On 30/06/14 17:38, Dylan wrote:

On 30/06/14 08:01, Basil Chupin wrote:

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LibreOffice 4.2.4 (final) is now available from libreoffice.org.

Some time ago I mentioned that I couldn't install 4.2.4 because of missing file(s) - well, this is no longer the case and 4.2.4 installs beautifully :-) .

(But don't forget to first zap LO you now have installed [quickest way I find is to use YaST and uninstall, ie delete, all files associated with the version you now have installed] then install the RPMs.)

You don't want 4.3 from the libreoffice community repo, then?

Dx

Isn't 4.3 only a beta? BC -- Using openSUSE 13.1, KDE 4.13.2 & kernel 3.15.2-1 on a system with- AMD FX 8-core 3.6/4.2GHz processor 16GB PC14900/1866MHz Quad Channel RAM Gigabyte AMD3+ m/board; Gigabyte nVidia GTX660 GPU -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Monday 30 Jun 2014 07:47:47 James Knott wrote:

On 06/30/2014 03:44 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:

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Isn't 4.3 only a beta?

VHS ;-) Which repo ?

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On Tue, 2014-07-01 at 17:50 +1000, Basil Chupin wrote:

On 30/06/14 21:47, James Knott wrote:

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On 06/30/2014 03:44 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:

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Isn't 4.3 only a beta? VHS ;-)

I like it. Another one with a sense of humour :-)

Now we really _are_ showing our advanced years lol! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Tue, 2014-07-01 at 23:19 +0200, Hans Witvliet wrote:

On Tue, 2014-07-01 at 17:06 +0200, lynn wrote:

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On Tue, 2014-07-01 at 17:50 +1000, Basil Chupin wrote:

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On 30/06/14 21:47, James Knott wrote:

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On 06/30/2014 03:44 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:

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Isn't 4.3 only a beta? VHS ;-)

I like it. Another one with a sense of humour :-)

Now we really _are_ showing our advanced years lol!

Only if you presume that octal numbering system is related to 8-track systems... It was either call my Father or: http://bit.ly/1kbprWV LOL!

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On 07/01/2014 06:08 PM, Robin Klitscher wrote:

The 5- and 6-year-olds had trouble understanding what they were, and finally decided they must be "big, black CDs".

Anyone here remember the 4 track tape cartridges? They came out about the same time as 8 tracks, but didn't stick around. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

* Ricardo Chung [07-01-14 22:36]:

On Tuesday, July 01, 2014 10:30:59 PM James Knott wrote:

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On 07/01/2014 06:08 PM, Robin Klitscher wrote:

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The 5- and 6-year-olds had trouble understanding what they were, and finally decided they must be "big, black CDs".

Anyone here remember the 4 track tape cartridges? They came out about the same time as 8 tracks, but didn't stick around.

Maybe you could make play your music on your Barracuda Dragster.

Time is a blink.

Maybe this should move to opensuse-offtopic, PLEASE! -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/01/2014 06:08 PM, Robin Klitscher wrote:

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The 5- and 6-year-olds had trouble understanding what they were, and finally decided they must be "big, black CDs".

Anyone here remember the 4 track tape cartridges? They came out about the same time as 8 tracks, but didn't stick around. Yes I remember. i also remember when we used paper tape to load software and do backups to it. That was about the time when mainframes had 8

On Tuesday, July 01, 2014 10:30:59 PM James Knott wrote: track tape and the mini's were just getting 8 track. We also had 256KB head/track disks for main storage. the good old days. -- openSUSE 13.1(Linux 3.11.10-17-desktop x86_64| Intel(R) Quad Core(TM) i5-4440 CPU @ 3.10GHz|8GB DDR3| GeForce 8400GS (NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-331.79)|KDE 4.13.2 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Wednesday, July 02, 2014 12:34:30 PM James Knott wrote:

On 07/02/2014 12:31 PM, upscope wrote:

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That was about the time when mainframes had 8 track tape and the mini's were just getting 8 track. We also had 256KB head/track disks for main storage.

Those tapes were either 7 or 9 track, that is 6 or 8 bits plus parity. I also saw similar disk drives and paper tape. True -- openSUSE 13.1(Linux 3.11.10-17-desktop x86_64| Intel(R) Quad Core(TM) i5-4440 CPU @ 3.10GHz|8GB DDR3| GeForce 8400GS (NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-331.79)|KDE 4.13.2

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On 07/02/2014 01:57 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:

On 02/07/14 08:08, Robin Klitscher wrote:

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On 07/02/2014 03:06 AM, lynn wrote:

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On Tue, 2014-07-01 at 17:50 +1000, Basil Chupin wrote:

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On 30/06/14 21:47, James Knott wrote:

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On 06/30/2014 03:44 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:

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Isn't 4.3 only a beta? VHS ;-) I like it. Another one with a sense of humour :-)

Now we really _are_ showing our advanced years lol!

My wife is a primary/elementary schoolteacher, now retired. Not too long ago she took some props along to class as part of a "looking back" module. Among them were several black vinyl 33 1/3 rpm long-playing records. The 5- and 6-year-olds had trouble understanding what they were, and finally decided they must be "big, black CDs".

Hope your wife did not discard those LPs because vinyls are now back in fashion and there is a company here in Sydney (Australia) which cannot keep up with the demand and is "pressing the plastic" at a furious rate!

(BTW, there is a very simple but effective way of cleaning old vinyls. You coat them with wood working water soluble glue, spread it with a spatula, let it dry and then peel the glue off. All the dirt comes off with the glue.

If you want a clearer understanding of this, there is a YouTube video on this.)

BC

I've got about a hundred old LP's. CD's are good. The sound is pure(er), but for us that are old as dirt, the sound from a good record player ............... there's just something special about it. I've got a Sony turntable that plugs into my computer so I can record old records and burn to CD. Great because I can listen to the music and not put more wear and tear on the records. -- Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must. like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.-Thomas Paine _ _... ..._ _ _._ ._ ..... ._.. ... .._ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 03/07/14 01:46, michael norman wrote:

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(BTW, there is a very simple but effective way of cleaning old vinyls. You coat them with wood working water soluble glue, spread it with a spatula, let it dry and then peel the glue off. All the dirt comes off with the glue.

