Inner Groove Distortion- Turntable problem?

[Mr Boochie]

I just listened to Airwaves. This is Song 2, of Side B on your album? Through headphones, I'm getting no mistracking or sibilance. So, it seems the original master is good. BTW... a great album!

My Technics 1200MkII has an Audio Technica ART-7 set to 1.7 gram tracking. 1.5 anti-skate.


This song, correct?

 

[80sonvinyl]

I just listened to Airwaves. This is Song 2, of Side B on your album? Through headphones, I'm getting no mistracking or sibilance. So, it seems the original master is good. BTW... a great album!

My Technics 1200MkII has an Audio Technica ART-7 set to 1.7 gram tracking. 1.5 anti-skate.


This song, correct?

Yeah what an album.
No, airwaves is side A track 3 on my album. Sounds great actually. It's only S2 track 5 that gives me problems, and also the chorus on Weightless is slightly harsh.
My versions of this album are represses mind you ,from 1983.
Does that Japanese version include 'Submarines' and where abouts on the record is it?

Btw just gave S1 of songs from the big chair a spin and sounding fine.

 

[Mr Boochie]

Okay, misunderstood. Will give Cloudburst a listen.

Just listened to Cloudburst. Sorry, I get no distortion. Though the song is what I would call engineered "hot" or more dynamic than maybe some of the other songs on the album. So, if your vinyl master is bad and/or the turntable setup is slightly askew, this song may bring out the distortion that you are hearing. I am listening through headphones. Phono pre-amp is a tubed Pro-ject. The pre-amp is an old NAD 1600. Phones are Audio Technica ATH-AD2000X.

 

[80sonvinyl]

Okay, misunderstood. Will give Cloudburst a listen.

Just listened to Cloudburst. Sorry, I get no distortion. Though the song is what I would call engineered "hot" or more dynamic than maybe some of the other songs on the album. So, if your vinyl master is bad and/or the turntable setup is slightly askew, this song may bring out the distortion that you are hearing. I am listening through headphones. Phono pre-amp is a tubed Pro-ject. The pre-amp is an old NAD 1600. Phones are Audio Technica ATH-AD2000X.

Ok. On my UK press (VIP 1076071) 'Cloudburst' sounds fine , though I think it maybe cut slightly quieter than my problematic German press.

I suppose it could be the mastering, after all mine are represses and not the original 1982.

I'll give you some more albums, maybe you have one or two of these?

Mike Oldfield- Five miles out, 1982. Title track sounds bad, end side 2.

B52s- wild planet (UK 1980). Gets progressively more horrible to listen to as it gets nearer to end (and I'm not talking about the lyrics haha)
Interestingly on their first album, I thought Rock Lobster (cut painfully close to label) was going to be a nightmare, it played fine though.

Heaven 17- Penthouse and Pavement (UK 1981). Listenable but side 2 tracks 4 and 5 are problematic in areas.

New Order- Blue Monday UK press, die cut, 1983. Listenable but harsh towards end especially in bass

Ultravox Vienna -UK 1980. Harshness throughout on high frequencies.

Dire Straits- Brothers in Arms- UK 1985. Plays fine apart from the guitars on the title track, quite fuzzy.


I'm afraid if you live in the US though, you don't have most of these which are all UK pressings. Worth a shot though. If anyone else has these feel free to chime in.

 

[Mr Boochie]

Yeah what an album.

Does that Japanese version include 'Submarines' and where abouts on the record is it?

Btw just gave S1 of songs from the big chair a spin and sounding fine.

No, my LP does not have One of Our Submarines. That song is on my mini-promo 12 inch Blinded By Science. Also, very well engineered and mastered.

 

[80sonvinyl]

No, my LP does not have One of Our Submarines. That song is on my mini-promo 12 inch Blinded By Science. Also, very well engineered and mastered.

View attachment 2038618 View attachment 2038619

Oh right...completely different album let alone pressing. No point even comparing those methinks, also I think that's a slightly extended version on that EP. Nice Japanese stuff there, bit jealous. did you see the edit I made to my last comment

 

[80sonvinyl]

Can't relate. Learned how to sort through B.S. at an early age, figured out things for myself, etc. Forums helped me maybe 10% of the way when I came back to vinyl, the rest learned from experience and a refusal to buy into B.S.

