Ripping from Vinyl, Simplified

An anonymous reader writes "In a short article at linmagau.org John Murray brings Gramofile to our attention, just the thing to help you bring all those LPs in the cupboard into your MP3 collection. One more example of the analog hole in action, I guess ;)" It may not be CEDAR, but it sounds like a lot of utility for a 76kB program.

Comments

Why do this?

[Michael's a Jerk!]

Just remember - a new record will sound far, far better then a CD.

Records only get crappy after much use. If they could make them out of a more robust material, I'd be first in line to buy.

Re:Why do this?

[3.5 stripes]

Not really.

Only to audiophiles who use worthless and unquantifiable terms like "warmth" and "roundness".

A good quality cd in a good quality system is more than adequate for any normal human being who doesn't base their life's worth on the amount of vacuum (sp) tubes in their living room.

Re:Why do this?

[Michael's a Jerk!]

Only to audiophiles who use worthless and unquantifiable terms like "warmth" and "roundness".

Those guys are wankers - but valves do have a different sound. When valve amps clip, they have a nicer sound then transistor amps. This is thought to be caused by a more 'rounded' curve, caused by even order harmonics. see this page for more information.


A good quality cd in a good quality system is more than adequate for any normal human being who doesn't base their life's worth on the amount of vacuum (sp) tubes in their living room.

Remember when 256 colour graphics cards came out? I bet you thought 'Wow! I'll never need more then those'. When high colour came out 'This is great - more won't make a difference, since the eye can't see any more'. as technology improved, so did our desire for more quality.

Re:Why do this?

[Mr Smidge]

Records are pressed from master pressings, metal discs that make the grooves on each bit of PVC they want to make into a vinyl.

The master pressing can be made from maybe a high quality tape (also analogue), or maybe a digital source with a very high sample rate / sample depth. So not necessarily made from a digital source.

Re:Why do this?

[zcat_NZ]

Gramofile is special because it's useful, small, free, and open source.

What is does is;

Record a whole side at a time

Apply some filtering to remove clicks and pops

Find the gaps between tracks for you, and split the final tracks into individual files.

Not sure why you can't just go read the article; It loaded fine for me just now.

Re:Why do this?

[LizardKing]

Aren't records made from digital sources?

Depends. Many studios still use magnetic tape, although others use Pro-Tools and their ilk for everything. Once the multi track recordings are done, then the mastering might be to magnetic tape, DAT or Exabyte (amongst others). Then comes the mastering at the pressing plant, which is where any recording will go digital (if it's being pressed onto CD) at the glass mastering stage. Vinyl mastering produces a die, and this is still an "analog" process.

And yes, bass frequencies are limited on vinyl, I remember an early acid house track called "Oochy Koochy" which had such a massive kick sound that it trashed the mastering studios cutting head, something they weren't insured for. That reminds me - I'll have to extract that record from my brothers grubby mitts next time I see him ...

Chris

Re:Why do this?

[cpoch]

Almost all music is mastered in the digital domain today. Even the music that you can still buy on vinyl. Professional audio editing is much easier using nonlinear editing tools, which are all digital. If you don't think the sound of the CD is up to par with other sources, maybe you need the newer formats of SACD or DVD-A. Personally, I can hear the difference between those formats and standard CD, but the difference is minimal. I'd rather have a 5.1 channel format than a higher sampling rate.

Re:Why do this?

[fruey]

One of the reasons that LPs have a different sound is to do with the mastering process. The lower frequencies (bass) cannot be mastered at full volume and cut onto a record, because they'd cause the grooves to be too wide and literally make the needle jump out of the groove. So, the bass frequencies are attenuated or reduced in order to get "as much sound" in the grooves as possible (referred to as pre-emphasis). Then, the levels are all set to as high as they will go while bearing in mind that a groove will be wider as amplitude increases, so if a side of a record is going to be over 20 minutes or so long, then the grooves need to be narrower to fit all the tracks on one side, so the levels are adjusted accordingly.

Now, the equalisation curve was specified by our good friends, the RIAA... all amplifiers that have a "Phono" input use an RIAA EQ curve in the pre-amp stage to boost/reduce the frequencies to get back to a flat response that should sound like the studio mix off the (pre vinyl mastering) master tape.

Often these days all mastering is done at a flat EQ curve, because CDs can handle this, and then mastering happens *again* for the vinyl stage. It used to be the other way round, so early CDs were replaced with "digitally remastered" cuts - Brothers in Arms, Pink Floyd catalogue, that sort of stuff - and had a sound that was more faithful to the original, pristine LPs without sounding "tinny" like the first released CDs.

Digital to Analogue converters and preamps are so good these days that there is little difference between vinyl and CD. A lot of the "warmth" that supposed audiophiles go on about is probably "rumble" anyway (that is, the 50 or 60Hz drone that comes from the platter's electric motor and is passed to the needle, and other artifacts created by the rotation of the record in slightly less than perfect circles, etc).

What I like about LPs is the bigger artwork, the physical effort required to play a recording, and the soothing 33 and one third RPM of the disc as it spins on my old JVC turntable. Also, records which are well kept - as they generally are in my collection - sound pretty good too. However, they're not *better* than CDs. Just different. Old analogue stuff has afficionados everywhere, but please stop bleating that it's because it's better. It's just different.

One interesting argument though - a big thing in digital audio is to keep a fully digital path all the way to the very last, then have a top D to A converter right in the amp and straight to the speakers, some people even sending a digital feed to speakers which have reference D to A converters or even some system to use the digital signal to generate an analogue wave which goes beyond normal D to A electronics (can't remember too much about that, Google around if you feel so inclined). With my vinyl setup, however, I have a signal path that is fully analogue, and no need of a DtoA stage at all ;-) - although I do have solid state electronics in the system... which old wind up 78rpm players didn't have. I bet some people claimed they sounded better than the newer 33rpm records with electric motors and all that, too.

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

If your LPs are getting worn that rapidly, it could mean that:

1. Your turntable is crappy (spend a couple of hundred dollars fer chrissake).

2. Your turntable is not configured correctly in the arm/pickup/tracking department. Really, extremly fine tolerances are involved, and you should get a professional to set it up.

LPs...decades of use...bla bla.

Re:Why do this?

[AlecC]

Long, long ago, I set up a really cheap and crappy stereo system in a really perfect room - the library of a stately home. The wallw sere lined with books - acoustically absorbing but not dead. The wall behind was coverd with curtains. teh room was large (say 50 ft by 40) and exactly symmetrical, and with a sofa at the optimum listening position.

