Buying new speakers

 In my last blog I talked about buying new speakers. After auditioning some alternatives, I have decided not to. The candidate speakers did not sound any better than my existing ones. One of my existing speakers shows some  slight peeling at the circumference. It is hardly noticeable by sight. The speaker still performs just a well as its twin. I like the speakers so much that I really don't want to part with them. I shall keep them until there is a noticeable deterioration in sound quality. 

All this goes to show that speaker technology has not progressed too much in the last 30 years, and it is my view that since the advent of CD technology, the quality of sound reproduction has not improved much in general. Most of the hyperbole attached to 'HD' sound reproduction is just hot air.

Buying New Speakers

 Soon I shall have to buy new speakers as my 35year old Transmission transducers are beginning to fade away . One of the speakers is in the process of slowly disintegrating, as the rubber is stating to peel away. I can't notice any deterioration in sound quality but soon the inevitable will happen. When I get my new speakers I am not expecting to hear much improvement in sound quality no matter how much I pay, unless I get something really cheap. One thing I won't be making any judgement for a new transducer on the opinions of hysterical HIFI magazine and Forum writers. Most of what they say is tosh and often it makes me laugh. I shall stick with renowned manufacturers. I shall also audit the speakers myself and if they do not meet my expectations then the speakers will go back to the retailer. I am not interested in reading about the pace, fast or slow of a HIFI product, it won't be sited on a running track or whether the speaker veils the music whatever that means. I am not interested in subjective opinions and marketing hyperbole. I couldn't careless whether or not a speaker can reproduce frequencies above the generally accepted sound limit of about 20 KHZ, which only the young can hear. Sounds, above 20KHZ,  which  my very young    ears could once hear were uncomfortably shrill and not at all musical.

I am not prepared to spend thousands of pounds on speakers that hardly perform better than than transducers that cost much less. The major manufacturers cracked the problem of producing acceptable sound for acceptable cost a long time ago in the 90's

Of course, you can spend a fortune on a pair of speakers from an independent manufacture which will sound glorious, and good luck to if you want the pride of ownership of a wonderful product. Sound engineers also deserve their jobs when the push the boundaries to find improvements for us all. I have a second sound system which uses much more modern speakers; they do sound a little better than my 35 year old transmission lines, but I will regret having to make changes.

More HIFI myths - running in

 I can't for the life of me see how running in electronic HIFI equipment can improve the sound. HIFI magazines often suggest that you should run in speakers etc. for hours or even days before you hear an improvement in sound. What are they talking about? You go to a HIFI shop and listen to some speakers that you want to buy, possibly  these speakers have been used for weeks. You decide to buy a set of new ones and get them home and after initially hearing them they sound different: what do you do, send them back or do you keep them hoping they will sound better after weeks of use? Retailers suggest that you run in HIFI equipment hoping that you will get used to the sound, after a few months, to encourage you to keep the equipment. This saves them money and time and effort. HIFI magazines have fallen for this one.

All this is nonsense, I have never heard an improvement in the sound quality of new HIFI equipment  after several months of use. All this with the exception of a turntable motor, I could swear that my turntable's motor was quieter after several months of use, even though I could scarcely hear it running initially  with my ear to the table. I did not hear an improvement in sound quality  after several months or was I fooling myself?

Other audio myths and annoyances

It  is time to expose some other audio myths , from my point of view.

Digital filters

My CD player, come DAC, is a good one. It has several digital filters: optimum, transient etc. I tried all the filters and could not hear any difference. I wonder what they are there for other than to look good. If you read audio forums about this, then you will see people going on about the pros and cons of digital filters; which to me seems like a waste of time.

Tone controls on the amplifier

My current amplifier does not have tone controls, some audiophiles claim that they create noise and are not necessary. But in some circumstances I miss them. Sometimes I play the audio of film DVDs through my HIFI system. One night I played the film "Gravity", the sound effects were too strong for bass, so much so that I felt uncomfortable and so did my wife. However, without tone controls I had to revert to my TV speakers to reduce the bass. Even, though I have no tone controls on my amplifier, I do not feel the need to buy a graphic equaliser. Do not believe for one minute that tone controls introduce audible electronic noise into  an amplifier circuitry, as I have never heard it on my previous amplifiers that always had tone controls. Modern amplifiers are good a filtering out all all sorts of noise such as mains hum, tone control hum etc. there is no need for HIFI magazines and HIFI  forum enthusiasts to go on about this.

