Do Vinyl Records Degrade After a Few Plays/Uses?

[casperes1996]

Well you do indeed learn something new every day , never thought that was possible with a record or every heard of that possibility until now. Even googled to make sure you were not full of it, apparently not accornding to one hit at least I have just read..

It was a very novel and unique thing, and not common, so I can understand that you were reluctant to believe it. I would've been too. And I only heard about It through a YouTuber who does refurbishing of turntables and other hi-fi gear.
Though your statement generally holds true anyway, since it was to my knowledge literally only a single set of records and a single print of them for that matter ever to support it.
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There is also Dolby SVA or Dolby Analog with 4 discrete channels (left, center, right, mono surround) which is encoded via Dolby encoder to LtRt (left total, right total).
That kinda works as a pure stereo signal too although it tends to negative phase correlation (compared to LoRo) as soon as you have higher sound levels in the encoded rear channel.

Dolby Analog is still added to Dolby feature film copies as a backup in case the digital stream fails.

Since it was pretty easy to include two (encoded) analog audio tracks to VHS or other two track systems it became very popular on a consumer and brodacaster level.

Side note: The term 'LtRt' is also used for encoded Pro Logic (I, II) though it's technically not the same.
I might be wrong but I think Pro Logic II supports up to 8 channels (7.1) encoded in only two channels.

Sorry in case this is too off topic.

Don't know about the rest here, but for all I'm concerned, please do go off topic some more. It's all good knowledge and good reads come from it, so cheers, mate.

 

[flygbuss]

It was a very novel and unique thing, and not common, so I can understand that you were reluctant to believe it. I would've been too. And I only heard about It through a YouTuber who does refurbishing of turntables and other hi-fi gear.
Though your statement generally holds true anyway, since it was to my knowledge literally only a single set of records and a single print of them for that matter ever to support it.
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Don't know about the rest here, but for all I'm concerned, please do go off topic some more. It's all good knowledge and good reads come from it, so cheers, mate.

Thank you for the kind reply, I appreciate it.
I’m not a native speaker so especially the technical explanations might suffer a little.

Maybe two more good-to-know things I would like to share:

Since we already talked about Star Wars, the first movie has also been a huge success for Dolby and it’s surround sound. Even though it wasn’t the first movie, Star Wars intensively made use of the new capabilities by letting objects fly across the audience’s heads. Even with only one rear channel it was possible to let objects pass by not only from left to right but also from the front to the rear.

And because we talked about ‘fake surround’ enabled via Pro Logic:
If an ordinary stereo source without encoded multi channel information is played back with Pro Logic activated, it will still separate the center from left and right but most likely not much of the rear channels because the separation of those rely on negative phase correlation.

Depending on the source it can sound odd and mixes, especially when it comes to music tend to fall apart and sound odd.

So, please don’t press that button if you’re listening to an ordinary 2ch source.

 

[Roller]

Growing up my parents had the stackable turntable. You could load 5 records and they would drop down.

The turntable I referred to earlier had that feature, as did another one I used most often during childhood. In those days, we didn't much care what damage might be done by stacking records, and the changes in stylus/record geometry that occurred as the records dropped weren't apparent to us.

45 RPM records, typically used for "single" releases, were especially frustrating because of the plastic disk that you had to insert into the larger hole to play them on many turntables. I still have some of those. Years later, "audiophile" records that spun at 45 RPM but were about the same size as regular LPs became available. They were quite expensive, as I recall. One of my favorites was a recording of the 1812 Overture, with its pronounced climax. It was a good way to show off high-end equipment, not to mention bother the neighbors.

 

[jerwin]

True! Even country albums sounded excellent back then. My understanding is that in the 70s they stopped using virgin vinyl for the most part and went cheap on manufacturing and quality in general…brand new records would come out of the sleeve warped…the spindle hole off center…or both.

 

[S.B.G]

Lot’s of great advice in this thread.

