Vinyl Noise Reduction
Here’s the first of what I *hope* will be three videos I intend to upload early to Patreon this week before my break. It’s a review of a device that claims to reduce crackles and surface noise from records.
I can almost smell the “why not use CDs instead?” comments already.
This will likely not be the next public video - it’s just the one I finished first. I plan for the next video to skip ahead of it in the queue, but there’s a bit of work still left to do on that one.
One limitation with videos on YouTube is that only ‘private’ videos can be scheduled for a future timed release. An ‘unlisted’ video like can’t be scheduled. However conversely a private video can’t be posted on Patreon. Therefore my plan is to make two uploads of each video. One for Patreon and one scheduled for the public. I want to mention this as any comments posted under this one will only ever be seen by fellow Patrons.
With any luck there's going to be another video along for Patrons in a day or so. You might want to ration these as otherwise there's going to be a bit of a gap before anything new appears.
Comments (61)
Very niche - it's a pity they didn't include a switchable phono pre-amp option (slide switch on the back perhaps) - most standalone amps with an insert facility affect every input, not just phono.. Personally, I actually like the thump & crackling of vinyl and if I want to recover an old disc there are some killer plugins for Audacity can do that. Scratches should actually be the easiest thing to remove once digitized - you only need to look at the audio envelope and know how fast the record is spinning. I suppose it's ironic that there are DAW plug-ins now designed to add scratches & crackles back into clean mixes..
Is it correct that if you let all the ads play out in a video it’s more money for you ?
I’m really not 100% sure…however it takes thousands of views to make anything, so I wouldn’t bother about it…unless you’ve got thousands of friends you can convince to do the same.
Late to the game here, but I wonder if the De-crackle potentiometer is wired backwards, so just past off is maximum decrackle. It would make sense what you observed going from "mid" to "max".
I'd say the chance of that is zero, or slightly less.
I had my own idea for vinyl noise reduction. A Raspberry Pi placed inline after the phono preamp, running a Shazam style app that recognizes the music on the vinyl record once you start playing it, and seamlessly switches to Tidal playback of the same album. You still get to enjoy the glorious inconvenience of having to get up and change the record -- which makes you discover deep tracks -- but with perfect sound quality :)
That sounds like a money maker. It reminds me of my business idea to deliver blank paper via fax - fifty sheets…no problem, just make sure your paper tray is full before ordering.
Would recording both the signal into the device and the signal out and doing the invert-and-add trick show anything of interest? Enjoy your holiday.
It’d show noise and clicks - but I don’t think it would be of interest - it’d be like showing the dirty bucket of water after washing a car - it doesn’t help you determine whether the car is now fully clean.
Speaking of which, I saw a vintage underwater video camera kit at the thrift store the other day. It had weights on it to make it sink, and the camera was attached by a very long cable (probably 50 feet) to a small black & white CRT monitor.
That 78 would sound a lot better if you played it with a 3 mil wide groove stylus -- most of the noise you're hearing is from the smaller microgroove stylus scraping along the bottom of the groove where all the dust and dirt has collected. And did you check if the VNRS has any noticeable effect on tape hiss? Its greatest impact is on the low frequencies, but I think I heard it reducing some of the hiss on the Trimicron record, too, so it might be useful for playing tapes, too. (Or, in fact, tape recordings of crackly records!)
If I had one I’d have done it - but this is the only 78rpm capable turntable I own with a line out. I’d normally never use anything this rubbish, but it’s all I had. However an overly noisy playback of a record is exactly what was needed to try and demonstrate a noise reduction system. As for any other experiments they’ll have to wait. I’m just trying to get a few basic videos knocked out in a short period of time so I can go on holiday. I’m still contemplating whether I should ‘fall’ overboard.
I wasn’t going to say “Why not use CDs?”, I was going to say “Why use physical media when you can stream everything?” 🤣
The Beethoven (damn you Napoleon) was actually the best demo since it didn’t drown out the crackles. Only on the highest setting and intensity could I hear a real difference BUT the music suffered as well. So yeah… use a CD! 😁
Surprised we didn’t hear a demo of the silent test disc with it in action. Were you worried about a content match with 4’33” by John Cage?
The visual made more sense - most people wouldn’t hear anything of note.
Thanks for this - if there were some device that could rid my turntable of the low level hum, I'd be all over it. I've tried all of the typical suggested remedies (ground wire, adjust cartridge cables, etc), none of which seem to help. Regardless - have a great break!
I had similar low level hum with my turntable and then I found Pro-Ject did a different power supply to solve it. If your deck is a Pro-Ject look for the "High Power it" power supply, it worked for me.