Digital Jitter

Jitter is caused by errors in digital playback and recording, which cause timing errors and distortion of the music. Modern technology  overcomes this. I have never heard this in any of the digital equipment I use, cheap or expensive. I never hear jitter from my television. There is no need to buy super expensive equipment to eliminate jitter which you can't hear.

 The tactic is to suggest that jitter is a real problem for you, but here is an expensive way of fixing it. The cosmetic industry uses this tactic for wrinkles. Make up can cover wrinkles but it cannot eliminate them, everyone gets old eventually including audiophiles.

Anti-skate

Anti-skate is a condition of  vinyl-record playback where the stylus and cartridge have a tendency to skate across  the record towards the turntable spindle. If you look at You tube you will see plenty of demonstrations of this using blank LP records or CDs. There will also be lots of gobbledegook and pseudoscience.

According to some audiophiles anti-skate needs to set up using, little weights or springs attached to  tone arms. The weights etc. counteract the skating effect which drives the stylus towards the inside of the record. Audiophiles claim that skating forces cause mis-tracking, extra distortion, uneven channel sound reproduction, extra wear on the stylus and damage to the vinyl. I don't use anti-skating and I have never heard extra distortion or unbalanced channel separation. All vinyl records have built in distortion. Only once in recent times has my stylus jumped out of the groove, but this was caused by static electricity attracting a lot of fluff from the atmosphere. The record played effectively after the removal of the dust and fluff.

I always thought that to play an LP record the stylus had to freely move towards the spindle of the turntable so why try prevent this from happening with counteracting forces.

If you  have problems with stylus wear and vinyl record wear then there is a solution, and that is to buy a digital version of the music. Most digital records other than pop music do not suffer from the loudness war. You could then reserve your vinyl records for playing on special occasions. The same applies to distortion as  a well recorded CD won't have any. 

I have records from the early 60's and 70's which still play well even though they have been played umpteen times without anti-skating. Anti-skating became a fad in the mid-seventies, but some tone arm  and turntable manufacturers still do not make provision for anti-skating, and their turntables and tone arms work perfectly well.

If you insist  that  vinyl playing is de rigueur then you have to accept that the whole system is flawed. There is no perfect deck set up and no perfect LP. I love playing LP records but I accept their limitations and I would never make the false claim that vinyl record music reproduction is superior to a well recorded CD or lossless digital download.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk6ZMGI3LRA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slgy5UB198Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grahWS5L5rE

Audio Myths and "Audiophoolery"

 Buyer Beware or Caveat Emptor; if you haven't got £30,000 in your back pocket, so as not to worry about how much you pay for HIFI gear, then think carefully before you spend your cash. It always pays to be sceptical , rather than cynical, about anything that anyone says about stereo HIFI, including me. It also pays to not let emotion get in the way of reasoned judgement. It  pays to ask yourself the question; can a claim about HIFI performance be true?  Are the claims, made in HIFI magazines, true about the performance of the HIFI equipment that they review?  Do HIFI magazines do A/B/X listening tests based on randomised  double blind testing procedures? If you are new to HIFI  it is best to consider this.  Many things written in HIFI magazines and forums are based on gobbledegook, false  reasoning, prejudice and mis-represntation and, perhaps lies. It is up to you whether you believe me or not.

 Vinyl records sound better than digitally produced recordings.

Yes, vinyl can sound better if you compare a  well produced vinyl LP record to a poorly produced CD or lossless digital music file. I have a small number of well produced jazz, folk and classical music LP records which sound really good. However, for most of these records, I have also bought a well produced equivalent CD or equivalent digital download. The digital records sound better to my ears.  There a good reasons for  this, because I have never heard an LP or 45 rpm vinyl record which does not have a crackle or a pop. This crackling or popping is ok for popular music and for most jazz records as the music masks the record's faults. For classical music or acoustic folk music the crackles and pops are a no-no for me because I can't stand the noise. As far as I am concerned, if unwanted noise intrudes into the musical performance then I am not listening to HIFI. 

It has been proven over and over again that the method of producing vinyl records introduces un-intentional harmonic distortion which cannot be avoided. A vinyl record cannot produce a completely accurate representation of the frequencies of the original master recording. Forget about "inner grove distortion" the  whole grove is distorted. Some people find the distortion pleasant and, so do I sometimes, but not for classical music.

If you read HIFI forums you will see countless and continuing arguments about which sounds better vinyl LP or CD, some times these arguments get nasty and insulting. If you like listening to vinyl LP records then good for you: I enjoy them too. However, I do not claim that vinyl always sounds better, and it will sound better as long as you have good ears and expensive equipment. All I know is that if I buy a well produced  classical or folk music CD then I am never tempted to buy the LP afterwards. However, I am often disappointed with an LP's  sound, so I buy the equivalent CD. CD sound reproduction is not plagued by inbuilt rumble, inbuilt wow and flutter  and harmonic distortion: enough said.

