Has vinyl always had surface noise on new records ?

This has been driving me nuts . I am 63 years old . I obviously collected only vinyl up until about 1987 then slowly moved into digital ( CDs ) Consider this .
Starting in 1956 I would play 45 RPM records on a small RCA 45 only turntable with the huge spindle .
Then you move into the sixties ,seventies and are still playing vinyl .During most of this time (70s) I was using a Thorens table,Phase Linear power amp and Carver USA made pre-amp with German Revox/Studer three way 12 inch speakers . The sound was fantastic . I sold all that gear about 1990 ...
So for the past six years I got back into vinyl . I had/have a large collection of UK albums,very little USA pressings .
When I started to play these again they almost all had surface noise .Of course I cleaned them first .Still most had noise . That said when the levels picked up the signal to noise drowned out everything that was audible surface noise .
I went into a few dealers here in San Francisco and asked if indeed I had just gotten used to the idea of digital technology that is so quiet that now when I listen to vinyl I always hear surface noise between tracks . Not all ,but quite a few . I have a huge 60s UK Beatles collection as well as Paul Simon etc. These sound great,but even the ones that are just as clean as when I bought them in the 60-70s have surface noise . It doesnt bother me anymore . However,his reponse was that analog records have always had noise and the better the system the more you heard . It was a matter of digital being so clean ( and dull ) I still love analog sound . I have sold a few albums on this site and had one man return a With The Beatles mono album . I played it when I got it back and it sounded fine to me .It did indeed have surface noise ,but very little if any bled into the tracks when they reached their levels . Quiet passages have always been a problem .I have say an unplayed Sgt Pepper UK 67 pressing . NEVER PLAYED ! I took it out last week and cleaned it first .It still had surface noise on Shes Leaving Home and Within You and Without You ...There is very little dB there and you can hear anything that is on the vinyl . Comversely .I just sold a guy an Oldies UK first pressing stereo on this site .It had numerous scuffs .Would grade it visually as VG+ ...It was so quiet you heard NOTHING between tracks ... When the guy got it he wrote me a thank you note . It was that clean sounding .
Have we just gotten brainwashed into clean digital technology and forgot that our vinyl had some noise on the tracks . As the shopkeeper said .We are hearing the same songs the way they were recorded with DIFFERENT EARS ...
Not much to add there .
Anyone else have a take on this phenomena ?

 

It has been my experience the better matched the cart is with the tonearm the less likely it is to pick up surface noise

 

A lot depends on various issues!

For example, stylus used for play back, worn ones may accent the surface noise. Believe it or not, the quality of the turntable and arm can even have an impact on it. I used to have an ADC arm on a Kenwood TT, the surface noise on my UK lp's was very high. I always thought it was the vinyl. Guess what, with the same cartridge, a Shure V15VMR, on a Rega P25/RB600 arm, the surface noise seemed like 6 to 9 db lower. I have played back new vinyl with out vacuuming it, and it tends to be noisey, but is quiet afteter the vacuum.


Tim

 

Beautiful pics of those Parlophone lables!

 

Simply incorrect. In fact, the opposite is true. As one moves up the food chain in analog with a better quality table, arm, cartridge and (often overlooked) phono stage, surface noise will become much less noticeable. As the quality of all of the above increase, surface noise decreases.

That being said, it is part of the medium and it tends to be most noticeable between tracks.

As you point out, some records that look great (even after a good wet clean and vacuum) play poorly while others that do not look particularly good can play flawlessly. There are just so many variables, among them the quality of the vinyl, pressing quality, etc. etc.

I have the odd pressing which is less than perfect, but most of my vinyl collection is at least 35 years old (with some running to 55 years old) and I would say that 90% of it plays with very little or minimal surface noise. I'd attribute this to 4 things: 1) quality of original vinyl and pressing 2) the fact that the record has not been groove damaged by being played on crappy or poorly set up equipment 3) ability to effectively wet clean and vacuum the record and 4) quality of the playback system.

Additionally, I would add that, generally speaking, the quality of new vinyl is not great. That's not to say that there isn't some great vinyl being pressed today, but a lot of it is substandard with pressing flaws & quality control flaws that should simply not be acceptable. About 90% of my purchases are used.

 

"Part of the medium"? I think you mean to say that the OP was

 

I always had the false reasoning that the better the turntable/arm the more noise it woud pick up also. Glad I was wrong. I woud imagine many many think this is true.

 

What I meant to say was what I said: that the dealer who suggested that the more sophisticated the analog playback system is the more noticeable surface noise will be was incorrect. Very incorrect.

 

Many Japanese pressings (and some German) are dead quiet... I have several MoFi's that are silent.

I can not agree with your comment about "wet cleaning and vacuuming" more.

It's hard for me to believe that anyone (especially on this forum) who's really into the sound of great vinyl doesn't wet-vacuum clean their records first (even if they're brand new).

Sometimes the improvement is astounding!

 

Most of my British vinyl is at least a little noisy. But it's all Parlophone Beatles or Decca Stones, so it also sounds great. I just turn up the volume and ignore it.

 

Starting my vinyl collection around 1970, with nothing to compare; all was fine. When LPs got noisey, it was my fault, or so I thought. I was right half the time.
At the age of 25ish, I found Machine Head on the headphones was full of tape hiss. We were warned, were we not?. Thus my CD venture was stalled.
I got a MC (read:smaller diamond) and a RCM, and now I'm 40. I'm certain the smaller stylus gets deeper in the grooves, below the damage, IMO.
I'll live with the surface noise in favour of the "analog sound" over CD, any day.