This cheap stereo system (high street retailers cheapest "got everything" model) sounded absolutely marvellous. Like kit costing fity times as much.

Ever since then, I have been of the opinion that it is not worth spending a fortune on hi-fi kit if you intend to install it in a room in which you intend to Have a Life. The necessary compromises to live in a room - particularly if you share with other people - will cancel out all the advantages of super-duper kit. If you are prepared to set up a special listeneing room, it might be worth investing in this kit. Until then, buy more music or more beer.

Re:Why do this?

[ketamine-bp]

I agree with you for most part, yet please do note that different people may have different taste on music and different requirements in music, that is, you may well be satisified with 40-15kHz, but many may not even be satisified with 20-20kHz, like me, Well, I still demand the harmonics.

Moreover, different speakers do have different response to different sources, I believe that you will changge your mind saying 'absolutely marvellous' if you try listen to more hi-fi models, for example, alchemist amp with a marantz cdplayer, etc.

Re:Why do this?

[McWilde]

some people even sending a digital feed to speakers which have reference D to A converters

Best is to have a digital crossover filter and then two DACs to feed two amps per speaker. One for the woofer, one for the tweeter. This will minimize phase problems in your speaker. Some studio monitor speakers do just that.
You could extend to three- or four-way systems, but that's overkill.

Re:Why do this?

[swb]

You're so right.

Another impossible-to-live-with arrangement that I found made for excellent sound out of a pair of cheap speakers was hanging them from the the pipes in my basement room ceiling with some twine.

I can only guess that the lack of mechanical connection between the speakers and a hard surface allowed for better bass resonance.

I think the basement helped as well, since the ceiling was some kind of cheap cardboard-like material (harder than cardboard, softer than masonite) and the fact that that the floor was carpeting over concrete. The walls were paneling over foam board on concrete.

I eventually added two home-made subs and some surround speakers and haven't had a stereo setup that sounded that good since, in spite of spending more money.

Re:Why do this?

[admbws]

Mod parent up, parent is quite correct.

Turntables on the top of cheap stereos usually have cartridges with diamond stylii, that (being one of the hardest substances on Earth) will naturally damage the record as it plays. All good carts will have sapphire stylii, which are much nicer to the record.

Generally most good cartridges/stylii have a recommended weight of 3-4g. It is very important to make sure the weight does not exceed the recommended weight, or you'll end up damaging your records and wearing down your stylus unneccesarily - you should read your turntables' instructions on how to change the weight on the tone arm.

Re:Why do this?

[VCAGuy]

When valve amps clip, they have a nicer sound then transistor amps.

I agree with you 100% there. Over these past few years, I've mixed on full analog, solid-state, and digital audio boards. Analogs (like a certain Trident) are my favorite for rock because when they clip, you don't get hit by it.
Solid-state boards are what I grew up with, so the clip isn't that bad...but not nearly as "nice as analog." The new digital boards suck in this regard--when they clip, they clip, generally leaving the technician (usually me) screaming "gaaaaa..."

Re:Why do this?

[panxerox]

Hmmm... so if you have the money to have a good room buy a cheap kit... so if you have the money for a good kit get a cheap room. Images of millionaires staying at motel 6 with 100lbs of stereo equipment.

Re:Why do this?

[alienw]

Remember, "scientific" measurements only go so far. "Warmth" may not be quantifiable (yet), but only because not enough research has been done in the area of psychoacoustics. I am sure that 10 years down the road, we may very well find out what exactly is responsible for it.

For example, when transistor amps came out in the 60s, everyone thought they would sound far better than tubes because they did not produce as much distortion (on the analyzer, at least). That turned out to be extremely wrong. The early transistor amps may not have produced as much distortion, but they sounded far worse than tube amps. It was later found out that this occurred due to intermodulation distortion, a particularly nasty-sounding type of distortion.

I will not agree that a CD is "more than adequate". That's like saying that 640K of RAM, 256 colors, or 56Kbps is more than anyone will ever need. A CD is mastered to an extremely shitty set of parameters. 44KHz is not enough to go up to even 22KHz (and humans can hear that rather well), and 16 bits is not nearly enough for a wide dynamic range. Remember, this technology was designed in the early 80s and was supposed to be cheap even then. Even the audio industry is now switching to new formats, such as SACD and DVD Audio.

Unlike records, you can't extract any "extra" quality from the CD. It's digitized, and you can't get what's not already on the disc. With LPs, better equipment makes a world of difference. With CDs, a better transport will at best reduce jitter but will not improve the quality significantly. That's why audiophiles prefer LPs -- that's currently the only way to get better-than-CD sound.

Finally, please listen to a truly good-quality audio system (no, I don't mean a trashy Bose or Infinity 5.1) at least once in your lifetime before posting such idiotic comments. You would be surprised.

Re:Why do this?

[dvoosten]

I am sure that 10 years down the road, we may very well find out what exactly is responsible for it.

We know exactly what is responsible for it, in the same way we know why tube amplifiers generally sound nicer then solid state amplifiers. I was explained a couple of time already in this discussion. It has to do with filtering and the production of harmonics. Ofcourse we don't know exactly why some harmonics sound "nice", but we do know which.
Now don't let it be claimed that I am pissing on analog stuff here. I myself have invested a shitload of money on a tube guitar amp, so I acknowledge that they sound good. However, they sound good because their imperfections happens to overlap with what we like.
44KHz is not enough to go up to even 22KHz
Nyquist dissagrees with you, i believe.
(and humans can hear that rather well)
Most humans don't go beyond 18kHz once they are over 30 years old.
You do have a point however that a lot of research is being done on higher dynamic ranges and higher sampling frequenties, but as I understand it, this is mostly because higher sampling rates seem to work better with more then stereo sound (5.1 and stuff).

Finally, please listen to a truly good-quality audio system (no, I don't mean a trashy Bose or Infinity 5.1) at least once in your lifetime before posting such idiotic comments. You would be surprised.
I think this is a pretty cheap remark. I someone claims you spend to much money on audio equipment you just claim that someone with cheaper equipment would never understand. This is a load of bs. I have listened to quite a few pretty damn good audio systems. I noticed that if the record player is expensive enough (an order of magnitude more expensive then the cd player) I won't hear the difference.

Re:Why do this?

[dmaxwell]

Those guys are wankers - but valves do have a different sound. When valve amps clip, they have a nicer sound then transistor amps. This is thought to be caused by a more 'rounded' curve, caused by even order harmonics. see this page for more information.

