Beatles LPs and broken promises

I broke a promise that I made to myself about not buying the newly re-mastered Beatles mono LPs . I bought a couple to see what all the furore was about on impulse without listening to my rational brain. Well I am not going to indulge anymore.

I have been listening to LPs for years and I have always been annoyed by any sort of wow and flutter, static hiss, groove noise and crackles.

I recently bought a copy of King Crimson's " In the Court of the  Crimson King" in 200 gm virgin vinyl. When I first played it, it sounded perfect. However, it did not sound any better than the CD version.

I have played the record 3 times now and already static crackle and dust clicks are affecting the quiet parts of the album. This accumulation of static and dust cannot be prevented.

The same thing is happening to the couple of The Beatles mono re-masters that I have bought. If I keep playing them they will end up sounding like my  1963 copy of "With The Beatles" which has got plenty of static noise in between the tracks even though it is not damaged or worn out. I will end up thinking why did I bother buying the new records. New vinyl should only really be played on special occasions - you are better off digitising the records to 16/44.1 Wav or Flac music files which reproduce the vinyl sound exactly the same, or buying the CD if it has been mastered at a good quality which the new Beatles CD re-masters have been and so has the King Crimson. With a CD you benefit from an album which is free of surface noise, wow and flutter and crackle - genuine hi-fi.

Radio 4 on my Hi-Fi turntable with RFI

I once lived very near the Crystal Palace transmitter in London, way back in the 1970s, and I  heard lots of Radio Frequency Interference (RFI). It was not in the form of frame-buzz but I actually heard Radio 4 loud and clear.

Just imagine my horror when, intermittently, I heard Dan Archer from " The Archers" - an every day story of country folk -  prattling along to the softer parts of a progressive rock album. It took performance art to a new absurd and surreal level. I never really indentified where the problem lay or cured it. I guessed that the mains-cabling was acting as an antenna and that my turntable cartridge was acting as a rectifier.  I moved house and that eliminated the problem.

 

I have never experienced any problem with RFI since then. The house is now full of wireless equipment and portable ‘phones etc. but “The Archers” no longer spoil the music. I thought that modern technology had banished RFI intrusion forever but it seems that some people still suffer from it.

Quite often there is a simple solution. Making sure all your connexions are tight. Using screened interconnects, mains cables and speaker cables can also work. Usually the process of elimination can identify where the problem is. Even moving your cables around can work. None of this need expensive. There is no need to spend a fortune on expensive cables which have never been proven to work better than standard quality cables at much lower prices.

RFI can sometimes be alleviated by the use of cheap ferrite rings.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Movable-Offset-UF50B-Diameter-Ferrite/dp/B007Q94DMO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426250880&sr=8-1&keywords=ferrite+rings#customerReviews



 

 

 

Hi-Fi Nous - There is a difference between believing something to be true and knowing something to be true

The BBC broadcasts its classical music station Radio3 on FM and many audiophile enthusiasts believe that Radio 3 broadcasts sound better than "CD quality". These enthusiasts believe that they are listening to a fully analogue audio signal.

Well they are not; ever since the 1970s the BBC has built a digital circuit in the transmission chain to improve the propagation of the audio signal through landlines on their way to the transmitter.

As far as practicality is concerned Radio 3 listeners are listening to a digital radio signal which is broadcast using an analogue carrier wave.

Starting from 1972 The BBC used PCM digital circuits to convert their analogue music signals at a 13 bit/32khz sampling rate. This effectively meant that that Radio 3 audio had a theoretical dynamic range of 78 decibels and an upper frequency limit of 16khz for the music. The frequency limit was further restricted to 15khz because of a bandwidth restriction associated with Frequency Modulated radio broadcasting.

Since the 1980s, The BBC has been using 14 bit/32khz Nicam digital processors.

The Radio 3 FM broadcasts of classical music can sound wonderful and at a bit rate of around 720 kbps they sound just as good to my ears as a CD transcribing around 1400 kbps. The BBC has recently started internet  broadcasts of Radio 3 using a 320 kbps AAC codec and this sounds wonderful too.

