A couple of things...

[Regis]

well, maybe a few...

First, you know you're getting old, when you're standing out in the ex-wife's garage, going through albums when the neighbor kids curiously come up and the thirteen year old girl asks..."What are those?" The ex worked in the industry in the 70's, so I found a fine bunch of vinyl in mint condition, including Beck, Bogart and Appice, Climax Blues Band, Sealevel, Elvin Bishop, Stephen Stills and Manassas, Brand X and a curious mix of everything from Bebop Deluxe to the Thompson Twins and The Babies. So I'm happy, because I listen to a really wide range of music, from Four Play and Audio Alchemy to house music.

Now the bummer, the phono section in the big Sansui has no output in the left channel. This is after taking apart the corroded RCA connectors on the Sansui linear TT (a very disco looking and rare silver P-L51). The repair was ugly, but now it works on the spare vintage Technics "new Class A" (whatever that is!) and sounds nice. But with vinyl, you must expect the noise, crackle, pop and the occasional hiss, rumble, burp, even with careful cleaning. Which brings me to the question I'll pose, 'just how good are those SAE or DBX noise-reducers?' Anybody with info, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Next, I don't know if it's a seasonal thing, but I've noticed a lowering of prices across the board for everything vintage, from Nikko recievers to Sansui stuff. Not sure if it applies to JBL or not, but any comments welcome. Finally, a nice score Saturday. Got a Sony 620ES CD player for $31! It sold for $961 in the day and from what I understand, all the Sony ES CD players had the killer transports. It even comes with the original box! This goes to my little brother, who's L-150A's I've modified ala' Regis style. It replaces his late 90's Fisher POS carousel. I'm running an ancient JVC XL series through the digital out to a Audio Alchemy jitter reducer and a Denon DAC. The sound is surprisingly good, but I still have to get my hands on one of these Sony ES's, even if they're old. The Ebay linkee to the Sony http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ME:B:EOAB:US:6

[Figge]

Originally posted by Regis
but I still have to get my hands on one of these Sony ES's, even if they're old.

old doesnt neccesary mean bad!

[Alex Lancaster]

Just watch out with the "laser block", I haven´t been able to get one for a X777ES, part # KSS-281.

[Donald]

I have a SAE 5000 Impulse Noise Reduction unit. It does work. But I have not used it in years. My Dad is now supposed to be using it in his grand project to xfer his 78s collection to MD. Except he has not started yet. :-)

[Chas]

But with vinyl, you must expect the noise, crackle, pop and the occasional hiss, rumble, burp, even with careful cleaning. Which brings me to the question I'll pose, 'just how good are those SAE or DBX noise-reducers?' Anybody with info, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Regis, first - you are lucky to have access to some good vintage licorice pizzas! Second, and this is probably not the answer you want to hear but thought worth mentioning, is that I too, have vintage vinyl from my youth as well as stuff I continue to collect and what I have found is that a good turntable/arm and cartridge can make the surface imperfections a whole lot less noticable. It seems like the more music you can extract from the grooves, the less you care about the background noise. It's strange but true.

I think you would find that any old noise suppressors such as the Garrard, SAE, etc. would not be up to snuff sound quality-wise. Although it's worth a try if the vinyl you have is that bad. Certainly cheaper than a new Linn or other big buck 'tables!

[Alex Lancaster]

Years ago, I used the Discwasher and the Burwen "Click and Pop machine" (Owned now by DBX, I think), with good results; You can use Nero if You want to copy vinyl to CD, but it takes time.

[johnaec]

Originally posted by Alex Lancaster
Years ago, I used the Discwasher and the Burwen "Click and Pop machine" (Owned now by DBX, I think), with good results; You can use Nero if You want to copy vinyl to CD, but it takes time.

I'll bet I've still got some records from my early teens those wouldn't fix! You could actually see vinyl spooling up from the records and forming a fuzz-ball on the worn out cartridge with coins on top to hold it in the grooves...

John

[Alex Lancaster]

Yeah, those old TT´s and cartridges are similar to Caterpillar rippers.

[Rudy Kleimann]

Just stumbled onto this thread. I have several of the "pop & tick suppressors" in my collection of audio gear, and have quite a bit of experience with them. They work, and sound pretty damn good doing it, without masking the audio.

Although I agree about high-end TT and cartridges extracting the most from the grooves, some records are in very good condition while many are in fair worse shape. These are the ones that are prime candidates for these black boxes. And the highend rigs feeding them the noisy signal will certainly show through!

