No – the signal that comes out of the cartridge has been subjected to the RIAA pre-emphasis equalization (encoding); that has to be un-done (de-emphasis or decoded) in the phono stage.
There is a huge body of work where the entire production was analog, and the master tapes later were used to create digital media.
On this one, the quality level of a high cost MC cartridge is going to exceed the quality of less expensive D/A converters commonly used in CD players. IMO of course, which doesn’t help much.
High cost MC cartridges are hand made; D/A converters are ‘stamped out’ on a “fab” production line.
Not sure about the technical problems, to me Cd looks a lot more complicated and high tech than LP reproduction.
Regarding the dots, as I say, work in progress. Thought it might help smooth out the signal so its analogue again.
It’s analog long before it gets encoded into the vinyl. But yes that’s what D/A converters do; turn the digital signal into an analog signal. For cd players, that occurs within the cd player; for digitally-mastered lp’s that occurs upstream of the actual lp production.
The technical problems of vinyl include:
Differing linear velocity at the stylus (and so differing frequency range available) as the stylus moves from the outer edge to the centre.
Surface noise.
Dust and scratches.
Changes in angle of the stylus to the direction of travel.
Difficulties in ensuring that the excursions of the stylus are possible (hence the RIAA filtering that is needed).
Print-through between adjacent parts of the spiral.
Difficulties in controlling cross-talk between the channels.
And that’s without going in to the different stylus shapes, cartridge types (MM, MC, high-ouptut MC), arm design, materials, vertical tracking, bias, balance, mass, compliance etc.
I know that the record player looks simple, but actually it is hugely complicated - far more so, in many ways, than digital. Digital in principle is really simple. You measure the voltage of a waveform at specific intervals of time, and record that information. That part is relatively straightforward. And just because the equipment doing this is relatively cheap and easy to produce doesn’t have any bearing on its validity. Replay is slightly more complicated. You take those readings, and create a voltage that corresponds. But you also need to do some slightly complex but very well-understood processing to interpolate between the readings.
As an aside I would be interested to hear what would happen if you took the pure digital signal and created voltages corresponding to those values that are high enough to drive a loudspeaker - without any D to A processing. Given that a speaker cone has mass, it presumably would not follow exactly the individual steps of the voltage, and so would, to a greater or less extent, perform some, possibly most, of the effect that is produced by a D to A converter. As you increase the sample rate, so you will get nearer to the analogue waveform. At what point would the speaker cones show no difference between this signal and an analogue signal?
What do you mean? What aspect of quality are you thinking of?
The 78 might contain more infirmation than the horn can reproduce, especially at the low end, depending on size of horn…
When we were helping my mum sort things before going into a care home about 10 years ago there was one 78 among that I wanted to preserve and share (my grandfather singing). I still had a decades-old mm cartridge (Shure M75) that I had kept as a backup to play music when having the stylus replaced on mc cartrides, so I bought a 78 spherical stylus for it (surprised to find still available), and ripped tge record using my Thorens TD150 running at 45rpm, using Audacity to correct for speed and pitch, and also to minimise surface noise. It made a very passable copy, cleaner sounding than the original, and so more listenable, and copied by CD to everyone in the family.
Hi Bart
Your right about RIAA but taking this back nothing is simple. Point was the MC is providing a much higher quality signal than D/A converters.
As far as I am aware RIAA encoding is not the same as digital encoding but adjusts the frequency response of a common signal before/after playback.
As we were looking at Digital vs Turntable I was considering the digitalisation involved in LP production and wondering how this seemingly disappears for modern “analogue” LP production. So I agree about the body of analogue work and I know many prefer good fully analogue recordings, I am looking at recordings that have been digitalsied at some stage and then put out on CD.
From cartridge to speaker, Naim systems seem to be fully analogue so if LP’s are delivering better music than CD’s/Streamers something must take place before the signal gets to the Pre.
I don’t think the difference is the phonostage, or CD/Streamers would have better analogue stages. With LP reproduction you are effectively listening to the signal from the cartridge. Moving back there is obviously a critical function for turntables/arms but you are still listening to the cartridge
Only point is this could be true as it is a very expensive item, as you say, they are hand made, they come from specialist manufactures looking for ultimate results rather than mass produced based on accountants cost/benefit analysis.
