Turntable Pre-Echo Sound....?

Shadorne...I agree that "higher noise floor" is a better description than "distortion". It can and is controlled by cutting technique to a level which is inaudible except during silent grooves. I doubt that anyone tries to make it better than inaudible because that would unacceptably limit playing time. But audiophiles like to worry about imperfections that are inaudible, and sometimes nonexistant. Pre-echo does actually exist.

I agree with UC -mostly- on this one, although working with mastering LPs, I find that pre-echo is actually a tape phenomena rather than LP. It indicates that the tape was stored before the LP was mastered- not a good idea as the energy of the tape goes down even over a short time. It also indicates a thinner tape, possibly wound a bit too tight on the reel.

All are issues that are easily dealt with given a little care- but since when have major labels been all that careful? They jumped on digital for the sole reason of cost- cutting the cost of the master tape- now look at the mess they are in!

So are we saying that the problem comes from the way the groove itself is cut, or is it a symptom of cutting a record from a tape with pre-echo on it?

If the answer is "both," then essentially there are two different types of pre-echo: Pre-echo cut into grooves because there was an error in the cutting (an error of the grooves) and pre-echo cut into the grooves because the tape told it too (an error of the master tape).

Is this true?

Is this true?

Dusty,

Yes there are two types of pre-echo. The industry move to digital brought about its own new set of issues/deficiencies but pre-echo is one of the many issues with analog that made digital attractive. Those who say it was purely a cost cutting measure are a being a little unkind to the engineering folks at Sony and Philips who developed the CD digital formats. There was no conspiracy against Analog, as far as I know.

It's easy to tell which is the reason. Watch the LP and see if the "real" sound begins one recolution after the pre-echo. That would be 1.8 seconds for a 33.3 rpm. This has always been my observation, although mag tape print through is also real. However, I think this occurs when a tape has been stored for a long time (years) without rewinding. Only analog tapes are affected. For any LP made from a digital tape (and that includes most of them these days) any pre-echo must be from the cutting process.