The Vinylizer
On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:04:07 -0700, John Nunes wrote
(in article ):
On 8/12/2010 3:56 PM, Dick Pierce wrote:
Of the several HUNDRED LP recordings I have Baroque organ and
harpsichord music, I would say about 30% of them exhibit pitch
instability that is audibly detectable, some almost to the point
of annoyance, and the exhibit this no matter what turntable they
are played on. I'm not talking warp wow, since I store can care
for them well. I'm not even talking, in many cases, off-center
punches, because the tone arm exhibits no detectable periodic
horizontal movement. I'm talking audible pitch instability which
seems to be intrinsic to the record itself.
Then what would be the mechanism for this?
I don't pretend to know what Pierce is referring to, but I've run across
records that had such ills as tape "scape" flutter, wow, low frequency
flutter as well as actual tape irregularities. How these ills made it onto
lacquer, I'll never know. Once such extreme example was the soundtrack LP to
the movie "The Blue Max". Great Jerry Goldsmith score rendered unlistenable
by terrible scrape flutter, yet the CD reissue is PERFECT and exhibits none
of the aforementioned flutter.
So, let me get this straight, according to you, the solution
to the pitch instability found in records is, to quote you
now, that "one simply doesn't play them."
That's your solution to LP pitch instability?
Many (most?) audiophiles have a prejudice against musically important
historic recordings because they aren't exciting or interesting "audio"
material. Funny that, with all the purple prose and hand waving about
"musicality" and so on.
That's a pretty irrelevant comment. Recordings with bad wow and/or flutter,
are simply not very enjoyable. I can listen to 78's and enjoy them, but I
can't take any recording, LP or tape (or a CD for that matter) that exhibits
audible amounts of wow and/or flutter.
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