Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 17, 2024 7:42:15 GMT -8
The latest haul by my brother from the thrift shops netted two albums, both of which are keepers. I have indeed sent back about a 1/3 of what he has chanced to bring in. Some were just in such bad condition as to be unlistenable and/or unplayable. A Doris Day album that I would have otherwise kept was very warped, for instance. (The only time when "Doris Day" and "warped" will likely be used in the same sentence.) Some were just good attempts at eclectic but that turned out to be unlistenable for aesthetic reason. But one of the keepers was Mantovani's Film Encores Vol. 2.  This album was released in 1959. And I was trying to explain to my brother who Mantovani was. I told him that he was sort of the John Williams of the 50's and early 60's. Wiki notes: I find this album vary listenable and it's in good condition as well. And, yep, I also have his Exodus album. It was inherited from my father's small collection. And this is one I remember hearing as a yute. The other album that my brother brought me is a demo album from RCA. It was part of a series that was introducing their Dynagroove technology which they introduced in 1963 and scrapped in 1970. I had never come across that term before.  Long story short is that Dynagroove attempted to compensate for the distortion problems of a conical needle (which they were at the time) tracking the grooves cut by a wedge-shaped stylus at the factory. The grooves were "pre-distorted" so that when the conical needle tracked the groove the distortion was cancelled out. Certain aesthetic adjustments were made as well in regards to dynamic range. Both aspects were considered controversial at the time by the experts. When the elliptical needle came to market (an article linked below notes that it was an invention by Edison that had to be rediscovered), there was then no need for Dynagroove. And it is said that if you play a Dynagroove record with a modern elliptical stylus, you will get distortion. Mostly I find that this album sounds very good. It helps that it is in pristine condition. But I did notice some "buzzing" and distortion on some of the heavy bass sections. And bass is one of the things that it boosts. Or it could have just been a limit of my cheap subwoofer: But the album itself is very listenable, RCA obviously having a heck of a house orchestra at the time, or access to top talent. This record features Marty Gold and his orchestra. Here's more info on what Dynagroove is. It seems like a well-balanced article and it notes that Dynagroove is a trade name for a whole host of technical improvements. One assumes that many of the innovations or improvements were carried over into the elliptical needle era, including perhaps "Development of a new, electrically-conducting plastic for the record disk, to dissipate static electricity, reducing dust pickup and the associated surface noise." But you can read a whole laundry-list of improvements that they made. But you gotta ask yourself one question, punk: is this Music to the Limits of Audibility? Well, is it? |
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Post by kungfuzu on Aug 17, 2024 9:08:09 GMT -8
I remember Mantovani very well. My parents had two or three of his albums. Plus he was played all over the radio. He was especially big in the 1960s. I was not a huge fan, but the music was better than much of the nonsense coming out at the time. Maybe I should give him a listen and see what I think now.
I never heard of Dynagroove either.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 17, 2024 9:12:09 GMT -8
It's definitely a sort of old-fashioned sound. The Wiki article on Mantovani offers up: So he definitely had a signature sound that was very well known at the time. I do find it a little dated. And yet part of the charm of some of these old records is that they are "dated," that they are not "the nonsense coming out" at the time...particularly the nonsense coming out these days. The Exodus album can be, shall we say, very heavy on the Mantovani sound. But I found Film Encores Vol 2. to be quite listenable. Now, if only little brother can find vol. 1 for me.  |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 17, 2024 9:25:59 GMT -8
I can't remember if I had linked earlier to this "Three-way vinyl record wear test." The guy doing a video is sort of an odd duck. But he generally is fairly straightforward.
There are a lot of "old wives' tales" regarding audio equipment and vinyl records. I'm still not sure that speakers first need to be "broken in" and then they start sounding good. I run across that a lot. I think what is happening is that people are getting used to the sound.
Be that as it may, it would appear that, indeed, there are a whole lot of myths and old wives' tales about vinyl records. Long story short: Keep your records and stylus clean. Store the records properly.
And that's it. Even if you play a good record on a relatively cheap turntable and stylus, you're not doing much, if any, harm to it as long as everything is clean.
I've since read advice that suggests you clean the needle after every play. I hadn't been doing that, but it does make some sense. If you look at your needle under a magnifying glass, you'll see that it's often covered with all kinds of dust and crud. This is much easier to notice on my Edison diamond disk player where I can easily remove the entire tonearm. It's not so easy to get into position to see it on my Pioneer turntable.
But I do use the Discwasher system (and fluid) every time before playing a record. And for the ones coming from the thrift store, I will often take a special cloth (microfiber would work, I suppose, but I have one even better type that I use to clean computer monitors) to clean the grooves with a light mixture of soap and water. I would put the record entirely under water (as I've done with my 78s) if there was not a paper label. But there usually is.
