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Turntable Pre-Echo Sound....?

When I turn my system up fairly high, I can make out a faint "pre-sound" of what is about to play, with the beginning of the songs starting very, very quietly about 3/10 of a second before it actually starts.

At I thought it could be my stabilizer brush fibers accidentally acting as little styli ahead of the needle, but it does this even with the brush locked up.

Equipment:
Linn Basik TT
Linn Basik Plus tonearm
Shure M97xE cart
Pro-Ject Phonobox preamp
Harmon Kardon AV240 receiver
NHT 2.5 speakers
Cheap interconnects

Thanks in advance,
Dusty
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heyitsmedusty's avatar
heyitsmedusty OP
227 posts
 
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?
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
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.
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
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.
anagreen
6 posts
 
Mind blown. I thought I was crazy. 
jw_dewdney
13 posts
 
actually it's called 'print- through' for reasons that may be obvious ....
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