The true vinylphiles will call heresy at it converting vinyl's "pure analog sound" to digital to perform the noise reduction. But Pioneer was doing that 25 years ago in their cassette decks with Digital NR, and besides, most vinyl made since the early 1980s has been digitally recorded and/or digitally mastered to begin with, so that horse already left the gate decades ago!
Yes and any re-releases of classic albums have gone through a digital process somewhere along the lines. It’d be crazy (and probably impossible) to try and master a new record straight from a 1960s tape.
Love my Pro-ject record player, but this thing is definitely not going to go with it, it didn't impress me... The most impressive improvement regarding noise and crackles was ... to replace my old Philips plastic record player with the Pro-ject with elliptical needle!
Objective testing in the Vinyl hi-fi space - brave as Sir Humphrey might put it :-). Hope you both have a great holiday.
Another video that again confirms just how good that Sound Burger sounds...
I don't *need* a Sound Burger, but I'd still seriously consider buying myself one if/when Audio Technica start making them again.
Many years ago I spent a long time building an analogue device to do the same job from a Practical Electronics article. It kind of worked, but the trigger level for every disk seemed to be slightly different, which was maddening. I think it went in the “one that got away” pile.
A bit of Googling informs me it was Electronics Today International in 1979!
I don't want to say the prevelance of all these products you review that clearly do nothing, indicate that vinyl elitists are somewhat easily manipulated by snake oil salesman but... Well I don't know how else to end this comment.
How about “No surprise there?”
I was initially excited to see this device from a well-known, reputable hi-fi equipment company, but I guess ‘disappointed but not surprised’ was my reaction to the results. Could you tell if powering the device on introduced any noticeable lag between the input and output? If the device actually worked a delay really wouldn’t matter, so long as it was left on or off for the entire track being played. Thanks as always for a great video!
Speaking of future silence due to content matching.. you know situations like these where you’re unable to publush a video publicly on YouTube due to content matching may be a good perk for Patreon membership.. have a Patreon only version that may include longer samples or even music which may otherwise trigger YouTube content matches.. as you get the bit of revenue from your Patreon to cover those views, meanwhile have the cut down version for the general public. Maybe something that you couldn’t even mention as a perk for joining patron.
As an audio archivist who has worked on thousands of vintage audio recordings for a while, I can tell you straight away that virtually all noise reduction hardware (and software) out there for consumer market are pretty useless. They rely on a very simple bandwidth reduction technique (that was around since the early 1970s) that only reduces the intensity of certain frequencies, and when it comes to clicks and pops, they simply remove them from the signal without making any compensation out of it. The only effective real-time unit that will eliminate clicks and pops and crackles in real time are the CEDAR units, which has been the industrial/archival standard since the late 1980s. However, the technologies behind it are heavily guarded with patents and copyrights, and most CEDAR units cost at least $12,000 (USD) or so even for the base model, so they are definitely not "consumer" options. However, it DOES work quite effectively. If you are kind enough to provide some audio sample for the Trimicron disc, I think I can actually try to put that audio in my CEDAR unit and will get back to you with the results to show how effective it is. I noticed that the Numark machine seems to have been equipped with the regular microgroove stylus, which would be too small for playing 78rpm discs. They will sound even worse on those ASCH discs you used, which are notorious among the restoration engineers for using a blunt recording styli. Anyway, interesting video for sure and please keep up the good work!
Interesting what you said at the end about the rumble reduction being a plausible use-case. Up until that point, I had a hard time trying to imagine who this machine would actually be made for, even if it did work. I'm not sure there are very many people out there who, A: have a big enough collection of super messed-up records that such a device would be both effective and cheaper than just replacing the records, or B: are very particular about surface noise BUT wouldn't mind the fact that you're putting your vinyl through a digital stage. Rumble reduction for direct-drive turntables does seem like a decent use-case, though. I've got a couple of AT LP-120s that I play all my records on, and one of them does have a decent bit of rumble, especially at 78rpm. It doesn't bother me that much, but I can imagine it getting on some people's nerves to the point that they'd want a device like this to get rid of it. I certainly won't be buying one, but at the same time, it doesn't seem like it's on the "total snake oil" level of the CD shaver or gold-plated cables, which is what I originally assumed it was.
After seeing this and watching your BTS video of the Marantz "scratch remover" I've got to wonder if the people who made these things (not to mention the things like CD shavers and demagnetizers) could get away with it. Did they know they didn't work and didn't care or perhaps they designed them with the notion that the devices would work in theory, but no one bothered to test them to find out whether or not they actually worked in practice. Maybe they did test them, but the only measurable improvement in sound quality was so minuscule that it could only be detected by their test equipment--if the customer couldn't tell the difference, well, that's their problem.
Haven't watched the video yet but I just want to take a moment to thank you for your continued transparency. Not just now on the nuances of YouTube and Patreon but on your channel overall for years.
