Vinyl - do you play them loud?

[HiFiMan]

Well, lots of opinions, theories, and experiences ........... so here's mine. There is no such thing as an absolutely quiet LP, period. WOW, that's a bold statement! By absolutely quiet, I mean that quite literally, no background noise whatsoever (as in CD quiet). Some pressings do come very close to CD quiet, but in my experience, very few (new or old). And yes, GOS, I know EXACTLY the sound you're talking about between tracks; although I refer to it as a variable swooshing sound. Minus the usual ticks and pops, I still find it quite annoying. Especially when it's present on a modern day pressing that's touted as an audiophile recording (aren't they all). It stands to reason it's there during music too, you just can't hear it over the music. Definitely something to do with the manufacturing process. Here's my experience that served to weed out ANY other possible variable, squarely pointing to the LP itself. I purchased a new issue LP, some time ago, that played as close to CD quiet as I have EVER heard. I had to really listen hard to distinguish it from the CD version which I also have (I'm talking quietness here, not anything else). I was so impressed with how quiet it was, I thought of two thing. 1) What an example LP to play for friends, just to let them experience how quiet a good pressing can be. 2) I'm going to purchase another copy just to have it on hand in case my first copy ever begins to get noisy from play. When the second copy arrived, I couldn't wait to give it a spin. Unfortunately, it was a disappointing experience; it wasn't as quiet as the first copy; very close, but still noticeably noisier. Put the first copy on again and blissful quietness again! I've A/B'd them several times with the same results. All testing done on the same TT setup, by the way. Conclusion .................... I got VERY, VERY lucky with the first copy!

As a side note; I have a few DBX encoded LPs that are REMARKABLY quiet! Why the industry never adopted this technology for the long haul is beyond my comprehension. Why modern recordings don't utilize the technology is even more absurd. They could sound so much better! It can't cost that much to encode them, and decoders (vintage) are a dime a dozen. Just baffles me! If someone has an explanation for that, please speak up.

 

[gene_stl]

Myfavorite LP pressing is Pepe Romero's " Flamenco" issued by Phillips in the late seventies. When it was new it was the quietest LP I ever had.
Also unbelievable musicianship.

 

[andi-999]

Myfavorite LP pressing is Pepe Romero's " Flamenco" issued by Phillips in the late seventies. When it was new it was the quietest LP I ever had.
Also unbelievable musicianship.
View attachment 64618

I like the sticker. Did you put it on?

 

[Bill B]

This is my first post. I've been lurking and visiting this site every day since I bought my first sacds (Aerosmith TITA and Meatloaf BOOH and Boston S/T) from Circuit City before I even had a 5.1 system (which was purchased shortly thereafter).
I am not into vinyl at all. I had 600+ albums in 1988, and started replacing them on cd, then gave away most of my vinyl (yeah... pretty stupid) and have never looked back. However I do know about a website that might be of interest to anyone looking for the best possible copies of a particular album..

https://better-records.com
I am not affiliated with this website, have never bought anything from them nor can I endorse them, however, according to this website you all are not experiencing anything new with the vinyl format. The format is inconsistent and all albums are not created equal, At any rate you might find this informative about vinyl in general.

 

[marcb]

Every record ever made has surface noise when played. EVERY single one. Even DBX records. It is inherent in the medium.

But how much it is audible depends upon many factors. The quality of the pressing itself, the quality of the vinyl used, the cleanliness of the record, the type of stylus used, the condition of the stylus used, the amplitude at which one listens, the quality of one’s hearing, etc., etc.

 

[marcb]

As a side note; I have a few DBX encoded LPs that are REMARKABLY quiet! Why the industry never adopted this technology for the long haul is beyond my comprehension. Why modern recordings don't utilize the technology is even more absurd. They could sound so much better! It can't cost that much to encode them, and decoders (vintage) are a dime a dozen. Just baffles me! If someone has an explanation for that, please speak up.

There are a bunch of reasons. But from an audio fidelity perspective, the biggest one is simply DBX often results in pumping artifacts.

Background/surface quietness is not the end-all, be-all.