Ok, so a tube amp sounds more pleasant when operated out of spec. The real problem is that headroom is expensive. A well designed tube amp that isn't clipping isn't going to sound any different from a well designed transistor amp. By well designed, I mean it has highly linear response from around 10Hz all the way up to 20Khz under a variety of inputs and listening levels. Even a cheapy amp can sound good if the volume is moderate and it's hooked up to good speakers.

This is the basis of gag that's been played on audiophiles numerous times. A cheap amp is EQed to an expensive amp with pink noise and a spectrum analyzer at low volume. They'll sound nearly identical as long as no one touches the volume knob. You then hide the cheap kit behind the expensive kit and laugh at them as they ooh and ahh. Of course, the mystical excuses will flow freely once the "Golden Ears" realize they've been had.

The point is that a good amp (of either tube or transistor design) shows it's quality when it's cranked. If it's clipping then you need to back off. The tube amp is just more forgiving to the listener who likes to turn it up to "11". This is a subtle point often lost on teenagers and college boys. High wattage speakers and amps aren't intended to be operated at "11" to win bigger uh equipment contests. They're intended to be louder without distortion. A 200W-RMS amp designed for wide headroom in a fairly small room is more expensive than a 500W-peak crank-em-up-contest amp for a reason.

On the other hand, I have no argument with guitar players who insist on tube amps or least a tube preamp stage. Some guitar preamps are even designed to exaggerate tube distortion. Sound production is an entirely different beast from sound re-production.

Re:Why do this?

[BrokenHalo]

I would be the first to agree that there is an awful lot of fudging and outright wank when it comes to high-fidelity reproduction terminology, and I am also one of the many who are steadily moving their collection to CD (not mp3 or even ogg).

But we should remember that the original sounds are not a digital signal, they are in fact a complex collection of analogue signals.

Ultimately, anyone who really cares about the issue (and who has the requisite financial wherewithal) can check it out by comparison of a top-quality turntable with an equivalent CD player with a good combination of amp and speakers. Nobody will notice much difference with any music produced electronically, but with acoustic instruments and voices, there can be a marked difference in fidelity. I'm not going to get into silly definitions like "warmth", though, since that may in fact be applying different values to the initial signal, which although they might be easy on the ear do not qualify as faithful reproduction.

Re:Why do this?

[PD]

That's exactly right. And a new VHS tape will also look far far better than a DVD.

Re:Why do this?

[antiMStroll]

Ahhhhh, thanks for clearing that up. It's all based on well-documented, highly technical 'ad hominem' parameters, and not in any inherent differences in reproduction. BTW, that's the first time in almost three decades of interest in sound reproduction that I've ever seen people berated for using the 'useless' term "warmth". Another highly moderated Slashdot first!

Re:Why do this?

[guynorton]

I've got a system based round a highend turntable and why? Is it because I am an audiophile tosser?

No. Simply because it sounds fantastic. If music is reproduced as close to the original performance as possible, then the detail, and dynamics and passion that led to its creation can be felt more. I can lose myself in the music, feel it more, and that is after all why I listen to music, to feel, to live. If that makes me an audiophile tosser then thats what I am happy to be.

By the way, it aint just subjective poppycock like 'warmth' and 'roundness' that back me up.
There are many reasons (based in science and logic) why vinyl is superior to CD.

Regards

Re:Why do this?

[StarFace]

Not to be pedantic, but even 24bpp has fewer colours than the eye can see. A practical example of this is setting up Photoshop in the Lab colourspace, and then drawing a gradient from black to a primary the width of the screen and noting the "banding" that appears. If you work with digital media all of the time, you can notice the limitations in more complex images as well.

Actually, in some cases the software can handle more colour depth than you can view on any digital output devices. It requires a lot of care, since you cannot see what you are doing, but when you output to devices that can handle it, you get better results that do not look "digital."

Re:Why do this?

[operagost]

Any good LP ripping utility is useful because turntables work really poorly in the car. I was cruising along at 4 MPH the other day and accidentally rolled over a pebble. Scratched my favorite copy of the Brandenburg Concerto #3!

Re:Why do this?

[prockcore]

, I believe that you will changge your mind saying 'absolutely marvellous' if you try listen to more hi-fi models, for example, alchemist amp with a marantz cdplayer, etc.

I think you're dead on. Many of the people who are like "you can't tell the difference" say that because they've never been exposed to a good system.

When I was younger, every 3 years I would go to get my prescription updated.
Every 3 years I would swear up and down that my prescription hasn't changed, and I can still see just fine.
Every 3 years I would get new glasses and be amazed at how much better I can see, and how I was practically blind before.

Sure the music sounds great to you now, but when you finally hear a good system, you'll wonder how you ever thought the old system was "good" let alone "great".

Re:Why do this?

[dmaxwell]

Pink noise and spectrum analyzer? Why not tones and and a meter, which are more accurate for this purpose (and what mega-$$$ test gear such as the Audio Precision suite uses, and yes, IANEngineer)? Because it doesn't sound as mod-worthy as making shit up out of whole cloth as the above post did.

A relation of mine once met Bob Carver in the 70s and when he figured that he wasn't a Golden Ear tweak he showed him such a setup...at an electronics show well attended by tweaks. They did indeed ooh and ahh over the equivalent of a $100 Radio Shack amp. Of course, they thought it was $15,000 tube amp. Carver wanted to test something he starting to realize about so-called "Golden Ear" audiophiles. That is the genesis of my knowledge of this gag. No, it was not "made up". Secondly, by "spectrum analyzer" I was referring to the piece of kit that used to test radio and audio equipment under repair, not the cheezy bargraph device on flashy stereo equipment. The reason for pink noise is that it gives a continous curve on the display of the analyzer. That way, the effect of tweaking the EQ can be seen across the device's entire bandpass. Tones will not get you as close with a continous display of the amp's response. Thirdly, my relation later became a salesman of high end stereo equipment and had a tweak co-worker. He pulled the same stunt on him with the same results. If a "Golden Ear" thinks it's expensive uber gear and it doesn't blatantly sound like crap then yes they'll rave on and on about it like an Absolute Sound review.

I thought the correct way of ripping a vinyl was

[tamnir]

to scan it?

Other possibility

[mirko]

I personnally enjoyed the way this guy rips vinyls: by scanning them !

In Your Cupboard?