Last time I got on a binge of using them, all of these still worked fine. If anyone is interested, I need to find new homes for the duplicates and would make a deal to forum members here. Gotta thin the herd!!! Guaranteed to work fine, or money back. Below is a desrcription and subjective comments on each model.

The SAE 5000A is quite effective, benign in its function, and very clean sounding. I have two of them. The longest-duration scratches sometimes exceed the time limit of the suppression circuit; I have hooked two in series to good effect, although both on high can sometimes create an audible dropout on really long-duration noises. Cool thing is the invert switch, where you hear only the supressed information.

I had a Garrard MRM101 music recovery module. Not real impressed with it, and the audio circuits don't sound that great IMHO. No longer own it...

The best one is the Burwen TNE7000A. Elaborate circuitry, excellent build quality, and fantastic performance, Especially on badly damaged records. Easy to adjust, and transparent in action, even on the worst records. Hard to believe it can cut so much "bad" out without audibly interrupting the music. I own three of these: Two labelled Burwen Research, the third KLH.

Richard Burwen was way ahead of his time, and designed several pieces of audio electronics in the '70's and '80's. He was highly respected in the audio community and a personal friend of Henry Kloss (the "K" in KLH). He sold his company to KLH sometime in the '80's.

Many years later (early '90's IIRC), KLH was sold out to the same DAK Company that bought the SAE and DBX consumer Brands. By this time, though, the visionaries of these companies were long gone and DAK bought the companies at a discount for the remaining stock and existing designs. The brand recognition was strong, and marketability was DAK's prime interest -and not much else. Some time later, products from these companies became so cheaply built as to finally become unwanted junk, and the brands disappeared, one by one.

Burwen/KLH also made a very fine "Dynamic Noise Filter" model DNF1201A, a high-frequency noise supression that shut down the highs below a certain adjustable threshold. It did this on a 'sliding' frequency hinge point that varied up and down according to the frequency content of the signal above the threshold level, instantly opening only the frequency ranges that actually contained material and shutting down all frequencies above the frequencies of the signal content. This made for a very effective single-ended noise reduction system that was great for tape hiss, vinyl surface noise, and hiss in FM broadcasts. It, too, was easy to set and very benign in action. And, unlike Dolby B and C which boosts the high frequencies during the recording, or the much more aggressive DBX type II which is totally unnatural and preactically unlistenable in its encoded form, this system works with normal recordings, therefore usable on any program material that was noisy. I own two of these, one branded Burwen Research and the other KLH Burwen Research.

DBX made a single-ended noise reduction system like too, a model SNR-1 (of which I own one) that worked fairly well, but didn't sound as good or work as well as the DNF1201A.

[loach71]

I would first try pop and click reduction in the digital domain. Rip your LP record to a maximum quality variable bit-rate MP3 file. Purchase a copy of Audio Cleaning Lab and use the various digital filters in this software. You'll be quite pleased with the results.

[majick47]

If I read your post correctly you have collection of vinyl that you described as in "mint" condition but when played on your Sansui TT you end up hearing clicks/pops/rumble etc. A couple of years ago I decided to get back into vinyl and I purchased a used VPI HW19 MkIII. While at the sellers house he did a demo, first cleaning the album on his VPI 16.5 record cleaning machine and listening I didn't hear a single click/pop/rumble etc. He wasn't selling the RCM with the TT but it made me a beleiver that the old Diskwasher system wasn't going to hack it anymore. Soon after I purchased a VPI 16.5 RCM and with records in decent shape all that noise was almost gone. Another factor was setting up the table, makeing sure it was level and correctly adjusting the cartridge/tonearm. Later in a second system I got the same results with my old Sony PS-X500 TT. Another factor to consider is the cartridge which should be a reasonable match for your TT and your album collection. If your albums are thrift store/flea market buys I wouldn't bother to invest in much of a TT/cartridge or rcm but if your albums are relatively decent it's well worth the investment. In fact a cartridge in poor condition and improperly set up can destroy a 100% perfect out of the wrapper album. Check out Audiogon for used Nitty Gritty, VPI and Sota RCMs, they sell quick if they are reasonably priced. I have had excellent results with two Denon high output moving coil cartridges, DL110 and DL160, both new were around $150 or less.