If you want a clearer understanding of this, there is a YouTube video

I thought this was supposed to have gone OT, but the idea of cleaning vinyls (of which I have a lot, old and knew) with water soluble glue sounds horrific to me.

A specific reference would be helpful.

As already mentioned, there is a video (or rather several at least) on YouTube re this. Search on "cleaning vinyls" for example. I never tell "porkies" :-) .

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I've got about a hundred old LP's. CD's are good. The sound is pure(er), but for us that are old as dirt, the sound from a good record player ............... there's just something special about it. I've got a Sony turntable that plugs into my computer so I can record old records and burn to CD. Great because I can listen to the music and not put more wear and tear on the records.

Since I'm on the subject whether the sound of cd's is either "good" or "pure(er) is debatable at best.

Well, not really debatable. The sound from CDs does not have the full frequency range produced by vinyls. Don't take my word, check for yourself.

Another canard is that records wear out by being played, play them on a properly set up turntable and it will not happen.

Sounds about right :-) .

But as I said OT for this list.

Not all all. We are talking about the technicalities available in openSUSE on how to best record vinyl records and what has to be done to make those vinyls to be in the best condition in order to do so: clean the vinyls using wood working glue, then use Audacity to record (and edit) the contents of the vinyls so recorded for burning to CDs. BC -- Using openSUSE 13.1, KDE 4.13.2 & kernel 3.15.2-2 on a system with- AMD FX 8-core 3.6/4.2GHz processor 16GB PC14900/1866MHz Quad Channel RAM Gigabyte AMD3+ m/board; Gigabyte nVidia GTX660 GPU -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Content-ID: On Thursday, 2014-07-03 at 12:28 +0200, jdd wrote:

Le 03/07/2014 11:36, Basil Chupin a écrit :

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Well, not really debatable. The sound from CDs does not have the full frequency range produced by vinyls. Don't take my word, check for yourself.

the two systems are very different. What limits the cd is frequency of digitalisation (sorry forget the english word), in vinyls it's the needle size and cinetic

Absolutely correct. In fact, the limits in vinyls depends a lot on your hardware: the frequency response of the needle, and the conversion curve of the pickup assembly, which is not linear neither in amplitude nor frequency. The pre-amplifier could compensate. Then you also have to consider that the arm of the pickup could be pivoting from a holding point (and the radius differed on each model), or on a perpendicular tracking system, quite expensive: the result was that the response varied from the start of the record to the end (even on perpendicular arm, because the record maker could have taken in consideration a standard pivoting arm). Then the pickup arm had to compensate for weight, and... I don't remember the name, even less in English. Related to the centrifuge force. You actually needed lab equipment to properly calibrate those things. Then there was the "RIAA equalization". Exactly implementing this is close to impossible, you only approximate it as much as the expertise of the designer allows, and the available money allows. Analog filters are complex in math, and more so in real hardware. All that is distortion, different from machine to machine, and from record to record. The vinyls some times were "undulated", the plastic could bend, depending on storage and quality. Then there is dust, unavoidable. There is wear, also unavoidable: it could be reduced a lot (proportionally to money spent). Nowdays you may have a laser "needle": there is no actual wear, but the laser may instead pick imperfections on the surface that previously could not be detected. I guess that they employ analog filtering - don't tell me they employ digital filters, because that means that they digitize the signal and work on it as on a CD. It would kill all the "enjoyment" of a vinyl. That is, even on silent periods, you could hear the vinyl. And to me, this kills it. What about CD's? Well, they have limitations, but if the thing is properly and inexpensively implemented, the signal is always the same for everybody, no distortion whatsoever, no noise. It does not get better, but neither worse. Its up now to the amplifier. So... well, with CD's, for a reasonable amount of money, I can listen properly to music at home.

...

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Another canard is that records wear out by being played, play them on a properly set up turntable and it will not happen.

Sounds about right :-) .

only laser turntable (not cd, but laser needle) do not wear vinyls

True. And these laser things will have a completely different response curve, meaning that a standard record player pre-amplifier will not properly compensate. I'm almost sure that the RIAA equalization has to be readjusted. (good and old vinyl players did not include the preamplifier, this was external, because the client usually chose his own pickup head, that needed a different preamplifier, if good HiFI was wanted).

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how to best record vinyl records and what has to be done to make those vinyls to be in the best condition in order to do so: clean the vinyls using wood working glue, then use Audacity to record (and edit) the contents of the vinyls so recorded for burning to CDs.

highly depends of the audio input quality also

don't forget good turntables where extremely expensive 30 years ago (don't know now),

Probably even more: no mass production.

so most old vinyls are weared

Indeed. I would like to convert my collection to digital, but I don't know what to use and how expensive it is. In my case, I also have a lot of 78 RPM disks I'd like to convert. And I would like to do that in Linux. How good are these "analog-to-digital" vinyl players? Is the digitizing done on the player or the computer? Software requirement? Ie, I do not want to do it in Windows. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAlO1PYcACgkQtTMYHG2NR9V8jwCffrnUJ7ffOYFKnRF/6giZ/7F1 jjwAn29yNf4oJKqsLTR5bib9Saw/BUN1 =asWR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On 2014-07-03 14:01, James Knott wrote:

On 07/03/2014 07:24 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

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no distortion whatsoever, no noise.

There is quantizing noise, which results from the discrete steps in the digital/analog conversion. However, that noise is well below the surface noise on vinyl.

That noise should be at the sampling frequency, and there should be a filter that removes it. That is, if the sampling frequency is 44 KHz, the amplifier chain must cut at 22 KHz. But of course, that's done with an analog filter, and these are not "all or nothing" things. Some passes, but should not be audible. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)

On 07/03/2014 09:34 AM, michael norman wrote:

I repeat, with properly designed and set up equipment surface noise on vinyl is not an issue.

The 'popcorn' noise due to dust in the groove and minor damage (aka cracks, not least of all in the shellac of 78s) is easily dealt with by modern software. Heck, popcorn and other 1/f noise is inherent in all electronics due to electron fluctuation. Liquid cooled laser amplifiers suffer less than, for example, hot cathode valves. We've known about this for almost a century and we know how to deal with it. -- /"\ \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML Mail / \ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 04:23 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2014-07-03 17:05, Anton Aylward wrote:

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On 07/03/2014 09:34 AM, michael norman wrote:

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I repeat, with properly designed and set up equipment surface noise on vinyl is not an issue.