One thing I’d like to add at the risk of an audiophile war is that, in my experience, listening to music on vinyl or digital isn’t a matter of one being better than the other. I believe it’s personal preference and that the two formats are just different sounding. Not so much better or best, right or wrong, just different. I happen to enjoy both formats and won’t go on to claim one being superior over the other. There is technical discussion to be had on the term superior, but at the end of the day, it’s my ears that determine what I find superior. But that’s just me.

Then there is the physical factor element to playing vinyl compared to digital. Being able to touch and handle my music on a record, set the tone arm and needle down on the record, to flip it over and all that is a lot of fun.

If you want the best results you have to do it old school and forget all the electronic stuff, it needs to have tubes that is a difference you can hear the sound is entirely different. Good luck finding that equipment now it is all electronic junk.

Tube amps are still available to purchase today. I don’t have any yet, but I’ve been watching videos and reading about them to get educated more before I buy one.

There is TOR audio, which I think is a guy in the Ukraine who builds them by hand out of wood and apparently they sound amazing. Then you can get other tube amps for hi-Fi systems and even more of a selection for headphone amps, too.

What I’m not clear on yet, is that are some tubes manufactured today still or are more of the tubes out there reclaimed from the Cold War days and before transistors were made?

 

[Thomas Veil]

I can't speak about vinyl today, but before the CD era it was my experience that yes, records would degrade by being played. I had a Technics turntable, which I don't consider to be a badly made brand.

The whole impetus behind the switch to digital music was that it you didn't have to worry about clicks and pops. With vinyl, what I noticed was that the more times I played a particular album, the more I noticed those sounds.

I suspected that it was my imagination and that the particular record always had that much, but when I tested my theory by buying a brand new, identical album, I found out that it sounded more pristine, like the first album when it was new. So it wasn't my imagination.

That's just what I know. Again, after CDs came out, I never went back because CDs didn't have that problem. Perhaps vinyl's better now.

 

[MacUser2525]

What I’m not clear on yet, is that are some tubes manufactured today still or are more of the tubes out there reclaimed from the Cold War days and before transistors were made?

You got me curious so I threw the question at google and sure enough a posting says they are still made.

State of the Vacuum Tube Industry 2016

It's been almost five years(!) since the last I wrote a report on the vacuum tube industry. I made some mistakes back then, that now when I look back I notice. Hopefully I won’t make as many this time around. :lol: Since I wrote my last report, the vacuum tube market has shifted especially in...

theartofsound.net

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That's just what I know. Again, after CDs came out, I never went back because CDs didn't have that problem. Perhaps vinyl's better now.

No they just become unreadable, not playing badly like a worn record, they totally fail.

 

[flygbuss]

Lot’s of great advice in this thread.

One thing I’d like to add at the risk of an audiophile war is that, in my experience, listening to music on vinyl or digital isn’t a matter of one being better than the other. I believe it’s personal preference and that the two formats are just different sounding. Not so much better or best, right or wrong, just different. I happen to enjoy both formats and won’t go on to claim one being superior over the other. There is technical discussion to be had on the term superior, but at the end of the day, it’s my ears that determine what I find superior. But that’s just me.

Then there is the physical factor element to playing vinyl compared to digital. Being able to touch and handle my music on a record, set the tone arm and needle down on the record, to flip it over and all that is a lot of fun.


Tube amps are still available to purchase today. I don’t have any yet, but I’ve been watching videos and reading about them to get educated more before I buy one.

There is TOR audio, which I think is a guy in the Ukraine who builds them by hand out of wood and apparently they sound amazing. Then you can get other tube amps for hi-Fi systems and even more of a selection for headphone amps, too.

What I’m not clear on yet, is that are some tubes manufactured today still or are more of the tubes out there reclaimed from the Cold War days and before transistors were made?

Loudness war never affected vinyl records the same way it changed digital releases. Over the years the digital masters became less and less dynamic to make the records perceived as louder. The result is highly compressed music, often with digital artifacts and clipping.

Since you won’t gain the same improvement of loudness on vinyl by compression, good vinyl masters kept the dynamics. Therefore it sounds more natural, less compressed.

 

[flygbuss]

I know some classical music enthusiasts who went CD and later SACD and never looked back.