If you still want to believe that you are listening to a wonderful analogue hi-fi experience when you tune in to R3 FM then think again. There is a difference between believing something to be true and knowing it to be true.

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/BBC/PCMandNICAM/History.html

The vinyl revival

I was in my record shop the other day and they had a number of " turntables" and portable record players on display. The displays of LPs and 45s are getting larger and larger every week. Most of the people looking at the kit and the records were young.

What is causing the revival? Well fashion is one thing. Youngster these days are too young remember using turntables. It is all very new to them.

I commented to one of the younger sales assistants that I had ruined a copy of Captain Beefheart's Safe as Milk on a Dansette. She looked at me as if I had just stepped off a space ship from Mars. She had no clue about record players and turntables and was not embarrassed to admit it.

An audiophile would sneer at the kit available and would probably regard the players as toys. There is no facility to adjust tracking weights, vertical tracking angles and spin rates etc. There is nothing to play with to make the records sound better. What are the real toys though?

The audiophile vinyl lover is part of a small group and this group will not drive a revival of analogue music. The growth in LP sales will come from young people who couldn't care less about azimuth adjustments and anti-skate springs and a suspended chassis.  They just want to hear good music in as easy manner as possible. They will want to transcribe their LPs to digital too - heaven forbid, and have a USB stage built in. They will also want their decks to be equipped with an equaliser stage - whatever next? This is the future, however, and vinyl purists will not be able to stop it.

I often wonder why anyone would want to constantly twiddle with adjustments to try and get a perfect sound from an LP when the limiting factor is the LP itself. Perhaps, it is some kind of  "control freakery". If you want to, you can spend tens of thousands of pounds to buy an almost perfect piece of kit that does not sound much or any better than a two hundred pound turntable made of MDF or acrylic plastic. If you have got a couple of grand to spare then good luck to you but lots of young people haven't even got one thousand to spend on a whole system. So this is the £40 solution - http://vinylrecordplayer.co.uk/gpo-stylo-3-speed-stand-alone-vinyl-record-player/

Quite frankly it does not sound too bad and it would not have stopped The Beatles from selling millions of records had it been around at the time. The only problem will be wear and tear on the records but I have still got some LPs and 45s from the 1960s that are playable.

Don't get me wrong I love listening to LPs even though most of my listening is from CD or other digital sources. From a technical point of view CDs and other digital sources give better sound reproduction and they lack the snap, crackle and pop and frequency changes from wow and flutter. A well recorded classical piece on a CD beats an LP any time.

Sometimes, however, I get a bit nostalgic and I put on a record for old time's sake, and I never cease to be amazed that a very small hard rock or diamond which scrapes against a piece of round plastic can make such a good sound. Some of this amazement has rubbed off onto the young; you don't need 24/192 digital nirvana to hear good sound and you do not need a degree in computing. Records are nice and simple so maybe that is what is so appealing.

The modern players are the 1960s and 1970s Dansette equivalent and they will sound good enough to help the revival of the LP and 45 industry. They will also encourage music lovers of all ages to sit around a player together to enjoy some sociability and share their music again, just like we did when we played our first Beach Boys albums and 45s in the good old days.  There was no need for anti-skate springs then and there was no sneering at the equipment.

The Beatles like I've never heard them before

I was in my local hi-fi shop last weekend listening to some speakers costing an awful lot of money. They had ribbon tweeters which can reproduce frequencies above 20khz. They sounded so good that I was tempted to reach for my credit card. I resisted temptation.

I then went to my local record store and bought a couple of CDs. The owner was playing some rather nice jazz and his 1990 vintage speakers sounded just as good as the super expensive ones I had just been listening too. I can't hear frequencies much higher than 13 khz so the ribbon tweeters aren't much use for me. The top note on a violin vibrates at about 4.5 khz and a soprano rarely breaches 1.5khz. I think that I saved myself a lot of money; my 1990s speakers still sound very good and have all the frequency range needed, even for a young blood, so there is no need to change them.

The record shop had just started to sell new vinyl LPs and I thumbed through the selection and to my surprise I had a couple of original versions of the newly released 180gm vinyls on sale.

