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Last song on most LP's pressed with compression

Over the last few yrs, I have spent more time with my cd player than analog rig. Anyway, the winter is here and I'm feelin the groove and started listening critically to LP again. What bothers me is the last song on a side is often compressed. You have hear this as a reduction in sound quality, akin to what an MP3 does to a cd original. Now if you inspect the LP closely that bothers you. You can see visually that the grooves towards the end are actually cut into the record differently. They are compressed together. I don't care what cartridge or equipment you use, the distortion is there..period . Once your brain locks onto it, listening thru this distortion is very difficult. Now before the experts chime in, I'm not talking about inner groove distortion here. Nor is there anything wrong with my alignment,VTA, tracking,azimuth etc. If you can't hear this on your rig (with an LP that is cut compressed on the last track- not all are)then no doubt your system is not resolved enough. Part of my LP collection (about 500 records)are 12" singles. These do not suffer from this problem for obvious reasons. But I'd bet that 60% or more of regular LP's do. What all this means for me is that the days of investing big $$$ on LP playback are over. What I have is what I have and when it eventually wears out, I doubt that I'll replace it. Yup, I am that bugged by wasting a portion of my valuable listening time listening to a lower quality signal. I modify my own equipment to achieve the highest quality signal that I possibly can. So subjecting myself to a flawed LP format is a step backwards. Before I play an LP now, I examine that groove pattern towards the end. If it looks extra compressed, then back on the shelf that title goes. I'll pick the original (non maximized) cd version every time.

Feel free to chime in.
reb1208
rushton's avatar
rushton
2,445 posts
 
Eldartford is right. The spacing by itself is not the contributing factor. But the closer spacing does reflect music that has less dynamic range and/or less lower bass energy and often the music here has been compressed. I take this to be what you're referring to.

Cutting the inner grooves of an LP has always been a huge challenge for the medium. This is where the skill of some of the great cutting engineers come into play. People like Stan Ricker, Doug Sax, Bernie Grundmann, Kevin Gray, Wilhem Makkee, Chris Bellman, to name a few. These engineers are often able to coax into those inner grooves far greater information than most others without as much compromise.
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audiofeil
4,011 posts
 
You can't make this stuff up folks.
jaybo
4,478 posts
 
holy crap, after a lifetime of record collecting, another hi-end-kick-in-the-head. i guess i'll have to just patiently wait for ricker to go back and fix everything ever done.
reb1208 OP
518 posts
 
A perfect example is Neil Young's LP "Comes A Time". Take a look at side 2, last song "Four Strong Winds". 1/3 way into the song you can see the dynamic range/compression limiting in the grooves. You clearly hear the drop off in sound quality when the stylus enters this area. Ruins the experience for me.
herman
2,251 posts
 
I believe what you are hearing but I don't think you have the correct reason. The faster the record is spinning the easier it is to get good sound. That's why 45rpm pressings sound so good. The outer velocity of any record is over twice as fast as the inner so fidelity is lost as you move toward the inner grooves. If your cartridge isn't set up properly and the tracking angle error is increasing as you move inward or if the anti-skate isn't set properly it could compound the problem.
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