How does RIAA pre-emphasis work on reducing record noise?


There is much confusion over what RIAA actually does in a vinyl playback system. For years we have fought for accurate RIAA, yet, when I ask, Professionals and engineers disagree many giving what I believe is the wrong answer.

Here are the details for the technical folks. Although IEC has thrown in another inflection point this does not affect the main RIAA which is a accomplished by an expansion of groove size starting at 500 Hz . This EQ is then reversed on playback ( accuratey we hope) with the benefit of lowering the noise starting at 500 HZ. Over this two octave span the EQ boosts the recording cutter's depth putting more signal on the disc. The 3 db rise is called at 500 Hz as one does in any filter. At 2,200 the curve flattens out again and we cut at constant amplitude just as we did below 500 Hz. Over the audio band the total rise is 12 dB. (6 dB x two octaves). Not an insignificant number.

I invite the math people and anyone knowledgble to join this discussion.
128x128ramtubes

Showing 5 responses by ct0517

@ramtubes
@atmasphere
@other phono preamp manufacturers

Are the following values accurate, as far as the INVERSE RIAA EQ built into your respective preamps/phono stages ?
If incorrect could you tell me the correct values . thx

hz.....EQ..........hz......EQ
10.. 19.74 .....1000 ..0
20.. 19.27 .....1200.. -0.61
30.. 18.59 .....1500.. -1.4
40.. 17.79 .....1800 ..-2.12
50.. 16.95 .....2000 ..-2.59
60 ...16.1 .......3000 ..-4.74
80 .. 14.51 .....4000 ..-6.61
100..13.09 .....5000 ..-8.21
120..11.85 .....6000 ..-9.6
150..10.27 .....8000 ..-11.89
180 ..8.97 .....10000..-13.73
200 ..8.22.... 12000 -15.26
300 ..5.48 .....15000 -17.16
400 ..3.78 .....18000 -18.72
500 ..2.65 .....20000 -19.62
600 ..1.84 .....30000 -23.12
800 ..0.75 .....40000 -25.6

don’t you think it’s likely that the mystery phono stage simply rolls off at frequencies above 7 kHz?


why not a bad vinyl setup ?

the only way the RIAA EQ values that are recorded/generated by the cutter into the record can be duplicated by the phono stage preamp's  inverse RIAA EQ - is if the record was played back in the same way it was cut.  This is impossible for many reasons. 

Anyone care to disagree ? 

***************************************

Analog Jack.... is running a customized vinyl setup .

1) He has a tonearm and a low level MC cartridge that has an incorrect anti skate setup.

2) he is running 8 feet (in total) of phono wiring comprised of shielded and unshielded. It has 3 breaks before it gets to the phono stage inputs. The wiring is going at one point through the back of his racks and running parallel to some equipment power cords.  

Does everyone agree that the RIAA EQ signal values generated by Analog Jack's setup will be skewed and contaminated due to the noise being picked up, and incorrect setup of the tonearm / cartridge ?

The phono stage RIAA inverse EQ in the mean time - will continue to do its inverse RIAA based on ......the skewed RIAA EQ values of input.

Garbage in ......

Anyone disagree ?

*********************

FWIW and IMO - RIAA EQ has two objectives.

1) Noise reduction.

2) uniform, small grooves allowing for 20 mins a side.

NO ONE is buying records without (1 AND 2).

this thread has primarily dealt with noise reduction and only hinted (Atmasphere) at the second objective.

ramtubes
Here is the report on our "phono shoot-out" in January. I took along a simple generator, RIAA inverse box and dual voltmeter. I did a quick sweep and found even in the less expensive units the EQ was dead on
.

I interpret the above as inverse RIAA is easy to get right, even in cheapest phono stages for manufacturers. Why then is there all the dramatics on this thread about RIAA in general?

So is this inverse RIAA and I will call it a "filter";  any more difficult in putting together/setting up than say ....,Bass Alignment Filters, or the crossovers filters in Subs that define the 60 - 80 - 100 - 120 hz slopes ?
Anyone ? Educate me. These forums are about sharing info. and learning. 
 
Also I figure anyone with a preamp/phono stage that has bass and treble controls; turn the bass all the one way down, and the treble all the way up and listen. Isn't that kind of, sort of,  what RIAA on the record is..... before inverse RIAA happens ?  (I mean as an analogy) 

Cheers 
@atmasphere @ramtubes

I believe ramtubes first linked that diagram.  
am I reading the diagram right, in that it is showing in purple for the cut grooved signal - constant amplitude for the high frequencies ?  
thanks
Almarg

However, Ralph, I believe that the graph shown at that link is potentially misleading.


Almarg thanks for your previous post. 
  
Misleading ? Can it not be just wrong/incorrect ?  

Wording is for the purple line. seems pretty clear to me. 

Purple - Groove Signal levels on LP

and that diagram has been viewed 1.5 million times - lol