Making Progress

It’s not easy to make audio progress — nothing is in fact harder. However, if your approach to audio is clear-headed and evidence-based — in other words, scientific — progress is not only possible, it is virtually guaranteed.

If you play huge numbers of records, and listen to them critically, some of them will teach you things about audio that you cannot learn any other way.

Practically all of our audio philosophy derives from the simple act of trying to get our system to play the greatest recordings of all time with the highest fidelity possible. Every record is a challenge, and every defeat an opportunity to learn something — to see where we may have gone wrong — in order to know more than we did before.

Professional Skateboarder Danny Way on Flow

Confessions of a Thrillseeking Audiophile

This quote comes courtesy of Shane Parrish’s Brain Food newsletter.

“Skateboarding is a game of failure. That’s what makes this sport so different. Skaters are willing to take a great deal of physical punishment. We’ll try something endlessly, weeks on end, painful failure after painful failure after painful failure.

“But for me, when it finally snaps together, when I’m really pushing the edge and skating beyond my abilities, there’s a zone I get into. Everything goes silent. Time slows down. My peripheral vision fades away. It’s the most peaceful state of mind I’ve ever known. I’ll take all the failures. As long as I know that feeling is coming, that’s enough to keep going.”

I expect that Danny would understand exactly why someone would want to go into a room to listen to a record by himself. Good sound tends to make everybody in the room stop talking.

Exceptional records take it to the next level. They cause those in the room to to go silent in order to listen more intently — because the music and the sound demand it.

(more…)

Traveling Back in Time with Cat Stevens on Mobile Fidelity

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Cat Stevens Available Now

Our good customer Roger wrote us a letter years ago about his Tea for the Tillerman on Mobile Fidelity, in which he remarked, “Sometimes I wish I kept my old crappy stereo to see if I could now tell what it was that made these audiophile pressings so attractive then.”

It got me to thinking. Yes, that would be fun, and better yet, it could be done. There are actually plenty of those old school audio systems of the 60s and 70s still around. Just look at what many of the forum posters — god bless ’em — are running. They’ve got some awesome ’70s Japanese turntables, some Monster Cable and some vintage tube gear and speakers designed in the ’50s.

With this stuff you could virtually travel back in time, in effect erasing all the audio progress made possible by the new technologies adopted by some of us over the last 30 years or so.

Then you could hear your Mobile Fidelity Tea for the Tillerman sound the way it used to when you could actually stand to be in the same room with it.

My question to Roger was “What on earth were we hearing that made us want to play these awful half-speed mastered records? What was our stereo doing that made these awful records sound good to us at the time?”

In Search of a Bad Stereo

I know how you can find out. You go to someone’s house who has a large collection of audiophile pressings and have him play you some of them. Chances are that his stereo will do pretty much what your old stereo and my old stereo used to do — be so wrong that really wrong records actually start to sound right! It seems crazy but it just might be true.

(more…)

Breaking Through Barriers and Crossing Bridges

More on the Subject of Critical Listening Skills

The Invisible Barrier Theory

Your ability to recognize that one side of a record more often than not will have sonic qualities that are different from the other side of the same disc is limited by an invisible barrier that exists between you, in your role as a listener, and you, in your role as a judge of the sound.

This barrier also goes by another name: “the stereo.“ There really can be no other explanation for it, assuming you have something in the range of normal hearing.

What the stereo is incapable of showing you must be seen as a limit on what you can hear, regardless of how skilled a listener you may be, or how much money, time and effort you may have dedicated to your system, or how good a job you think it is doing.

There is only one solution to this problem: get better sound.

Then the differences between any two sides of the same record will become as obvious to you as they are to us.

(more…)

Record Cleaning and Hearing the Gap

Robert Brook runs a blog called The Broken Record, with a subtitle explaining that the aim of his blog is to serve as:

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Here is Robert’s latest posting.

What I’ve Learned About Record Cleaning

Robert gets right to the point here:

I’d say that the biggest misconception that I held about record cleaning previously was that it would not improve the bass. My thinking was that better cleaning would reveal more at the top end and upper midrange, but whatever bass was cut into the grooves was either there or it wasn’t, and cleaning those grooves better wasn’t going to bring it out.