The 'popcorn' noise due to dust in the groove and minor damage (aka cracks, not least of all in the shellac of 78s) is easily dealt with by modern software.

That's digital filtering or processing.

If you listen to a vinyl disk with a digital tool in the chain, you have broken the rules. It is no longer a purist thing. :-)

Hmmm. I wonder how many vinyl records were manufactured from master tapes that were digital, in recoding studios that were all digital and which did the digital processing to eliminate background noise, such as the stomach rumbles of the musicians :-)

...because digital processing means that you have to digitize the signal,

Whch the studio dcks were doing and storing digitally on disk ...

and sample it at some frequency, same as with a CD.

Well, I suspect in the studio they sampled at a much higher rate than we end up with on the CD. I'm reading about studios remastering old YES tapes at 192-kHz/24-bit so I expect studios were/are recoding at at least 20 bits even though what we get on Cds is only 16 bits. So no, not 'same as a CD'.

Then, we could as well just have a CD. I can not accept comparing a CD to a vinyl replayed with digital processing. Ok, I can, but then saying that "vinyl is a superior technology" is not that true.

"Superior" in what sense? Cds don't make pretty plant pots when melted the way that vinyl does, therefore they are inferior :-)

Ok, we could sample at 1 Mhz. True. We can not adjust the sampling frequency of CDs, but we can with media files, use any sampling frequency and number of bits we decide; CDs are just one currently available standard.

...

Heck, popcorn and other 1/f noise is inherent in all electronics due to electron fluctuation. Liquid cooled laser amplifiers suffer less than, for example, hot cathode valves.

And some purists prefer valve sound. :-)

There is a market out there, hand manufacturing valves on a room on some house, and selling them via internet.

Yes, I can believe that.

Different people and manufacturers built their amplifiers differently, and differences could be measured, and, depending on quality, easily heard, or not easily heard.

Being a Brit I preferred the sound - the 'accent' - of British speakers and amps. I have a SONY and and it always sounded different from my Quad and NAD. An old friend has a set of Yamahas and while they sounded great playing Big Band and some orchestral, they did not sound good with the British Rock of the 702 and 80s, or even - dare I say - Top 20 like ABBA and eventually Queen. But YES, Nice, ELP and Queen on the 104ABs was great! Brit sound, Brit amps, Brit speakers. The speakers made more of a difference than the valve/transistor or the vinyl/CD issue. Did I mention electrostatic headphones? I tried them once, wonderful, but so way out of my price range. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 03/07/14 12:24, Carlos E. R. wrote:

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Snip that bit Absolutely correct.

In fact, the limits in vinyls depends a lot on your hardware: the frequency response of the needle, and the conversion curve of the pickup assembly, which is not linear neither in amplitude nor frequency. The pre-amplifier could compensate. Then you also have to consider that the arm of the pickup could be pivoting from a holding point (and the radius differed on each model), or on a perpendicular tracking system, quite expensive: the result was that the response varied from the start of the record to the end (even on perpendicular arm, because the record maker could have taken in consideration a standard pivoting arm).

All or most of which has been solved. Any pickup arm I've ever used (going back to the 70's) is attached to the TT at a fixed point, the radius is not nor has ever been in my experience variable. I may have misunderstood what you mean by radius. I assume by perpendicular you mean a tone arm that is set up to be parallel to the record's surface. Any properly designed pick up arm is designed so that the user can adjust the vertical tracking angle to suit the needs of the phono cartridge relative to the record's surface. I am unfamiliar with record makers designing their products to cope with any of this. Any competent phono preamplifier is and has been for decades, designed to process the signal from the phono from the non linear RIAA curve into a linear signal.

Then the pickup arm had to compensate for weight, and... I don't remember the name, even less in English. Related to the centrifuge force. You actually needed lab equipment to properly calibrate those things.

All properly designed pickup arms can be set up to properly adjust the playing weight needed by the fitted phono cartridge. All you need to to is check the cartridge specs and apply the correct settings. To do any of this you only need a simple tracking force gauge and an alignment protractor (a simple cardboard thing) to check that the cardridge is properly aliened relative to the arm. Nobody needs lab equipment to set up these things. If it sounds wrong readjust until it's right, ears are the most useful tool.

Then there was the "RIAA equalization".

Exactly implementing this is close to impossible, you only approximate it as much as the expertise of the designer allows, and the available money allows. Analog filters are complex in math, and more so in real hardware.

Rubbish, its been in existence since then vinyl lp was invented. Competently designed equipment doesn't any problem

All that is distortion, different from machine to machine, and from record to record.

The vinyls some times were "undulated", the plastic could bend, depending on storage and quality.

Then there is dust, unavoidable. There is wear, also unavoidable: it could be reduced a lot (proportionally to money spent). Nowdays you may have a laser "needle": there is no actual wear, but the laser may instead pick imperfections on the surface that previously could not be detected. I guess that they employ analog filtering - don't tell me they employ digital filters, because that means that they digitize the signal and work on it as on a CD. It would kill all the "enjoyment" of a vinyl.

Laser pickups were available in the 70's they didn't work. Wear is utterly avoidable if you play vinyl with properly designed and set up equipment

That is, even on silent periods, you could hear the vinyl. And to me, this kills it.

Again on properly designed equipment with records kept and maintained properly that is not an issue. Dust is an issue but unless you live in a cobwebbed attic is hardly insurmountable, a very cheap stylus brush can cope with any build up on the stylus, and record cleaning and storage isn't exactly hard.

What about CD's? Well, they have limitations, but if the thing is properly and inexpensively implemented, the signal is always the same for everybody, no distortion whatsoever, no noise. It does not get better, but neither worse.

I could go on about this, but cd was designed as a convenience medium (the basic spec was a and is set too low) and so the record companies could persuade us to replace our vinyl for knew shiny "better" stuff. I have 700 or so cd's I have them encoded in lossless quality (flac) onto my pc. I play them through a high end sound card connected to a pretty decent (but by no means expensive) hi fi system. I find that the same material in direct comparison sound better to me on vinyl. But that is just me and my preference.

snip I would like to convert my collection to digital, but I don't know what to use and how expensive it is. In my case, I also have a lot of 78 RPM disks I'd like to convert.

And I would like to do that in Linux.

How good are these "analog-to-digital" vinyl players?

Is the digitizing done on the player or the computer?