I was chatting away to the owner about his new LP sales which seem to be doing reasonably well when he said that a customer had 'phoned him about the new Beatles mono LPs on 180gm vinyl.  The customer had said " it was like listening to the Beatles as he had never heard them before". I wonder where the customer had been all his life.

At home I have got a near mint condition of  "With The Beatles" in mono from 1963 and in 160 gm vinyl. I have also bought the latest 180 gm version for comparison. They sound almost identical to me. And so they should as the whole idea of the new pressings was to make them sound as close as possible to the original LPs. I fail to see, therefore, how anyone could claim that the new LPs "are like listening to The Beatles like I have never heard them before".

To me it seems as if expectation bias and the power of suggestion are having an influence on the judgement of the listener. This is not to say that the newly re-mastered LPs are not worth buying as they genuinely sound very good. They are really worth buying if your old Beatles mono albums are worn out and need replacement. Just don't play them on a 1960s mono player as you will ruin them forever just like most of us did back then in the days of yore.

hi-fi wishes for 2015

My first hi-fi wish for 2015 will be for a little bit of honesty to creep into the writings of  hi-fi magazines, forums and blogs. As far as I can see the primary object of hi-fi equipment is to reproduce music as faithfully as possible to the original recording. It is not about possession of expensive equipment for its own sake. It is not about a numbers game or worshipping specifications without putting measurements into the context of both the physical and psychological aspects of human hearing.

We have got to the stage where it is increasingly difficult and expensive to make improvements to domestic hi-fi equipment provided that that equipment has been well designed and built. Most of the improvements that can be made are now limited to the recording studio and the production of the master copies - be they digital or analogue.

We are now seeing an increasing number of advertisements in the hi-fi press for HD or "better than CD quality" audio. These adverts are also creeping into the general press. Hi-fi reviewers are already making a big deal out of HD (high definition) audio with its associated 24 bit/ 96 KHz (24/96)  digital files. Soon we shall be treated to music reproduction using 24/192 files and 32/384 files. An ordinary CD only stores music in a 16 bit/ 44.1 KHz file. An ordinary CD , however, can reproduce music with  a wider sound dynamic range than the human ear can safely cope with and it can reproduce frequencies which no human can hear or perceive as music. Why do we need a wider scope?

Extensive scientific listening tests have been performed which demonstrate that no one, so far, in the general population can hear the difference between ordinary CD quality music and HD music when all other parameters are equal. i.e. the equipment and playback volume is the same and the master recordings are the same. Why can the industry not recognise this? If double blind testing were to ascertain that members of the general population could recognise a difference we would be treated to copious full page advertisements showing the test results in the general press as well as the hi-fi press.

In the hi-fi press, reviewers do not want to talk about scientific listening tests. For some reason  reviewers ears seem to be better than for those of the general population. This may be true. Maybe the reviewers can perceive substantial quality differences between CD quality and HD quality music but surely they are obliged to prove their claims with double blind listening tests. If they cannot prove their claims then they should not make them and they should not claim that HD music reproduction is better than CD. Why should young people who are new to the hi-fi hobby be encouraged to spend their hard earnt money on equipment and music files which provide little or no extra benefit?

The hi-fi industry is riddled with exaggerated claims for the performance of expensive cables, equipment racks, fuses!, atomic clocks, power cables etc. The hi-fi magazines, however, are not riddled with double blind listening tests which prove that the very expensive equipment works better than more humble equivalents.

When I was young in the 1960s lots of equipment suffered from mains hum or other interference the use of cheap ferrite rings often sorted out the problem.

I have worked with computers for over 40 years. In the last decade we have seen the increasing use of computer technology to playback music. And of course we have seen increasing pressure within the hi-fi industry for us to buy very expensive and "hi-tech" USB  cables to prevent interference to music reproduction or improve data transmission rates. Well, what is so special about music reproduction? The bit rates for transmission are nothing compared to audio-visual data.  A PC has enough built in redundancy to easily transmit an audio file with full accuracy. An industry standard usb cable is perfectly sufficient provided it is not excessively long. There is no need for a special super duper and super expensive  usb cable. The cabling within the PC itself is all industry standard and there is no need for anything else.