This turned out to be completely wrong. Better cleaning makes it easier for our system to reveal what’s on our records, and this helps us hear more of what sits at the very back of the soundstage. These elements of the recording that reside further from our ears rely on an appropriate amount of bass to give them their correct size and weight. So when a record has more bass, it often has a bigger soundstage, and the performers will tend to sound more fleshed-out and have greater presence.

Robert gets his table and arm dialed in, then realizes:

I thought for a long while that the multi-step cleaning method I had developed using Walker Audio fluids was getting my records as clean as Better Records gets theirs. I had bought or borrowed quite a few Nearly White Hot and White Hot Stampers over the years, and then found and cleaned similar copies that, in several cases, equaled or even bettered the Hot Stampers. Or at least I thought they had.

With a new cartridge installed, Robert has an unexpected insight:

Finally I’d reached the full potential of my front end, and what was my reward? I could now hear that the records I’d cleaned with my method did not in fact sound as good as the ones the folks at Better Records had cleaned. I was forced to determine that the Hot Stampers had a level of transparency, top to bottom end extension and overall integration and cohesiveness that my other records lacked.

The differences Robert hears are not a mystery. They are the result of the way Robert cleans records and the number of copies he goes through to find “the one.”

Part of what makes our records sound better than the copies others own with the exact same stampers — when they do sound better, something that may not always be the case — is that even with the right machines and fluids and our step by step instructions, there is more to it than that.

There are some approaches to record cleaning that we use which we have never revealed to the public. We need our records to be a cut above, and the cleaning secrets we keep to ourselves make that not just a possibility, but a near certainty.

Robert points out that it took a lot of work to get to the point where it was no longer possible to ignore this reality. He asks how many other audiophiles have worked as hard and advanced as far. Would others be able to tell that the gap was real, that the difference between their best copy of a record and the one we sold them would be more than audible — that it would in fact be significant.

Not many is our answer, and it’s partly because of some other factually true aspects of record production, the kind that we take great pains to explain and then support with scientific evidence.

We may not know why records sound so different, but we are in a very good position to know that they clearly do.

(more…)

Robert Brook Says: No Azimuth? No Problem!

Robert Brook runs a blog called The Broken Record, with a subtitle explaining that the aim of his blog is to serve as:

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

We know of none better, outside of our own humble attempt to enlighten that portion of the audiophile community who love hearing music reproduced with the highest fidelity and are willing to go the extra mile to make that happen.

Here is Robert’s latest posting.

No Azimuth? No Problem!

After making some adjustments to the arm, getting it in the ballpark, Robert writes:

I changed records to a Jascha Heifetz violin concerto that I like to use for tonearm settings. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier article, I particularly like using concertos for adjusting tonearms because of the challenge of getting both the soloist and the orchestra to sound their best. When the azimuth is just right, the soloist will sound full and present, while the orchestra behind them will be clear and distinct.

A few more tweaks and it was sounding right. Robert continues:

Now it was my friend’s turn to play some of his records, most of which I’d heard before adding the shim. On “Mediocre Bad Guys,” Jack Johnson’s voice now sounded more natural, and the thwack of the drum stick had lost its annoying glare. Zeppelin’s “D’yer Mak’er” was now rocking the way it should with the drum kit sounding appropriately huge and the cymbals showing plenty of top end sparkle and with a long decay. And on Eagles “Take It Easy” I could now better make out the many instruments in the mix, as well as the backing vocals, which I’d been struggling to hear clearly before.

Here’s the first question that comes to mind: Could this tonearm/cartridge tweaking and testing have been done using these other albums instead of the violin concerto recording?

Possibly, but it would have taken all day, because nobody really knows exactly how these records actually sound. Were they good recordings? No doubt, at least in some ways. But were these good pressings of those recordings? Who can say? And we have no business assuming.

Houses of the Holy sounds very different from copy to copy to us. We’ve easily played more than fifty of them, maybe closer to a hundred, and we’ve heard them sound every which way.

