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Index » Radio Paradise/General » General Discussion » kurtster's quiet vinyl Page: 1, 2, 3 ... 13, 14, 15  Next
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black321

black321 Avatar

Location: An earth without maps
Gender: Male


Posted: Feb 4, 2025 - 6:22pm

 kurtster wrote:
So in the it's never too late or you're never too old to learn something new department ...

I've added one more step to the turntable tuning process for ripping.  Setting the VTA (Vertical Tracking Angle) for a disc while very important has been determined up until now by holding the album and guessing how much it weighs to determine the thickness of the disc itself.  The current rage is 180 gram pressings with some saying that they are 200 grams and they are noticeably thicker besides heavier.





Provided that a turntable has this adjustment, which most do not, the adjustment was usually have the tone arm parallel on the same plane with the disc on the turntable.  Most carts have a tracking angle of either 20 or 23 degrees to get the stylus at the correct angle to the surface for correct playback.  Fine for the old days when the carts were generally less sophisticated and the vinyl was all pretty uniform in weight with the exception of Dynaflex pressings which were deliberately thinner and lighter.  Around 100 grams or less.  Without this adjustment the best you can do is buy different thickness mats to raise and lower the vinyl as needed.

Now with all the new pressings of up to 200 grams the range of thickness has expanded rather dramatically.  Over the years I have found that a change in height as little as 0.25 mm can have a profound difference in sound on some records. You can boost the bass by going lower and improve the clarity of the high end by raising the height as in the case with sibilance and cymbals.  There is an ideal height where you get the proper balance and reach the cart's specified angle. 

My standard range went from 2.40 mm to up to 4.00mm for these newer and heavier pressings with my new cart.  With my previous cart I would sometimes go up to 5.00 mm but it had some hours on it and the suspension was wearing out and it started to sag so I had to increase the height to make up for that sagging.

So the solution is to actually start weighing the vinyl before playing instead of guessing.  I just got a 6 disc box set that had obvious differences in thickness and weight so I figured it was time to try weighing them and see what the difference actually was.  I have a newish scale that I recently found out has a hold function so I can put something bigger than the platform and get a good true weight without doing some acrobatics.  Some were 140 and others were 160 to 170 grams.  Enough of a difference for different settings. 

The result has been better than expected.  By playing one of the box set discs at 4 different heights and playing back the rips I figured out which setting was best for that weight.  Surprisingly, the lower the height the better.  I used to err on the higher side.  Going lower, the sound is markedly fuller on most discs.  Sibilance is pretty much a very uncommon thing now to boot.  Never really had any problems with this cart, but everything is better overall and I'm pretty confident now to use the weight for the setting.

The whole idea of ripping is to capture the best playback possible which requires all kinds of care and adjustments for a specific piece of vinyl and then never have to do it again and listen to the rip instead.  For casually playing vinyl and listening the process is a bit nuts.  Now I just listen to the rip whenever and it is never going to sound better or worse, the record won't suffer from playing anymore and the stylus hours don't get wasted.

This new cart was put into service the last week of July, 2024 and since then I have 1050 album sides or about 350 hours on it.  Calling one album side 20 minutes. Nearly 9 / 40 hour work weeks. The stylus is good for anywhere between 700 and 900 hours.  I have two more factory styli waiting, then it's all over for the cart as there are no more left on the planet for this cart.  I'm way too old to be trying out new carts, and too broke to even think of trying.  They generally are not returnable if you don't like how they sound.

The cart is a 1980 ish AT20SLa, Shibata stylus I bought as a New Old Stock item a few years ago after years of hunting to replace my AT15SS (Super Shibata) carts.  There was one better, the AT20SS, its predecessor.  Unlike most carts, it tests flat from 5hz to 19khz so there is virtually no coloration to the signal. Frequency response is from 5hz to 50khz. They all came with an individualized print out from the test.  Ain't nothing like them has been made since, at least that I know of.  They were originally designed to play Quad vinyl.  Haven't seen any for sale since as I do look a couple of times a year for S& G's.

The turntable is a 1989 Technics SL 1200 MK3 100 volt Japanese model I bought about 10 years ago that I have done some modifications to over time.  It should take me to the end, I hope ...

Weighing the records is the last addition to this process.  No more guessing and stressing about setting the VTA.  I might revisit some earlier rips for comparison but I'm not going to worry too much to start all over again.