So the theme goes on.

Let's have some honesty, let's have an admission that some of the extravagant claims made hi-fi experts could be the result of hubris, confirmation bias, a change of volume, placebo effect or auditory illusion. With all this mixed in with "the king's new clothes effect". Only scientific testing can ascertain the truth so let's  have more double blind testing with peer reviewed results. Let reviewers publish the truth and be damned - some hope but I remain an optimist. I also remain a realist and I only trust my own ears.

Atomic Clocks and HiFi

The other day I read an article in a Hi-Fi magazine about using an atomic clock to improve the performance of a very expensive combined  CD player and DAC costing £7,000. The rubidium based atomic clock costs around £5,000 and is supposedly accurate to 1 second in 1000 years.

The performance improvement was subjectively described as stunning. But, hold on a second where were the performance measurements? There were none. There were no peer reviewed double blind  tests which measured the performance of the CD player with or without the connexion of the atomic clock. No double blind and peer reviewed listening tests where performed either. We had to take the word of the reviewer that using an atomic clock provided a stunning improvement to the performance of a Hi-Fi system.

Let us look a little bit deeper into his claims. Most Hi-Fi enthusiasts agree that you cannot improve upon the performance of the original master recording according to the principle of Garbage In then Garbage Out or GIGO. Most enthusiasts agree that a Hi-Fi system can only be as good as the best performing unit of the system.

The reviewer claimed that there was a dramatic improvement to the sound stage of a 1959 Classical Music recording when the atomic clock was added to the system. This statement implies that a 1959 recording could perform with the timing accuracy of an atomic clock. This is is nonsense; in the 1950s all recordings were made using analogue tape recorders or were recorded direct to vinyl. Whichever method was used the analogue recording machines of the time produced significant timing errors which were both measurable and in some cases audible as wow and flutter.

An atomic clock cannot improve upon the performance of the original tape recorder. In this described case all it can really do is improve the standard of a deficient CD player. Even if it could improve the performance of the CD player to a level beyond that of a 1959 tape recorder then it would make no difference to the overall sound.  According to the laws of physics the music coming out of the speakers can perform no better than the performance of the original master recording - GIGO.

If an atomic clock could substantially improve the performance of the CD player then it implies that the player is somehow deficient. The reviewer should be more careful of his words. The original player was already equipped with a very fine quality non-atomic clock which is capable of reducing timing errors or "jitter" to an inaudible level.
 
Perhaps the reviewer's perceived stunning performance improvement could be attributed to "confirmation bias" or even hubris rather than the atomic clock. Extraordinary claims should be verified by double blind ABX listening tests to eliminate subjective impressions which do not have a firm foundation in reality.

Atomic clocks have their uses in the recording and mastering studio and can be used to reduce the accumulative and detrimental effects of jitter when recording from multiple sources. For domestic playback they are simply not needed. Some Hi-Fi enthusiasts are simply unable or unwilling to accept this reality.

An atomic clock looks mighty fine and would be a wonderful talking point. If you truly believe that it can improve the sound of a CD player without scientific proof then who am I to criticise you.

Hi-Fi magazines produce reams of test results for amplifiers, DACs, speakers, turntables and ordinary CD players to help consumers make a buying judgement. They are, however, very reluctant to produce test results for exotic and expensive accessories such as cables, powers supplies and Hi-Fi stands etc. It maybe worth asking yourself the question: why? What is wrong with a little bit of science and some objectivity to prove whether the accessories work or not ?

My advice to young and perhaps impecunious Hi-Fi enthusiasts would be to audition any piece of expensive equipment and honestly ask yourself if it does really improve performance. It  is best to obtain proof by looking at the measurements and seeing the results of peer reviewed double blind listening tests. If the data is not available then you will have to perform the listening tests yourself. You could then easily be deceived by "confirmation bias" or the suggestion of Hi-Fi sales men and internet sales sites. It is easy to waste money  if you are not prepared to be objective.