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lps sound bad

I am finally listening to lps after going perhaps 20 years without, due to a recent (about 3 months) investment into a vinyl rig. I'm absolutely bummed that perhaps 30 to 40% of my collection really isn't worth playing due to sonic considerations.

I have an aproximate 2,000 lp collection, nearly all are new album, record show, or garage sale purchases dating from the early 70's thru the mid 80's. These are mostly all very well preserved, with minimal wear, dust pops, scratches etc. My problem is not with the shape or cleanliness of the records (they have been hand cleaned in accordance with 'expert' advice, then cleaned again in a VPI 16.5). Nor are they mistracked, none of that inner groove distortion.

It is also not a setup issue, cartridge setup is absolutely correct, and every other parameter of setup, from the wall shelves/isolation to power cords and ICs has had careful attention.

My issue is in the mastering and/or pressing of the lps. This 30 to 40% have issues, mostly with small soundstaging and/or lack of frequency extension, especially in the bass. They simply sound small scale and lightweight, like mid-fi to me. The other 60 to 70% of my collection sound relatively huge in comparison, large, airy soundstaging, transparent, dynamic, especially the micro dynamics.

Now, the vast majority of the 30 to 40% that sound small scale are what I believe to be, original pressings of 70's rock music. The rest, mostly 50's and 60's recordings from a huge variety of genres, sound wonderful, mostly way better than my digital.

I suspect what I'm hearing is excessive compression due to poor mastering and/or pressing. At this point I'm not sure whether the main culprit is mastering or pressings. As I previously mentioned, most of these recordings were purchased in the early 70's to mid 80's, thus, I believe they are original pressings, which leaves mastering as the culprit. On the other hand, I have digital remasters of a number of these rock recording, a small number sound larger scale than their lp counterparts, which leads me to suspect pressings in some cases.

From this, I extrapolate that mastering is the culprit in most cases. Furthermore, I believe the bad sounding lps sound bad because of solid state recording studio equipment. My 50's and 60's recordings nearly all sound big, large scale, some may not have the greatest frequency extension, especially in the highs, but they all are tonally and dimensionally full, some luciously so, in the midrange. These recordings come from the heyday of tube equipment, both in the recording studio and home audio.

I should add, I'm not trying to make a case of solid state recording studios being the sole culprit here, as a small percentage of my 70's rock recordings sound large scale and satisfying. Rather I think it is solid state done on the cheap, and with bad ears on the part of the producers and engineers that is at fault. The late 60's and early 70's had more than it's fair share of crappy solid state, and most producers and engineers didn't know the first thing about quality sound (as remains the case).

Still, it seems the 50's and 60's producers and engineers could do less harm to the sound, the tube recording equipment always had the relatively voluptuous midrange. And perhaps the tube home audio of the day let them hear at least a semblance of quality, so they tried to replicate that sound in the studio.

As things stand, I'm somewhat disappointed in vinyl at this point. I was hoping these 70's rock recordings would sound much better than their cd counterparts (remastered or not). 30 to 40% of my collection is basically throw away at this point, I don't care to go through all the hassles inherent in the playing of records that sound only as good or worse than their digital counterparts.

I'm now getting the itch to buy lps new, I'm just wondering if the newly minted rock lps of classic rock are worth buying. It seems the digital remasters I have are only marginally better, in most cases, over older digital pressings. I suspect the same will hold true for vinyl, the new remasters will only sound marginally better than my original pressings.

At this point, I'm basically writing off classic rock recordings on lp. While I know classic rock can sound good on lp, the small number of exceptions I've experienced leave me highly skeptical. Future purchases will be mostly limited to recordings (of all genres) prior to the 70's. Future classic rock purchases will be mostly in digital form, for any lp purchases I will have to rely on thumbs up by reviewers I trust. Contemporary recordings are problematic as well, sound quality is all over the place in the digital recording studios, it seems to be a crapshoot, have to rely on reviewers here as well.

Vinyl setup:
VPI Scoutmaster
JMW 10.5i tonearm
SDS
Dynavector 20XL
Cayin Phono-One
sns
eweedhome
227 posts
 
I rejuvenated my vinyl rig 9 months ago and have had some of the same issues, but I'm not sure to that extent. I mostly listen to classcal and some jazz. Quite a bit of the classical sounds terrific, whether old pressings or new. (Although some of the new ones, like the RCA's on Classic Records, are spotty. But Speakers Corner has been great, as has Analogue Productions.)

