In article , Don
Pearce
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:


Did they give the name/address of the company?

http://www.portalspacerecords.com/da/13006

Ta! :-) IMHO The webpages are awful, tiny text and rely heavily on the M$
version of JavaScript and Flash. So a PITA for me. But the page whose URL
you gave does have an address for contact, so I've sent an email to see if
I can get a response. Had to resist the temptation to suggest they fire the
firm who did their website for them. ;-

FWIW I hope to put the first couple of HFN articles (limits of
cutting/replay and stats of peak velocities, etc, from various LPs) onto
audiomisc soon. And the 4th article with the results comparing various
carts with my ancient Shure V15/III is due to appear in the mag in a couple
of weeks time. Would be useful to do another article to try and tie the
measured results to what the people cutting the LPs do to produce what I
found. Particulary curious about the differences between vertical and
horizontal modulation stats on some LPs... :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On Tue, 20 May 2008 19:19:47 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:
Seeing this all again brought back memories. I visited the EMI factory
many times in the 1970s. In fact there was little difference between
the EMI, CBS and Decca factories. I also paid a visit to the old Saga
factory at Kensal Rise, and the factory of Charles Rumble (yes really!)
down in sunny Surrey.

In the '60s a pal of mine who was a trainee cameraman at the BBC got the
chop. Dunno why as he appeared pretty promising at his job, and a nice
chap to boot. I'd guess a personality clash on his crew or whatever.

He then got a night shift job doing pretty well everything at Saga -
certainly the pressing, but I'm not sure about cutting.

His name was Reg Smythe. Often wondered what happened to him - I moved out
of the house in Westbourne Park Villas which was near totally occupied by
BBC types.

Didn't he get a more lucrative job drawing Andy Capp cartoons?

d

--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

"Don Pearce" wrote in message
news:Y5GdnbBqJYm6cK_VnZ2dnUVZ8vSdnZ2d@plusnet...
Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Serge Auckland
wrote:
Our dear departed friend Keith has posted this on his web site, so he
still has an interest in audio...........

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/show.htm

I got a link for a multi-MB download. Since I'm still using a POTS/modem
connection I decided I could live without that. Indeed, that I might not
live long enough to discover the contents weren't worth the wait. :-)

Anyone care to comment on what the download tells us?

Essentially it was a company that has taken over the original EMI pressing
machinery, and is turning out vinyl. Since they started the numbers
initially climbed, but have now plateaued at (I think) about a million a
year. The chap in charge had nothing to say about sound quality - his
thrust was that it was all about owning the "thing" and what fun it was.

Mechanically it all looked very hit and miss, but the chap did say they
used a "process" to make it happen.

I would imagine that the pressing quality is rather better now than it
was in the '70s. If nothing else, having guards round the presses
should help to keep dust down. Health and Safety sometimes is of more
use than just the obvious.

Hard for me to tell. I've only acquired 8 LPs in the last 5+ years. These
are a box set of fancy-produced Henrix re-issues I got for comparison
purposes with a 4 CD set. One LP side is audibly off-center, and others
have clicks in various places. Came shrink-wrapped, so it looks like even
fancy LP issues still show manufacturing/factory problems. Alas, a guard
around the machine won't ensure they will bother to put the hole in the
center... :-)


It looks like SOTA equipment is rather confined to the playing side of
things. :-(

**It always has been. Back in 1986 or so, I purchased two different LPs,
from two different locations on the same day. Both sported different labels.
I put the first on my turntable and listened with a growing sense of dread.
The tell-tale sounds of a chipped diamond greeted my ears. Curiously,
though, it was worse on one side and clearly worse towards the centre. I
stuck the stylus under my loupe, carefully examined the suspension - no
problems. Then I carefully checked the set-up of the arm - again, no
problems. I then stuck a crap recording on. No problems. So I then played
one of my favourite recordings. Superb. I grabbed the second LP I purchased
and noted exactly the same faults. I carefully noted that the LPs were
pressed by the same plant, here in Sydney. EMI. I called the company and
they, of course, suggested that I have my playback equipment checked. I said
that it was fine, so they requested I send the LPs back and they would
replace them. The new LPs arrived and I checked them out immediately. The
identical faults were evident. I 'phoned the company and was told that the
fault must be with my equipment (despite the fact that none of my other LPs
exhibited the faults), because they had tested the LPs and found them to be
perfect. I gave up and requested that the LPs be replaced with CDs. I've not
purchased any mass market, Australian pressed LPs since that day. Record
companies never cared much about quality and what cares they did have, went
out the window with the arrival of CDs.