Software requirement? Ie, I do not want to do it in Windows.

I have been researching this, the good news is that you can do it in Linux You might start here http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/recording_with_usb_turntables.html How good are analogue to digital players ? I don't know never having used one, but there are plenty of reviews out there. How expensive ? As in all things that depends on your own budget, you can do it the cheapest way or spend more money, only you can choose. At the very least given that you want to convert 78's you need a turntable that will play them. Without knowing your budget I'd look at something in the upper range of usb turntables, but it all depends on how good you need the quality to be. The digitising is done on the computer, in other words the usb turntable has an inbuilt dac, you then feed the digital output from that to the pc, record it onto the pc with audacity and the edit it according to your needs. Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 03/07/14 14:27, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2014-07-03 15:02, michael norman wrote:

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On 03/07/14 12:24, Carlos E. R. wrote:

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...

I am unfamiliar with record makers designing their products to cope with any of this.

Because they hide from you the real facts.

Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me, can you point me to the "real facts"

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Any competent phono preamplifier is and has been for decades, designed to process the signal from the phono from the non linear RIAA curve into a linear signal.

ROTFL! X'-)

Dunno what your last line means, sorry if i'm stupid

I'm an engineer. What my ear says it hears is irrelevant.

Well I'm labouring under the misconception that what you experience be it music or anything else depends upon your senses, dunno where it leaves you if you don't trust them

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...

Then there was the "RIAA equalization".

Exactly implementing this is close to impossible, you only approximate it as much as the expertise of the designer allows, and the available money allows. Analog filters are complex in math, and more so in real hardware.

Rubbish, its been in existence since then vinyl lp was invented. Competently designed equipment doesn't any problem

ROTFL! X'-)

Again what does your last line mean ? Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Le 03/07/2014 22:40, Carlos E. R. a écrit :

My senses say that audio CD is perfection >:-)

nope, there is better (digital): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Audio but I didn't see anything on the subject recently jdd -- http://www.dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 09:02 AM, michael norman wrote:

Laser pickups were available in the 70's they didn't work.

Sort of, depending on your definitions of those various terms. IIR B+O had a series of players that had a true parallel tracking arm, that unlike the radial arms did not need the _varying_ angular pressure to move the arm inwards as it followed the spiral of the groove. Again IIR Sony, Technics and an American firm also tried this, but without the brand image of B+O. This pressure was very faint and a well engineered, properly balanced and set up tracking arm did not apply enough pressure to damage the groove. But the point is that as the arm pivoted the pressure changed so the 'wear' on the vinyl was no even. IIR correctly B+O then went one step further and used a pair of lasers at an angle to track the groove and a motor to do the arm movement. The next logical step would have been to shine lasers to follow the sides of the groove and eliminate the 'needle'. I don't know if they ever took that step. However I do recall reading about a box that looked like the player for video disks (which were read by lasers). I think it was from a Japanese company. Ah, here we are, google is great http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/elp-lt-1lrc-laser-turntable/ Well that review sounds like the old argument about valve amplifiers vs transistors. And the reviewer was ignorant of the ability of software to clean up all manner of poor signals. This http://www.stereotimes.com/turn030300.shtml seems better informed. Software can deal with eliminating the 'pop' noise that comes from microscopic dust in the groove and even from cracks. But wear rounds off the groove and the high frequencies get lost. There is a lot of very good software for cleaning up audio, thanks to the Cold War and the NSA. While this is relevant to thee and mee and our sampling of those pieces ov vinyl that never made it to CD, much of the mainstream of 'old' music on CD comes from the master tapes and not from replaying vinyl. That being said, if you go to one of the Russian sites where you can buy albums for a dollar or so ... I don't know. Perhaps they have sampled vinyl. Perhaps. -- /"\ \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML Mail / \ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 03/07/14 14:58, Per Jessen wrote:

Anton Aylward wrote:

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On 07/03/2014 09:02 AM, michael norman wrote:

...

Laser pickups were available in the 70's they didn't work.

Sort of, depending on your definitions of those various terms.

IIR B+O had a series of players that had a true parallel tracking arm, that unlike the radial arms did not need the _varying_ angular pressure to move the arm inwards as it followed the spiral of the groove.

The Beogram 4000 (for instance, there may have been others).

I know, I saw reviews of it at the time, others tried to do the same thing. AFAIK none of those products is in existence now, nor does anybody serious in audio engineering use one. The concept didn't work. Neither did the concept of true parallel tracking arms work either. Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 03/07/14 15:57, Anton Aylward wrote:

On 07/03/2014 10:13 AM, michael norman wrote:

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On 03/07/14 14:58, Per Jessen wrote:

...

Anton Aylward wrote:

...

On 07/03/2014 09:02 AM, michael norman wrote:

...

Laser pickups were available in the 70's they didn't work.

Sort of, depending on your definitions of those various terms.

IIR B+O had a series of players that had a true parallel tracking arm, that unlike the radial arms did not need the _varying_ angular pressure to move the arm inwards as it followed the spiral of the groove.

The Beogram 4000 (for instance, there may have been others).

I know, I saw reviews of it at the time, others tried to do the same thing.

AFAIK none of those products is in existence now, nor does anybody serious in audio engineering use one.

The concept didn't work.

Neither did the concept of true parallel tracking arms work either.

It DID so work. The thing is that given the technology available at the time it was in the same class as building 250MPH sports cars or cars where the only sound when cruising down the M1 at 90MPH is the sound of the clock ticking in the dashboard. There were people who would pay for that and did and appreciated the result.

Then along came Cds which offered a solution to many of the problems that beset Vinyl for a fraction the cost. Yes they had teething problems and production volume problems, but they rapidly became the 'Ford model T' not least of all since by 1990 anyone who could set up a garage band and a PC could burn a aster CD and have them mass duplicated for a couple of cents a copy. I knew quite a few people who did that, not only for audio but for advertising features, documentation, and of course software.

Today we know lasers and control systems much better and have more OTS stuff to make it all work. In many ways the parallel tracking is no different from the issue with a 3-d- printer and there are plenty of home-brew examples of that using Arduno boards and Pis.

But if a hobbyist wanted to build a vinyl-to-usb device its a lot easier to pick up an old Dennon or Sony or Akai swinging arm deck and an old pre-amp and use that than take the model of a 3-d printer and modify that to sit above a turntable.

