2. analog
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New vinyl's noisy little secret

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the current crop of vinyl formulations just have higher noise levels than LPs made years ago. A case in point--I stumbled upon an old, original copy of Henry Mancini's 1962 soundtrack to the movie "Hatari" in my collection a few days ago (I had never even played it), and was astonished at its deathly quiet playback. Simply no surface noise. What gives? OK, you may make fun of this black-label RCA pressing (LSP-2559) for its content musically (though it's actually pretty fun), but it sure reminded me what we are missing with new releases--super high quality vinyl with very low surface noise. Even the occasional mechanical clicks from scratches seemed subdued. Most of my (expensive!) new vinyl comes replete with very onerous surface noise. Is it just impossible to make this old-generation type of vinyl currently?
kipdent

Showing 1 response by johnnyb53

johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
07-08-09: Jaybo
...The days of hundreds of thousands of turntables being made that are dependable and affordable?...yeah, they're gone too.
Well, except for the Technics SL12x0 series--over 3 million manufactured and available for $400, which is equivalent to $107 in 1976 when they came out for around $350.

No matter how you feel about the Technics DD turntables, they are indisputably "dependable and affordable".

And speaking of the soundtrack to Hatari, I would imagine that's a fun record. I've found many RCAs from the early '60s black label era to be a real hoot. I usually heard the music from those albums on my plastic-bodied Zenith AM clock radio, so when I play these records now on my relatively hi-rez system, revelations abound.

I just played "Baby Elephant Walk" (written for Hatari and also won a Grammy), and I was really surprised to find that the instrument that drives that song is a real, honest-to-God calliope. You can hear the air pressure and rush whenever it's playing.

Similarly, I have some Al Hirt records (RCA black label), and I was surprised to find that his hit songs like "Java", "Sugar Lips", and "Cotton Candy" all make extensive use of vocal harmonies in the crescendos.
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