If you wanna keep going round and round, be my guest. No more replies from me on this topic.

Fair enough I'd probably be doing the same at this point!
Thanks so much for the help across all those forums by the way. Gentleman.

 

[Mr Boochie]

"B52s- wild planet (UK 1980). Gets progressively more horrible to listen to as it gets nearer to end (and I'm not talking about the lyrics haha)."

Another great album! I have the original LP, I bought in 1980. WB BSK 3471. "Play Loud" on labels. Vinyl is in one of those very old MoFi slips that has no printing on it (so it's hard to tell which side has the opening slit).

Sorry, no sibilance or mistracking on Private Idaho or 53 Miles West Of Venus. Actually, seems like a well mastered album.

Maybe, it's those European remasters?

An aside... we nicknamed a girl in HS "Quiche LePoodle." But, that story is best left for another time.

 

[Mr Boochie]

Do you have Art of Noise's Who's Is Afraid of... Either the Island Specialty Press (7 90179-1) or Japanese Polystar (25SI-248)? Moments in Love (Side 2, Song 2) is a nice test song. To get clean, deep bass. Clean high notes. Good transients. Plus, good solo piano --- the deal breaker in a lot of systems.

It is a superbly engineered and mastered album.

 

[Punk_oldie]

One other thing which might be worth it (if you have the time / patience) is to rip what you consider to be the worst passages, particularly on your new pressings, to a high res file format, and then share a link from, for example, Dropbox. Then we could all have a listen, which might be helpful. I think all you'd need is an RCA to 3.5mm cable, (£5 of Amazon), run it from the output sockets on your Duo into the microphone or line in socket of a laptop, and use Audacity to record it (which is a free download). There's plenty on here can help if you wanted to try that.

 

[80sonvinyl]

"B52s- wild planet (UK 1980). Gets progressively more horrible to listen to as it gets nearer to end (and I'm not talking about the lyrics haha)."

Another great album! I have the original LP, I bought in 1980. WB BSK 3471. "Play Loud" on labels. Vinyl is in one of those very old MoFi slips that has no printing on it (so it's hard to tell which side has the opening slit).

Sorry, no sibilance or mistracking on Private Idaho or 53 Miles West Of Venus. Actually, seems like a well mastered album.

Maybe, it's those European remasters?

An aside... we nicknamed a girl in HS "Quiche LePoodle." But, that story is best left for another time.

Thanks. Could be just the UK press? Although I remember reading somewhere that it was actually the UK that used the first, original masters, not the US. Before patriotic tensions break out, I'm from neither country so consider me impartial haha!
I since got a Canadian pressing and it plays fine all the way through. As I mentioned, no issues with the UK press of the yellow album. My version is actually in immaculate condition and you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a new repress. The fella I bought it from used to just record onto cassettes and store away the vinyl.

But on WP, the latter part of 'give me back my man', 'private Idaho', and 'venus' were unlistenable.This was a classic 'party album' though so I wouldn't be surprised if it was groove wear.
I find the recording on those first two albums to be a bit muffled, even on the digital versions. Maybe it's just Fred's natural voice.

Was that video your own album? I certainly heard a bit of mistracking as the song went on...but not half as bad as mine was.

 

[80sonvinyl]

One other thing which might be worth it (if you have the time / patience) is to rip what you consider to be the worst passages, particularly on your new pressings, to a high res file format, and then share a link from, for example, Dropbox. Then we could all have a listen, which might be helpful. I think all you'd need is an RCA to 3.5mm cable, (£5 of Amazon), run it from the output sockets on your Duo into the microphone or line in socket of a laptop, and use Audacity to record it (which is a free download). There's plenty on here can help if you wanted to try that.

I have tried that. I don't have a LINE IN option on my laptop. I tried to record using the microphone and got nothing coming through. My laptop is a HP Pavilion.

 

[Mr Boochie]

Was that video your own album? I certainly heard a bit of mistracking as the song went on...but not half as bad as mine was.