Equipment Stands

If you have spent £30,000 on a turntable, a CD player and an amplifier, then you are going to want to mount this equipment on a really good looking equipment stand, that stands to reason. You don't need to read gobbledegook about equipment stands in a HIFI magazine. A £15,000 stand will be no better at "attenuating vibrational energy" than a much cheaper one. I use a stand to separate components and  most of all to support my 10 kilogram turntable from footfall and knocks etc. My stand is made of solid glass and metal and protects the turntable very well, and it only cost a couple of hundred pounds. When I was a student with hardly any money I would stack, tuners and amplifiers etc. on top of one another, as did all of my friends, and we never heard vibrational or electrical energy affect the music. Back in those days components were encased in metal which acted as a Faraday cage to eliminate electrical interference.

I would think carefully about what is said about expensive equipment stands on HIFI forums and HIFI magazines.

Very expensive interconnect and speaker cables

I have been caught out by this one; years ago  I replaced all my HIFI equipment with a new CD player , amplifier, analogue tuner and speakers. The salesman suggested  that because digital music had so much higher resolution, that I should use a "higher quality" interconnect cable for the CD player than for the tuner. I fell for it. I connected all my new equipment up at home, and I was mightily satisfied that I was hearing genuine HIFI at a cost effective price. A year later I had to move my HIFI equipment and discovered that I had connected the "high quality " cable to the tuner instead of the CD player. I did some sound tests where I swapped the "high quality " and "lower quality" cables around but I could hear no difference. I had been bamboozled by HIFI gobbledegook and magical thinking: silly me. 

I once read an article in a HIFI magazine which compared two electric interconnect cables from the same specialist company, the "lower quality" one cost about £1500  and the "higher quality" one cost about "£2000".The reviewer  suggested that the £1500 cable had "tighter bass" and improved "transients" etc. whatever that means. The £1500 cable brought the listener to HIFI nirvana, What about the £2000 interconnect, did it bring the listener to nirvana plus 1?  What they were saying was  complete tosh. With regard to expensive cables no HIFI magazine ever presents evidence for such claims  or publishes the results of double blind listening tests. I'd like to think that HIFI journalists are not being disingenuous but are they going to report than exotic cables make no difference, when they need advertising revenue?

Similar reasoning applies to speaker cables, USB, power and HDMI cables etc. Good quality reasonably priced cables do a wonderful job, so there is no need to go overboard.

Below: there is  some truth in what this "audiophile" gent is saying and I feel that he genuinely believes cables make a difference, but he supplies no proof other than his subjective opinion. Buyer beware don't get caught out like I was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzdavoA8c8E

Night and Day Differences in sound quality

I am reading this statement all the time in magazines, HIFI forums and Amazon reviews. What does a "night and day" difference in sound quality mean? It means precious little. Does "night" mean that you hear nothing at all? Does "day" mean that you are hearing sonic perfection?

I have been listening to stereo music from LP records, CD and streaming players and tapes for years and I have never heard a substantial difference in sound quality, unless the equipment was damaged or faulty or a vinyl record was really scratched and badly pressed. When I was young my neighbours had an acoustic 78 rpm record player, there was no electronic amplifier and you wound up a spring which drove the turntable. If you played a well kept classical record you could recognise, the violins, clarinets and cellos etc. Of course modern record players are much better but the difference in sound quality is not a "night and day" difference.

Recently, I bought a new CD player and amplifier, but I could not hear any difference in sound quality to the old ones. The equipment cost much more, but rather than sonic improvement I had bought an improvement in connectivity to use optical connexions etc. I had not wasted  my money.

I have also bought upgraded cartridges to hear better sound from my turntable, I could hear only subtle changes to the sound quality. I could have been fooling myself,  as I had not subjected myself to double blind testing; so I could have wasted my money. The power of suggestion and wanting to believe is so strong that most of us fall for it, and open up our wallets.

A bit of honesty helps

It is worth reading this Audioholics article about how easily some audiophiles and HIFI journalists can get caught out badly.

https://www.audioholics.com/audio-technologies/mobile-fidelity-scandal

Mobile Fidelity, or MoFI, is a highly reputed producer of LP records which were sourced from analogue tapes, and produced using an entirely analogue "one step" simplified process. Many audiophiles and HIFI journalists praised their all analogue approach. Such was their belief in  MoFI vinyl LP records, that they started to traduce digital recording techniques by saying that analogue music reproduction is inherently superior to digital reproduction. This is clearly not true.

