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Vinyl on MD vs. Vinyl on Tape

post #1 of 42
1/13/02 at 8:48pm
Thread Starter 
i decided to record one of my vinyl records on to md kind of as a trial and i am impressed with the results. usually i record vinyl on to metal tape to preserve the analog signal, but this md copy has made me a convert.

denon tt/stanton eee cart --> akai phono preamp --> sony mzr70pc mdr. recording: stereolab: dots & loops; audiophile vinyl 15 minutes a side.

--vinyl on tape has the benefit of higher resolution, meaning you can hear more of an instrument's sound. for example, with vibes you can hear more of the initial whack and roundness of the decay. also, the stereo placement of instruments seems more exact and wider. the downside is increased hiss and harmonic distortion, and loss of high frequency over time and dropouts.

--vinyl on md preserves an amazing amount of the warmth of the analog signal (the latest atrac codec). also, there is a lot less hiss and harmonic distortion. the drawback is the instruments sound slightly veiled compared to the analog tape version. also the soundstage isn't as wide and seems less interesting somehow. i expect it will have a longer shelf life, and md is smaller and lighter than tape.

as an audiophile portable format vinyl to tape wins for sound quality, however the equipment and enviroment have to be perfect. for overall convenience and sound quality i say md wins, and has perhaps 95% of the sound quality tape has. of course the kind of walkman i'm using is a 1995 sony dd-9 $500 unit--one of the best ever made, and i'm using metal tape from a high quality source and recording. this is the trade off for analog quality: you have to pay for it and it is hard work. again, md has an impressive amount of warmth from a vinyl source, and anyone with a good tt & cart and an md recorder should give it a try.
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post #2 of 42
1/13/02 at 9:15pm
I do some vinyl to CD-R for portable and car use.

MMF 2 -- Goldring Elan -- MF X-LPS -- Phillips CD-R.

For portable and car use, I don't think you can do better than CD. I would love a better 'table, maybe MMF 5, but finances don't allow right now.

Anyhow, I think analog to CD, while not perfect, is still better than analog to MD or tape.

Other opinions??
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post #3 of 42
1/13/02 at 9:34pm
Vinyl to tape.
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post #4 of 42
1/13/02 at 9:56pm
I'm a Vinyl to MD guy, i haven't done it lately, but i was very impressed with the results myself.

George
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post #5 of 42
1/13/02 at 11:31pm
Quote:
Originally posted by gaineso
I do some vinyl to CD-R for portable and car use.

MMF 2 -- Goldring Elan -- MF X-LPS -- Phillips CD-R.

For portable and car use, I don't think you can do better than CD. I would love a better 'table, maybe MMF 5, but finances don't allow right now.

Anyhow, I think analog to CD, while not perfect, is still better than analog to MD or tape.

Other opinions??
I like taking it one step farther. LP to CDR on a PC. I use Cool Edit to take out the clicks and pops, something that can't be done on stereo equipment. I can then burn to CDR or RW, convert to MP3, or archive as a WAV files on my hard drive. I also transfer out of print LP's to CDR for friends who mainly use CD now.

-Keith
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post #6 of 42
1/14/02 at 12:41am
I like to keep analog sources analog. No vinyl to cd. I buy cds to listen to music without discrepencies, and vinyl to get the warmth of an album(usually of a vocalist, or a particular instrument such as trumpet) that I really like. So CDs for entertainment, LPs for feeling.

As for converting vinyl to a different format for portable use, I haven't made any tapes ever since I lost my sony portable cassette player/recorder.
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post #7 of 42
1/14/02 at 2:37am
Great questions/issues. I have recently been re-recording dozens of LPs via a Linn Sondek LP-12, Premier MMT, and a new retip Ortofon X3-MC, via a Rotel preamp into a just tuned up Nakamich BX-150 or a new Sony WM-D6C. All onto TDK MA-R or MA tape, using Dolby C. (My car system uses cassette, too, not CD). I have compared a few remastered CDs via my D-25S to the LP and cassette versions. Much depends on the quality of the LP source. Some of those LPs I have are old and date back to my college years, and I should have replaced them, they're noisy and I think even a good wet/vacuum cleaning wouldn't help... But the good LPs still have that magic -- most of the time I forget the noise, listen past it, and there's magic there that just isn't on the CD. The soundstage is wide and deep, especially. That WM-D6c is an awesome piece of equipment, by the way...