I must confess that, of the few rock/pop Lps I've played, I've tended to feel somewhat ambivalent, and for that reason haven't made much effort to experiment in that direction. Stringreen, though, makes a point. You would probably find it worth your time to listen to some other vinyl rigs and see if you like their sound better (especially in the cartridge and phono-pre department). I'm using a Linn LP12, Koetsu Black, and EAR 834P w/ Mullards. As you might expect, it produces a fairly warm and friendly presentation. I've heard some other phono set ups that sounded, frankly, really unpleasant to me...very etched in detail, cold, etc.--for my taste, at least. (I'm thinking of Lyra cartridges through Sutherland phono-pre, in one instance...although who knows, maybe it wasn't set up right.)
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sns OP
3,371 posts
 
Stingreen, you mention Dark Side of The Moon. Yes, Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, earlier Elton John, my Traffic albums, early and late Fleetwood Mac, some Fairport Convention, and some others sound pretty damn good. Examples of crap sounding albums include Guess Who-Canned Wheat, Doors-first album, Doobie Bros-The Captain and Me, Fever Tree, Roxy Music-Country Life, Genesis-Wind and Withering, Selling England By the Pound-not quite as bad, Eagles-On the Border-so,so, Three Dog Night-Joy to the World, Rod Stewart-several albums, Procol Harum-Something Magic, Pete Townshend-Chinese Eyes, Who-Who's Next, Beatles-nearly all sound lousy, Emerson Lake & Palmer-nearly all pretty damn lousy, Badfinger-Magic Christian Music, I could go on and on.

Stingreen, Eweedhome, I highly doubt any rig could make these turds sound good. These recordings simply lack any sense of scale, I could get a much more bloomy, romantic setup, and I suppose I could pretty them up a bit, but they still would have no micro-dynamics, dimensionality and sense of scale. There comes a point where you simply have to blame the recording!

I was previously running a highly modded Thorens TD160 with a modded Rega arm with Sumiko Blue Point Special, later with the Dynavector, this setup obscured enough detail that the turd recordings were more bearable, but still..... I don't consider my present VPI setup to be in the least analytical, it sounds very musical with good recordings, the 10.5i arm really helped in the refinement dept, along with a fuller tonal balance. I previously had a 9.5 arm with both Valhalla and Discovery cabled tonearms, the Valhalla is definitely a bit more analytical, but the payoff on well recorded albums is well worth it. I'm considering getting a spare 10.5i tonearm custom wired with Cardas, this may help on the mediocre albums. The Cayin phono pre is also on the warm side, likely very similar sounding to the EAR 834, it also uses the 12ax7's. I've been planning on getting some Mullards to replace the present Sovteks, should warm up things further.

Bongofury, I think Better Records may have higher standards than I, my ratio of good to bad is probably something like 20-30% good, perhaps up to 50% listenable, the rest, forget it.

Grimace and Islandmandan, I never expected all vinyl to sound good. I could hear the turds even back when I was running very mediocre vinyl setups. And yes, a forum devoted to classic rock sonic values would be nice. As it is, you have to seek out reviewers you trust for this information.
onetwothreego
54 posts
 
Exactly. I wish only 30 percent of my cds sounded bad.
sns OP
3,371 posts
 
Viridian, I have the same issues with digital. Its just that with all the hoopola surrounding vinyl I expected more, unmet expectations are a real letdown!

I also expect that if we were to hear the original master tapes of many of these recordings we would be pleasantly surprised. Who knows how many of my 'original' recordings are 2nd, 3rd, who knows, pressings and/or from 2nd,3rd, or whatever generation masters. The fact that some of my remastered cds sound better than the 'original' vinyl counterparts bears this out.

The damn record companies never much cared about sonic values, and still don't. Can you imagine a world where record companies would re-release these albums, using 1st generation masters with limited pressings. These aftermarket companies selling new/old recordings may or may not be using 1st generation masters, and who knows how many pressings they go with. I suspect some of these record companies lend out later generation masters to these companies, they may not want them using the original master and/or not even know where the hell those masters are.
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