wrote in message ...
This is a continuation of a topic that has split off from another
thread. i thought it may benefit from having it's own thread. On that
thread there have been assertions about inherent euphonic colorations
of vinyl.
"You haven't noticed 'the' superior quality, you've noticed a
quality that you consider to sound superior. This could be the
different mastering used for LPs compared to CDs, or it could be
inherent sound qualities added by the vinyl medium and playback
devices, or it could be both."
Steven Sullivan
"For live recordings, a 'clean' digital 2-channel recording will
capture the original 'ambience' as well as the master tape did (which
is to say, only moderately well, given the limits of 2-channel) -- but
transcribing that to LP will actually ADD some spurious, if pleasing
to some, 'ambience' of its own, via euphonic distortion inherent in
vinyl playback."
Steven Sullivan
And those assertions have been challenged.
"Please tell us how you know about this distortion that is "inherent"
in LP playback. What playback equipment have you used to determine
this? Please be specific: turntables, pickup arms, phono cartridges,
phono preamplifiers. Because you claim this playback characteristic is
"inherent," you must have experimented with more than one playback
system. Did you conduct any measurements which document your claim? If
so, please share. Have you mastered any LPs yourself, or participated
in the LP mastering process, that further establishes the veracity of
your claim? If so, are these recordings that we can purchase and
listen to ourselves?
I'd also be interested in what physical properties of LP playback
result in this "inherent" result. Surely, you must have a theory or
two.
Or, as I suspect, is this claim simply opinion stated as fact?"
C.Leeds
OK....
My two cents.
Inherent colorations:
Yep, they do exist. Surface noise. If you have a source signal that
excedes the dynamic range that the medium will allow (somewhere in the
75-80 db range) You will hear the surface noise during the quitest
passages of the music. Surface noise does have some specific
characteristics that gives it a distinctive sound which allows much
lower level musical information to be heard through that noise. But it
is fair to say in cases of extreme dynamic range from the source one
cannot avoid audible surface noise. That is an 'inherent' coloration.
Another alleged inherent coloration is channel cross talk. My
cartridge, a Koetsu Rosewood Signature, has a measured channel
separation of just over 30db. I don't know what the measured
thresholds of audibility are for channel separation. I also don't know
what the maximum channel separation achievable is in vinyl production
and playback although I do know there are cartridges that have greater
meausred channel separation than mine. I do know on my system with
test records the effects of cross talk seem to be inaudible in as much
as I can get a clean signal out of one channel without hearing any of
the crosstalk from the other channel from the listening position.
To the best of my knowledge the lowest measured wow,flutter and rumble
found in vinyl playback fall under the thresholds of human hearing. So
while these are inherent colorations they apparently are not audible
in SOTA vinyl playback.
Euphonic colorations:
Yep, they do exist as well. I should know, I paid about 15K for them
in my TT rig. I don't have any hard data to back up my assertion. My
assertion is based on side by side blind comparisons between the TT
rig I eventually bought (The Forsell Air Reference with the flywheel)
(I eventually bought the same make and model not the same physical
rig) and one that was famous for being SOTA in the elimination of TT
rig colorations (the Rockport Sirius III). I am confident that they
sounded substantially different. The differences were easily
identifiable under blind conditions. Based on their designs I am
fairly confident that the Rockport Sirius III was the less colored of
the two rigs. I very much prefered the Forsell. IMO that is evidence
of euphonic colorations present in the Forsell.
Inherent euphomic colorations:
I have listed the inherent colorations that I know of. I have seen
claims that both colorations can be euphonic. I have not seen any
contolled listening tests that support that assertion. Maybe in some
form and in some proportion they can be euphonic.Maybe not. To date it
seems like a theory at best given the lack of meaningful supporting
evidence. It strikes me as a reasonable theory. But I think it is a
fact that at certain levels and above, those colorations (we are
talking levels well above the inherent limitations of the medium)
those colorations become inarguably bad ones. It is entirely possible
that like any spice, these colorations added in moderation with taste
can be euphonic and like any spice when added in excess spoil the
dish.
In addition to all the above, don't forget that all pick-up cartridge have
harmonic distortions of the order of 2-3%, some higher, some perhaps a
little lower. Considering that an analogue tape machine will also have 3%
distortion (that's how peak level is defined, the 3% distortion point) and I
have no idea how much distortion the cutter itself has, plus springback on
the lacquer which leads to harmonic distortion, the total is considerable.
That's another form of inherent coloration.
S.
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