I'm using MDR-F1 phones, but going to listen to some Senns this week, I hope. But I can hear details and other stuff (good and bad) in these LPs I NEVER heard before via Stax SR-44s and my MDR-V6, and my Conrad Johnson Synthesis speakers (these were Sterephile Class C in their time).

Next step is to look at some of those conversion software packages to burn CDs from analog sources. But I'm using a laptop, and while the soundcard isn't bad, it ain't the top of the line toy you are supposed to use. Plus the cable run cost is prohibitive.
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post #8 of 42
1/14/02 at 3:40am
I am just starting to record some vinyl onto MD. It works pretty well with my primative setup:

JVC turntable (Model?? Cartridge??) -> Onkyo Receiver -> Sharp MDMT99 MDR. All connections are Tandy RCA

I am quite happy with the results so far. I had some teething problems early on where I forgot to connect the RCA Line In to the headphone OUT of the MDR which left the RCA lead hanging around freely. When I went to play back the MD, there was this shocking background humming that took days for me to source

Now...I don't know if this is my imagination, but like Redshifter, vinyl recorded onto MD seems to retain some of that vinyl magic. Maybe it is just the hiss and pops, but the sound is 'fuller'. When I invest in a better turntable I'd like to look into this a bit more.
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post #9 of 42
1/14/02 at 4:11am
Thread Starter 
"Vinyl to tape"
audio&me, yep. that's why i gave that setup the top vote for best sound. md is just more convenient in real world portable situations.

jml,
i was reading your post and saying "yes, yes, yes, NO!" when i got to the part about dolby c. unless you are playing back those recordings on the same deck you taped them on, dolby c is a bad choice. it is a notoriously fussy companding scheme if you're not playing it back on a deck with an identical playback head alignment. even my dd-9 tape walkman has dolby c playback but i don't use it. it just sounds so much better without any noise reduction--of course you have to use metal tape.
"That WM-D6c is an awesome piece of equipment, by the way..."
absolutely no argument here.
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post #10 of 42
1/14/02 at 10:40am
I prefer the sound of analog tape, recording CD and LP to cassette. It gives you back what you put in, albeit in a more fragile, vulnerable format. I was listening to MD recordings for the past 3 months and just recently I went back and listened to some recordings I'd done with my Walkman D6C Pro cassette recorder and was amazed at how much more musical they sounded. The only drawbacks were I was much more sensitive to thngs like dropouts and the slight vagueness in the imaging. But the highs and bass were much more natural. There is a warmth and natural ease that makes you want to listen for longer periods than with MD. And you would think that after MD, flaws like wow/flutter and speed stability would stick out but this was not the case at all, they were totally inaudible.

Of course, if you take into consideration MD's conveniences like track jumping, editing/erasing, the cassette seems primitive. But as far as pure sound goes, the cassette still sounds better. It's just that it's a bit difficult to live with it's flaws and inconveniences next to the "consistency" of MD.

I am going to transfer some SACD to both formats and do a comparison.
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post #11 of 42
1/14/02 at 11:38am
redshifter, I was concerned about mismatched Dolby C tracking, but it seems to be fine.

The noise reduction with Dolby C on the Nakamichi is so superior to B that I have always recorded everything that way. Playback on my older Aiwa tape walkman with Dolby C was fine, and everything seems to be working OK with the Sony WM-D6C. Plus in my car I play the Dolby C tapes back with Dolby B (which is the only available setting on the car head unit). The extra overboost in the affected frequencies compensates very well for the terribly noisy environment on the road.

Maybe the units I have just happen to mesh well. The only time I ever heard any "noise pumping" from mismatching was with a recording of an LP that was in bad shape.