[krystal_blade]

just the thing to help you bring all those LPs in the cupboard

Did I somehow miss something when I was growing up? Other than the occasional "Loose Plate", or "Little Platter" I've never seen any kind of LP in someone's cupboards.

(And I check... I'm weird like that.)

Not really hip on this whole LP scene, I guess. Can someone shed some light on this?

krystal_blade

Re:In Your Cupboard?

[B1ackDragon]

LP's can sound incredible, especially new ones (you might be suprised by how many bands you like produce LP's, go check out eBay or half.com). Also, they're just more fun to play, and have a "different", usually discribed as warmer, sound.

I think the goal here though is to save those old Pink Floyd/The Who records you still want to play every other day, but don't want to wear out from constant use. And who wants to go out and buy a whole new set of CD's?

Re:In Your Cupboard?

[tolan-b]

i have over 300 lps, all bought since 1995. have you not noticed 'dance music' (i think it's called electronica in the states, both are shit names). 99% of house, jungle, breakbeat, drum & bass, techno, trance, booty bass etc etc etc is released on vinyl first for djs.

with the advent of tools like final scratch, people are starting to switch, which means that there's a hell of a lot of vinyl to rip. Also, there's a lot of rare tunes, dubplates and white labels that have been deleted, and are only available on vinyl.

Re:In Your Cupboard?

[zakezuke]

Vinyl is highly reccomended if you have kids as far as demonstrating how sound works. You really don't get that positive feedback system, nor can you use a catas needle in a styrophome mug to demonstrate the whole gramaphone concept. Ok, this will definatly cause your record to degrade.

Dispite the fact that I was born in the 70s... I only recently gained an apprication for vinyl. As a kid, when I bought records, it was cause I didn't have a tape player, and I treeted my vinyl poorly. I went with cassettes cause they were so much more portable, I could play them on my TI-99/4a data recorder, and they didn't get damaged too much if I didn't put them back in their cases.

But I was missing something actually. Amazingly enough vinyl is actually a really good standard. Part of my prejustice was the fact that I was a kid and was listening to the stuff on my folks record player, some wooden cabinate deal with cheepo tv tweaters, stereo that was screwy from date of purchace, and an 8track that the program button was screwy. And plus the fact that all the records I had at the time were hand me downs from family members, played to death.

When CDs came out, I was instently impressed... vast sound improvement vs cassettes I noticed right off the bat, no background hiss, and vs the vinyl players *I've experenced* no background 60 cycle hum. So I went for one of those, I was older and could afford one, at first a simple boom box, eventualy a dedicate amp and a multi-disk changer with remote, and then I had something resembling a servicable sound system.

While I'm not a true audiophile, there are those who believe that vinyl is a superior standard to CD. Recent experiments have show me personaly that it's good, it's pretty damn good. If you are lucky enough to have a decent turntable, with a decent cartrage, a new needle, proper alignment, and kick ass wires that don't pickup that annoying 60 cycle hum that most turn tables seem to be a victim of, they sound great, in fact, they do kick ass. Wether or not they have a more natural sound due to the fact that they are analog and have more descrete values between their max and minium range, or if the better cartrage / styluses pickup more noise giving it a warmer feel rather then accurate, I don't know.

Before I get too off the mark, it's reasonable to believe that an analog vinyl record can more accuratly produce natural sounds due to it's analog nature, that whole issue with descrete values in the human percieved range is easy enough to believe. I've never seen it personaly, but i'm willing to believe this. However, in order to achive maxium effect, you need a virgin pressing, virgin record, kick ass turn table, etc... etc... and ya know... I am not going to spend that sorta money on a sound system, nor am I going to spend hours tweeking with my stylus alignment. Forget that. CDs sound pretty damn good, mp3s at a high enough bitrate are adquate for portable audio. Even an old goodwill CD-rom drive will proved *great* audio at sub $20.00.

So to answer your question, no you are not weird like that. While some will argue that the vinyl standard is superior in quality, you can't argue about the entry level cost of CD vs vinyl. CD provides damn good sound for few bucks. CDs are damn cheep to produce dispite the phohographs simple technology to extract sounds from a disk.

But now we are getting stanards for digital audio that more then double the sample rate and 33% the bit width... it would be interesting to see how phonophiles feel about sound quality vs ye old snap crackle hiss humm.

Re:Amazing new tech!

[Michael's a Jerk!]

Most people know how to connect line out to line in - but there are other issues. RIAA filtering (No, it's not evil - google it), wow and flutter filtering, among others.

You can't just hook line out to line in and expect a decent result. You need some decent software as well. this guy makes a living doing decent conversions. If it was truly as easy as you say, he'd be out of business.

Request for Name Change...

[evilviper]

One more example of the analog hole in action, I guess ;)

I don't want to sound picky, but I REALLY think we need a new name to replace "analog hole". Something about it just doesn't sound right.

Digital

[billy_troll]

if you want better quality when you are recording vinyl, a high end pro turntable such as Numark ttx1, (http://www.ttx1.com/) stanton str8-150 (http://www.stantonmagnetics.com/alpha44/tt_str8-1 50.asp) does onboard digital, so you can get digital straight out into your computer. better than your onboard soundcard. (although you need a digital in....)

Re:Digital

[Lumpy]

does onboard digital, so you can get digital straight out into your computer. better than your onboard soundcard.

as soon as you can show me ANY home audio "digital" anything that can beat my Santa-Cruz in recording an analog signal to digital, I'll be amazed. NOTHING other than a $1000.00 pro recording sound card can beat it.

and yes, I do have the full testing results to prove it.


HERE

(Note, the origional website seems to be down... so the google cache will have to do until it comes back...)

Re:Digital

[billy_troll]

i think you may have the wrong end of the stick. i dont doubt that your soundcard is good- but this isn't home audio, the turntables are aimed at professional music users (venues, recording studios DJs, etc) doing onboard a-d on the turntable is a good thing because: 1- it removes the need for a RIAA preamp to condition the signals so that the levels are right. (although some turntables have line out now) 2- no matter what you say, there is going to be less noise a-d'ing offboard, and it reduces signal noise brought on by cables. oh, and these beauties cost at least $1000 each...... HTH

What I found Interesting....

[SkArcher]

was the results of the poll linked from the left hand side of the page. These indicate that the vast majority of people want either Hard copy of music only, or freebies only - indicating very little interest in Pay-per-Play and other forms of chargeable online music.