--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Don
Pearce
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:

Did they give the name/address of the company?

http://www.portalspacerecords.com/da/13006

Ta! :-) IMHO The webpages are awful, tiny text and rely heavily on the M$
version of JavaScript and Flash. So a PITA for me. But the page whose URL
you gave does have an address for contact, so I've sent an email to see if
I can get a response. Had to resist the temptation to suggest they fire the
firm who did their website for them. ;-

FWIW I hope to put the first couple of HFN articles (limits of
cutting/replay and stats of peak velocities, etc, from various LPs) onto
audiomisc soon. And the 4th article with the results comparing various
carts with my ancient Shure V15/III is due to appear in the mag in a couple
of weeks time. Would be useful to do another article to try and tie the
measured results to what the people cutting the LPs do to produce what I
found. Particulary curious about the differences between vertical and
horizontal modulation stats on some LPs... :-)

Slainte,

Jim


Good. I've read what you've written so far in the mags and I have to say
I haven't been hugely surprised by what you found. I am very
interested in the way the back rake angle of the cutter limits excursion
at HF. I would like to know the balance between that and overheating at
various high frequencies.

d

In article , Trevor Wilson
wrote:



**It always has been.

[big snip]

Record companies never cared much about quality and what cares they did
have, went out the window with the arrival of CDs.

I've been enjoying reading my way though a large number of back-issues of
HFN that I've acquired recently. Various things have struck me when I have
jumped back and forth between decades.

1) The regular articles which humourously warn of the 'addictions' of
audiophilia and how normal people are baffled by the weird behaviour.
(Although I suspect some of these were written by John Crabbe under various
house pen-names. ;- )

2) Regular articles bemoaning the lousy state of many LPs due to pressing
or handling faults at the factory.

3) The music reviews which remind me of just how many excellent recordings
have been made that I haven't yet caught up with. :-)

WRT (2) I've just been reading an article by Adrian Hope (Barry Fox) about
the way he - and the rest of us - were unpaid conscript 'quality checkers'
for the LP companies. Main point of the article was to discuss the use of
'factory sealed' LPs to stop shops allowing people to play the discs on
their in-store spiral lathe players and then sell them to some other
unsuspecting buyer as if 'new'. Question was if the Sale of Goods Act made
this illegal. However one comment from a retailer was that 'factory sealed'
discs would mean *more* returns from buyers. The comment was along the
lines, "If you think the LPs you buy are bad, you should try the ones we
sent back because we checked them visually before putting them up for
sale!"

Slainte,

Jim

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message


FWIW I hope to put the first couple of HFN articles
(limits of cutting/replay and stats of peak velocities,
etc, from various LPs) onto audiomisc soon. And the 4th
article with the results comparing various carts with my
ancient Shure V15/III is due to appear in the mag in a
couple of weeks time.

How does the V15/III compare to modern carts?

In article , Arny
Krueger
wrote:
"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message


FWIW I hope to put the first couple of HFN articles (limits of
cutting/replay and stats of peak velocities, etc, from various LPs)
onto audiomisc soon. And the 4th article with the results comparing
various carts with my ancient Shure V15/III is due to appear in the
mag in a couple of weeks time.

How does the V15/III compare to modern carts?

ahem Well, you could buy the issue of HFN that will be appearing on 30th
May to find out the details... :-) ...although I'll be putting the
article on the web after the usual delay of about 6 months. As well as
frequency response, I also did THD versus frequency and signal level, etc.