(more…)

The Reward Comes After

Richard Feynman Is Another Guy with Good Advice on Making [Audio] Progress

But first let’s check in with Shane Parrish, who writes:

You have to train before the race, not after. You have to build the skill before you get the job that requires it. You have to be trustworthy for years before anyone trusts you with something important. The bill comes first. The reward comes later.

The universe does not offer financing.

This is hard to accept because modern life trains us to expect the opposite. We are addicted to “Buy Now, Pay Later.” You live in the house before you pay off the mortgage. You get the degree before you pay off the loan. You eat the meal before you ask for the check.

We are conditioned to enjoy the benefit today and pay the cost tomorrow.

(more…)

Port’s Rule and The Song of the Volga Boatman

More Records that Helped Me Make Progress in Audio

The track that started us down the road to our first Sauter-Finegan shootout is, to this very day, our Number One Test Track of All Time, a little ditty known as the Song of the Volga Boatman.

We first heard it back in the 90s on Bob and Ray Throw a Stereo Spectacular, which is still the version we test with, but this album of forward-looking big band contains that track  as well as 10 others, all with truly amazing sound.

Why is the Song of the Volga Boatman our ultimate test track?

The simplest way to understand it is that all the instruments are being played live in the studio, and all of them in the huge soundfield are real and acoustic — string bass, drums, horns of every size and type, woodwinds, percussion, tubular bells, etc.

In addition, the arrangements given to this roomful of players is so complex and lively that if anything sounds “funny,” to use the precise audiophile nomenclature, it really calls attention to itself.

Port’s Rule states: If it isn’t easy for your Test Discs to sound wrong, they are not very good Test Discs.

Wrong is the natural order of things.

Getting it right is where the work comes in to play.

And it should seem more like play than work or you are unlikely to get very far with it. (That’s another one of Port’s Rules, sometimes referred to as music does the driving.)

When the stereo is right from top to bottom, this song is right from top to bottom, and every other record we know the sound of will have the sound it’s supposed to have.

It seems simple and in some ways it is.

We’ve been getting the Song of the Volga Boatman to sound bigger and better now for years, through scores and scores of changes. At our current stage of audio evolution, at the very loud levels we play it at, it’s shocking how big, powerful and real it seems. It has more of the “live music” qualities we prize than almost any other studio recording I can think of.

(more…)

Robert Brook Knows a Better Way to Do Analog – Part Two

Robert Brook runs a blog called The Broken Record, with a subtitle explaining that his blog is:

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

We know of none better, outside of our own humble attempt to enlighten that portion of the audiophile community who love hearing music reproduced with the highest fidelity and are willing to go the extra mile to make that happen.

There’s a BETTER WAY to do ANALOG – Part 2


Further Reading

Letter of the Week – “My stereo upgrades have widened the sonic chasm between good, old-fashioned records and their nouveau imposters.”

Record Collecting for Audiophiles – These Are the Fundamentals

One of our good customers, Dan, found much to agree with in our recent Better Record’s record collecting commentary and offered up his own two cents worth in the letter below. (Emphasis added.)

Tom,

Just wanted to affirm the new Better Records axiom of “the better your stereo gets, the fewer modern reissues you will own.” My collection has dozens of these Heavy Vinyl reissues, and none of them are holding up after a year and half’s worth of significant improvements to my stereo.

It was only at the beginning of last year that I found myself pleased with roughly 50% of my heavy vinyl purchases. Now, that number has plummeted to less than 10%. Almost everything that’s being put out today is an utter disappointment.

Of course, part of the explanation may be that my listening skills have improved. But it’s hard to imagine that I would have liked dull, dreary, lifeless vinyl a year or two ago. I like to think not.

More probable is that my stereo upgrades have widened the sonic chasm between good, old-fashioned records and their nouveau imposters.

I’d also like to second the avoidance of new vinyl purchases until major stereo improvements are made. I’m trudging through the laborious task of replacing these records with older, better sounding copies. It’s excellent advice to those new to the game or young (or both).