The results of the poll can be found here

Weird

[Kieckerjan]

> though it's interesting to note that even now
> some indie bands (notably the White Stripes with
> their recent Elephant album) are still releasing
> stuff on vinyl.

This sentence strikes me as slightly weird: why would I buy the latest White Stripes on vinyl if I was intending to convert it into mp3? Maybe because of the artwork? *shrugs*

Cool record btw, although De Stijl remains their best.

Re:I thought the correct way of ripping a vinyl wa

[Kieckerjan]

Duh.. The other way around would be a much cooler hack, because it would be even more useless: software to convert an mp3 into a huge PNG of a well worn record, that plays just fine when fed back into this guys software.

iMic and Final Vinyl

[Davidge]

A similar, but non-linux solution is to use the extremely useful Griffon Technology iMic (USB audio) and their software, Final Vinyl on MacOS X (not everyone runs x86 hardware).

F.V. allows you to rip to wav or aiff and allows you to split tracks based on cue marks. It includes built in RIAA filtering and auto or manual gain and equalisation.

You just plug the iMic into you USB port on your Mac, plug the turntable directly into the iMic's input socket (well, ok, with an RCA to 3.5mm plug adapter), setup your preferred gain in F.V. and off you go.

The Need For a Long Patch Cord

[tres3]

This could actually be the program that gets me to dig out the hundred plus albums and my old turn-table from storage and start to work. Now I either need a really long patch cord or I'll have to find one of those old Radio-Shack pre-amps that allows you to hook up a turn-table to a standard Line-In plug. The impendance is not the same on a decent turn-table as it is on other things that you plug into stereos (like CD players, tape decks, etc.) and if I remember correctly you can barely hear the music without one. Hell, I'm not even sure that my current pre-amp (my system has seperate components: pre-amp, tuner, and three power amps for the front, center, and rear speakers) in the other room (yes I'm too lazy to get up and check right now) has a Phono connection. I know finding one of the old pre-amps from Radio Shack is probably out of the question - does anyone else remember the little black boxes with RCA in and RCA out jacks, a screw terminal for the ground wire that also comes out of turn-tables and a power cord? They didn't even have any knobs or switches!!! If I can't find my old one and my current system doesn't have a Phono in then I'll have to find an old stereo at Goodwill to plug the turn-table into. If my component pre-amp does then how much sound quality will I lose with a 30 foot patch cord? I've never plugged my computer and stereo together. How many other Slashdotters are going to have to figure out some creative wiring to make this work? For that matter how many other Slashdotters still have vinyl? I wonder if this trip down memory lane will induce any flashbacks! ;-)

Re:The Need For a Long Patch Cord

[lateralus]

I buy at least as much vinyl as I do CDs. I used Baudline to tune the setup before creating a digital representation of the music on my hard disk in the form of an OGG file.

I have a number of artists; old and new on heavy vinyl. Stunning.

Try this interesting experiment. Play a CD and a vinyl record of the exact same track into Baudline's spectrum analyzer and notice the average DB across the high frequencies. Doing so with Fugazi's "End Hits" album showed me that the CD cuts off above 16Khz while the vinyl continues to reproduce the signal up to 20khz.

Most people can't hear above 16Khz but such signals create harmonics that extent down into the audible range.

Re:The Need For a Long Patch Cord

[James Youngman]

I know finding one of the old pre-amps from Radio Shack is probably out of the question - does anyone else remember the little black boxes with RCA in and RCA out jacks, a screw terminal for the ground wire that also comes out of turn-tables and a power cord?

I always use one with my amp, because it's better than the phono stage in my amp. They're called "phono stages" or "phono amplifiers" usually.

The one I use is a Musical Fidelity X-LPS, which I find works very well. You can plug it into your amplifier (which is how I use it for normal listening) and then connect your PC to the tape or MD output jacks of the amp to do the recording, or you could do it the other way and plug the X-LPS line-level outputs directly into the PC (I do it this way).

The critical thing when using Gramofile is to get the recording level right (this is the "igain" control in your audio mixer). If you get it wrong, you will saturate the A/D converter's input. This only needs to happen very occasionally to ruin the recording, and it normally happens at sractches. However, Gramofile, while it does a good job with scratches generally, can't deal so effectively with the aftereffects of saturating the soundcard's input (you tend to get a kind of echo of the crackle). So, even if it tells you that "0.0%" of the samples were at full-scale, check the actual number of full-scale samples.

The best way to do this in my opinion is to launch the ReZound audio editor. This will colour-code the full-scale regions of the sample file, enabling you to identify at a glance if you need to re-record.

Lastly, I suppose this is a rather obvious point, but the result of doing this will never be as good as the results you get listening to the original record. You can only lose information, not recover it. So, if you really care about those LPs, invest in a good turntable and cartridge! This doesn't have to be so expensive. I bought a second-hand LP12 earlier this year for less than 1/3 the price of a new one (obviously to do justice to it I will need to get a much better sound card than the one that comes on my PC's motherboard).

Re:Amazing new tech!

[Technician]

A good quality 70's or 80's vintage receiver will do the trick taking care of the low level and RIAA equalization. Most have a magnetic cartridge phono input and will provide line out to the record jacks for the tape deck. If you have the turntable, you also have the receiver don't you?
Unless you need to do lots of scratch and pop filtering, CDex is a great program for ripping both CD's and Vinyl. Under tools, use Record. It works great.

So what?

[n3k5]

Just remember - a new record will sound far, far better then a CD.

A digital file with a high enough bitrate will also sound far, far better than a CD, no matter how old it is. Just remember -- you don't have to restrict yourself to 44.1KHz, 16bit on-board sound. In fact, many people buy good soundcards for the sole purpose of digitising their records the very first time they play them back, to have a non-degrading copy before using them for DJing or just normal playback.

Re:So what?

[admbws]

With all due respect, you are completely wrong.

Hertz (Hz) is a unit that in all practicalities measures "times per second".

The number 44.1kHz used to signify sample rate means that the sound is sampled 44,100 times per second. It has nothing to do with frequency of the sound - which is how many sound waves per second.

You should read the HowStuffWorks question, Is the sound on vinyl records better than on CDs or DVDs?.

Re:So what?

[clifyt]

Any you just discribed why we use 44khz. Have ya ever looked at Nyquest? Ya double the rate of sampling to get an accurate response. Meaning that a human that has had their ears perfectly trained, had the right genes, and just came out of an ear cleaning session can hear a 22khz (and seldomly -- just a bit higher).

