Turntable question

kap'n krunch said:

Cool..welcome to the ClickRepair "Club", markshan.....I've been singing the praises of this EXCELLENT program for YEARS...the new "version" is even better....
Also, people are always "complaining" that it takes out musical info..not so, that is why it has the window on top...reds are clicks , blue is musical info that it did NOT take out because it seemed like it was noise...

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I'm a huge ClickRepair fan myself, though I've definitely learned that it works great for some stuff and not for others. Even with some of the safety features on, there are voices and instruments it sometimes just INSISTS are really noise. In the most extreme cases, I've learned to chop the file I want to process into pieces and use CR on some parts but not on others. You can also set breakpoints in CR that will tell it to process up to a breakpoint and stop, at which time you can alter the various settings.

When the stars align, ClickRepair can work miracles.

atrocity said:

I'm a huge ClickRepair fan myself, though I've definitely learned that it works great for some stuff and not for others. Even with some of the safety features on, there are voices and instruments it sometimes just INSISTS are really noise.

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I'm not saying it never identifies transients as clicks, that's why it has sensitivity settings. What I am saying is that it is fundamentally different than noise reduction. Noise reduction creates a profile of what frequencies it thinks are noise and removes those from the entire track. It is sometimes useful but often disastrous. You really have to be highly skilled in it's use. Click Repair is a pencil tool on steroids. It redraws the split second peaks it deems to be clicks (even if some are legitimate transients) but doesn't touch the sound to either side of the bit it redraws. In that way it is far less destructive.

When the compact disc player was introduced for retail in the 1980’s, it wasn’t long before I purchased one and eventually dumped the record player and all my LP’s out of convenience sake. I felt that it was a dumb move on my part to this day. So now, as much as I don’t want to go through the hassle, I’ve been thinking about getting a record player again to reacquaint myself with the nostalgia. Plus, I feel that I’d be hearing 100% of the analog sound, not a sample of it.

For those that play both digital and LP’s, what are your thoughts on the sound quality of each format? Is there a preference for one over the other?

Perpendicular said:

For those that play both digital and LP’s, what are your thoughts on the sound quality of each format? Is there a preference for one over the other?

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Both can sound great, but most CDs are mastered horribly at the present time. You can't brick a slab of vinyl.

I got back into vinyl because none of the original Roger Miller albums ever saw CD release. Now I simply find vinyl to be more engaging. I enjoy it more, perhaps nostalgia is part of it, but I'm not certain.

Perpendicular said:

When the compact disc player was introduced for retail in the 1980’s, it wasn’t long before I purchased one and eventually dumped the record player and all my LP’s out of convenience sake. I felt that it was a dumb move on my part to this day. So now, as much as I don’t want to go through the hassle, I’ve been thinking about getting a record player again to reacquaint myself with the nostalgia. Plus, I feel that I’d be hearing 100% of the analog sound, not a sample of it.

For those that play both digital and LP’s, what are your thoughts on the sound quality of each format? Is there a preference for one over the other?

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I'm not sure, I've read or heard that some records are cut with the same masters as the CD. Which would mean digital. Whatever.


Records always feel more real to me, as compared to CD. High res is a whole 'nuther story, it reproduces the whole sound of a record as far as I can tell. But, I still want a record made with an analog signal chain for the best albums.

markshan said:

Both can sound great, but most CDs are mastered horribly at the present time. You can't brick a slab of vinyl.

I got back into vinyl because none of the original Roger Miller albums ever saw CD release. Now I simply find vinyl to be more engaging. I enjoy it more, perhaps nostalgia is part of it, but I'm not certain.

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I beg to differ. You can brick vinyl using a dynamically compressed master that might have been made for CD.

quadsearcher said:

I beg to differ. You can brick vinyl using a dynamically compressed master that might have been made for CD.

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You can cut vinyl from a bricked master, but the process of cutting it will inherently soften it. A stylus won't play back a perfectly square wave. Listen to any recent bricked CD that has a vinyl counterpart. For example, REM's "Accelerate". The tunes are good, but the CD is sadly unlistenable. Yet Ricker cut it to vinyl and while not "audiophile", the result isn't at all glaring like the disc and it allows the songs to actually be heard.