Amazingly, hearing the difference doesn’t even require a Hot Stamper, almost any original or early reissue will beat the Sundazed, Classic, etc. That’s how inferior they are. To borrow from The Who, the sound must change.

Dan,

I agree with this bit at the end of your letter, with one caveat:

Amazingly, hearing the difference doesn’t even require a Hot Stamper, almost any original or early reissue will beat the Sundazed, Classic, etc. That’s how inferior they are.

The caveat would be if you know how to clean your records right, right in this case being the way we recommend you clean them, using Prelude fluids and a machine.

Old uncleaned records can sound pretty bad. An audiophile pressing may beat your old original — until you clean it.

It’s one of the revolutionary changes in audio we spend so much time talking about, and it can make all the difference in the world on some records, especially old ones.

Thanks for your letter. You are not alone in swearing off these modern mediocrities. Many of our customers went through the same process you have, and it seems they are as pleased with the results as you.

Best, TP

(more…)

Our Advice Has Been Followed and the Results Are In

Proper Record Cleaning Can Help You Find Your Own Hot Stamper Pressings

One of our customers wrote to us about cleaning his collection not long ago, and we advised him how he should go about it. He seems to have taken much our advice to heart and has quieter, better sounding records as a result. He did not spring for the pricey Keith Monks style machine we use, but felt that his efforts produced excellent results regardless. Best to hear it from him:

Hey Tom,

Just did three records, in all different conditions, and this one Eddie Palmieri, the Latin Salsa pioneer. And I had been meaning to get some famous albums in that genre, and I looked through Discogs.com and this guy wanted $40 for an album called Mozambique. Even though it looked great, it had so much noise from years of build up.

It played beautifully after all the steps. There was a huge jump in fidelity, just the tiniest, tiniest surface noise between songs. You wouldn’t notice if you weren’t listening for it.

From the other two records which had different issues, I don’t think it’s very hard to understand what else a Keith Monk type machine might add to other more difficult records, in combination with the Prelude stuff and a VPI. But for this one, and I think a lot of other records I own, the Prelude and VPI are all I needed.

I know there’s going to be a huge learning curve and I don’t expect things to be so simple. But it was just cool and kind of a treat, my first time out, to know that it’s possible.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that for what it’s worth. Thanks,

Andrew

Dear Andrew,

Glad to hear you were able to get your records cleaner and make them better sounding to boot. What could be better?

Well, there actually is an answer to that rhetorical question, and we supplied it right here on the blog in a listing with step by step instructions using the Prelude Record Cleaning System and two record cleaning machines. You asked me to write it all out so that’s what I did.

It does not surprise me in the least that you got great results with your VPI. That is the very machine we had been using since the early-90s to clean all our records. Sometime later in the decade we discovered the Disc Doctor fluids and switched to them. I wrote a long piece in my paper catalog (this was in our pre-internet days) discussing how much quieter and better sounding all of our vintage classical records sounded when cleaned with DD fluids, and that I was therefore going to reclean them all and reevaluate every last one for sound and surfaces. It was that big a difference.

In 2007, when I first heard a record cleaned with the Prelude System, everything changed radically, a story I tell using the record I was testing at the time, Meddle. It was one of the biggest breakthroughs we had experienced up to that time.

This is the kind of difference you have now heard with Prelude and your 16.5. You are operating at a different level now.

But there was more to come for us when an audio friend invited me to bring a record over that he would clean with Prelude on his Keith Monks machine. I brought over a killer copy of Meddle as I recall. Imagine my shock when it sounded even better than it had when first cleaned with Prelude. I immediately ordered up a industrial-strength threaded-pickup machine, the Odyssey, made in Germany, and started offering Hot Stamper pressings that were quieter and had better sound than I had ever heard before. (We are currently on our third unit. We clean a lot of records.)

This is leap you have yet to take. It might not make as much difference as your cleaning has to date, but, once you do it, you will find that there is a clearly audible “before and after” quality to the sound of your records. No doubt you will want to reclean all your personal favorites using Prelude and whatever Keith Monks type machine you end up with.

(more…)