Then again, what happens in pratice is to be debated. High quality FFTs show that 44khz with most consumer crap aliases at the high end...thus you have folks claiming 96khz is MUCH better -- why? Because with larger headroom, you can get much cleaner recordings of the material up to 22khz because physically, the cheap stuff doesn't have to be much better than the 44khz stuff, it just has to start aliasing a little later.

On quality equipment with great ADDA filters and DSP, 44khz is more than you need. My Kurzweil K2600 outputs at 44khz and local engineers are convinced its MUCH higher. It also costs 3x what most synths do :P

BUT if you could make something with cheaper materials and not worry about the quality control as much because you knew that no one was going to hear it, why not? So folks started in with 96khz which can actually be made rather cheaply (ya pick up the MAudio Audiophile 2496 for around $150 or less) and while it doesn't have as good of materials as some of the rest, the technology renders the problems out of the human range of hearing, whilst a consumer level card at 44khz would DEFINATELY have to deal with a lot more quality control to get to the same level.

So -- yeah 44khz is all one really needs to accurately reflect sound under ideal circumstances. As this isn't going to happen for most consumers, doubling the frequency again will flaten out the spectrum for you a lot more at a cheaper cost.

Personally, I'm sticking with my 48khz equipment...it sounds great and I had to pay for that quality...I just need to get some stickers slapped on them that claim to have been moded for greater range and no one would know the difference :-)

Re:So what?

[alanh]

That HowStuffWorks article is wrong. It completely ignores the reconstruction filter in CD/DVD or D/A converter. Any well engineered D/A system will capture ALL of the information up to 1/2 the Nyquist frequency assuming you don't exceed the dynamic range. The reconstruction filter turns the stairstep output into a smooth analog representation and is a necessary step in any good D/A.

Even though PCM is limited to 65536 discrete steps, this amounts to over 90 Db of dynamic range in a properly dithered recording. Although a record does have a continous representation, it is limited to something on the order of 50-60 Db of dynamic range because of background noise and the physical limitations of the vinyl, the cutter, and the playback medium.

Continuous does not equal infinite!

Re:So what?

[Snork Asaurus]

I think that one of the reasons that many consumers of popular music do not appreciate the inherent (potential) audio superiority of the CD medium versus the LP is that the industry has been negating the advantages of increased dynamic range by compressing everything to death and even allowing clipping to occur. I've posted these before, but they're a worthwhile read:

The Death of Dynamic Range

CD "Hypercompression" Caught in the Act

I'm old enough to give this to you first hand: When CD's first came out, few would argue that they sounded better than LP's in terms of frequency response and dynamic range. The again, the North American record industry had been doing a lousy job mastering and manufacturing LP's ("cut the quality, we need profits!"), which gave rise to: 1) people who would pay for (costly, but superior) European pressings and (more costly, but even better) Japanese pressings of a given LP; 2)special high quality re-mastering outfits like Mobile Fidelity and Sheffield Lab that produced sonically superior remastered LP's on higher quality (i.e., less noisy) vinyl that sold for more money.

There almost seems to be a lather, rinse, repeat cycle going on with CD's.

I did

[Konster]

I did this last November using a trial edition of Sound Forge and their lp restoral plug in.

It took a few hours' worth of fiddling (even with the plug in), but I finally constructed a digitized version of a recording made in the late 40's and it sounded excellent, save for the last disk which had an off center hole. It had varying pitch, which I was still able to tone down a bit.

The rest of the lps in the collection were in very good condition, but still had poor sound attributed to its 50+ year age.

I am unfamiliar with the results that the professionals produce, but even a simple trial version of Sound Forge can work wonders on old LP's for merely the cost of electricity and a blank cd.

Re:I did

[Two99Point80]

...save for the last disk which had an off center hole. It had varying pitch, which I was still able to tone down a bit.

If the center spindle of the turntable is removable, position the record so that the pressing is centered. It's easy to check this visually by spinning the record fast with the turntable switched off.

This'll also help with the occasional record which is pressed off-center.

Another worthwhile program

[SIGBUS]

Last fall, I used "Gnome Wave Cleaner to clean up the sound from a bunch of LP's that I had recorded. I was quite happy with the results.

What I do...

[Tronster]

I DJ on both vinyl and CD, but prefer spinning CDs. The problem is that all the "good tracks" can still only be purchased on vinyl.

After reading the Tom's Hardware guide on the TerraTec DMX 6 Fire I knew that would be the next sound card to purchase. It has a phono-in as two RCA jacks, and comes with decent* software to clean up scratchy vinyl (*- Yet doesn't clean up RIAA filter artifacts. See below.)

Ripping vinyl is not intuitive though. I made a few rips via Sound Forge and wondered why all my bass wasn't coming through. The card had on-board RIAA filtering, which caused other problems. The solution: Download the RIAA Direct-X plug-in and run the filter on the WAV after it has been captured.

The RIAA filter itself works most of the time, but about one in every 6 records I rip, the filter creates very loud, 1 to 2 sample, "popping" artifacts, that need to be manually removed. I don't know if it's the filter itself or the implementation...either way I just wish it wasn't it didn't have that effect.

Once that is done, normalize to a good level and you're done. The process takes about 20-45 minutes per record. It's a pain, but spinning the end result on CDJ-1000 makes it all worth it.
--

Interestin

[sebi]

I would like to check out the page, but the Slashdot effect was faster. I actually went back to buying records instead of CDs a while ago. With all the copy protection schemes on new CDs I have to rip them via line in anyway. With a record it's basically the same amount of work, but I don't support copy protected discs this way.

A nice side effect is that buying music became fun again. Browsing records and then putting them on the store's listening turntable is somehow a nicer experience than pressing a couple of buttons on a CD player. I now have a couple of albums that I didn't buy because of copy protection and couldn't be happier. Of course CDs are easier to handle, and there is none of the static and other little noises you can get with a record. But for me music never was about the highest possible sound quality.

There's still music that's vinyl only.

[phaxkolumbo]

There's lots of (quality) music released today that's released only on vinyl. DIY punk/noise, techno, electro and house, to name a few.

Personally (as a wannabe-DJ) I buy vinyl instead of CD (as a form of protest?), and preferably from small labels. And I've got a collection really old 7" artifacts and oddities. It's a big plus to get the tracks in mp3 (or ogg), for archival and sharing purposes (which I almost consider the same). After all, one day, you might not find a working turntable anymore...