My head shell has a vta adjuster. I usually leave it be… most of my vinyl is standard 70s and  80s issue with some newer 180g. 

KurtfromLaQuinta

KurtfromLaQuinta Avatar

Location: Really deep in the heart of South California
Gender: Male


Posted: Feb 4, 2025 - 4:07pm

 miamizsun wrote:

william these are wise words

respect 

Yes they are.


miamizsun

miamizsun Avatar

Location: (3283.1 Miles SE of RP)
Gender: Male


Posted: Feb 4, 2025 - 5:26am

 William wrote:

I predict a cooling off of the political heat, & not just here. Hope I’m right. 

When it comes to US politics I have zero faith in my ability to predict anything at all — but my intuition tells me that more and more of us are beginning to buy into the crazy idea that just because someone belongs to that other tribe doesn’t mean that we can’t still work together on common projects and discuss our many commonly held values and interests. 

Like vinyl :-)

william these are wise words

respect 
kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Feb 3, 2025 - 9:16pm

 KurtfromLaQuinta wrote:
 kurtster wrote:
So in the it's never too late or you're never too old to learn something new department ...
Wow! Interesting. I kind of knew some of that stuff.
But now my head hurts. 
 
That's two of us.  It took me three days to compose this and have it make some kind of sense.

This was so profound I had to find a way to articulate it that made sense and save it, this being a journal thread of sorts.
KurtfromLaQuinta

KurtfromLaQuinta Avatar

Location: Really deep in the heart of South California
Gender: Male


Posted: Feb 3, 2025 - 9:00pm

 kurtster wrote:
So in the it's never too late or you're never too old to learn something new department ...



Wow! Interesting. I kind of knew some of that stuff.
But now my head hurts. 

kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Feb 3, 2025 - 8:09pm

So in the it's never too late or you're never too old to learn something new department ...

I've added one more step to the turntable tuning process for ripping.  Setting the VTA (Vertical Tracking Angle) for a disc while very important has been determined up until now by holding the album and guessing how much it weighs to determine the thickness of the disc itself.  The current rage is 180 gram pressings with some saying that they are 200 grams and they are noticeably thicker besides heavier.





Provided that a turntable has this adjustment, which most do not, the adjustment was usually have the tone arm parallel on the same plane with the disc on the turntable.  Most carts have a tracking angle of either 20 or 23 degrees to get the stylus at the correct angle to the surface for correct playback.  Fine for the old days when the carts were generally less sophisticated and the vinyl was all pretty uniform in weight with the exception of Dynaflex pressings which were deliberately thinner and lighter.  Around 100 grams or less.  Without this adjustment the best you can do is buy different thickness mats to raise and lower the vinyl as needed.

Now with all the new pressings of up to 200 grams the range of thickness has expanded rather dramatically.  Over the years I have found that a change in height as little as 0.25 mm can have a profound difference in sound on some records. You can boost the bass by going lower and improve the clarity of the high end by raising the height as in the case with sibilance and cymbals.  There is an ideal height where you get the proper balance and reach the cart's specified angle. 

My standard range went from 2.40 mm to up to 4.00mm for these newer and heavier pressings with my new cart.  With my previous cart I would sometimes go up to 5.00 mm but it had some hours on it and the suspension was wearing out and it started to sag so I had to increase the height to make up for that sagging.

So the solution is to actually start weighing the vinyl before playing instead of guessing.  I just got a 6 disc box set that had obvious differences in thickness and weight so I figured it was time to try weighing them and see what the difference actually was.  I have a newish scale that I recently found out has a hold function so I can put something bigger than the platform and get a good true weight without doing some acrobatics.  Some were 140 and others were 160 to 170 grams.  Enough of a difference for different settings. 

The result has been better than expected.  By playing one of the box set discs at 4 different heights and playing back the rips I figured out which setting was best for that weight.  Surprisingly, the lower the height the better.  I used to err on the higher side.  Going lower, the sound is markedly fuller on most discs.  Sibilance is pretty much a very uncommon thing now to boot.  Never really had any problems with this cart, but everything is better overall and I'm pretty confident now to use the weight for the setting.

The whole idea of ripping is to capture the best playback possible which requires all kinds of care and adjustments for a specific piece of vinyl and then never have to do it again and listen to the rip instead.  For casually playing vinyl and listening the process is a bit nuts.  Now I just listen to the rip whenever and it is never going to sound better or worse, the record won't suffer from playing anymore and the stylus hours don't get wasted.