[Rudy Kleimann]

I would first try pop and click reduction in the digital domain. Rip your LP record to a maximum quality variable bit-rate MP3 file. Purchase a copy of Audio Cleaning Lab and use the various digital filters in this software. You'll be quite pleased with the results.

MP3? Have you gone Mad?

Seriously, with all the legitimate complaints about the loss of detail in 16-bit 44.1KHz CD digital technology, I am rather stunned that you would even consider MP3 a reasonable format. That is, unless your records, TT, cartridge, and phono preamp are... well, bad.

My neighbor enlightened me about all this 15 years ago with his Luxman vacuum platter turntable and high-end MC cartridge (don't remember brand/model) through a Nakamichi 620 preamp playing through his Stax electrostats/ Dynaudio subwoofer system. He had a professional R-DAT that, unbeknownst to me, was recording a fine direct-to-disc Jazz record that he was playing. After the side was finished, he said, "let's see how that sounds in digital". He rewound the tape, and started playing the fresh recording. The wonderful deep and wide imaging (well beyond the outsides of the L/R speaker locations and about 30 feet deep!) was smashed flat as a pancake, stretched between the speakers! I was flabbergasted!

Next was the Chessky test record... what a thrill! The "drum test" blew me away: I had never heard "height" in a stereo image before, much less width so far to the sides! Arguably the best drum recording I've ever heard.

As we became friends, I came to realize that his rig did amazing things with just about any decently recorded record that played through it.

To put such great analog through such a "meat grinder" as MP3 would be to kill all the life in it, IMHO.

Just my 2 cents' worth...

[jim campbell]

the best way to avoid tics and pops is to keep your vinyl clean.replace the inner sleeves with good quality replacements,rice paper etc and pick up some outer sleeves as well.try to avoid touching the surface and pick up a good quality cleaner.i generally place the inner sleeve into the jacket with the open side up and the same for the outer to create a barrier from dust.the outer sleeves keep the jacket from getting those annoying round wear marks.if you are careful when you remove and replace the albums in the jacket and do not leave them out they will not gather dust and will sound good for a long time.i would avoid some of the modern tables that do not have dust covers unless you live in a vaccuum.keep the platter clean as well

[duaneage]

I have transfered a lot of vinyl to the computer. don't mind using the mp3 format, perfect reproduction of old records is not a requirement, I just want the convenience of the mp3 format.

I run the record into my computer first. I have a Denon DP-37 TTwith a Shure V-15 xmr. I spent a great deal of time setting it up and recheck my settings periodically. I replaced the original leads from the TT with high quality cables to reduce noise and hum to levels way below the limits needed.

I use a Yamaha C-65 preamp. It has selectable loads for the phono and works very well.

Into the computer I have a CL Audigy. A decent soundcard with lots of in-outs that come in handy.

I use Soundforge to work on the files. I remove the really large clicks with the pen tool. If a track is pretty beat I let the software do it but for a dozen or so minor clicks I get good results manually removing them.

After that I route the file back out through my DBX setup. I have a SNR-1, 3bx-ds, 120X-ds and a 2015G EQ. I use the3bx-ds to expand the signal and push the noise floor down about 15 % - 20%. Then the SNR-1 is used to trap the noise out during quiet passages. The 120x-ds adds clean bottom end and is adjustable. The 2015G EQ allows me to correct the final result if need be. I also have a 400xg signal route selector I use to pre-post the processors and reconfigure them, actually I use two for added flexibility with my tape decks, MD, CD and VCR deck. I can record to one file whilst playing another on the same computer, a neat trick I credit the Audigy with being able to do.

It might not be as good or proper as some might want but I get really good results. I have cleaned records and tapes for people and they have been amazed at the results.

[Mr. Widget]

A friend of mine has been using a mega dollar analog turntable setup feeding an Alesis Masterlink. With this system he creates 24 bit 96KHz digital recordings of his analog collection... he claims that there is virtually no loss of quality. I have been tempted to get a Masterlink myself so that I could playback some of his discs... without a Masterlink or compatible player it isn't possible to playback the high res digital CDs. You could always downsample the discs to Redbook CD resolution, but then you flatten the image and kill the sound as Rudy was describing...

BTW: Rudy, by using a higher quality outboard DAC, I get a lot of that analog depth and soundstage from Redbook CDs. I won't pretend that they are as good as analog, but they are certainly better than what I had come to expect from CDs.


Widget