Comparing reel and vinyl

leddy

leddy

Well-known member
Finally achieved the first of some listening test I hope to continue with.

I located well-kept copies of the same recording, released on both vinyl and open reel (7.5 ips 4-trk). It's called "Persuasive Percussion", and it was intended to be an audiophile recording in its day. It was recorded in the same era as some of the most famous jazz records (Kind of Blue, Time Out, etc): 1959. The liner notes indicated it was recorded with RCA ribbons, Telefunken U-47, KM-56, and some others, to an Ampex tape machine.

I matched levels and cued everything up so I could switch between them to listen to the differences. I was listening off of a Tascam 22-4 and a direct drive Technics with a Stanton cartridge. All in top shape.

No surprises on the observations. Tape had a wider low frequency content. Vinyl had more top end. Subjectively, the vinyl sounded thin compared to tape, but nothing a little playback EQ could not remedy. Both could sound wonderful. Luckily, the vinyl had no pops or scratches. It was clean as could be.

I need to track down the CD and add that to the "test", as well as some other recordings.

Just a fun way to kill an hour.
 
This is interesting indeed, thanks for sharing this!

Of course, one has to consider the difference in the mechanical playback. That the vinyl playback sounded thinner and brighter makes me wonder if your cartridge setup is optimized. It's possible that your VTF could be a hair light or the VTA slightly high.

It's not the same thing, but last week I checked the test pressing for a project I'm overseeing and it was a pretty poignant moment, the first time I've heard my mixes on vinyl (but hopefully far from the last!).

It had been recorded to a Korg portable digital recorder, dumped to ProTools for editing and we mixed it off of ProTools through my MCI console. Since I had mixed the project and oversaw the mastering process, I had become extremely familiar with hearing in from various digital sources, but the only way I'd heard it analog was monitoring off the console when we mixed. Hearing the final, mastered mixes coming off a nice piece of 150g vinyl--even though the 2mix had been printed back into ProTools and cut off a master CD!--was something else, best I'd heard it. The album sounded so much...more. More musical, more punchy, more weight, more pleasant top end, better depth. Figure that one out, right? Now mind you, I checked this on my rather high end vinyl rig whose setup I had carefully optimized prior to listening-- it's a JA Michell Gyro SE turntable with an Origin Live Silver 2 tonearm and Benz Micro H2 woodbody cart, through all tube phono stage, preamp and power amps, so there's that, but I'd played the master CD on the same system through a halfway decent CD player and man, vinyl is just the way to listen to that album, it's got that x-factor. Can't wait to do a project all analog all the way to vinyl. The hard part is finding a remotely affordable mastering engineer that will stay out of the box!

Needless to say our observations on vinyl playback are interesting food for thought!
 
briank said:
This is interesting indeed, thanks for sharing this!

Of course, one has to consider the difference in the mechanical playback. That the vinyl playback sounded thinner and brighter makes me wonder if your cartridge setup is optimized. It's possible that your VTF could be a hair light or the VTA slightly high.
Click to expand...

I considered that. My VTF was at 2.0 grams. I bumped it to 2.5 and felt a little more bottom end resulted. Maybe I'll tick it up a notch again and re-listen.

Where do you keep yours?
 
leddy said:
I considered that. My VTF was at 2.0 grams. I bumped it to 2.5 and felt a little more bottom end resulted. Maybe I'll tick it up a notch again and re-listen.

Where do you keep yours?
Click to expand...

Half a gram is a BIG bump, you should hear a notable difference in low and high end doing that. If you get more bass but the highs are too dull and smeared, you've gone too heavy; weak bass and bright, strident highs suggest you're a little light.

Where you set VTF will depend very much on the cart and arm. Carts always have a suggested range so check your manual. You want to stay in that range (lest you risk groove or cart suspension damage), but you can play around within the range to find the most balanced sound. I usually like to start in the middle of the range and go up or down depending on what I hear.

My Benz cartridge has a suggested range of 1.8-2.0g. I use a digital stylus force gauge because this particular rig is pretty sensitive to setup. I can hear a sonic change with a couple hundredths of a gram difference. When tweaking, there are certain factors (like am I voicing with a standard weight vinyl vs. 150g vs. 180g, because there will be slight VTA differences between the vinyl owing to slightly different thicknesses that will affect the VTF very slightly). On the occasion of checking that test pressing, I tweaked the VTF if I recall correctly from about 1.91xg to about 1.885g, double checked the anitskate and the vinyl and also checked the turntable and platter for level (most important of all!) and the record sounded very balanced and clean from beginning to end.