Better yet, look at waveforms of the CD then compare them to waveforms from a drop of the vinyl.

May I intrude...

to master an LP , it needs to be LIMITED(!!!), which is BEYOND COMPRESSION, but the difference with the CDs is that , since , when "brickwalling" the top of the waves wind up being "square", this is NOT acceptable for LPs, since it will not play it back as in the digital domain, it will "round it off" , and besides you can't master an LP that hot cause the stylus will mistrack...

don't know it I'm making sense!

kap'n krunch said:

May I intrude...

to master an LP , it needs to be LIMITED(!!!), which is BEYOND COMPRESSION, but the difference with the CDs is that , since , when "brickwalling" the top of the waves wind up being "square", this is NOT acceptable for LPs, since it will not play it back as in the digital domain, it will "round it off" , and besides you can't master an LP that hot cause the stylus will mistrack...

don't know it I'm making sense!

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Yes, that is basically what I was saying.

markshan said:

I'm not saying it never identifies transients as clicks, that's why it has sensitivity settings. What I am saying is that it is fundamentally different than noise reduction.

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We don't disagree, sorry if I came across as argumentative. Further to your point, it stuns me that some will claim that ClickRepair used properly will "dull" the sound. As you point out, that's not even technically possible.

My favorite technique: Capture a vinyl side, cut it into songs and dead space. Batch process the files with conservative settings for the music but turned up all the way for the dead space. If a song fades, you can usually get away with maxing CR during the quieter passages, too.

Perpendicular said:

For those that play both digital and LP’s, what are your thoughts on the sound quality of each format? Is there a preference for one over the other?

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I never got rid of my vinyl (or anything else!) but with good mastering I'll still take the CD version any time.

If I play vinyl now, odds are it's because I'm digitizing it.

"I'll still take the CD version any time."

i don't see your equipment list so i can't know what you are hearing at home with your vinyl. my preference is vinyl playback but i will concede that an LP burned to cd captures most of the vinyl advantage. it sound even better than the regular issue cd and i can't explain that.

but in direct comparison of the original issue of brothers in arms (my first cd that i was truly enamored of and is excellent sound) the dollar cutout i bought trounced it sonically. i believe i was using a Quatre bd1 preamp with phono. tt was probably a rabco st4 linear tracker and maybe an AT170ML cart.

going back to the original queston about subwoofer interference, a spring suspended subplatter construction like the original AR or a derivative like my currently employed SOTA Sapphire/MMT (JELCO) will not "hear" the sub as it is sufficiently isolated on its own.

Sorry...basically ANY "early" digital recording will sound better on LP...

my .02 € cents...

Yeah, like 'The Nightfly'.


The supposed 'badness' of 'early digital' is highly....anecdotal.

ssully said:

Yeah, like 'The Nightfly'.


The supposed 'badness' of 'early digital' is highly....anecdotal.

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Have you heard a Ludwig Quiex of Nightfly on a decent system? It's amazing.

kap'n krunch said:

Sorry...basically ANY "early" digital recording will sound better on LP...

my .02 € cents...

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One of my most prized records is a copy of "Arkansas Traveler" by Michelle Shocked. Never on vinyl in the US, it had a small batch run in Germany and I was fortunate to get one for a reasonable price a couple years back. The spectrals clearly reveal a 44k source, but what my eyes won't confirm my ears do. As good as the CD sounds, the vinyl sounds even better.

markshan said:

Have you heard a Ludwig Quiex of Nightfly on a decent system? It's amazing.

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I'm always amazed by vinyl, and vinylphiles.

(I prefer to add my own euphonic distortion. Or not.)

ssully said:

I'm always amazed by vinyl, and vinylphiles.

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As you should be.

ssully said:

I'm always amazed by vinyl, and vinylphiles.

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The right word is "awed". :yikes

proufo said:

The right word is "awed". :yikes

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There's lots of words I can think of that apply to vinyl and vinylphiles.