2. analog
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New vinyl's noisy little secret

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the current crop of vinyl formulations just have higher noise levels than LPs made years ago. A case in point--I stumbled upon an old, original copy of Henry Mancini's 1962 soundtrack to the movie "Hatari" in my collection a few days ago (I had never even played it), and was astonished at its deathly quiet playback. Simply no surface noise. What gives? OK, you may make fun of this black-label RCA pressing (LSP-2559) for its content musically (though it's actually pretty fun), but it sure reminded me what we are missing with new releases--super high quality vinyl with very low surface noise. Even the occasional mechanical clicks from scratches seemed subdued. Most of my (expensive!) new vinyl comes replete with very onerous surface noise. Is it just impossible to make this old-generation type of vinyl currently?
kipdent
axelwahl
788 posts
 
Hi Zowie
can you provide a link at all?
axelwahl
788 posts
 
Hi, just to try and keep this a bit less cryptic:
note:
"pre-echo associated with conventional lacquer mastering are eliminated and transient response is greatly improved. DMM record pressing sound brighter, cleaner, more detailed, with 15% more playing time than with lacquer technology. Stampers are plated directly from the DMM Copper Master, eliminating two of the three plating steps required for lacquers."

AND

"direct metal mastering (DMM) : A system for cutting a metal mother on a record mastering lathe, eliminating the lacquer master and metal master steps. Release pressings made from a stamper are thus only two stems from the DMM and thus have less noise and distortion than those made by the older, five-step process. The DMM process is also used in CD mastering."

Also:

"DMM is a modern process, developed by Teldec in Germany. Rather than cutting a lacquer, then plating, then creating a mother then stampers, you use the DMM cut disc as the mother and create stampers directly from that. Hence 2 steps saved. So, the theory is the steps saved lead to fewer "generations" in the record-making process, hence better sound."

No misinformation this far as i can see.
My own information is derived from the current (non-metal master) of the Pallas press-plant from an article in Image HiFi some time past.

I think the mis-information is about 'metal-masters' (i.e. not master*ing*?) of the pre-tape , so:

http://www.virtualvictrola.com/2008/03/metal-parts.html

will provide some, if not most of those pre-tape aera answers.

Greetings,
Axel
zenblaster
504 posts
 
I did not notice any mis-information, but unimportant.

A fascinating subject if your into vinyl. Here is a link to the NY Times story
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/arts/music/12petr.html?_r=1&ref=music
axelwahl
788 posts
 
Hi,
not trying to be mean about those old 78s, but only listening to some early mono versions of 'His masters Voice' (By Appointment to Her Majesty, before the birth of EMI, etc.) easily 180g vinyl if not more ---- sooooory.

You got to be some collector to get a rise from it. Those micros had some darn bad distortions and as far as I can say just about the inverse of even mid/low-fi :-) Toscanini through a megaphone, oh no!

In German we say: "Jedem Tierchen sein Pläsierchen..."
In this here (SA) part of the world the stuff is junked on a daily basis, since it also breaks so easily. So sorry for that.
A.
zowie
68 posts
 
Here is the link to part 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xwe-Mt99Dw

It is an interesting video, I've had it on a DVD for some time and was glad to see it's now on line. YouTube should give you links to Part 2 and also to a more succinct video on the subject that was made with Duke Ellington.
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