Interesting Piece on the Dynamic Range of Vinyl vs. CD

RogerD

VIP/Donor
May 23, 2010
3,734
318
565
BiggestLittleCity
and......you don't recognize that there is distortion until you hear it eliminated. then it's 'ah...ha'

I agree and have said this for years. Goes for vinyl,tape and digital. All you can expect is to reproduce everything on the recording and you really can’t measure it, you have to train your self to listen correctly. But it all depends on where the bottleneck is and that takes work,experience and knowledge.
I could care less about how the sausage is made. I do care how the electrician sets up the power in the big studios, because my system electricity has to follow the same guidelines.
I understand that the real perspective is from the microphone and what should I be able to hear. You have to use your imagination and then start digging. Only then you will realize in reality the recording can capture a heck of a lot of information and that’s the understanding that Mike has.
If the recording is great I’ll know it. If it is lousy it becomes a frizzbee. I haven’t had to do that for a long time. YMMV
 
Last edited:

Gregadd

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
10,517
1,774
1,850
Metro DC
and......you don't recognize that there is distortion until you hear it eliminated. then it's 'ah...ha'

Congratulations Mike I'm sure that's true at your level.:) Harry Pearson used said the same thing, If I may mix metaphors, there's a cornucopia of bad sausage out there(Excuse while I get the gristle from between my teeth,) In the real world we can identify distortions in real time.
 

microstrip

VIP/Donor
May 30, 2010
20,806
4,698
2,790
Portugal
sure. my dart 458 mono block amplifiers have front readouts for continuous and peak watt output. i have a few reference vinyl pressings where i keep the numeric volume on my dart preamp at a particular setting, and various musical peaks on these cuts will hit consistent peak watt outputs. when i switched from the passive NVS platform to the Tana active under the NVS (plus under the dart pre) there was an increase in the peak watt output about 10%, but when i had the Tana active platform under the dart pre, both mono blocks and the NVS.........peak output climbed 30%. it climbed because the peak was not blunted to a lower peak output by feedback noise, it stayed linear and complete.

you can easily hear the increase in dynamics, overall energy, and even volume everywhere, but you can see the data on the peaks. it jumps right out and pokes you in the nose. i was not expecting the degree of effect.



what i mean is that every piece of gear in the signal path is reflecting feedback back to the stylus in the groove and smearing peaks. everything sings along with the music......unless you have a means to really eliminate that feedback.

with vinyl resonance control is everything. since the stylus in the groove tells you about everything vibrating.....and the better your overall system the more it tells you.

and......you don't recognize that there is distortion until you hear it eliminated. then it's 'ah...ha'

and so it's not possible to approach judging the format objectively unless you can eliminate feedback in every piece of gear. i'm not claiming the Tana active is perfect, but it's the best we have now to see how this actually works.

will my experience apply to all situations? i'd guess that any fairly high level vinyl playback with a solid floor and rack system would have a similar result using all-Tana under the signal path. but it's just a guess. so far i'm the only one crazy enough to try it.

Only today I noticed your reply - thanks but it is very worrying for me. If I am correctly interpretating your words you are saying that the objective output of your amplifiers increased by 1.13 dB at peaks when you added the active platforms. This means that previously to their use your system had some amount of delayed non linear distorted negative feedback, that reduced the overall gain of the system at peak levels. For example, if you recorded the output of your preamplifier with the speakers on or off you would have noticed a variation of 1 dB. I have done similar measurements with my system and never measured such high difference.

An easy test that can be done in a system is playing the digital or other source at loud volume while recording and analyzing the output of the phono preamplifier when the cartridge in playng a blanck vinyl track or loop - it was done in the 60's to check for the effect of turntable suspensions and the acoustic feedback. I carried it once to persuade myself that my Thorens was objectively superior to a DD Technics with a flimsy plinth.

Surely the digital does not show such difference in level with the active platforms?
 

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu

Steve Williams
Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator
Ron Resnick
Site Co-Owner | Administrator
Julian (The Fixer)
Website Build | Marketing Managersing