Brian

 

I have a Meet The Beatles mono that looks somewhat trashed, but it plays almost silent! I have German-pressed ECM's from the 70's (Terje Rypdal, Jan Garbarek, etc) that you can't hear anything til the music starts, at realistically loud volume levels. I"m using a new Audio Technica AT150 mounted on a Technics SL1200MKII with a new center bearing.

I have some records, particularly an original 1967 copy of Moody Blues - Days Of Future Past, that when played with my vintage MicroAcoustics 2002e cart from 1978, has especially annoying groove-wall noise and quite a bit of light crackle. When I switch to the new AT150, the groove is 8 to 10 dB quieter - most of the groove noise is gone, and the crackle has quieted as well.

Vinyl noise definitely has a lot to do with the quality and setup of your playback cartridge, as well as with the condition of the groove, cleaning the record properly, etc. The differences can be amazing, but the older, well-made records generally played silent with occasional small clicks. Noisy vinyl stood out back then, and was sufficient reason for returning for replacement.

 

The problem I have is with the new stuff that's supposed to be "audiophile" quality, yet at least 1/2 of the ones I get end up having surface noise issues. Yet, the LP's that I bought back in the '80's were much, much quieter (and those were regular, standard-weight LP's rather than audiophile stuff).

 

You should hear my Victrola!!

 

Yeah, most of the new stuff I get these days is Indie, and most are noisy with a few exceptions. Most notably, the band, Spoon. I'd like to know where their vinyl is pressed because they are thick, pristine, clean and super quiet like a CD. At the moment, they are my record making heroes for pure fabulous analog sound and sweet sounding vinyl.

 

FYI.

There was a lot more variety in the quality of U.S. pressings than from Europe and Asia.

 

Being in your age range, but never having had even modest equipment by audiophile standards, until very recently, I have also reflected on how sterile cds sometimes seem, without a little surface noise or even some crackling.

I have absolutely no recollection of being bothered by it at all, in those decades before cds became common.

It was only when cds were coming into popularity in the mid 80s that I remember being particularly irritated by new LPs just out of the sleeve having a huge pop at the start of a track with a soft intro. Of course, that's why I got rid of so many LPs

 

Silence ain't always golden. Some records have magic in the grooves despite their imperfections. I would rather be entranced by one of those than be unmoved by a perfectly DEAD quiet recording.

 

At risk of stating the obvious, a big part of the selling proposition behind CDs was the lack of surface noise (especially for classical music). Therefore, whatever our memories of the pre-CD vinyl era, I think we have to acknowledge that vinyl noise was always a concern, especially for more critical listeners. Having said that, I have several LPs from long ago that are so quiet all the way through at normal listening levels you could be playing a CD. I suspect, however, that LPs like this formed only a small proportion of total output.

What I'm saying is, those of us returning to old vinyl after an absence should perhaps be realistic about surface noise, learn to live with a little, and not set our expectations too high.

I agree with Gang Twanger - what's really irksome is new LPs sold as audiophile that don't deliver on that promise.

 

So true. I'm trying to get back into vinyl. I never got rid of my vinyl, and like many here, it dates back to the '60s and I've picked up some great used 'old' quiet vinyl lately [original Dylan Blonde on Blonde mono comes to mind as well as original Decca Who's Next] but the new stuff - geez! Recently got a great 'looking' AP Yes - Fragile that is 'noisy'. I recently picked up the new Van Morrison Moondance mastered by our host on which the first track is noisy. Very disappointing. I'll have to rethink the 'new' vinyl acquisitions as they are too expensive to be sitting around not being played.

 

I would get a LOT more noise from records when I had a cheap playback system (Audio Technica AT-PL120 turntable with low-end Grado cart). When I upgraded to a Technics SL1200MK2 with Audio Technica AT440MLa, the amount of record noise substantially decreased.

A better rig will get you substantially more music and less noise. Records that used to sound like a bowl of Rice Krispies now sound nearly perfectly quiet on my current system.

 

I think that has always been my BIG ISSUE with vinyl....its VERY inconsistent. Its not that surface noise really bothered me, if its somewhat low in level and fairly consistent, but it sometimes VARIES a huge amount from pressing to pressing, and even across the album........just got old to me, trying to find stuff that was bearable.

 

Yah know, I just wanna say, that back in the day, surface noise just didn't matter. As long as the record didn't skip, surface noise was not even listened to/heard. Younger readers have to understand that vinyl was all there was - it was the medium thru which music was presented. That and your AM transistor radio. FM radio came later. It was the *music* that we listened to, not the pops and clicks. These days, most people seem not to listen to the music, but to the sound coming out of the speakers/headphones. There's a huge difference.

 

I've never understood the surface noise issue. Its never been that noticeable to me. Then again, I always make sure my vinyl is clean. No machines for me - its TLC by hand with a little iso alcohol and pure water.

I agree with others though that the better your system is matched and set up - the less the noise (if any). My son and his friends once said my records sound as quiet as CDs.

Jakobian - if you didn't notice noise then on your older vinyl I'd think its be even less so today, given how good TT's and cartridges have become.

 

I don't mind the 'pops and clicks' they tend to be infrequent - it's the sound of the stylus just being in the groove of a brand new record. There is no reason for that. When I put on one of my UK Parlophone Beatles or UK Decca Stones, which I've owned for over 35 years, I don't hear it. But if I put on new vinyl I hear it.....

Now having said that, I have the new Van Morrison 'Keep It Simple' on vinyl as well as the Dylan 'Modern Times' and they are okay, maybe I got lucky here or just unlucky with my other purchases which brings us to an earlier post - inconsistency.....