But they all still get the Discwasher treatment. And the conclusion from that video (and associated data he gathered) is that you can play your records hundreds of times, no problem. And you don't have to wait an entire day after playing them once. No, you will not "thermally damage" them by doing so. As pointed out by one commenter, any heat caused by friction between the stylus and vinyl will be minimal and almost instantly dissipated.
Still, old wives' tales persist.
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Post by kungfuzu on Aug 17, 2024 9:29:04 GMT -8
If I had to classify his music, it would be that it was the type of music your mother would have on as she worked around the house. Background music which was not overly intrusive, but still present. Easy listening as they called it then.
As I haven't heard anything by him for years, the above is more of an impression than critique.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 17, 2024 9:48:57 GMT -8
I'm listening to it again. Obviously Mantovani is heavy on the strings. That's his signature, I guess. Back to Dynagroove. I turned down the subwoofers a tad and that cured most of the over-driving. It is clear that one of the al-gore-rhythms (Dynamic Spectrum Equalization - DSE) used in Dynagroove is boosting the base. The liner notes on the back of the album explain the rationale. It's basically that it was found that most people are listening to albums at a far less volume level than a live performance. Thus the dynamic range is lost, especially the base on quieter passages or at lower volumes. So the intent is to give the average listener a more concert-like sound. And I do think these albums sound very very good, even with an elliptical stylus. And I trust the average audiophile about as far as I can throw him. There were many critics of the process. And, yes, as even fair-minded people pointed out, if you had bazillion dollar audio equipment, you didn't need the enhancements provided by Dynagroove...probably. Still "for the rest of us," such attempts can bring good results to average-to-good audio equipment. But the "experts" are always going to fuss over stuff like this. Like I said, I don't generally trust these experts. They would have us listen to shit-sound as long as it was "pure" in their minds. But the reality is that, with or without Dynagroove, sounds necessarily need to be fiddled with (compressed and then re-expanded) because of the nature of cutting the grooves in a physical record. If you had the bass, for instance, uncompressed then the grooves would be so wide that the runtime of the album would be very significantly shortened. There are other physical limitations as well. Thus that is why you have the RIAA equalization curve that is an industry standard. And this is exactly why you need to hook a turntable to the "phono" plug on the amplifier so that this curve can be reconstituted, if you will, to get the original sound back (or near enough...thus the controversy of any method). |
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Post by kungfuzu on Aug 17, 2024 10:36:37 GMT -8
Years ago adults were complaining that yutes were turning up the volume of their records. They couldn't understand why. Some study was made and they found exactly what you said, i.e. the dynamic range is lost because of the low volume most people play their albums. I felt vindicated in my soul. Unfortunately, I now have tinnitus.
Actually, they didn't need to make any study. If one has have-way decent ears, one hears the difference.
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Post by kungfuzu on Aug 17, 2024 10:41:53 GMT -8
I found it hard to listen to him. He sounds like he is trying to put on an announcers voice thus is overcompensating by pronouncing each word in a precise clipped manner. It doesn't sound natural and I seriously doubt this is how he normally speaks. Some people do actually speak in this manner, but one hears that it is natural to them.
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Post by kungfuzu on Aug 17, 2024 11:04:02 GMT -8
I have had my LPs in boxes for some 20 years now. When I played them regularly, I had a little bottle of some cleaning fluid and a brush with which I could clean the needle. Nothing so fancy as they have now.
I also bought some record-cleaning system, which I cannot find on the web. As I recall, it consisted of a platform shaped like a turntable on which one could place an LP. There was then a plastic applicator arm which was shaped like a triangle with the widest side up. It was about an inch wide at the top and narrowed to something between a sixteenth and eighth of an inch at the bottom. The bottom had a slit in it. At one end, the arm had an extension with a hole in it that would fit over the little metal pole like an LP.
I would place an LP on the platform, then the applicator arm on top of that, the arm running from the middle of the LP to the edge. It would almost look like one was measuring the radius of a circle. I would then, pour a light-blue gel into the arm until the trough was full. I would then spin the LP, or arm, slowly letting the gel flow on to the LP surface until the grooved area was completely covered.
I would lift the arm off and wait for the gel to dry. Once it was dry I would peel off the thin layer of gel and voila' I had a clean side. I had to repeat the process for the other side. The advantage to me was that I didn't damage any groves by using a brush.
As you can imagine, this took a lot of time and was not particularly cheap, but I was a big audiophile. Nevertheless, I stopped doing this after going through a few bottles of gel.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 17, 2024 15:21:00 GMT -8
I could see using that gel system for a deep cleaning maybe the first time you bought a record whether new or secondhand. And then did a light cleaning after that but I’ve never heard of that system before, Very interesting.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 17, 2024 16:30:14 GMT -8
I wish there was some narration so that we knew what the various processes were. But it's still somewhat interesting:
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Post by kungfuzu on Aug 17, 2024 17:41:33 GMT -8
I enjoyed that video. I know they press LPs, but when I was younger I always thought they would produce them by cutting grooves in the vinyl.