This new cart was put into service the last week of July, 2024 and since then I have 1050 album sides or about 350 hours on it.  Calling one album side 20 minutes. Nearly 9 / 40 hour work weeks. The stylus is good for anywhere between 700 and 900 hours.  I have two more factory styli waiting, then it's all over for the cart as there are no more left on the planet for this cart.  I'm way too old to be trying out new carts, and too broke to even think of trying.  They generally are not returnable if you don't like how they sound.

The cart is a 1980 ish AT20SLa, Shibata stylus I bought as a New Old Stock item a few years ago after years of hunting to replace my AT15SS (Super Shibata) carts.  There was one better, the AT20SS, its predecessor.  Unlike most carts, it tests flat from 5hz to 19khz so there is virtually no coloration to the signal. Frequency response is from 5hz to 50khz. They all came with an individualized print out from the test.  Ain't nothing like them has been made since, at least that I know of.  They were originally designed to play Quad vinyl.  Haven't seen any for sale since as I do look a couple of times a year for S& G's.

The turntable is a 1989 Technics SL 1200 MK3 100 volt Japanese model I bought about 10 years ago that I have done some modifications to over time.  It should take me to the end, I hope ...

Weighing the records is the last addition to this process.  No more guessing and stressing about setting the VTA.  I might revisit some earlier rips for comparison but I'm not going to worry too much to start all over again.

kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Jan 3, 2025 - 12:39pm

 William wrote:

Damn. That sounds hard. To say the least. Respect to you for showing up. An awful lot of people don’t… And as for the need to keep a low profile on the RAFT, I understand (& props for an ingenious solution) but I don’t think it’ll be necessary. I predict a cooling off of the political heat, & not just here. Hope I’m right.  When it comes to US politics I have zero faith in my ability to predict anything at all — but my intuition tells me that more and more of us are beginning to buy into the crazy idea that just because someone belongs to that other tribe doesn’t mean that we can’t still work together on common projects and discuss our many commonly held values and interests.  Like vinyl :-)
 
Thanks much.  Your thoughts are very much appreciated.
William

William Avatar

Location: Eureka!
Gender: Male


Posted: Jan 2, 2025 - 4:55pm

 kurtster wrote:

Yeah, until I got a call from the rehab place where my Mom was just deposited in earlier in the day after being discharged from the hospital.

All hell has broken lose.  She is refusing to comply with anything and refusing her meds. I had to stop in there this morning on my way to work to read her the riot act about doing what she is told to do.  Dementia has become undeniable among other things.  I have a meeting with staff on Monday and have to work on getting to be made her conservator.  Other than that, life is great.

The empty posts ?  I'm going to start logging my vinyl spins in here so as not to piss off certain people.  I can update them here in the empty posts without them showing up in the RAFT since they will just be edited as opposed to new.

Just making adjustments to new realities.

.
{#Meditate}

Damn. That sounds hard. To say the least. Respect to you for showing up. An awful lot of people don’t…

And as for the need to keep a low profile on the RAFT, I understand (& props for an ingenious solution) but I don’t think it’ll be necessary.

I predict a cooling off of the political heat, & not just here. Hope I’m right. 

When it comes to US politics I have zero faith in my ability to predict anything at all — but my intuition tells me that more and more of us are beginning to buy into the crazy idea that just because someone belongs to that other tribe doesn’t mean that we can’t still work together on common projects and discuss our many commonly held values and interests. 

Like vinyl :-)


kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Jan 2, 2025 - 3:50pm

 ColdMiser wrote:
Looking at your posts Kurt, it seems like you had a quiet New Years Eve. 
 
Yeah, until I got a call from the rehab place where my Mom was just deposited in earlier in the day after being discharged from the hospital.

All hell has broken lose.  She is refusing to comply with anything and refusing her meds. I had to stop in there this morning on my way to work to read her the riot act about doing what she is told to do.  Dementia has become undeniable among other things.  I have a meeting with staff on Monday and have to work on getting to be made her conservator.  Other than that, life is great.

The empty posts ?  I'm going to start logging my vinyl spins in here so as not to piss off certain people.  I can update them here in the empty posts without them showing up in the RAFT since they will just be edited as opposed to new.

Just making adjustments to new realities.