That said, the simple answer is - very well. The results I got confirmed my
personal preference, and the measurements didn't show any of the modern
examples being superior. I wish Shure still made the V15/III and stylii for
it as they used to. [1] So if anyone is still using one, I'd say keep with
it unless change is necessary.

Slainte,

Jim

[1] Indeed, more than one person at Shure said they felt the same. But they
feel it isn't a practical market for them nowdays.

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Jim Lesurf said:

And the 4th article with the results comparing various
carts with my ancient Shure V15/III

Which stylus did you use Jim? I thought about getting mine back on
the road but have read a few poor reports on the generic ones
available, although the Jilco
http://tiny.cc/v9Bj3
seems to have a good reputation.
It would probable be overkill for my Pioneer PL-112D,on which i'm
currently using an Audio Technica AT110E which I'm very pleased with
it deals with surface noise on my ancient lp's very well.

PS I enjoy your articles in HFN very much.
--
Ken

In article ,
UnsteadyKen
wrote:
Jim Lesurf said:

And the 4th article with the results comparing various carts with my
ancient Shure V15/III

Which stylus did you use Jim? I thought about getting mine back on the
road but have read a few poor reports on the generic ones available,

I am still using original Shure stylii from the 1980s. Have an MR and two
HEs. Had them all checked by a company, and looked at them myself with a
microscope. All fine despite their age. Some photos of stylii will be in
the article and the differences between my MR and the modern stylii is one
thing I think will surprise people! :-)

Comment from the people who checked my stylii was to the effect that 'light
tracking' ones like the V15 mean very low rates of stylus wear. And so far
as my measuements can tell, the suspensions, etc, are still fine.

I did plan to try some of the 3rd party stylii, but when I found the ones I
had were good I postponed that and concentrated on the V15 versus other
modern cartridges. May do 3rd party stylii in future. Though I now know why
many 'reviewers' have given up measurements on cartridges. They can be a
real pig to get decent results as you have to fiddle about so much with the
setup, and the results vary wildly with even small misalignments, etc. Bit
like balancing a pencil on end! My hands and eyes aren't very good these
days, either, which makes toe fiddling about an anxious time. So I won't
rush to do more. :-)

Above said: If anyone has a V15/III cart with no useable stylii I'd love to
borrow/acquire it sometime, though, as a test bed for trying out 3rd party
stylii. Like to keep my present one 'as is' for comparison and use.

FWIW My reaction would be to try a re-tip from the Expert Stylus people as
they can use the existing cantilever and suspension, and put any profile of
diamond you choose onto it.

PS I enjoy your articles in HFN very much.

Don't tell me, tell the editor. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message

In article
, Arny
Krueger
wrote:
"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message


FWIW I hope to put the first couple of HFN articles
(limits of cutting/replay and stats of peak velocities,
etc, from various LPs) onto audiomisc soon. And the 4th
article with the results comparing various carts with
my ancient Shure V15/III is due to appear in the mag in
a couple of weeks time.

How does the V15/III compare to modern carts?

ahem Well, you could buy the issue of HFN that will be
appearing on 30th May to find out the details... :-)
...although I'll be putting the article on the web after
the usual delay of about 6 months. As well as frequency
response, I also did THD versus frequency and signal
level, etc.

That said, the simple answer is - very well. The results
I got confirmed my personal preference, and the
measurements didn't show any of the modern examples being
superior. I wish Shure still made the V15/III and stylii
for it as they used to. [1] So if anyone is still using
one, I'd say keep with it unless change is necessary.

It seems to me that Shure did well with the original V15, but by the time
they got to the III, the rate of progress had slowed down a great deal. I
think the III was what graced my old TD 125/SME system, which I sold when
the CD took over.

Contrary to what some seem to believe, there really isn't a lot of room for
progress with the LP format, because its operational parameters are set by
basic physics and the properties of materials.