How do you get past the pops and hiss of LPs?


I have recently got out my dad's old Thorens TT (TD 150 MKII) and listened to some of his old classical LP's. I think that it is a warmer sound than CD but I can't get passed all the noise. I asked my Dad and he said it always sounded that way. Am I doing something wrong? Do you just ignore the hiss and pops? Thanks in advance.

-Kevin
kemp

Showing 4 responses by motdathird

Pbb, tlak about the pot calling the kettle black. Yours is a fine example of selective logic. The original poster described noise and ASKED if he was doing something wrong and should he ignore the hiss. He did not mention if these were records that were clean or filthy, they were very old or damaged, or what kind of rig he was using to play them.

I have seen mention here of ignoring the occasional pop or tick, but not that he should ignore all noise. There are many factors that might induce noise. Cleaning the records might be a very good first step. If the records have actual damage, he might replace them with a better copy. If he is using some old record player or a decent TT with a defective or damaged stylus/cartridge, even a very modest upgrade might be of benefit. Who is to say that if he cleans and otherwise dirty record, replaces an otherwise damaged record, or plays it on a decent rig, that he will NOT hear the noise he currently does and find even better sound than the "warmer than CD" sound he also describes?

I would point out that "snap, crackle, pop" and hiss are entirely different issues. Perhaps it is more the former he is hearing and not the latter. The former can be easily addressed in most all cases, using the selective logic approaches mentioned. In my experience, hiss is generally never found as a result of the LP itself unless it is an older recording derived from noisy tape OR there is some kind of RF getting into the electronics chain of events. Nothing unique to vinyl, though. Listen to old Louis Armstrong recordings on CD. Where did all that hiss come from? The CD? Obviously not.

This brings up another point. If your CD deck lens is damaged, the CD has muck and scrapes, or you are using a Walkman as a front end, will those CD's sound great? Would it be valid for someone to post a thread wondering how such CD's sounded bad? And, would suggesting remedies in these areas constitute selective logic or an indictment of CD as a format?

As for the occasional pops and clicks. There are many recordings which I have on LP and CD and I have decent rigs to play both. The LP's nearly always win out over the CD version and, have others have said, a click here or there is outweighed by the improvement in sound. Once in awhile, to be fair, the CD in a re-mastered version will score big. When it does I can enjoy and appreciate its sound. Let us face facts, both mediums have there limitations, not the least of which is the ability of the engineers to record and transfer the masters appropriately. Along these lines, the talk of missing LF on LP's is simply a red herring. For every LP I can toss out there with missing LF, I can throw out a CD that is sterile with no dynamics.

"Making of necessity virtue is wearing thin as an argument."

I am not really sure what this means but, continual and gratuitous bashing of any one medium without objectively looking at the equally onerous shortcomings of another is also wearing very thin.
I apologize to Kemp. I see that he said he is using the Thorens. That will work!
Pbb, as you nearly always do, you misquote what someone else has said. NOWHERE did I say that the original poster would have to get used to anything, except to maybe infer that he'd quickly get used to NOT listening to CD's! :-)

As for the “you say tomato, I say tomatoe garbage”, your posts on the site are absolutely littered with smart-ass and condescending remarks disparaging vinyl and those that enjoy vinyl, as anyone who has been here longer than 30 minutes can attest. So, please, don't give any of us this "can’t we all get along" noise.

Finally, you can consider yourself most fortunate for the anonymous nature of these websites in light of your "Motdaturd" crack. Grow up.
As a strong proponent of analog, who can also recognize the value of CD's in some cases, I can only say that I am reminded of this phrase when reading your posts Rockin, "with friends like this, who needs enemies?"

Why do so many of these threads spiral down into name calling? I maintain that many a barb is tossed out here that would not be dared, eye-to-eye, across the table. From BOTH sides on the issue.

There is no right or wrong, here. You like what you like. A person can say why they like analog better than CD or CD better than analog. And we can agree to disagree. Does this make any of us “bad guys” or in need of “saving”? If I were a moderator (are there any here?), I’d close and delete this thread.