Yes, I believe it's okay to share stuff that's limited to 500 pressings, sold out and almost impossible to find. There are actually labels that release their music on vinyl and free mp3 download.

The point of this post? Not really any, just wanted to let you know what this software might be used for.

What's this "ripping directly"

[mrselfdestrukt]

I don't understand your concept of ripping directly to PC. All my music I rip using a kareoke machine, 10 friends and a microphone and Windows recorder. The quality just never comes out the same as the original.
Wow.Your idea is phenomenal!

Re:Any other solutions for linux?

[admbws]

are there any linux MP3 players that let you adjust speed and pitch?

Yes, AlsaPlayer.

Re:Finally

[Lumpy]

I can get the Ethel Merman Disco Album and the Beatle Barkers Album

lightweight....

only a real audiophile has the holy grail of albums....

Leonard Nemoy's album... Nothing beat's hearing ol' spock ripping out "Proud Mary"...

analog

[vistic]

People will pay for what sounds the most comfortable to their ears.

People all have a certain type of music that sounds the best to their ears and is the most comfortable to listen to... likewise, people have a certain type of audio gear that is most comfortable.

For me, I prefer using my analog vacuum tube amp (an Antique Sound Labs MG-SI15DT with Svetlana KT88 power tubes and Electro-Harmonix 12AX7 preamp tubes... if you're interested). It sounds much different than my Sony receiver... anyone can tell there is a difference. However, whether or not it is better is a completely personal matter. To me it is better. Different tubes even will accentuate different parts of the music. Different speakers will produce different ranges differently.

As far as media goes... I'm fine playing back CDs and MP3s... I do have records (some are brand new), and they're fine and good... but to me the main benefit of records is just how enjoyable it is to take it out of the sleeve and gently place it down on the turntable... place the needle on the track you want... and watch it spin.

Great news for Jazz

[moc.tfosorcimgllib]

This is great news. Now we just need to get people with older record collections to rip them to MP3 so we can properly archive music before it's lost forever.
Just think of all the music produced in the 20's, 30's and 40's that was never remastered and released on CD. Big Band Swing, Jazz, Blue Grass, tons of music that still has a copyright on it (thank you disney), but the copyright owner doesn't want to keep current in their catalog (too expensive). Get this music out on Kazaa, and introduce yourself to a generation of music that is slowly being lost.

Re:Great news for Jazz

[Aetrix]

I agree - And old friend, has over 10,000 VERY unique albums dating back to the first pressings of vinyl. (He's been collecting AVIDLY since he was a child - he's in his 80s now.) Through him I learned that the first vinyl was actually pressed into the medium LIVE (Not drums of wax, actual vinyl). The artist would play, and that unique original recording would go onto the disk. If he wanted to make 10,000 albums to distribute, he would have to perform the song 10,000 times! There's albums of these types of albums that are worth $50 and others that are worth thousands of dollars - just because someone sneezed in the background, or the artist did something unique or original in that individual recording.

I highly agree in saving very old recordings. Frankly, I think they're much better than the "digitally remastered" versions (Read: Guido shot first).

Re:Great news for Jazz

[kstumpf]

Becaue CD production has gotten so cheap, a staggering amount of jazz is being remastered from the original recordings and reissued on CD lately. Alot of it hasn't been available since the original vinyl release. Even better, alot of previously unheard tunes (and alternate takes) are being included on reissues that were part of the original session but were eliminated due to space limitations of vinyl. I think reissues are alot more important than people ripping their home vinyl collections. Purchasing reissues supports jazz, and encourages more reissues.

ripvinyl

[woogieoogieboogie]

I have used this Rip Vinyl with much success on audio tapes and it works pretty much the same with lp's. You can also use EZ-CD Creator's SoundStream to record from cassette or lp.

ESIA suit to follow

[TheLoneGundam]

Notice: the Emotional State Institute of America intends to file suit against the developers of Gramofone, and against Slashdot, and any owners and/or users of such software, for copyright infringement. It is piracy to copy Limbic Property without paying for it. Limbic Property is every bit as protected by law as Intellectual Property. LP is the core of the nation's dating, contraceptive, wedding, divorce, boxing, mediation, and law industries. Allowing unfettered copying of LP will result in chaos, loss of jobs, loneliness, depression, anger, and violence. LP thieves should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the.... what? Not _that_ LP? Long-Playing? um.... never mind.

Compare...

[poptones]

Elvis Costello "Watchin' The Detectives" on LP vs. the same track (hell, that whole album) on CD.

There simply ain't no comparison; the album was recorded on an old 8 track in his garage before the record company made him "clean it up a bit for release." Then, when they made the CD, they "cleaned it up" even more (this time without any input at all from Elvis). It ain't even a close race - vinyl wins start to finish. In comparison to the album, listening to the CD is like trying to view the mona lisa through a shower door.

Not saying it's ALWAYS best (hell, I don't even buy CDs anymore - most of my collecion is HBR MP3 with a few APEs thrown in) but sometimes there's no other avenue. I rotate what few LPs I have left as wall art; try finding impLOG's "Holland Tunnel Dive" (Ooooh, what a ride...) on CD. Or Tex and the Horseheads. Or...

Re:Audiophiles : pedantic idiots

[alkali]

Offtopic, but can a native english speaker tell me why exactly semiconductor devices are also called "solid state" devices?

I am advised that it is because the electrons flow through solid material (as opposed to a vacuum tube) and there are no moving parts.

gramofile updates and automation

[C R Johnson]

There are updated versions of gramofile with new and improved filters available here.
my own project, xmcd2make abuses the make program to automate gramofile and the mundane and redundant file naming and encoding tasks using xmcd files from freedb.org.
There is a HOWTO as well

Longevity of analogue recordings

[Sporkinum]

Don't forget the golden record that was attached to the Voyager space probes. That puppy will be drifting through space for a long time. I don't know of any digital media that would last the millenia that the record would. Not that it would have anything at all to do with the current topic..

How informative...

[Kadagan AU]

what an article... since it may get slashdotted, here's the whole text as I saw it...

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: mysql_connect() in /home/misskim/public_html/linmagau.org/pnadodb/dri vers/adodb-mysql.inc.php on line 170

blind test

[zakezuke]

This is a bit off the topic... but only a touch.

Basicly I was getting annoyed at some audiophile dj friends of mine. Ones who will quote stats and specifics yet not really give you a decent answer to the question, "does this sound good".