The nice thing about less-than-high end rigs is they're not so sensitive! Given good setup otherwise and a reasonable stereo system, you'll hear a change with a tenth or two of a gram but probably not a couple hundredths. Also, you should be using a stylus force gauge (the Shure SFG-2 is all the gauge most home listeners will ever need and run around $15-20 last I checked). Don't trust the markings on your counterweight for anything more than a rough ballpark at best. I used to keep the turntables tweaked at a local college radio station I used to jock at; those were Technics SL1200s with Stanton 500 carts so that rig isn't foreign to me.
 
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leddy said:
I considered that. My VTF was at 2.0 grams. I bumped it to 2.5 and felt a little more bottom end resulted. Maybe I'll tick it up a notch again and re-listen.

Where do you keep yours?
Click to expand...
it needs to be chosen for the specific cart. you're using.
Also you need to check the VTA (the angle that the stylus is at when it's on the record) although I'm not sure if that's adjustable on the Technics.
And lastly that Technics is a direct drive which tends towards being a bit harsher and lightweight than a good belt drive. And I don't know which Stanton cart. you have.
If it's a DJ cart. then it's a piece of crap for critical listening.
But Stanton does make some decent hi-fi carts too so .....

I have a VPI 'table/Audioquest arm/ Sumiko Blue Point Special or sometimes a MicroBenz ..... I swap them just to get a different sound sometimes.

And lastly the phono preamp you have can make a huge difference in sound. You didn't even mention that.
What kind of phono-pre did you use?
 
Well .... that 'table looks like it's fairly solid ..... doesn't look like one of those hollow plastic things so it ought to do ok.

The cart. was definitely an audiophile sorta cart. so you're ok there except unless I'm mistaken that's a fairly aggressive eliptical stylus so it's gonna be very sensitive to all the adjustments you can make and especially the vertical tracking angle.
Also azimuth which is side to side movement and actually especially azimuth since that stylus shape is intended to have a lengthy contact area..

I think probably the weakest point is that phono pre ...... if you look at the response curve painted on top of it you can see that it's deviation from RIAA is towards the bright side of things
 
Thanks. I'm not new to vinyl (I'm in my 40's), but I'm new to doing it right.

I think the preamp may be the factor. I have a Shure tracking force gauge, and I just checked and set the force to 1.5 grams. Definitely more top end than the tape, but that could be the aged tape or the preamp as you had suggested.

I'm going to look in to some other preamps. I have one built in to my TEAC receiver I've never tried. I may just see if the high freq. response changes.

Thanks for all the help.

L
 
Phono stages can certainly make a difference, but honestly I'd put them pretty low in the fidelity pecking order. Get your present setup optimized and then if you were going to upgrade anything it would probably be the cart and go from there. But really, a platter that's a bit out of level or a VTF that's off by a few tenths of a gram or a cartridge that's been installed a mm or two out of alignment will mess up playback from even the fanciest of setups. Turntables are like sports cars, you'll only get optimum performance if it's tweaked and maintained just so, fresh filters and sparkplugs, fresh lube, tires at the right pressure etc and it's the same sort of deal with vinyl.

The Stantons tend to be pretty rugged carts and track reliably but they have a range of models with different specs and requirements--some are more sensitive than others, which one in particular do you have?
 
Those ones have a brush on them, right? Do you use the brush? I haven't used that particular Stanton but usually with that type of cart you set a greater VTF with the brush down vs up, as with the Shure M97xE (a cart I'm quite familiar with). In fact...hang on...ok googled a page that suggested about 1.0g without or 2.0g with, for the 881S. So if 2.5g sounded bass heavy and dull on top that wouldn't come as a surprise! It's always a balancing act, though!

And of course in the end there will certainly be differences betwee playback of the same material off open reel tape vs. vinyl. Actually it's kind of cool that you have a tape that you can reference your vinyl setup too, assuming proper setup of the tape machine's electronics and good condition tape of course.
 
I am using the brush.

I currently have 1.5 grams with the brush, but it sounds great. Listening to some Oscar Peterson right now.
 
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