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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
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.
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
By the way, the inner groove problem that Herman mentions will also affect the visual appearance of the grooves.
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
Reb1208,

What you say is a reality. The way you get round it is to put a quiet track on the inner groove so it won't be as noticeable. The other option is to drop additional tracks and make the overall LP shorter. Since it is a physical problem there is not much else that can be done.

Sadly much of what you buy on pop CD's are compressed just as badly (if not much worse - such as Metallica) simply to get the desired punchy sound for radio play or in people's cars.

Getting good recordings is and still remains a challenge with both technologies....
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,208 posts
 
As others have pointed out, compression is the wrong term. Vinyl mastering is far more difficult than its digital counterpart. One of the secrets to effective vinyl mastering is getting the proper song sequencing. With digital there are no physical considerations in the song sequencing and it's purely an artistic decision. However, with vinyl you have to take into account the side A/side B issue plus the dynamic challenges of inner groove spacing. Add to that the artistic element and you've got several variables to juggle. For symphonic music the situation is even worse than for pop/jazz. I've noticed that many vinyl releases are now two record set. I speculate they would have been single disks back in the day. It's something of a hack solution, but it's better than the alternatives.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the visual spacing of the grooves is not necessarily related to the music's dynamic range. You can have widely spaced grooves and not have wide dynamics. Narrowly spaced grooves have less potential dynamic range, but depending upon the music it may or may not be a factor.
jdaniel13
129 posts
 
You're absolutely right, but all delivery methods have problems; the "thinning" of sound towards the end of *some* lp's is indeed a compromise. But wouldn't you rather "waste" only a *portion* of your listening time listening to the end of an lp, or waste *all* of your listening time listening to a CD, in which the distortion is interwoven into the information, perverting the rhythm and delicacy of the music, kind of like when that scientist comes out of his molecular transport machine not knowing that now he's a fly.

(Sorry, just wanted to cover all the Lp-only idealogues' (sp) outrageous statements first. : )
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