But again for them the content didn’t change as much as it changed in pop music industry. Classical music didn’t suffer from ‘improved dynamics’ or loudness war, so it was a change of the recording medium only.

I can see why some prefer the cleaner and less noisy medium with good DA conversion when it comes to classical music.

Personally, I love the static noise of vinyl..

 

[Tech198]

I don't think so.., probably not, but the needle sure does wear out.

You'd probably be replacing it more than you buy vinyl's.

My parents even still has 45's which still work to this day "Johnny and the Hurricanes (1960's) "Rocking Goose", "The Trashmen "Surfin' Bird (1963)"

Loudness war never affected vinyl records the same way it changed digital releases. Over the years the digital masters became less and less dynamic to make the records perceived as louder. The result is highly compressed music, often with digital artifacts and clipping.

Since you won’t gain the same improvement of loudness on vinyl by compression, good vinyl masters kept the dynamics. Therefore it sounds more natural, less compressed.

Because you cannot take a master and slap it direly on a CD, as the 'master' is usually recorded at very high bit rate (...and sound allot better too)

You gotta reduce it by reducing the bitrate, thereby reducing the quality...

Its still better by most people standards, but its no way as good as a master recording. It's probably why you start seeing websites selling HQ (high quality) recording of this stuff. But since very few players can take advantage of them, its a 'dead horse'. i reckon. Plus, when you factor in not everything is released in HQ. that makes it worse.

 

[Plett]

I can't speak about vinyl today, but before the CD era it was my experience that yes, records would degrade by being played. I had a Technics turntable, which I don't consider to be a badly made brand.

The whole impetus behind the switch to digital music was that it you didn't have to worry about clicks and pops. With vinyl, what I noticed was that the more times I played a particular album, the more I noticed those sounds.

I suspected that it was my imagination and that the particular record always had that much, but when I tested my theory by buying a brand new, identical album, I found out that it sounded more pristine, like the first album when it was new. So it wasn't my imagination.

That's just what I know. Again, after CDs came out, I never went back because CDs didn't have that problem. Perhaps vinyl's better now.

Very similar experience here. Very anecdotal, but definitely seemed to get poorer over time.

Regarding CDs - Clearly portability had a lot to do with my switch, but the clarity of the music was significantly improved over my LPs, and by that time I had a decent collection of both LPs and Cassettes which really had only one redeeming quality, (Portability). Don't recall the brand of hifi we had (I was living at home) but my uncle was a hobbyist and it was a hand me down from him, so suspect it was of reasonable quality.

 

[flygbuss]

I don't think so.., probably not, but the needle sure does wear out.

You'd probably be replacing it more than you buy vinyl's.

My parents even still has 45's which still work to this day "Johnny and the Hurricanes (1960's) "Rocking Goose", "The Trashmen "Surfin' Bird (1963)"



Because you cannot take a master and slap it direly on a CD, as the 'master' is usually recorded at very high bit rate (...and sound allot better too)

You gotta reduce it by reducing the bitrate, thereby reducing the quality...

Its still better by most people standards, but its no way as good as a master recording. It's probably why you start seeing websites selling HQ (high quality) recording of this stuff. But since very few players can take advantage of them, its a 'dead horse'. i reckon. Plus, when you factor in not everything is released in HQ. that makes it worse.

Sample rate conversion is not the big issue. It’s the way the master is created which includes much more compression to achieve the psycho-acoustic effect of loudness.

This procedure doesn’t translate well to vinyl so a separate more dynamic master for vinyl is required.
Hence the material sounds different on vinyl.

 

[Thomas Veil]

iscrete channels into a phonograph record, by modulating the second channels at high frequency.

Compatible Discrete 4 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

When I was young we used to tease the dog with this. We had four speakers, one in each corner of the room. And with four discrete channels, you could, by rotating the left-right and front-back balance controls, limit the sound to come from any one of the four speakers.

So I'd hook up a mic to the amp's input and call the dog from one of the speakers. He'd walk over to it and look at it quizzically. Then I'd make my voice come from the opposite corner. He'd look behind him, and when I called him again he'd go over to that speaker. And so on for a minute or two until I took pity on the poor confused thing and stopped.