I see there are a number of replies so if I missed something just let me know.
Hi Beachcomber
Never seen this before in a post but I am going to grab a sandwich and get back to you later.
If you never hear from me again its because I might give up thinking.
Dynamic range and frequency response certainly may be constrained via the vinyl medium, and it has been suggested that filter networs such as the RIAA pre- and post- emphasis circuits produce audible artifacts. Maybe to some people’s ears tgese effects are beneficial compared to the original sound (I have no expectation that would be tge case, but as you suggest there has to be a reason for preference of a ‘vinylised’ version of a decoded digital recording over simply a decoded digital recording.
Less likely would be the decreasing groove velocity acriss tge disc as that would cause peopl to prefer either middle or outer tracks. It is also hard to see how anyone could prefer the surface noise aspect, possibly other than nostalia.
Well, there is build quality, for instance, where I suspect that the hand-built high cost MC cartridge will probably exceed the D/A converter. If you are thinking of the quality of its ability to empty your bank account, then again, cartridge wins hands down. If you mean the quality of the output - I’m not so sure.
There are classical recordings that have been produced where the groove starts in the centre section and moves outwards to the outer edge - for that very reason - because the louder and more complex part of the music is towards the end.
That surely just shifts the timing of the best/worst part! Is it so you’re left hearing the best? Or because it increases in loudness and that benefits?
Hope this reply isn’t disappointing but your longer post is all good stuff!
To try and contribute to the debate the opposite view would be that a list of potential component issues with CD555/ND555’s would also be lengthy.
The quality question mentioned above is the unanswerable debate that started in 1981, is a turntable better than digital? Many think that listening to music on Vinyl is better than digital.
Of course, this doesn’t include “what do you get for your money” but if Vinyl is the route to great music then “what you get for your money” is just based on what you can afford, however, outside of the world of Naim and £30k LP12’s most consumers will only be willing to pay for digital.
Digital is affordable, accessible and unlimited in supply, just looking at software, one LP costs about two months subscription even if you pay for your music.
The rest of the world is going to stay digital and the current popular craze for Vinyl will disappear once hipsters are replaced by the next generation.
Problem for digital hi-fi is that dependence on mass market components means they may never discover how to add the vinyl magic into digital reproduction.
Maybe one of the scientist on the site should start a company to design and sell handmade D/A converters.
Yes, indeed it does just shift where either the loudest or possibly higher frequency part of the performance is. It is an attempt to overcome some of the problems built into vinyl recordings.
To give another illustration - I have an IWC watch - it is mechanical, analogue, one of their cheaper ones. It is valued at over £6000.00. It tells the time, the day and the date, has a seconds sweep, and does nothing else. It is pretty accurate. It is not, however, as accurate as a quartz watch. Possibly not as accurate as a cheap quartz watch. But its build quality is superb, as is its design, in my opinion. But in the final analysis - for the main job for which it is intended - it is not as good as a reasonably good quartz watch.
First you have to define handmade! I understand The N-DAC is handmade… But if you mean the integrated circuits, well, what about the integrated circuits if there are any in TT power supplie/speed stabilisers, or maybe some phono stages, or otherwise transistors? What about resistors and capacitors? At what point in componentry do you allow machines as opposed to hands?
To me, the recent crop of Chord DACs, from Hugo upwards sound very natural. Some people have described as analogue-like. Is that the character that is needed? Some people don’t like them, but then some people like things that very evidently colour the sound, because it makes the music more exciting. Is deliberate colouration needed?
That looks remarkably like Totaldac, the French company!
I’d love to hear one one day.
Best regards, BF
rather like in those old days of yesteryear where most preamps had tone controls, slope filters, and even graphic equalizers. People could adjust the sound to suit their preferences, with little regard to how it compares with the original sound. Which, again, is fine - but that is different from any discussion about how accurate or close to the original it sounds - or even, whatever it means, musicality.