All that being said, there were many variations on this, not least of all the Sony vertical version. The ones that had servo-feedback that relied on the torquing of the pick-up were really just a complicated servo-feedback version of a radial arm, and sensitivity of the torque measurement and the servo feedback were a complication, as anyone who has ever designed feedback control servo systems will know.

Which is why the laser sensor was such a superior system. Like everything else, you got what you paid for.

To follow my analogy with sports cars: there were many other sports cars, but the difference between the Ferrari or a Porche and them was clear when it came to maintenance, road holding, stability and so forth. Oh, and failure modes! 1960 era Lotus looked cool but had all manner of technical problems.

The real point here is that you cannot compare a B+O against a Dennon.

But these devices never found a market, and AFAIK are not being produced now. Mike

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Le 03/07/2014 22:57, Anton Aylward a écrit :

Before the recent surge in interest which sees the advent of USB connected turntables there wasn't much of a market for turntables at all. They had been made obsolete by CD players.

thats wrong. It was always very easy to find turntable of medium to high quality - I'm not sure why, may be because some modern music likes it better than cd (to create live samples) jdd -- http://www.dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 09:58 AM, Per Jessen wrote:

Anton Aylward wrote:

...

On 07/03/2014 09:02 AM, michael norman wrote:

...

Laser pickups were available in the 70's they didn't work.

Sort of, depending on your definitions of those various terms.

IIR B+O had a series of players that had a true parallel tracking arm, that unlike the radial arms did not need the _varying_ angular pressure to move the arm inwards as it followed the spiral of the groove.

The Beogram 4000 (for instance, there may have been others).

Many! And many of them were more about looks (heck this was the 20th century for *****'s sake!) than performance. -- Warning: Do not look directly into laser with remaining eye. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 03/07/14 14:35, Anton Aylward wrote:

On 07/03/2014 09:02 AM, michael norman wrote:

...

Laser pickups were available in the 70's they didn't work.

Sort of, depending on your definitions of those various terms.

IIR B+O had a series of players that had a true parallel tracking arm, that unlike the radial arms did not need the _varying_ angular pressure to move the arm inwards as it followed the spiral of the groove. Again IIR Sony, Technics and an American firm also tried this, but without the brand image of B+O.

This pressure was very faint and a well engineered, properly balanced and set up tracking arm did not apply enough pressure to damage the groove. But the point is that as the arm pivoted the pressure changed so the 'wear' on the vinyl was no even.

IIR correctly B+O then went one step further and used a pair of lasers at an angle to track the groove and a motor to do the arm movement. The next logical step would have been to shine lasers to follow the sides of the groove and eliminate the 'needle'. I don't know if they ever took that step.

However I do recall reading about a box that looked like the player for video disks (which were read by lasers). I think it was from a Japanese company.

Ah, here we are, google is great http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/elp-lt-1lrc-laser-turntable/ Well that review sounds like the old argument about valve amplifiers vs transistors. And the reviewer was ignorant of the ability of software to clean up all manner of poor signals.

This http://www.stereotimes.com/turn030300.shtml seems better informed.

Software can deal with eliminating the 'pop' noise that comes from microscopic dust in the groove and even from cracks. But wear rounds off the groove and the high frequencies get lost. There is a lot of very good software for cleaning up audio, thanks to the Cold War and the NSA.

For my purposes I don't particularly want software however good it might be to clean up anything, unless it really needs to do so. I am reminded of the CEDAR process applied in the early days on cds. If my memory served it wasn't very good

While this is relevant to thee and mee and our sampling of those pieces ov vinyl that never made it to CD, much of the mainstream of 'old' music on CD comes from the master tapes and not from replaying vinyl.

Would that that were so but it isn't. Tape degrades, original tape masters can be very hard to find for all sorts of reasons. Responsible people who reissue stuff do it from the best masters they can find, and if they are honest will freely share what they used. There is no standard definition for where a master comes from, for example some companies advertise their product as "from the master tape" without specifying what the origin of that tape might be. It could well be a second or third generation copy used in another country to press an lp or cd. This is not conspiracy theory, I could point you to some links dealing with all this, but isn't this all off topic ?

Mike

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On 07/03/2014 06:24 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

I would like to convert my collection to digital, but I don't know what to use and how expensive it is. In my case, I also have a lot of 78 RPM disks I'd like to convert.

And I would like to do that in Linux.

How good are these "analog-to-digital" vinyl players?

Is the digitizing done on the player or the computer?

Software requirement? Ie, I do not want to do it in Windows.

I bought a Sony turntable for around $100US, I don't remember exactly how much. Of course it came with Windows software. I didn't like the software that came with it. The records I have copied I used Audacity with good results. Audacity is free but be sure you get the addons. As one would expect from Sony it is a pretty good turntable. Tone arm balance is very good. I can't really talk about stuff like the cartridge because I'm not very knowledgeable about such things. The audio comes out analog, left and right, then goes through another device that digitizes it, I assume, and it comes out on USB. When plugged into a computer it becomes an external sound card. -- Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must. like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.-Thomas Paine _ _... ..._ _ _._ ._ ..... ._.. ... .._ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2014-07-03 13:57, James Knott wrote:

On 07/03/2014 06:28 AM, jdd wrote:

...

the two systems are very different. What limits the cd is frequency of digitalisation (sorry forget the english word), in vinyls it's the needle size and cinetic

CD frequency is limited by the sampling frequency, which must be at least 2x the highest audio frequency.

Actually, double the frequency of any harmonic that wants to be included. What reminds me, that one trick of the trade was to artificially add harmonics that were not in the recording (because it is impossible to mechanically record and reproduce them), so that sound looked more "natural". It is a very old trick: the old phone handsets resonated at certain frequencies that the line could not transmit, to that voice seemed "natural". -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)

On 2014-07-03 17:51, James Knott wrote:

On 07/03/2014 08:43 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

...

CD frequency is limited by the sampling frequency, which must be at

...

least 2x the highest audio frequency. Actually, double the frequency of any harmonic that wants to be included.

I assumed harmonics were included, as they're a fundamental part of what gives instruments and voices their characteristic sound.

