12" 45 RPM records: What's the story?

Tbg...You really don't need a "low noise system" to hear pre-echo on the first grooves of an LP. But, for the rest of the LP the program material (which for purposes of hearing pre-echo) might be considered as "noise" will make it impossible to hear. But it is still there, which ought to give the vinyl perfectionists fits.

Pre-echo on a CD is hard to understand, unless the CD was remastered from a vinyl recording. Certainly any digital master tapes would not have this problem. If there were pre-echo from print through of a mag tape, this could easily be edited out when the CD data file was created.

Can you cite a CD with pre-echo so that I (we) can check this out?

I think all "pre-echo" is just due to analog mastertape print-through. And as Eldartford points out would not happen in digital recording (either tape or hard drive.)

I never EVER heard of one groove affecting an adjoining groove. Even if the vinyl did expand/contract/deform slightly in manufacture, it could not do so with any degree of correspondence to actual groove modulations. In fact, RCA Dynagroove records (which have other problems ;--) do not suffer from this alleged effect, and if any records should, it would be Dynagrooves because the whole idea was to pack the grooves tighter together.
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If there were pre-echo from print through of a mag tape, this could easily be edited out when the CD data file was created.

Eldartford, how would one go about eliminating pre-echo/print thru not just before the first notes, but the entire album during a transfer from analog to digital formats?

Can you cite a CD with pre-echo so that I (we) can check this out?

I second Eldartford's question.

Can anyone name a single CD with a pre-echo?

I own a large number of CD's and haven't come across one with a pre-echo...yet. My experience tends to support Eldartford's statement that it is a problem in the "vinyl production process". Well over half my CD's are from analog master tapes....so the mag tape print through explanation seems to be on thin ice.

Shadorne, just because well over half your CD's are AAD and don't exhibit print through doesn't put print through on "thin ice" at all!

First of all, if there was any print through between bands on the master tape, that's easily eliminated when transferring the album to CD, just insert new silences between bands.

Print through in the middle of a band, during rests or long silences, can't be eliminated of course -- but is also a LOT harder to hear, except in those occasional instances when a sharp crescendo follows a few bars of silence.

And last, the vast majority of analog masters do not contain print through, which was all but eliminated by thicker mylar and metal tape formulations which provided good S/N ratios with less tape saturation.
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