 

[jimfisheye]

Hmmm. OK, maybe no album is PERFECTLY ABSOLUTELY quiet. The good ones (and not just the MFSL and other ultra expensive good ones) that are free from cleaning faux pas are quiet enough to clearly hear the tape hiss from the original mix generation start and stop from song to song.

How many people have the system to hear that detail to begin with? Probably the majority around here of course! But you know what I mean. Vinyl can pull off signal to noise in the 70db range on a good day. Bad vinyl can be absurd like 15db territory!

 

[gene_stl]

The sticker was present on the image that I downloaded from Discogs, being too lazy to photograph my copy.

 

[quadsearcher]

The repeating swoosh sound, yes, I've heard a regular noise that is not there through part of rotation, but occurs at the same area regularly as it passes the stylus. My favorite local seller had a bunch of great used records from the same collection, they had aftermarket inner sleeves, clear or frosted but not paper. With magnification it looked like the sleeves had bonded with the vinyl in places and that's where the noise came from. It seems like they might have said vpi on the sleeves? It was very annoying, unplayable in places at a decent volume, but might not have been noticed in one of the cheap "Crosley" players.

 

[proufo]

If anyone here wants another vinyl thing to get paranoid about, just put the stylus on a record with the turntable not spinning, increase (slowly) the system volume and check for feedback howl.

 

[Mark Anderson]

With all the audio audiofile pressings I have collected over the years I will never forget when I picked up a white vinyl bootleg pressing of the Beatles Decca Audition Tapes and put it on and was amazed as it was at that time the quietest LP I had ever heard. This was probably late 80's when standard LP's were using recycled vinyl where I could clearly see label fragments in the grooves. I am mostly amazed by modern pressings since the 90's that help with reducing that background noise

 

[Gimme 4]

I've noticed that type of noise more with the long contact "Shibata" or "microridge" type styli that contact more groove wall. If I switch to a .2 x .7 mil elliptical stylus cartridge (Shure V15 Type II, V15 Type III, and Stanton 681 EEE on hand) a lot if not all of the swishing scraping surface noises go away.

That's one good thing about most "audiophile" records like Mobile Fidelity. They are usually very quiet.

Just crank up the volume more so you desensitize your ears to those noises!

 

[par4ken]

For the most part groove noise doesn't bother me too much. Just like tape hiss you don't notice it once the music starts. I remember being bothered more by the (master) tape hiss that was often audible before the music started to play. Some poor pressings are very bad where that whooshing sound is noticeable compared to that of a good pressing. With a very good pressing the noise is barely audible even at high volume settings.

Back in the vinyl days people would usually pre adjust the volume based on the groove noise level. With DBX they were taken by surprise when the music blasted away from total silence! A bit like driving blind!

As for using DBX with digital recording, I tried that once just for kicks. Reasoning that you could get an extra 40 dB of signal to noise/dynamic range added to the already high 120 dB. Well it didn't work, the analogue DBX encode/decode process introduced it's own noise much more than that of the digital recording process itself! Results were far worse than without it!

 

[kap'n krunch]

to the OP...
HELL YEAH!!!
the only medium I can rely on NOT beings quashed to death!! , my poor Sony MDR-7506s DO suffer but I don't care!...My Polkies can take it!

 

[proufo]

I've noticed that type of noise more with the long contact "Shibata" or "microridge" type styli that contact more groove wall. If I switch to a .2 x .7 mil elliptical stylus cartridge (Shure V15 Type II, V15 Type III, and Stanton 681 EEE on hand) a lot if not all of the swishing scraping surface noises go away.

Those shapes also reach deeper in the groove, where there could be grit.

 

[DKA]

I use a Humminguru on all records I buy, new and old, for a deep cleaning. Five minute wash cycle, and ten minute dry cycle. For superficial stuff, such as smudges and fingerprints, I use a Spinclean. Obviously, some old records are beyond repair, and i'll keep those for archival reasons (sometimes), and just buy a newer, well-reviewed, better-sounding copy for listening.,
The scraping sound......I do believe it's either a spindle lubrication thing or your needle has fallen off the groove a bit. It's occasional, but certainly not all the time.