If you play an instrument with a note at, say, 14 Khz (A9 on a piano) the first harmonic would be beyond half the sampling frequency, and thus not recorded. Harmonics are simply higher frequencies above the fundamental, that is, that they distort the fundamental note. Or explained another way. If you digitally sample a 22 Khz wave, when you reproduce it you should get a pure 22 Khz sine wave, provided the entire tool set is absolutely perfect. If the original had "distortions" or differences to the pure sine wave (like harmonics), they get lost. It is digital sampling theory :-) Which is why some of the arguments about vinyl being better have /some/ weight. An analog tool chain /maybe/ transmits some of that, or maybe just adds noise (intentionally or not) at those frequencies so that the ear is fooled, and the mind thinks the sound is better. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)

On 07/03/2014 05:39 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

Which is why some of the arguments about vinyl being better have /some/ weight. An analog tool chain /maybe/ transmits some of that, or maybe just adds noise (intentionally or not) at those frequencies so that the ear is fooled, and the mind thinks the sound is better.

That vinyl /can/ produce higher frequencies and harmonics is interesting but as you say it presumes the tool chain supports all that. And this isn't just the tool chain of your audio set-up, your cartridge, tone arm, wow-n-flutter-less turn table that also produces no rumble, but the quality of your leads, your preamp compensation, tour amp and you speakers and their wiring. And -- what's that 50Hz or 60Hz hum I gear? Your 'grounding' But there's the production tool chain. The studio and background sound, quality of the microphones and pick-ups, 'slider noise' of the recording deck, wow-n-flutter of the tapes, stretching of the tapes, print-though of the tapes, the mix of the various channels to the master tape and all of the above tape problems applied there, and then a pile of issues as to the cutting of the master. Now some of those we encounter in the digital tool chain as well, and many of them we don't if this is a digital studio as opposed to digital remastering of old, old analogue studio tapes, which is a common way of dealing with re-releasing old albums. -- /"\ \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML Mail / \ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 07:09 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

And this remastering is done by software. Complex software. The goal is to "restore" what is decoded from the original but degraded master, to what we /think/ the original would be. But we may be mistaken in our assumptions, or our software be not good enough, maths allowing :-)

Maybe 10 years from now they can redo it even better. Maybe using an electron microscope on the entire tape length! LOL.

- -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar) I wish that they would stop "remastering." I have a Columbia Stereo audio tape, from about 1960, which I can no longer play, since I don't have the equipment. For the record, it is Zino Francescatti with Bruno Walter and the Columbia Symphony, Beethoven: Violin Concerto. So I bought the CD. "Remastered." I wish

/snip/ they had left it alone! I can't put my finger on the problem, but the original was definitely better. --doug -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

jdd wrote:

Le 04/07/2014 04:09, Doug a écrit :

...

they had left it alone! I can't put my finger on the problem, but the original was definitely better.

remastering do not mean "makes it a good as the original", but "makes it sound like we like it today", sometime it's horrible.

Kind suggestion, please continue this on opensuse-offtopic, it's really way off-topic here. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (19.9°C) http://www.hostsuisse.com/ - dedicated server rental in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Hey, On 04.07.2014 11:23, michael norman wrote:

I have subscribed to offtopic, I hope others who want to continue this thread do the same and post comments there.

I agree, please move this thread to -offtopic. Thanks in advance. Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, Mailinglist Admin http://www.opensuse.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Le 04/07/2014 01:09, Carlos E. R. a écrit :

Maybe 10 years from now they can redo it even better. Maybe using an electron microscope on the entire tape length! LOL.

I have seen (on youtube, may be) somebody *scanning* (with a paper scanner) a vinyl and reconstructing the audio with it. unknown quality, but the way it's done is not stupid. one could rebuild 3d vinyl structure from several photo shots jdd -- http://www.dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 03/07/14 11:28, jdd wrote:

don't forget good turntables where extremely expensive 30 years ago (don't know now), so most old vinyls are weared

jdd

"good" turntables have never been expensive and are not now. Look at the Rega or Project ranges.

Old vinyls are only worn if they have been played on cheapo turntables badly set up. Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 05:36 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:

Well, not really debatable. The sound from CDs does not have the full frequency range produced by vinyls. Don't take my word, check for yourself.

Please provide proof. Your claims are the opposite of reality. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 03/07/14 12:51, James Knott wrote:

On 07/03/2014 05:36 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:

...

...

Another canard is that records wear out by being played, play them on a properly set up turntable and it will not happen.

Sounds about right :-) .

Given that the needle is following the track, there will be some amount of friction, which means wear. No exceptions. While a good turntable will minimize that wear, it won't eliminate it. The only turntable that didn't have wear was one that used a laser to follow the tracks.

Rubbish. You know nothing about turntables and vinyl replay.

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On 07/03/2014 11:43 AM, James Knott wrote:

On 07/03/2014 11:25 AM, michael norman wrote:

...

...

Given that the needle is following the track, there will be some amount of friction, which means wear. No exceptions. While a good turntable will minimize that wear, it won't eliminate it. The only turntable that didn't have wear was one that used a laser to follow the tracks.

Rubbish. You know nothing about turntables and vinyl replay. Please explain how a needle can follow a track without any friction whatsoever.

Indeed. Michael seems to have found a way around the basics of physics. Friction means wear. -- /"\ \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML Mail / \ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 12:21 PM, michael norman wrote:

My knowledge of the laws of physics is about nil.

That says it all. You're making claims without any understanding of how things work.

I didn't say there was no friction between a stylus and a record groove. What I'm thinking about is how detrimental that is to the record and how long it might be before it becomes audible. I do not accept that it's a big problem for vinyl replay. I've played lots of records for many years and never worn any of them audibly. Microscopes would no doubt show the degradation between plays of any given record, but so what ?

Every time you play a record, you are causing some wear. That is absolute fact. By appropriate choice of equipment, you can minimize that wear, but you can never eliminate it.

Trying to reproduce music by means of audio equipment is pretty much looking for some sort of Holy Grail and by definition unachievable. So you use the tools available, in my case I get the best results from vinyl. I am not anti digital per se I just don't find it as musically satisfying as vinyl.

From a reproduction accuracy point of view, CDs are much better than vinyl, but then I doubt you'd know enough about the process to understand that. When it comes to frequency response, dynamic range and noise level, CDs are vastly superior to vinyl and that is fact. There are many who prefer vinyl, but that's because they prefer the distortions it causes to audio accuracy.

