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From: michael
Date: 12/27/2004 7:52 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

S888Wheel wrote:

From: michael

Yes, I'm not sure that your personal experience is a universal base line
though.

In any case, from home transfers it is clear that the analog
signal differs greatly from a digital source when strictly considering
non-musical program noise.

I'm not questioning what you found to be true with *your* transfers, only
the
universitality of it.

I snipped out most of the thread becuase anyone interested can go back
and read. This back and forth is getting unmanagable. Anyhow, to
recap: I claimed that when recording from a turntable to a CD there
exists alot of analog grundge that is heard and is also shown
graphically by VU meters. This stuff is non-musical noise. Now it
appears that you are arguing the validity of this?

No I am arguing against the implied global implications. Heck one can find any
number of CDs that have "grundge" in the signal. It doesn't say anything about
the medium just something about that CD. I have never said your tests weren't
valid for *your* records on *your* equipment.

My suggestion: take a turntable, any turntable, and get yourself some
analog to digital software. Use any album you like.

My suggestion is that you take a turntable but not any turntable. A world class
turntable and then take an album, not any album but a top of the line RTI
pressing or a 180 gram pressing from Simply Vinyl or a pressing from King Super
Analog and do your tests over again.

If you want to
replicate my results then I'll tell you that I use Audacity on Linux;
I'm sure there are many other similar applications out there you may
use--even Windows applications. :-)

If you want to know what the limitations of the medium are and not just the
limitations of your stuff I suggest you use a Rockport TT or Forsell that is
properly isolated or even a fully decked out Walker Procenium Gold. There are
others in this league as well. Hey, there is nothing wrong with finding out the
noise floor of your stuff. It's just not likely going to have anything to do
with the actual limitations of the medium.

Next, place the stylus in the lead in or the lead out groove, or any
silent passage you like. Finally, watch the vu meters bob up and down
with peaks around the -40dB value when there is supposed to be
"quietness". It helps to have a good set of headphones for monitoring.
I use Sennheisers. Once you have done this several hundred times, or
even just once or twice, then post about the "universality" of the
experiment.

I have 2 turntables (I kind of collect Lps) and both exhibit this
behavior when hooked up to the computer.
For the record (since you
asked and with no pun intended), during digital transfer I use a Thorens
160 with a V-15xMR. Other cartridges I currently have are a Denon 103;
an Ortofon super OM-20; A Stanton 881 S; an Epoch L8Z S; and an AT 440
ML.

All reasonable equipment but hardly representative of SOTA.

I have used most of these to copy personal CDs also, and each
exhibits the same properties. I settled on the Shure since, IMO, it
sounds very musical, it tracks as well if not better than the others,
and the nifty little damping brush gathers lint off even "clean" Lps.

michael