I listened very intently, but could not discern any difference between the master and the blue vinyl disc. I would have preferred they include the few bars of intro music before the voice as that might have helped me note any differences.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 17, 2024 19:17:05 GMT -8
In the meantime, I just purchased The Spectacular World of Dynagroove on eBay. It's a box set of 5 RCA demo albums. It already includes the one I have. It cost $30.00 including shipping. What sold me is that I really like that one album I have. And I don't think I'm fooling myself when I say it sounds noticeably better than any of the other vinyl I have on hand. Also, the seller says the vinyl itself is near-mint. I haven't actually probably purchased a vinyl record in 40 years. That's a long time. |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 17, 2024 19:21:09 GMT -8
I did later watch the following video which seems to follow the same steps and it does have narration. It's from the "How It's Made" series. But the video quality itself is a little lacking. No need to watch it. I did just to learn more about it.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 18, 2024 6:48:01 GMT -8
Here's a film from 1946 showing the manufacture of 78 records. The process is quite similar although there appears to be more steps involved. And it looks like a much more industrial process, not the sort of clean-room process one might think of today in the manufacturing of vinyl LPs.
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Post by kungfuzu on Aug 18, 2024 9:56:12 GMT -8
An informative video. I found the electrolysis part particularly interesting. I wonder how much distortion of sound they got due to the several different layers of plating on each disk? And those baths in which they were plating the disks contained lots of acids. A very industrial-looking process, not what one would immediately expect when thinking of LPs.
The way the video ended reminded me of the New Year's Concert, which takes place every January 1st in the Musikverein in Vienna. The concert always closes with,
This is the one time each year I will watch PBS, which broadcasts the concert in the USA.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 20, 2024 13:11:54 GMT -8
I don't know why I didn't look earlier...if just to brag. The phono cartridge on my Pioneer turntable is an ADC Integra XLM III cartridge (an integrated headshell type). ChatGPT says it was introduced in 1979, sold for $125 to $150, and was a higher-end cartridge. A used one is going for $199.50 on eBay. I'm pretty sure I had it in my mind at the time not to go cheap so that it would last. I guess about 40 years later it was a good decision. I can't think of much else that I ever bought that lasted that long. I have no memory of having to setup the cartridge. It's possible, even probable, that they did it at the audio store because I bought the Pioneer turntable and the cartridge at the same time. It was a non-chain store in east Bremerton called Evergreen Audio. Very nice place. I bought most of my audio equipment there. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Aug 20, 2024 17:23:07 GMT -8
It has been years since I had a turntable so I don't know what type of cartridge I had. I recall the last one I bought was incredibly light and I had to adjust the turning arm's weight at the back in order to keep the stylus from jumping when there was a slight scratch or warp in the LP. I had a similar problem with the vertical turntable from Mitsubishi.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 21, 2024 7:00:27 GMT -8
Electron microscope slow-motion video of vinyl LP I've watched another video explaining how one track could encode both a left and a right channel. It gets pretty confusing, at least to me. The above video describes it as two different lateral motions that encode the two channels. Maybe they were over-simplifying. But as that second video points out (and like I said, I didn't understand much of his presentation), there are challenges to getting mono records to play on stereo turntables and stereo records to play on mono turntables. The modern stereo encoding allows for both. |
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Post by Brad Nelson on Aug 21, 2024 7:17:40 GMT -8
My Pioneer PL-500 is a direct-drive turntable. I did some summary reading on that. I had presumed the direct-drive was in most of the high-range turntables. In fact, many high-range turntables are belt-driven. This is to isolate the motor from the platter. Because of the RIAA equalization curve needed to compress the full spectrum of sound onto a vinyl record (for various good reasons), this results in the bass and treble being compressed on the input (the cutting process) and decompressed when the record is played. That means that any low-frequency hum from any of the electronics (including the turntable motor) will be amplified right along with the bass. Direct-drive turntables are more prone to transmitting that hum. Panasonic's Technic (who apparently pioneered direct-drive) has long sorted this out, so top-of-the-line turntables made have either. And turntables made for DJs are all direct-drive because they can quickly come up to speed for the purposes they use them. Belt-driven turntables take a while to get up to speed and, as a side issue because of the belt, are more prone to wow and flutter. Also, you obviously will need to change the belt every few years, something that a direct-drive turntable averts. Bottom-of-the-line turntables (from what I've seen) will all be belt-driven. Top of the line may be either, including something I had never heard of before: idler-wheel driven. |
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