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On 07/03/2014 12:50 PM, michael norman wrote:

I don't know anything about the fact that cd is superior to vinyl, and I suspect I know more about the process than you do. What do you mean by reproduction accuracy ? When it comes to frequency response dynamic range and noise level analogue is in fact better than cd and that is fact.

There's something called "transfer function". It compares what goes in with what goes out. If there's any difference, other than level, it's distortion. So, a perfect amp would exactly replicate the input, with no distortion. And yes, I do know a fair bit about the process. I studied Electrical Engineering and have over 40 years experience in the telecommunications industry, where digital audio has been in use for almost 50 years. The description of the process was covered in courses I took at work and elsewhere.

Those of us who prefer vinyl are interested in music, I have no idea what you mean by audio accuracy.

See above.

I can and do compare the same music on vinyl and cd I know which sounds better to me.

CD as introduced was and is a crippled format with a limited sample bitrate, if you doubt what I say please explain why mastering engineers working in digital use a much higher quality. And why there is now a market (albeit small) for high quality music downloads from say here http://www.hdtracks.com/ if cd is so perfect ?

How did you get that idea? A CD can reproduce up to 22 KHz, but vinyl is limited, by mechanical factors, to significantly less. The dynamic range of vinyl is limited by the maximum level, which is determined by mechanical factors divided by the noise floor. In the best vinyl, that's about 70 dB or so. The dynamic range of a CD is 96 dB, always, though the recording or playback process may diminish that.

Neil Young and Jack White are on my side too.

So, that's why Neil Young recently came out with a digital player. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 12:28 PM, James Knott wrote:

There are many who prefer vinyl, but that's because they prefer the distortions it causes to audio accuracy.

Like those who prefer valve amplifiers to transistors because the vales introduce a non-linear distortion they term "warm". -- /"\ \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML Mail / \ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 02:32 PM, Tony Alfrey wrote:

But in fact, 2nd order harmonic distortion in a good valve amplifier can be made extremely low and done so without the need for the massive amounts of negative feedback required of any solid-state amplifier. There has been direct correlation between that negative feedback and the perceived sound quality. In short, what one assumes should provide a good-sounding amplifier (low harmonic distortion of all orders) often results in an amplifier that simply sounds bad.

Field effect transistors also produce even order harmonics in a manner very similar to tubes. On the other hand, bipolar transistors produce odd order harmonics. Regardless, it still boils down to transfer function. One of the early transistor amp proponents created one with the same transfer function as a tube amp and listeners couldn't tell the difference. As for feedback, even tubes use negative feedback and, unless the loop time is too long, you can't hear the difference. On the other hand, proper feedback is what enables excellent transfer functions. If you can't measure the difference, you can't hear it. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 11:21 AM, michael norman wrote:

On 03/07/14 16:52, Anton Aylward wrote:

...

On 07/03/2014 11:43 AM, James Knott wrote:

...

On 07/03/2014 11:25 AM, michael norman wrote:

...

...

Given that the needle is following the track, there will be some amount of friction, which means wear. No exceptions. While a good turntable will minimize that wear, it won't eliminate it. The only turntable that didn't have wear was one that used a laser to follow the tracks.

Rubbish. You know nothing about turntables and vinyl replay. Please explain how a needle can follow a track without any friction whatsoever.

Indeed. Michael seems to have found a way around the basics of physics.

Friction means wear.

My knowledge of the laws of physics is about nil. I didn't say there was no friction between a stylus and a record groove. What I'm thinking about is how detrimental that is to the record and how long it might be before it becomes audible. I do not accept that it's a big problem for vinyl replay. I've played lots of records for many years and never worn any of them audibly. Microscopes would no doubt show the degradation between plays of any given record, but so what ?

Trying to reproduce music by means of audio equipment is pretty much looking for some sort of Holy Grail and by definition unachievable. So you use the tools available, in my case I get the best results from vinyl. I am not anti digital per se I just don't find it as musically satisfying as vinyl.

Mikke

When I was a kid you could buy juke box takeouts for ten cents. Popular songs were not very good. The tracks were just about worn away. -- Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must. like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.-Thomas Paine _ _... ..._ _ _._ ._ ..... ._.. ... .._ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 11:55 AM, michael norman wrote:

...

When I was a kid you could buy juke box takeouts for ten cents. Popular songs were not very good. The tracks were just about worn away.

I did that too, I couldn't afford many full price records and yes they were worn but I managed to play them anyway.

Any idea what ten cents might be in english money ?

...

According to Google $0.10 is 0.06 pound sterling today. -- Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must. like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.-Thomas Paine _ _... ..._ _ _._ ._ ..... ._.. ... .._ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 12:31 PM, michael norman wrote:

On 03/07/14 18:14, Billie Walsh wrote:

...

On 07/03/2014 11:55 AM, michael norman wrote:

...

...

When I was a kid you could buy juke box takeouts for ten cents. Popular songs were not very good. The tracks were just about worn away.

I did that too, I couldn't afford many full price records and yes they were worn but I managed to play them anyway.

Any idea what ten cents might be in english money ?

...

According to Google $0.10 is 0.06 pound sterling today.

In those days in uk we still had non digital currency and I have no idea what I paid for the records. other than it was about a quarter of what retail records cost.

I got a lot of decent stuff that way though. mainly us rock and roll which wasn't that easy to find anyway.

I was in Scotland in the late 60's, thanks to Uncle Sams Yacht Club, and was amazed how prices were. Things that were necessities were relatively cheap while "luxuries" were very expensive. Record albums that I could buy hee for four or five dollars would have cost close to twenty over there. -- Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must. like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.-Thomas Paine _ _... ..._ _ _._ ._ ..... ._.. ... .._ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 12:21 PM, michael norman wrote:

On 03/07/14 16:52, Anton Aylward wrote:

...

On 07/03/2014 11:43 AM, James Knott wrote:

...

On 07/03/2014 11:25 AM, michael norman wrote:

...

...

Given that the needle is following the track, there will be some amount of friction, which means wear. No exceptions. While a good turntable will minimize that wear, it won't eliminate it. The only turntable that didn't have wear was one that used a laser to follow the tracks.

Rubbish. You know nothing about turntables and vinyl replay. Please explain how a needle can follow a track without any friction whatsoever.

Indeed. Michael seems to have found a way around the basics of physics.

Friction means wear.

My knowledge of the laws of physics is about nil.

