It is: The Royal Ballet Gala Performances RCA Victor Living Stereo, 1958 recording I believe. Classic Records Release. I think there was only a thousand or so released on heavy vinyl.
Where do classical vinyl records get their rumble from?
Recently converted back to vinyl from silver disks, I am struck by how much rumble seems to be inherent in the new and used vinyl I am buying.
A case in point, is a recent Deutsche Grammophon (DG) recording (487 7484) of Mahler’s Second Symphony made at a live performance at the Sydney Opera House (I was there). The first set I bought was amongst the dirtiest pressings I have ever had, but the second set was much improved. However, there is a persistent rumble whether played on my Holbo Mk2 air bearing system or my venerable Garrard 301 (new bearing from Classic Turntable Company).
Mahler typically has huge dynamic range, from muted off-stage performers to hundreds of musicians going hell-for-leather.
The rumble could be partly caused by the venue’s air conditioning system, but I hear similar background on a Telarc recording (Stereo 10051) of Saint Saens Organ Symphony made in Philadelphia. Telarc even arranged to have local roads shut down for the recording sessions.
Similar efforts were made by DG when recording the organ at Notre Dame in Paris, where recording was done late at night to reduce traffic noise. My copy includes Dolby Atmos on Pure-Audio Bly-ray (DG 486 1466).
I was beginning to think the rumble was inherent in my tables, but then I played a German Direct Metal Mastered (DMM) set from In-Akustik for Clearaudio’s 40th anniversary (INAK 78051 2LP). It includes some Telarc tracks. This set has the quietest background I’ve never heard. There is virtually no rumble, exonerating my tables.
So apart from the recoding venue’s air conditioning and traffic noise, why do so many classical records seem to have built-in rumble? Could it be from the mastering lathe?
I am really only thinking about classical recordings where the dynamic range approximates the signal to noise ratio of vinyl, meaning that very low-level signals are musically important, while simultaneously bumping against the noise floor.
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I think I've discovered a large part of your problem, buying Deutsche Grammophon vinyl. It's odd that early Archiv Produktion recordings sound as heavenly as they do, when nearly every Deutsche Grammophon pressing that I've listened to is mediocre by comparison. @richardbrand Just as an experiment, can you load a mono cartridge onto one of your tables and play these records that are bothering you? I'm just curious whether these anomaly's exist within the vertical wall of the pressing. |
Well, I suppose I could if
But would I risk damaging my records if I used a ’normal’ mono cartridge with a typical mono stylus profile? There should be a way of recovering the ’vertical wall’ component of the stereo signal through a computer-based analysis program. Any recommendations? |
@richardbrand Yes, some mono cartridges are compatible with stereo pressings and others will chew it to pieces. Why this is the case, I haven't yet been able to figure out. Some folks will claim that a true mono cartridge will ruin a stereo pressing but a strapped stereo cartridge for mono will play fine on a stereo record, or vise versa. Neither of these to my knowledge is true, it just requires a little online research. But I will say that I'm truly a lover of mono vinyl, so if there's ever a reason to consider buying a mono cartridge, I'd recommend it. The Hana SL MK II seems to be a great value and an excellent place to start. Now as far as using a computer-based analysis program, I don't know of anything but that's not saying much. There may be a way to trace sound waves and then make determinations visually by interfacing your turntable to a computer with professional software but that sounds very expensive and complicated. Anyway, given that your noise and rumble issue seems to to be imperceptible, it was just a curiosity on my part. However, if you did purchase a quality mono cartridge that was stereo compliant, then you'd also have a reason to collect recordings that were made between the 1920's and the 1960's. |
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