Last year it was revealed, by accident, that  60% of MoFI records had a digital production stage which was used to make some of their records or mix them. A lot of audiophiles were unknowingly listening to digital sound reproduction rather wholely analogue sound. Some of these "audio experts" were devastated by these revelations and sued the company for mis-representation.

 Mobile Fidelity defended themselves by saying that some recording companies are unwilling to release their original analogue tapes to companies such as MoFI for fear of them being damaged, because they are now so old. Also, they claim, quite rightly, that digitally archived analogue tapes are transparent and can be used to produce the highest quality LPs. They also claimed that they never specifically stated that there was no digital involvement in their LP production. Nevertheless they had to make  a legal settlement to compensate upset audiophiles. Mobile Fidelity now publish the production techniques used for all their records. 

 I have some sympathy with MoFI, as I have a modern classical-music LP which was obviously recorded digitally. It sounds fantastic and almost as good, to my ears, as its digital equivalent except for the crackles and pops. Virtually all modern LPs are produced from digital recordings because they sound better. Surely, we all want better sound reproduction.

The moral of the story is do not make false claims. Even with golden ears and very sophisticated and  expensive HIFI equipment analogue purists could not  recognise a digital recording when they heard one. They only believed that analogue recordings were better from prejudice rather than evidence.

Conclusion

I suppose this sums it all up. I have a stabiliser weight made of brass and rubber which I use sometimes when I play an old LP record which is slightly warped. It goes over the turntable spindle. I never use it on records that are not warped because I can't hear any difference. Some audiophiles claim that a stabiliser makes a "night and day" difference to the sound quality of all records. My stabiliser  looks and feels great but I am not sure it makes a difference even when playing old warped LPs. It cost £45 but I could have spent £200 for the same thing but I don't have 30 grand in my back pocket.

No Need To Pay Too Much For A Turntable

 In 2017 I stopped writing about HIFI on this Blog, mainly because I had run out of things to say, since then the vinyl revival has started and I have bought a few modern albums some of which were re-masters of 50's and 60's jazz records. I  play them on my modest turntable set up which cost me about £500 complete with a decent cartridge and a half decent phono stage.

It's my view that a vinyl record, that fully exploits the analogue medium, can approach the sound quality of an equivalent cd record, that fully exploits the digital medium; but that it cannot equal or exceed it. All music recording cannot give you 100% High Fidelity, thus all recording techniques degrade the sound if only by a small percentage, but analogue recordings using vinyl technology degrade the sound more than CD digital recording. 

Many re-mastered recordings are produced by digital techniques so, most of the time, when you buy a vinyl record you are not purely hearing an analogue recording that does not have some digital involvement. All modern recorded music is now produced from digital recordings, so really no-one can claim that modern vinyl recordings are technically and sonically better  than CD's or lossless digital recorded files. If the CD music sounds worse than your turntable through the same amplifier and speakers then there is some radically wrong with your digital player, or the CD was originally recorded  badly.   It does not bother me if a modern LP has been produced from a digital recording as long as it sounds good. But, if an LP has been digitally re-mastered , why bother buying it  when the CD will sound better? There is a case for digitally re-mastering significant past recordings which can then be archived for posterity. I have written about this before. 

Recently, I went into a record shop, "The Core of the Poodle" in Haverfordwest which opened as part of the vinyl revival  and met a vinyl enthusiast owner  who had an encyclopaedical knowledge of jazz. He could also sell you a second hand turn table to play the records on . I bought a Blue Note recording of Donald Byrd "Live at The Half Note Café" recorded in 1960 in Manhattan. The vinyl LP is a re-issue which has been mastered from the original tape by analogue methods: it's the real McCoy.  This record sounds fantastic; with very little surface noise, distortion or wow and flutter when played on my equipment. To me it sounds almost as good as the digital file of the same re-issue that I downloaded from the web.

To sound so good a turntable must do the following:

Support the accurate tracking of the cartridge and stylus in the record groove,

Minimize vibrations within the turntable from its mechanics,

Minimize the vibrations from the external  environment from footfall ,knocks to the supporting platform and the turntable itself,

Minimize wow and flutter effects from speed variations of the rotating platter,

Run the platter as close as possible to 33 1/3 rpm for LPs and 45 rpm for single and EP records,

Minimize the electronic influence of  the mains supply and other electronic circuits,

Reduce the sound of the motor running, and heard as rumble,

Protect the cartridge from acoustic feedback,

My turntable does all of this without having to spend thousands of pounds.

