It's now time to ditch your Sound Hi-Fi/Herbie's mats...

[Marco]

Well done, Chris - it'll be very interesting reading your thoughts

Don't forget to 'bond' it to the platter with double-sided tape or a lick of grease or something, as that makes quite a big difference!

I've got a copper mat now to try, so just need to wait for the Oyaide to arrive, and I'll be able to test those combos before I get the new platter

Marco.

[MartinT]

Ben Sidran ' Bop City and To Hot to Touch

Aaaargh! Chris Frankland!

[Marco]

Hi Martin,

Did you try the bonding thing with your Achromat, btw?

Marco.

[MartinT]

Been away from home, Marco. Will do it tomorrow night, have the tape at the ready

[chris@panteg]

Aaaargh! Chris Frankland!

Yes ' its crap but it just makes me laugh lol.

[Marco]

Been away from home, Marco. Will do it tomorrow night, have the tape at the ready

Super-duper!

Marco.

[DSJR]

Dave

At the risk of sounding naive ' blinckered or plain stupid (i'm willing to take the risk) records don't add the colouration

Its the turntables that play them and some more than other's , some decks like the NAS range for example ! sound as neutral as one could want , the Techie is also neutral to me adding little bloom than i can tell.

on the other hand certain classic decks , make records sound yummy and warm ! though these days its been toned down and perhaps too much the other way , but that's my view anyway.

I have personally watched an acetate being cut at 45rpm and had the pleasure of playing this back on a half decent player through a half decent system in comparison. Acetates can only be played once for maximum fidelity, although I had around six months of occasional playing before it was totally shagged.

Bear with me on this please.

The first playback was incredibly close to the master on a direct comparison, but comparison of the lacquer to the 45rpm 12" single prepared earlier from this same source tape showed massive losses in focus, dynamics and raw emotion in the singing (Blue Nile "Tinseltown/Regret"). Now, THIS is where the fun starts.....

I don't know whether the losses are in the several stages from lacquer/acetate to the vinyl finished product, or whether it's purely the playback turntable's ability to "terminate" the vinyl properly. I appreciate "experiences are experiences personal to the listener and sometimes shared by others in the know" but a number of professionals I've spoken to over the decades have often had a terrible job getting the musical message from master to vinyl and the best of these people are true masters of the art IMO.

Now again, my own personal experiences subsequent to this dem/comparison showed me just how far away most stereo systems are from lifelike dynamics, especially where live acoustic jazz is concerned and without going over my head as regards recording techniques/limiting/compression etc.. I found that much could be done to minimise the compression/slugging effects that some turntables have on the proceedings. In my case twenty years ago, it was the Garrotted Decca/Deccapod and the record directly coupled to a 1" thick approx graphite platter which showed that properly terminating the vinyl dramitically improved the results. Pink Triangle were around as well and getting great results, although the inconsistent finish of their then products and frailty in general kept me away from their range.

I've discussed before that the Achromat may just be the answer to correctly terminating the vinyl on a wider variety of decks than the herbies mat can (haven't tried the herbies thicker ones etc though), but the fact that "we" have to prat around with mats in the first place must say something??? LP's aren't made of metal and the state of most LP's in terms of quality of material and sheer weight is often suspect I reckon.

That's where I was coming from as regards vinyl reproduction. Much of what I said is, I think, provable and repeatable, so I think the term "absolutist bullshit" is a little unfair.

Now, regarding digital - I have heard an early Sony 1610 inserted as A-D and D-A in a tape-loop and genuinely couldn't tell the difference. The technically superior 1630 was in use at Decca for decades and the final sound of Decca CD's were far more to do with the abilities and tastes of the mastering engineers than the technology used I found. I remember being very impressed with the sonics of a Wyndham Hill compilation on vinyl, only to discover it was a very early digital recording.. From personal experiences, as well as confirmation by more experienced professional practitioners, I have it on good authority that the digital master is as near indistinguishable from the original recording - if left untouched - as it's possible to get. But again, it depends what the mastering engineer does in preparing this, together with the CD manufacture, as it would appear from regular postings here and elsewhere that different CD's supposedly made from the same master do actually have slightly different sonics and sometimes, transferring these CD's to a computer and streaming the sound out through a decent DAC actually improves things from the CD source. Maybe this is where hi-res comes in, as the margin for error is so much higher?

Hopefully I've now clarified things a bit without upsetting anyone in the process. I enjoy playing records for all the right (hopefully) reasons and look forward to trying an Achromat myself at some point - The Thorens dislikes the Herbies with a passion and the old ribbed "124" mat isn't quite thick enough as the R200 cannot be height adjusted. I've never said that the Achromat won't work, merely clumsily suggesting that vinyl does have losses which have to be minimised by careful termination, as well as the playback deck being as inert as possible to airborne and structural vibrations. All this before discussions about stylus profiles and end-of-side distortions..

There, I think I've covered it as best I can without going over my head too deeply I can't get out. I feel better for that and hope it's made some little sense to you guys with open minds and willing to experiment.

TTFN

[Marco]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for that - most interesting

It was quite simply that your earlier 'statement':

The vinyl ADDS "NICE" COLOURATION which can charm the ears - FACT!!!

...accompanied by the word "FACT" in capitals, including three exclamation marks, came across as, shall we say, somewhat 'provocative'

Either you were deliberately intending to provoke a negative response from those with diametrically opposed views on that matter (such as me), when applied in all circumstances, or you made a mistake, mate. We're all human!

You're entitled to your opinion, which is as valid as anyone else's here (and I respect your experience in the industry very much), but your opinion, or anyone else's here, including mine, can never be portrayed absolutely as 'fact'. It will always only be YOUR opinion. It's as simple as that.

So let's move on now and put this little disagreement behind us

Marco.

[DSJR]

No probs.

Provocative? ME? I'm not really.

[Marco]

Not intentionally I don't think so, no

Anyway, glad you're back amongst the fold, old chap! If we can leave out the "fact" thing when merely expressing our opinions, we'll be fine

Marco.