Not my video. I'll give the tune a listen, again.

 

[Mr Boochie]

I have tried that. I don't have a LINE IN option on my laptop. I tried to record using the microphone and got nothing coming through. My laptop is a HP Pavilion.

Can you record from your headphone output, on the pre-amp or computer?

 

[80sonvinyl]

I have just spent the last few hours really devoting time to my setup. Playing a good selection of hot cut and quiet records. To test my setup's ability to track very loud records I was mainly concentrating on 12'' singles. I rarely play these and had forgotten how open and clear they sound.
I had mistracking on two though, near the end. Possibly wear...neither of these were bought graded.
But I think I've busted the myth that had formed in my head of my setup not being able to cope with loud/frontal stuff.

Also played the inner tracks of a few albums which are cut near enough to the label. Yazoo 2nd album (uk 1st), Heaven17- Luxury Gap (DE 1st) , Spandau Journeys to Glory (Irish 1st), TFF Big Chair (UK 1st). I knew these records already, but double checked, all sounded clear. Maybe they weren't particularly problematic though.

 

[paddypaws]

There’s one easy way to settle this question of IGD. Take two of your records, one that has bad IGD and one that sounds good. Play them on someone else’s turntable. If the results are the same it’s the records. If the results are different it’s something amiss in your turntable.

 

[80sonvinyl]

Can you record from your headphone output, on the pre-amp or computer?

No, I tried that. If, however, someone could point me in the direction of decent instructions related specifically to this, I'd appreciate it.
I was following Craig 'Vinyl TV' on Youtube, but in that video he assumed the viewer's laptop had a LINE IN option.

 

[80sonvinyl]

There’s one easy way to settle this question of IGD. Take two of your records, one that has bad IGD and one that sounds good. Play them on someone else’s turntable. If the results are the same it’s the records. If the results are different it’s something amiss in your turntable.

I got one quick opportunity a few weeks ago in a store. By rights they weren't supposed to let me in (lockdown rules) but kindly enough they did, for a few minutess, as they understood my IGD woes. Listened to two tracks on two LPs on a Technics SL1200G/2M Blue...I'm pretty sure I heard distortion. But if you can understand, it was kind of a rushed environment not suited to really critical listening. Anyhow, as I said, the store owner reckoned they were 'bad recordings'.

Then, I sent two different problem records to a guy with a Thoerens TT/ 2m Black. On the LP which was the lesser of the two , funnily enough, he heard it, but on the worst one (which I believed to be very pronounced to my ears), he didn't notice.

Could either mean that a) The 2m black is just a better tracker of bad vinyl than the 95ML,
b) Something amiss/broken in my setup,
c) His hearing is shot (no offence mate if you're reading lol )

 

[Hifi Dave]

I didn't read every post but back (way back) the 16in transcription discs tie movies and music played from the center out so a finale was at the out section of the record.

On antiskating issues has anyone tried taking a 12in laser disc and using that to adjust?

 

[paddypaws]

I got one quick opportunity a few weeks ago in a store. By rights they weren't supposed to let me in (lockdown rules) but kindly enough they did, for a few minutess, as they understood my IGD woes. Listened to two tracks on two LPs on a Technics SL1200G/2M Blue...I'm pretty sure I heard distortion. But if you can understand, it was kind of a rushed environment not suited to really critical listening. Anyhow, as I said, the store owner reckoned they were 'bad recordings'.

Then, I sent two different problem records to a guy with a Thoerens TT/ 2m Black. On the LP which was the lesser of the two , funnily enough, he heard it, but on the worst one (which I believed to be very pronounced to my ears), he didn't notice.

Could either mean that a) The 2m black is just a better tracker of bad vinyl than the 95ML,
b) Something amiss/broken in my setup,
c) His hearing is shot (no offence mate if you're reading lol )

Well, in that case you haven’t really done what I’ve suggested. It’s no good being in a noisy or rushed environment or relying on someone else’s ears. You need to do this test of your records on someone else’s turntable and then you’ll know immediately as it will be obvious to you if the distortion is there on the records or not. After all it’s obvious to you that’s it’s there on yours it will be obviously there or not on someone else’s.