Going through my regular eBay saved searches this evening, saw this - do you still need a scratchy crackly record? 😆 https://www.ebay.com/itm/404020266051
If you really want a way to listen to vinyl without rumble and crackle, why not get one of those laser turntables? g/d/r
…my pointless boring tedious cruise sounds really good right now. ;-)
Also the dbx snr-1 for a vintage take on the same idea
I would like to see you review the sugarcube
If I ever find a cheap one I’ll give it a go.
Very intrigued as to why YouTube's automatically generated subtitles thought it heard "Peppa Pig" at 11:09 when the record is playing!
and just consider that this is the same tech they think can drive your car…
why not use CDs instead? I'll tell you why: you should use md's instead, to get that crisp yet harsh compression codec cutoff sound on your music, it really brings out the 90's vibe! :_)
I rip my vinyl to 24 bit 96khz flac, compress it to 128kbps MP3, burn it to CD, and then record that CD onto cassette tape with my $40 RCA combo player so I can listen to it in my 1996 Buick LeSabre with 2 blown speakers. Which tape? Dollar store Type 0 of course.
Been there. dbx & SAE had several units decades ago that were single-ended analog devices that did a superior job to the device you demo'd. By the way - you can use a computer today to get superior results as well. BTW: Crackle & hiss removal are fairly easy to do with software and a programmer who knows what they're doing. The device your demo'd really is a pile of trash. In history: https://www.ebay.com/itm/185672483021
Been there - done that https://youtu.be/NR42w0VF7E8
I don't mind some of the Pro-Ject stuff but I didn't have much faith in this device. The only success I've had with restoring vinyl was with Audacity, painstakingly flattening out the pops and crackles manually. Kind of therapeutic in a way.
Based on how many underwhelming new devices I’ve bought and tested that are subsequently assumed to be ‘faulty’ I must be the world’s most unlucky individual. Perhaps it’s time I contact Guiness to inform them about by anti-Midas abilities. The tech cooler.
Interesting. I just got a Nakamichi demo LP encoded with High-Com II. After one of the previous videos. But I love these comparison videos! Simple and effective!
I think I've got a Hi-Com II decoder somewhere - but no discs. If I ever get around to making a video perhaps I could borrow your disc?
It would have been interesting to run Audacity filters on the first minute of the audio you showed (the audio not affected by the box you were showing). i.e. showing what non-realtime software filtering could do to improve the sound vs. realtime.
I really need a holiday - more than anything else in the world - if this video dies on its arse and crashes and burns - that'll be 100% fine with me.
Very interesting. Taking it to excess (or maybe a follow up video). Play the record directly into the PMC recorder (or a Minidisc). Then play digital file through the device with and without de-crackle, recording each to the PCM again. Then compare the two files (like with the CD shaver) to see exactly the difference. You couldn't do this comparing the analogue source (with and without de-crackle) due to wow and flutter.
I enjoyed another listen to your Superman Aerobics Show N Tell 45! The unit is much smaller than I expected based on the thumbnail. I'm recently more accustomed to proper-sized rack mount stereo receiver decks when size scale isn't evident. When you showed the box I was thrown a bit. 😁 'It's agnostic.' I like that turn of phrase. On the 78, I could hear the harshness of the instruments settle down after you initially activated the device. On the other hand, you lose some of the finer nuances of the music. May I ask, what is that Numark machine you have there? Video tie-in to the Marantz machine you mentioned - if anyone else hasn't yet seen it: Marantz Scratch Reducer BTS Patreon Only Video: https://youtu.be/NR42w0VF7E8 I don't think it'll be possible for me to ration your videos.
I couldn't even find that Marantz video myself - I assumed I'd deleted it. The Numark is the PT-01 - not a quality device. I believe some people spend a lot of time to upgrade these - for me that would involve putting it in a bin. However it's the only record player I own that has a line out and is capable of playing 78s...so it finally earned its keep.
Enjoy your break!
It's not possible to ration Techmoan videos, they have to be watched as soon as they come out. Have a good holiday!
Yep, binge it, and go cold turkey later. Mind you, TM Vids are one of a very few things I'll watch repeats of.
Take as long as you need, any content is worth us watching
Why not just use CDs instead!!1!!1!??? On a more serious note it does highlight some of the nonsense around vinyl, there's all these accoutrements that serve no purpose but to try and make a vinyl record sound more like a CD. Obviously some people who have some crusty old vinyl and cannot bring themselves to buy the CD might benefit but i'm sure they could buy a whole chunk of CDs for the same price as one of these. The target market is clearly the same as the one for gold plated optical cables. However much like the CD shaver it's an interesting thing for an interesting video.
Just FYI, there are many many records with no CD equivalent.