Date:         Sun, 27 Aug 2006 11:22:16 -0400
Reply-To:     Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
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Sender:       Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
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From:         Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: Can 78s sound better than LPs?
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As I understand it, due to imperfections in the material and the physical fact that we work in an 
environment with air and gravity present, there cannot be a perfect mirror of a grooved disk. For 
78's let's start with the wax, which can't be perfectly uniform and pure -- just cannot be the case 
in air and gravity. Then you spray it with metal, again with impurities. Thus the grooves get at 
least slightly distorted from the very first transfer. Several more transfers later, you're at a 
stamper and then stamping shellac and later, with microgroove, vinyl. Volumes have been written on 
the impurities inherent to these materials, plus the corners cut to keep costs down and production 
fast. Simple fact is, there's a lot of sonic degradation along the way, theories aside. It's just 
the real world. In theory, digital should be much less lossy due to robust error correction. We all 
know the theory falls apart in too many cases, more due to user error or equipment malfunction than 
actual flaws in theory. The same air and gravity that prevent perfect transfers of grooves also make 
hard drives imperfect, etc, although, again, there is very robust error-correction built into all 
half-decent digital transmission and storage protocols.

Yet, as we well know, grooved disks, with all their imperfections, still play -- sometimes very 
close to how they'd play the day they left the factory -- decades later. Such does not seem to be 
the case with most digital media. And of course there's the whole thing that post-nuclear-holocaust 
ape-man may be able to fashion a Flinstones-like way to play back the boxes of 78's found in the 
wreckage of "Collectorville" whereas those mysterious shiny disks and strange square things that 
contain smaller shiny disks when broken open with a rock don't seem to do anything or make any 
sounds.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Cox" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006 3:46 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Can 78s sound better than LPs?


> On 25/08/06, Tom Fine wrote:
>
>> I think it was a greater feat of great engineering to squeeze
>> fantastic sound out of ANY grooved medium, particularly 78's, than to
>> put out a clearly-audible recording using modern means. Alas, the
>> skill set has slipped so badly that many modern recordings are
>> horrible. Think of a band, producer and engineer working with the
>> requirement of live takes, a set time limit imposed by the disk
>> medium, very primative recording equipment (maybe 3 or 4 ribbon mics,
>> a mixer with no EQ and limited patching) and the known fact that the
>> result will lose 2 or 3 generations of quality by the time it gets
>> into the consumer's hand. That's the 78 era. Now think of all the
>> luxury of non-linear time, overdubs, computer-screen editing and tools
>> like pitch correction and it's very depressing how bad the end product
>> is in most cases today. And I'm not even talking about the basic lack
>> of musical talent.
>
> Why would a 78 lose three or four generations of quality? The production
> disc is a directly moulded copy of the original, without going through a
> tape generation.
>
> All that is wrong is the noise in the physical shellac material. (Plus any damage
> from playing - but that applies to LPs too.)
>
> I remember there were some audiophile "direct cut" LPs in the 70s, too.
>
> Regards
> -- 
> Don Cox
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