Wheras some of here are not only very knowledgeable in that area but also electronic hobbyists who grew up to work in the profession.

I didn't say there was no friction between a stylus and a record groove. What I'm thinking about is how detrimental that is to the record and how long it might be before it becomes audible. I do not accept that it's a big problem for vinyl replay. I've played lots of records for many years and never worn any of them audibly. Microscopes would no doubt show the degradation between plays of any given record, but so what ?

Trying to reproduce music by means of audio equipment is pretty much looking for some sort of Holy Grail and by definition unachievable. So you use the tools available, in my case I get the best results from vinyl. I am not anti digital per se I just don't find it as musically satisfying as vinyl.

My prejudice is for a pair of 1970 era 104-A/B speakers. That 'last mile' was always the weakest link in the audio chain. Japanese speakers always seemed 'brassy' to me. Amplifier? Quad published details of their 405 feed-forward power dumping amp in Wireless World while I was studying for my EE and a group of us debugged and 'improved' (the published circuit had deliberate errors) and produced such amps for our own use and that of friends. There must have been about 50-60 of them around the campus; we just gave away the PCBs and a parts list. I managed to blow up a couple :-) One of us built some BIG speakers, about 5' high, filled with sand. Each speaker needed a pair of the 405's back to back in push-pull mode. Six of those blazed out at the Queen's Silver Jubilee. -- /"\ \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML Mail / \ -- The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of meeting schedules is forgotten. --Kathleen Byle, Sandia National Laboratories -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 01:22 PM, michael norman wrote:

...

My prejudice is for a pair of 1970 era 104-A/B speakers. That 'last mile' was always the weakest link in the audio chain.

Japanese speakers always seemed 'brassy' to me.

Amplifier? Quad published details of their 405 feed-forward power dumping amp in Wireless World while I was studying for my EE and a group of us debugged and 'improved' (the published circuit had deliberate errors) and produced such amps for our own use and that of friends. There must have been about 50-60 of them around the campus; we just gave away the PCBs and a parts list. I managed to blow up a couple :-) One of us built some BIG speakers, about 5' high, filled with sand. Each speaker needed a pair of the 405's back to back in push-pull mode. Six of those blazed out at the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

Give me clue 104-A/B speakers ? KEF ?

Ever use any of the Quad electrostatic speakers ?

A friend had a set and they were very problematic. Intolerant to various 'environmental' conditions such as high humidity or the rapid changes in such that might accompany a thunder storm, damp English houses, animal hair and more. When they worked, they sounded great, though, but you needed a powerful Quad amp to drive them! -- /"\ \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML Mail / \ -- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 03/07/14 18:41, jdd wrote:

Le 03/07/2014 19:08, Anton Aylward a écrit :

...

My prejudice is for a pair of 1970 era 104-A/B speakers. That 'last mile' was always the weakest link in the audio chain.

for sure, without forgetting the room where one could listen music, rarely a recording studio or concert room...

this said "like" is personal. some people like better vinyl sound, or "tubes" amplifier. so good for them.

jdd

All of this is down to the needs of the user. Each to her own. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 03/07/14 16:43, James Knott wrote:

On 07/03/2014 11:25 AM, michael norman wrote:

...

...

Given that the needle is following the track, there will be some amount of friction, which means wear. No exceptions. While a good turntable will minimize that wear, it won't eliminate it. The only turntable that didn't have wear was one that used a laser to follow the tracks.

Rubbish. You know nothing about turntables and vinyl replay. Please explain how a needle can follow a track without any friction whatsoever.

I didn't say that it could, you appear to assume that friction, per se and in this context must by definition cause damage. In other words that friction is a bad thing. Is it ? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 11:57 AM, michael norman wrote:

I didn't say that it could, you appear to assume that friction, per se and in this context must by definition cause damage. In other words that friction is a bad thing. Is it ?

Friction will always cause damage. It will be even worse when the track has extreme excursions, such as with strong, high frequency sounds. That damage can be minimized, but it can never be eliminated. I'm sure if you have some secret, super slippery method, that eliminates friction, the oil companies will be wanting to buy it from you so they can lock it away and keep it off the market. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Le 03/07/2014 17:57, michael norman a écrit :

I didn't say that it could, you appear to assume that friction, per se and in this context must by definition cause damage. In other words that friction is a bad thing. Is it ?

not always, without friction you couldn't walk, for example, but in mechanisms it is good to hold bolts and bad in any contact between moving and static parts jdd -- http://www.dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 07/03/2014 05:19 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:

...

I've got about a hundred old LP's. CD's are good. The sound is pure(er), but for us that are old as dirt, the sound from a good record player ............... there's just something special about it.

This is a well known problem. What is recorded on the CDs is not the full range of frequencies which are on a vinyl. When this was realised, some "fiddling" was done to try and cover up this discrepancy but I am afraid I don't recall what this was, sorry :-( .

???? What have you been smoking while listening to vinyl? CDs have much better frequency response and dynamic range than vinyl. CDs have a frequency range from DC up to almost 22 KHz, which is greater than human hearing. A good vinyl recording maxes out at about 70 dB or so dynamic range. A CD is 96 dB or about 400x the range of vinyl. On the other hand, many digital file formats, such as MP3, are missing bits. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 03/07/14 10:19, Basil Chupin wrote:

This is a well known problem. What is recorded on the CDs is not the full range of frequencies which are on a vinyl. When this was realised, some "fiddling" was done to try and cover up this discrepancy but I am afraid I don't recall what this was, sorry :-( .

I happen to agree with you about cd , many people don't, I have already posted on the subject in another thread. The whole thing is a sort of idealogical war....

...

I've got a Sony turntable that plugs into my computer so I can record old records and burn to CD. Great because I can listen to the music and not put more wear and tear on the records.

Yeah :-) , even though I have a full stereo system with all the knobs and whistles sitting in the lounge room I bought a $50 turntable which hooks up to my computer for the same thing :-) .

But what I haven't yet done is to clean - as per my "instructions" - many of the LPs and record them to CDs. In other words, I have yet to try out Audacity to its fullest abiliities. (Time is the killer....time.....:-( .)

Again see my post on Audacity on the other thread. There are many recommended ways of cleaning records and many divisions about how you do it, a google search will tell you what's about. I don't think I'd try your previous instructions tho. Mike

BC

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