VU Meters vs. Lights

[TAGO MAGO]

Most of the tape decks in use in my apartment are 80's or 90's Nakamichi decks with LED level lights and a Technics RS-M45 with a fluorescent display although setting a stereo up at work using a Technics SA-222 receiver and my old Technics RS-M205 cassette deck. Unlike my other decks the RS-M205 deck has VU meters which are really quite cool looking.

I am wondering which is generally thought to be better, more accurate or just generally liked by the audiokarma crowd.

 

[KentTeffeteller]

For analogue machines I favor real VU meters with the accepted professional meter response. ReVox has those. I favor LED peak meters for digital recorders. Tandberg's metering is my favorite in consumer tape machines.

 

[Tower Boss]

Hello Tago Mago,

I love the look of VU Meters over any LED, including my Naks. As far as accurate, no they are not the best at measuring true peak levels, as they are slow, only averaging out the waveforms amplitude. Even most LED Peak Meters only average the signal.

There is a give and take to this since you would not visibly see the true rise and fall of a signal with the naked eye. The only thing that comes close is an old style Level Indicator Tube as the electron beam easily follows the signal.

That said, my old Nakamichi 600 Cassette claims that it’s Peak Level Meters give an accurate indications of all program peaks. Who know's how accurate that claim is, but I think they just look cool!

Regards,
TB

 

[Blue Shadow]

For analogue machines I favor real VU meters with the accepted professional meter response. Tandberg's metering is my favorite in consumer tape machines.

Interesting you like the Ts metering when you say you like true VU. The Tandberg with peak reading meters. When you qualify it saying consumer machines, I understand as the 10X is the deck in my system. Good meters that look great.

So from what Tower Boss said, I guess the Tandberg 64x had a great metering system, the electron tube.

Crown's OC-150 is a switching, metering unit for amplifiers, speakers and headphones. It has true VU meters with the ability to switch the meter drive circuit to be a peak (with adjustable hold) meter. The manual discusses this in detail. Nice big meters, fully back lit swinging to the music, unless the peak hold is cranked up.

 

[Cosmic]

Actually, a combo of an averaging VU meter plus a 'peak' LED should give a good overview of a signal, but I can't recall the last time I saw one of those.

Of course, if you really want to go to town, the good people at Dorrough always have one of their 'Christmas trees' waiting for you. Great meters, but also with a great price.....:sigh:

http://www.dorrough.com/

C.

 

[TAGO MAGO]

Actually, a combo of an averaging VU meter plus a 'peak' LED should give a good overview of a signal, but I can't recall the last time I saw one of those.

Of course, if you really want to go to town, the good people at Dorrough always have one of their 'Christmas trees' waiting for you. Great meters, but also with a great price.....:sigh:

http://www.dorrough.com/

C.

I used to have one of the old Advent decks (I think it was an Advent 200) with one VU meter that you could select for either left, right or average. At first the idea of one VU meter was a little odd, although it made sense when using it, although possibly three meters would have been better.

 

[THEWEREWOLF]

The LED VU meters aren't all created equal. On cheaper decks the LED meters are rubbish at helping you create distortion free recordings especially those that illuminate entire segments at a time. I think true analog VU meters are best if they are sensitive. My Nakamichi LX-5's LED meters seem pretty good. Each LED segment appears to be a discrete unit. Every cassette deck I have has LED Meters. I have four Pioneer RT-707 reel to reel tape decks with classic analog VU meters that I find awesome. Almost all my receivers have classic analog VU meters and I love it that way.

 

[N2552]

I like my tiny analog vu meters in my Flips N2552 Decks

 

[oldvinyldude]

Meter response between analogue and LED varies a lot-both types vary.

However, any meter can be learned. In my experience, I had to learn how my tapes sounded vs what the meters displayed during recording. Record, observe and listening-repeat. I only used consumer decks, and who knows how well their levels were set.

Pro gear, especially reel to reel, in a pro environment, would have frequent checks and adjustments. Engineers could learn the ballistics of their gear, and count on the stability of the levels, so they could trust their meters, after learning their ballistics. It did not matter what those ballistics were so much-just that they could trust what they saw.

 

[Okke 70s]

Got to love them both! The good ones anyway, both LED and needle. Generally I find LED's easier to follow, but less "informative" then VU meters. If you bother to focus.

Peak level settings voor needles have never helped me much. While the "hanging" peak indicators from LED's are very useful. So I agree with Cosmic there. Come to think of it, some older decks had needles and an additional red LED to indicate that you where maxing out there. The poor-man's alternative perhaps. That was particularly useful to balance between left and right. At least if it had a LED for each channel, and not just one for both.

The most beautiful LED's to me will always be the turquoise fluorescent LED's of my first and worst love: the Akai CS-M2. Pretty much all needles look good. The bigger the better, especially those wide "sunken" models. Or maybe those of the Nakamichi 480/485? There might be a poll in this..

 

[Beeza]

The rule of cool - VU meters, accuracy - LEDS.
Amongst a heap of stuff I own a Realistic SCT-3000 that has both VU meters and +3db +6db Peak Leds.
If I inject a 1K tone and slowly increase the levels both meters and leds agree with each other but when recording music the VU meters are just too slow and the peak leds start to flash well before the VU has reached 0db. Still I like the look of bouncy needles

 

[perryinva]

I’ll limit this to what I own. What’s crazy is that it depends on what they are used for. On decks where calibration is front panel, analog is the way to go because the resolution is perfect. Unfortunately, not too many of mine have that, like the 581/582. The 681/682 have nice florescent displays that change resolution with bias as needed, and since level is automatic , the indicator is adequate. But some decks, like the Dragon/ZX-9/7 have LEDs and could really have benefited from analog meters instead. But at the time, everyone wanted LEDs on new gear. Sad. For just setting a good record level, LEDs are fine enough, as was noted analog meters can be deceiving of peaks, but overall, they look great, the best, IMHO.

Only the 1000zxl has a digital meter with fantastic resolution that is about as good as an analog for settings, but since it is fully automatic they are the best for setting recording levels with switchable peak, VU, and Peak Hold.