.
{#Meditate}
ColdMiser

ColdMiser Avatar

Location: On the Trail
Gender: Male


Posted: Jan 2, 2025 - 7:48am

Looking at your posts Kurt, it seems like you had a quiet New Years Eve. 
kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Dec 31, 2024 - 3:42pm

05/09/2025

So as things become finite, how good is good enough ?

This last tweak of weighing the records for setting the VTA has taken things to the highest level I can reach with what I have to work with.

The difference between guessing and knowing is pretty profound, enough so to once more give some one last spin before they are gone.

I can't remember the last time I heard any sibilance since starting this.  The bottom end is there now more often than not, both long standing criticisms of vinyl.  

I have less of an urge to rework albums hoping to get them to sound better.  Now it's primarily get the ticks and glitches and then rebalance the volume of the tracks if necessary.  Rarely needed with CD's but more often than not with vinyl the levels are often very different and bringing them into balance can make something great even better.  Remember the balance knob on the receiver ?  It was more for the vinyl than your listening room.  Now I finally know exactly why it was needed.

Once more I think of the got aways that I wish I still had.  Sigh.

I've even bought another copy of some of them a few times since hearing the improvement with this last tweak.  With that, I've been going back and listening to the got aways and see if they stand up or try again.  Can I live with what I have ?  Most times, yes cuz I was doing it pretty good at this point anyways.  And some are simply irreplaceable, so there is no choice.

More than ever I notice when a recording or the mastering is less than optimal, but when it is on, the music becomes sublime.  What we get used to over decades of listening to a song or an album over and over reveals a built in tolerance and wishful thinking that what you're listening to is what was intended by the engineer (not the band at the point of actually cutting the lacquer).  There are stories of Page and Lennon (and others to be sure) sitting in and participating in the album lacquer cutting sessions.  Getting the VTA correct gets you that much closer to the same settings used by the cutting lathe which is the overall goal of tuning your turntable for optimal playback.  It is said to concentrate on pianos and female vocals to hear how you're doing.
kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Dec 31, 2024 - 3:42pm

kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Dec 31, 2024 - 3:42pm

kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Dec 31, 2024 - 3:42pm

kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Dec 31, 2024 - 3:42pm

kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Dec 31, 2024 - 3:42pm

kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Dec 31, 2024 - 3:42pm

June 2025



06/15/2025  2018 US remaster 4 X 12"     182g  375



06/08/2025  1974 UK 1st press  119g  250



06/07/2025  1974 UK press  110g  240
kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Dec 31, 2024 - 3:42pm

May 2025


05/2502025  1977 US repress  140g  270



05/23/2025  1973 US repress  110g  240



05/09/2025 1979 JAP 1st press  113g  240



05/09/2025  1985 US 1st press CRC  113g  240



05/01/2025  2018 US pressing 2 X 12" 45 rpm  188g 193g 375
kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Dec 31, 2024 - 3:42pm

April 2025


04/30/2025  1974 Jap 1st press   116g  240



04/22/2025  April 2025 RSD pressing 2 X 12"  148g  148g  280



04/21/2025  April 2025 RSD pressing  138g  270



04/19/2025 1975 US 1st press  125g  250



04/19/2025 1974 US 1st  107g  235



04/14/2025 1979 US RCA 1st press  114g  240



04/13/2025 1977 US CRC 1st press  111g  235



04/12/2025  2021 Global pressing  186g  370



04/12/2025 2023 US pressing  139g  270



04/11/2025 1979 US 1st press Radio Station only promo  120g  250



04/08/2025 1975 US 2nd pressing  142g  275



04/07/2025 1980 US 1st 2 X 12"  113g 103g  235 230
kurtster

kurtster Avatar

Location: where fear is not a virtue
Gender: Male


Posted: Dec 31, 2024 - 3:42pm



March 2025


03/30/2025 1972 US 1st 2 X 12" 103g 105g  230



03/24/2025 1979 US 1st press 2 X 12" 106g  108g  235



03/20/2025 1972 UK 1st press 122g  250



03/17/2025 1979 US 1st press 2 X 12" 108g  112g  235



03/12/2025 UK 202 pressing 12 X 12" 45 rpm  187g  187g  375


03/05/2025 2024 Global pressing  146g  275



03/03/2025 2014 EU press  185g  370



03/02/2025  2018 US 6 X 12" box set D1 / D2 170g 325



03/01/2025  1974 US 1st press  106g  230
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