If you do not look after your records then then they will eventually sound awful. If you play your record too loud the music could suffer from acoustic feedback.

My record sounded perfect because my turntable is able to perform almost perfectly and I have set it up properly. 

After listening to this record I came to the conclusion that the production of the record is probably the chief limiting factor in the sound reproduction chain, as long as you have good quality amplifiers and speakers. 

Unfortunately many LP records come with built in faults, including wow and flutter, noise from the cutting lathe and in built noise from the cutting lathe. The record maybe warped and even scratched before you get to play it. None of these faults are apparent with digital music files. CDs usually will only sound bad if they have not been recorded properly or they have been subjected to sonic compression too make them sound louder -which reduces their dynamic range: analogue recordings can suffer from this too.

A supersensitive turntable which costs £1000s could actually make a LP sound worse as every click and pop can be amplified to make a less then perfect vinyl LP sound bad. I have actually heard this happening when a work colleague demonstrated his very expensive kit to me.

Over the years I have used all sorts of turntables, some with idler drives in the early 1960s and 1970s and latterly belt drives and direct drives; and I aver that £500 will buy you a turntable, along with a good cartridge and phono stage that can play almost perfect vinyl LPs  to sound fantastic. Believe you me, you do not need to spend £10,000 on a turntable to hear fantastic music.

However, good luck to you if you can afford 15,000 bucks to buy an electromechanical wonder that gets you a very little closer to perceived perfection.

 

Long Playing records of the Lost recordings from Devialet and Fondamenta

There has been a fair bit of conversation, lately, in the HIFI press and on HIFI blogs and forums about the lost recordings. These recordings from the 1960s and 1970s have been restored using sophisticated  analogue and digital techniques. I bought the digital versions of the Sarah Vaughan, Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans Trio albums - all about 17 Eur a piece. The Bill Evans digital recording was only available as a download from Fondamenta.

All of these artists are simply great and the recordings are reproduced at a very high quality. Fondamenta are to be congratulated for tracing these lost recordings and restoring them; but Resonance Records and Pristine Classic are doing a similar job with similar results.

Why did I decide not to buy the limited edition LPs distributed by Devialet? The LPs were transcribed from 24 bit/176.4 KHz digital masters which originated from the restored analogue tapes.  From a technical point of view, the LP format sound quality cannot exceed that of the digital master tapes. Therefore, I am not missing out, as far as high fidelity is concerned, provided that I use a good quality DAC.

More to the point, however, why would I want to open my wallet to spend £80 on the Bill Evans Trio “Live at Hilversum” LP, when I could have bought the Resonance Records LP, “Another Time”, which was mastered from the very same lost recordings, but for just £19? Perhaps, the price difference is accounted for by the cost of promotion which involves Devialet hiring the Royal Albert Hall and other prestigious locations to play and sell the analogue nitrocellulose “acetates” to an admiring audience. By buying digital I am saving lots and lots of money.

So, what about the nitrocellulose lacquer “acetates”? Some of the younger contributors to the audio forums are making accusations that these are the playthings of wealthy middle-aged audiophiles, who have got nothing better to do with their money.  In some sense they are right; the “acetates” are used in the LP making process to produce the vinyl that enthusiasts really want to listen to. Selling the “acetates” is therefore a bit of a gimmick. If I were to go off my head and spend £6,300 on the set of “acetates” of the Sarah Vaughan “Live at the Laren” performance then I would do so for investment purposes only. And, I would not play the record only to destroy it immediately unless a surfeit of Bollinger got the better of me.

The possession of the “acetates” has been likened to an investment in fine wine: but not so. The nitrocellulose starts to deteriorate in quality immediately. The “acetate” can only be played once or twice before the sound medium is destroyed. Forget about it, unless pride of ownership gets the better of you.

Fine wine from Bordeaux will improve with age and its investment value will no doubt increase. £6,300 will buy you a case of 2009 Chateau Gruaud Larose, with some spare change to spend on lots of records. But, if the bottom falls out of the wine market you still have 12 bottles of great wine to drink with a good meal and some good friends, who like listening to an Oscar Peterson lost recording, of course, but from a digital file.

https://www.devialet.com/en-gb/the-lost-recordings 

https://musique.fnac.com/a10446459/Sarah-Vaughan-Live-at-Laren-Jazz-Festival-1975-Digipack-Inclus-un-livret-de-16-pages-CD-album