I plan to dub CD to cassette directly from the D25S to the WM-D6c, bypassing all the other stuff, but havent' done too much of that.

But the convenience of MD almost made me get one. But I don't like compression effects and lossy digital formats, and the future of MD in the US is still somewhat murky. And I can wait for the next generation of digital formatting to be settled, while SACD battles with DVD-Audio and we see who is standing after it's all over, and everything that's available gets remastered again.
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post #12 of 42
1/14/02 at 2:08pm
Does anybody have a decent Home MD deck to dub vinyl/analog to MD with? The better home decks have superior ADC's compared to portable units, as well as Type-R encoding. I know my MDS-JB930 and 940 decks record better than portable MD's, especially with analog input.

When going from analog to digital, whether it's MD, CD, or computer disk, the critial step is the analog to digital conversion circuits. I know most all, except possibly some professional sound cards do a mediore job of conversion, at best. And I suspect that most CD-audio burners are not that great either. If you shop for a Sony 930 or 940 home deck you get a decent digital processor for the money plus a MD deck. They also have digital out, both optical and SPIF.

But to really test a digital recording medium with a non-digital source, you should get a high quality digital ADC processer to feed the analog and then record the digital stream on MD, CD, computer, etc.
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post #13 of 42
1/14/02 at 2:21pm
Thread Starter 
jml, try it some time without any noise reduction, and use maxel metal 90 minute tape (if you can find it). the fact you have two superior decks like the nak and th d6c shows you may not need any dolby nr. of course if a little tape hiss bothers you you'll want it. i've just had amazing results with a new sony auto calibrating deck and no noise reduction.

Quote:
But the convenience of MD almost made me get one. But I don't like compression effects and lossy digital formats, and the future of MD in the US is still somewhat murky.
i felt the same way based on an md i heard a few years back. then i listened to the latest and greatest atrac r and was an instant convert. i work in digital media for a large computer firm in redmond washington, and so i'm no stranger to artifacting and phase distortion in audio & video. i have never once heard any sample errors, phase distortion, or any other kind of artifacting that wasn't programmed into the codec on purpose (such as warming the midrange) with atrac r. i highly recommend you give it a try. the downside of atrac r compared to analog (like i mentioned) is a slight veil over the instruments, a somewhat compressed soundstage, and a slight comparmentalization of bass, mids, & highs. other than that, atrac r is a pretty dang impressive scheme. as for the future of md, i just picked up more than enough mds to last me forever, as once i tire of a mix i can rerecord over them almost indefinitely.

that reminds me, my sony deck also has dolby s. this is the new home nr designed to replace dolby c. i did some experiments using dolby s and vinyl and was impressed, until i noticed it was compressing the dynamic range. i have far too many cds with overcompressed dynamics, i don't need my vinyl compressed too! still, despite that flaw dolby s is a pretty good compander. it is the consumer version of dolby sr.
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post #14 of 42
1/14/02 at 2:47pm
I've already retaped almost all of the LPs I had previously dupped to tape, so it's too late for that! The hiss always bugged me, esp. through headphones, so I did use Dolby C. But I'll play with what you suggest.

My Nak is set for the TDK MA tape, and I have many MA and MA-R cassettes. (The MA-R were TDK's effort at the ultimate in cassette shells -- cast and machined aluminum housing sandwiched between clear polycarbonate covers). I suspect the Sony is set for the TDK as well, as Sony seems to not sell metal tape and the TDK is an industry standard. TapeWorld, where I've bought tapes for two decades, has only the TDK metal, and I think the Maxell metal tapes may have gone the way of all old things...

Dolby S does involve compression, I think, and the other thing they have is HX-Pro, which is supposed to extend recording headroom, but it's not on my old Nak.
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post #15 of 42
1/14/02 at 2:56pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Sony seems to not sell metal tape
sony actually makes the best casette format metal tape ever:
sony super metal master
it actually won an emmy(!) for audio technology. it better be the best at $15 a pop. people who have used them just rave about them.
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