What I did was I was demonstrating turn table vs CD. I actually had a few things that were made most recently, like pearl jam for example. What I did was I played the CD, and when I told them I was playing the vinyl, I secretly replaced the sound they usually hear with literaly what I filtered out of an entirely diffrent album. I call the track crack pop fizzle and hum.

And sure enough... I was told that the second play, with the added snap pop crackle and 60 cycle hum was indeed had a warmer feel to it, and was the superior recording.

Needless to say after revieling to them that it was a wave file with just vinyl noise, otherwise it was the same thing.

While I appricate a good audio file who can put terms too annoying aspects of my sound setup that I can't place my finger on... I have little tolerance for idiots who are making a judgement based on feeling. I'll be the first to agree that a CD's clean sound may sound artifical to ears who were raised listening to vinyl. So the solution for this market is clear, create a turntable noise generator and those few vinyl psuddo-elitists will be happy.

This is not to say that there are not people out there who trully have an ear to pickup the diffrences between analog and something sampled 44.1kHz. But should you be bothered with such folk, do your own blind test and see what happens.

Re:Audiophiles : pedantic idiots

[mysticgoat]

Offtopic, but can a native english speaker tell me why exactly semiconductor devices are also called "solid state" devices ?.

The term dates back to the 1960's when transistor radios were first developed. As the signal in a tube radio is processed from the radio spectrum to the audio output at the speaker, there are physical gaps within the tubes where the signal is transferred to radiant energy and sent across a vacuum that is a few millimeters wide. But in a "solid state" radio, the signal remains in solid materials-- wires, semiconductors, etc, for its entire processing.

At the time, the breakthrough of solid state technology was not seen as a matter of quality, but of reliability and portability. A portable tube radio required a car battery or portable generator, a case that would withstand the bumps of travel, spare tubes, and the tools and know-how to do tube replacements in the field. So a hundred pounds or more of delicate equipment to lug around, plus someone trained as the "radio operator". But a solid state transistor radio needed only a pocketful of nine volt batteries and a spare radio if you had to have back-up. Total weight less than a tenth of that of the tube option, and no special training required. Even fishermen in rowboats could now keep up with weather reports. It was a pretty big deal at the time.

I wouldn't say your query was off-topic. I think questions about the words used in a discussion are generally germane to that discussion.

Of course your inquiry did lead to this pedantic reply. But slashdot does no modding down for pedantry-baiting!

pedantically yours...

Dude... HEADPHONES!

[metamatic]

It's very worthwhile investing in good hi-fi equipment if you listen on headphones, as many (if not most) audiophiles do.

You certainly can get a worthwhile improvement from spending moderately serious amounts on equipment, but you're right in a way--the place to spend the money isn't always obvious, and a lot of expensive kit is wank that's beaten handily by stuff a fraction of the price.

For example, you can spend $1000 on a set of incredible audiophile speakers... or you can spend $300 on a pair of good headphones and a headphone amp. Unlike with speakers, you can put an audiophile headphone system in a shared apartment and not have to compromise. In fact, you can build a portable headphone listening setup that'll sound better than anything with speakers that you might plausibly set up in the communal living room.

Even cheap equipment can often be improved greatly by add-ons. I just upgraded to some Sennheisers for my Sony Walkman, and the difference is incredible. I have a better headphone amp on the way too...

Last time I auditioned CD players, one thing that surprised me was the amount of difference in sound quality in half a dozen big-name players at around the same price. If you're serious about sound quality, you really have to audition the stuff.

Re:Dude... HEADPHONES!

[SN74S181]

bzzzt! you said 'MP3' there.

Clippy

[leonbrooks]

I see you're overdriving your amplifier. Would you like me to
[ clip horribly ] [ clip mushily ] [ catch fire ] [ blow a filament ]

The soft clipping effect can be obtained in most amplifiers with a single FET and a few resistors - cunningly wired - per channel. In real valve amps with valve rectifiers in the PSU, the clipping was so soft it was almost compression. Adding the correct hum, noise and slow turn-on is harder. Power consumption and heat is just a matter of wiring thumping great resistors across the power rails. (-:

Re:Is Vinyl better than CD?

[sharph]

"A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's waveform. This means that no information is lost."

That is very wrong...

Audio is often transferred to a digital medium before being put on vinyl nowdays, and even then, before being cut into a master, the sound must be processed to prevent weird things from happening when you play/press the record.

Re:Is Vinyl better than CD?

[Toshito]

Actually, a lot of audiophile grade records are direct to disc. No digital step, no analog tape mixing... see: Direct to disc

Anyway, this article is a good way to show how the CD's resolution is quite limited, compared to the original analog waveform. And it shows that new digital format are much more closer to the original.

gramofile a real pain

[reptyle]

I have used gramofile successfully to record a number of albums of different varieties (Bach, blues, and the soundtrack to "Decline of Western Civilization," to name a few) and I can not recommend gramofile for everything; a swiss army knife for cd --> vinyl it is NOT. I think it's a good learning tool because it makes one with a geeky, tinker's mind examine the mechanics of filtering sound digitally. I far prefer to open two windows and use a horribly convoluted variation on SOX because it saves me the interim step of separating tracks -- alt-tab allows you to start one track and end another seamlessly.

I will concede this is a personal preference on my part, not a dogmatic technical point.

Cheap tiny headphone amp

[metamatic]

Funny you should ask...

I recently ordered the Xin Super Mini Amp with crossfeed. It arrived today, and I immediately tried it out with my pair of Sennheiser PXC250 noise-cancelling headphones (which, with noise cancelling off, act like a pair of PX200s. Source audio was a Sony MP3 CD Walkman with LAME-encoded MP3s, either --alt-preset standard or --r3mix.

OK, enough hardware details. Let's just say that about half an hour later, my wife wandered in to the front room to find out what I was doing still out there. The answer is that I was hearing musical details I had never heard before. The amp drives the headphones effortlessly. The crossover circuit effect is subtle, but it does indeed seem to give an open, spacious feeling to the sound, particularly on techno tracks where there's a lot of left-right fooling around.

The Sennheisers, by the way, are much better than the Bose noise cancelling headphones in sound quality, with the added advantage that they fold up and are significantly cheaper. HeadRoom rate them the best active noise cancellation headphones available as far as sound quality goes, and I can believe it--they're comparable to my regular home-listening Sennheisers. I considered some Etymotics, but experimenting with silicone earplugs left me uncomfortably sore; my ear canals seem to be rather shallow and narrow. So the Sennheisers are recommended too--but they do need a headphone amp. The Walkman can barely drive them without one.