound reproduction just from the stylus rubbing against the plastic disc. Playback can also introduce static electricity pops and dust can land on the playing surface to introduce further hissing noises.
Despite all the hype most modern LPs will have been recorded digitally and you will not be hearing so called analogue purity.
For pop music, most of the faults of LP playback are inaudible because the music is much louder than the surface noise. Wow and flutter can be audible though. For classical music, which usually has a much wider dynamic range than pop, the surface noise intrudes into to the quieter sections of the performance. I cannot stand this, and for this reason I never play classical music on a turntable. I always use digital sources.
Please do not fall for all the hype and if you do not have lots of money to spend on new equipment then you might be better off sticking to CD. There is also the time overhead of setting up your turntable and making sure it runs properly. LPs can sound very good and it is great to see a mechanical device spinning your music around. But, there are many pitfalls and if you do not look after your records they will eventually sound awful.
Wednesday 6 January 2016
HIFI sound stage
There is lots of talk on hi-fi forums and hi-fi magazines about sound stage and of course lots of it is rubbish.
A so called sound stage is created by using two or mores speakers and feeding more than one channel of music into the speakers.
We have got two ears and having two ears helps us to locate the position of a sound quite accurately most of the time. We locate a sound by hearing volume differences between our ears and by the timing differences that a sound takes to move from one ear to the other.
When we listen to an orchestra playing live we can locate the positions of the various instruments in both the lateral and vertical planes. An orchestra generally positions the violins on the left as you are facing it and the cellos and double bass instruments on the left and so on. The woodwind is generally in the middle. Our hearing and perception enable us to determine the location of the instruments with our eyes closed. But, of course, our perception and hearing can be fooled by echoes and hall acoustics. Anyone who regularly attends orchestral concerts can verify this.
When stereo recordings became generally available in the 1950's sound engineers used recording techniques and microphone placement to generate a similar sound ,when reproducing the sound an orchestra, so that a listener could appreciate the sound stage in his living room, but of course the stereo speakers had to be placed correctly and wired correctly.
If you listen to a good recording of an orchestra through a hfi-fi quality sound system then you will be able to hear an approximate positioning of the instruments. This of course depends upon the acoustics of your listening room and your position in it. Your perceptions are assisted by an expectation bias that an orchestra always positions the instruments in a "standard" configuration. No sound recording can achieve an exact duplication of the original sound stage.
Now to the rubbish that is spoken. If you do not have access to the original master recording you cannot verify that the sound stage from your hi-fi matches reality. You cannot know where the instruments where originally positioned and whether the original master recording had a 3 dimensional sound stage or not. Modern recording techniques using electric guitars and other electronic instruments now plug the instruments directly into the recording deck so they could be positioned anywhere.
If you do not have a method of comparing the original master recording to your hi-fi then all talk about the competence of your equipment's generation of an accurate sound stage is pure conjecture. Lots of hi-fi magazines ignore this fact and make comment about the sound stage of the equipment, that they are reviewing, with a misplaced and exaggerated authority - thus they are talking out of the back of their necks most of the time. Many hi-fi forum contributors also repeat this school boy error.
All I can say is that I have a reasonable hi-fi set up and when I play an orchestral work the instrument positions more or less sound as if they are coming from the place I would expect them to, but I would be shocked if it was exactly the same as if I had attended the actual performance. This is all I can expect of the sound stage of any hi-fi equipment and this is why we will never be able to achieve absolute hi-fi reproduction. You can believe of pretend otherwise if you wish.
A so called sound stage is created by using two or mores speakers and feeding more than one channel of music into the speakers.
We have got two ears and having two ears helps us to locate the position of a sound quite accurately most of the time. We locate a sound by hearing volume differences between our ears and by the timing differences that a sound takes to move from one ear to the other.
When we listen to an orchestra playing live we can locate the positions of the various instruments in both the lateral and vertical planes. An orchestra generally positions the violins on the left as you are facing it and the cellos and double bass instruments on the left and so on. The woodwind is generally in the middle. Our hearing and perception enable us to determine the location of the instruments with our eyes closed. But, of course, our perception and hearing can be fooled by echoes and hall acoustics. Anyone who regularly attends orchestral concerts can verify this.
When stereo recordings became generally available in the 1950's sound engineers used recording techniques and microphone placement to generate a similar sound ,when reproducing the sound an orchestra, so that a listener could appreciate the sound stage in his living room, but of course the stereo speakers had to be placed correctly and wired correctly.
If you listen to a good recording of an orchestra through a hfi-fi quality sound system then you will be able to hear an approximate positioning of the instruments. This of course depends upon the acoustics of your listening room and your position in it. Your perceptions are assisted by an expectation bias that an orchestra always positions the instruments in a "standard" configuration. No sound recording can achieve an exact duplication of the original sound stage.
Now to the rubbish that is spoken. If you do not have access to the original master recording you cannot verify that the sound stage from your hi-fi matches reality. You cannot know where the instruments where originally positioned and whether the original master recording had a 3 dimensional sound stage or not. Modern recording techniques using electric guitars and other electronic instruments now plug the instruments directly into the recording deck so they could be positioned anywhere.
If you do not have a method of comparing the original master recording to your hi-fi then all talk about the competence of your equipment's generation of an accurate sound stage is pure conjecture. Lots of hi-fi magazines ignore this fact and make comment about the sound stage of the equipment, that they are reviewing, with a misplaced and exaggerated authority - thus they are talking out of the back of their necks most of the time. Many hi-fi forum contributors also repeat this school boy error.
All I can say is that I have a reasonable hi-fi set up and when I play an orchestral work the instrument positions more or less sound as if they are coming from the place I would expect them to, but I would be shocked if it was exactly the same as if I had attended the actual performance. This is all I can expect of the sound stage of any hi-fi equipment and this is why we will never be able to achieve absolute hi-fi reproduction. You can believe of pretend otherwise if you wish.
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