Wow and flutter on recordings and TT's combined

[steve195527]

We are discussing percieved variation in pitch here-- wow and flutter and its impact on the music. Most of us can hear a quarter-tone difference in pitch, fewer of us can detect an eighth-tone or smaller difference without musical training. New students of violin and guitar, for example may have great difficulty tuning the instrument, especially as the pitch-increments get smaller, but more advanced musicians can easily hear them. This is why trained musicians do not need auto-tuners, they just listen for the correct pitch. I agree with Cafe Latte, small amounts of wow and flutter are clearly audible to me, although may be not to everyone. So regarding the original question, perhaps the threshold of detection for additive amounts of wow and flutter has less to do with theoretical or measured speed fluctuations and more with the individuals ability to hear it.

Its odd but most of the musicians I know don't really give a hoot about the quality of the equipment a piece of music is reproduced over:-from distortion or colouration wow and flutter etc,they are more concerned about how that music is played,in fact a couple of them use equipment most of us wouldn't give house room to

[cocoabaroque]

Trackside: great post! Now if we could just correlate the adaptive pitch measurements with rotational speed stability on an individual basis, we would have some answers

[cocoabaroque]

Steve: I've known many musicians, some were audiophiles, others were not. Those that practiced toured and performed alot did not have time to listen to records, but a few that didn't tour as much had more time to sit and listen-- and learn. Living the life of a pro musician is not easy! It's like an olympic athlete in some regards.

[Trackside]

We are discussing percieved variation in pitch here-- wow and flutter and its impact on the music. Most of us can hear a quarter-tone difference in pitch, fewer of us can detect an eighth-tone or smaller difference without musical training. New students of violin and guitar, for example may have great difficulty tuning the instrument, especially as the pitch-increments get smaller, but more advanced musicians can easily hear them. This is why trained musicians do not need auto-tuners, they just listen for the correct pitch. I agree with Cafe Latte, small amounts of wow and flutter are clearly audible to me, although may be not to everyone. So regarding the original question, perhaps the threshold of detection for additive amounts of wow and flutter has less to do with theoretical or measured speed fluctuations and more with the individuals ability to hear it.

Its odd but most of the musicians I know don't really give a hoot about the quality of the equipment a piece of music is reproduced over:-from distortion or colouration wow and flutter etc,they are more concerned about how that music is played,in fact a couple of them use equipment most of us wouldn't give house room to

Equally many audiophiles are clearly not interested in the quality of the musicianship nor the artistic merits of the music but are only interested in sound quality i.e how their equipment performs

[steve195527]

We are discussing percieved variation in pitch here-- wow and flutter and its impact on the music. Most of us can hear a quarter-tone difference in pitch, fewer of us can detect an eighth-tone or smaller difference without musical training. New students of violin and guitar, for example may have great difficulty tuning the instrument, especially as the pitch-increments get smaller, but more advanced musicians can easily hear them. This is why trained musicians do not need auto-tuners, they just listen for the correct pitch. I agree with Cafe Latte, small amounts of wow and flutter are clearly audible to me, although may be not to everyone. So regarding the original question, perhaps the threshold of detection for additive amounts of wow and flutter has less to do with theoretical or measured speed fluctuations and more with the individuals ability to hear it.

Its odd but most of the musicians I know don't really give a hoot about the quality of the equipment a piece of music is reproduced over:-from distortion or colouration wow and flutter etc,they are more concerned about how that music is played,in fact a couple of them use equipment most of us wouldn't give house room to

Equally many audiophiles are clearly not interested in the quality of the musicianship nor the artistic merits of the music but are only interested in sound quality i.e how their equipment performs

And that can lead to becoming neurotic!

[Ldg]

Now if we could just correlate the adaptive pitch measurements with rotational speed stability on an individual basis, we would have some answers

There's an excellent thread over on pinkfishmedia where one of the members wrote an app which draws a circular plot of TT speed stability on a once per revolution basis. It draws a sort of irregular circle, the radius changes according to instantaneous speed. It takes an FFT of a 4kHz test tone. It's very good, and has put many questions on this topic to bed for good IMO.

On the topic of how much variation is audible, a variation of about 1Hz at 500Hz is said to be just detectable by normal people as pitch variation or vibrato. That is about 1/30 of a semitone. Beyond that, speed variation also FM modulates all programme material to an extent, leading to a spectral fuzzing, and its debatable as to the detection threshold for that, but its said to be lower than pitch vibrato.

[Trackside]

http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/show ... hp?t=70027
It's a long thread - I may be away some time before I report back!

[flavio81]

Sorry but I don't believe in your theory of it masking wow however 'vibrato' is a known phenomena which some like in instruments and voices which may make the sound of a TT sweeter.

That's what a Rega dealer would say. I don't agree at all, to put it mildly.

[flavio81]

Returning to the original Topic:

Records are usually mastered from a copy of a copy of a copy of the master (which has been made using a previous tape recorder -- the multitrack).

Every of these generations introduce distortions to the sound. Tape machines can have a type of flutter called "scrape flutter". As far as i know, turntables in general are superior to tape machines in respect to speed smoothness.

when things like this are random, then adding together the phenomena usually results in a root 2 increase, and not the expected 2x increase.

I learn something new every day!!

[cats squirrel]

when things like this are random, then adding together the phenomena usually results in a root 2 increase, and not the expected 2x increase.

I learn something new every day!!

Hi Flavio, I learnt it at school, where the music teacher was telling us that two violins playing together would only sound 1.414 times as loud! Just as well, when you think of all those violins (1st and 2nds) in an orchestra!

[duficity]

I would agree that random wow from 4 different sources could align and reinforce each other at some random or even cyclic interval. that might be meaningful on test tones, but I dont see it as particularly troublesome on the music I listen to. Hell, most of the musicians I listen to have enough trouble just trying to hit the notes on a consistent basis ie old blues artists. And since there is little I can do about tap recorder wow or off center records, except get a nakamichi tx1000 turntable, I guess its not a big concern for me.
Does anyone else hear the wow at the end of side 2 of Dark side of the moon?

[Trackside]

Anyone taken that pitch sensitivity test yet?
Here is a thing - put the HFN test record on the sl-1200 mk2 which has several '300hz' test tones. Using the FFT frequency analyser in Adobe Audition and with the deck locked at 33.3 and the strobe stationary it's actually 303hz . Zooming in to the peak and it's cycling up and down between about 302 and 304 hz which is alarming until you see the headshell swinging in and out in rhythm to the wave peak on the screen - off center pressing - can't hear it as wow though. Stop watch out and 100 revolutions in exactly 120 seconds

[steve195527]

Anyone taken that pitch sensitivity test yet?
Here is a thing - put the HFN test record on the sl-1200 mk2 which has several '300hz' test tones. Using the FFT frequency analyser in Adobe Audition and with the deck locked at 33.3 and the strobe stationary it's actually 303hz . Zooming in to the peak and it's cycling up and down between about 302 and 304 hz which is alarming until you see the headshell swinging in and out in rhythm to the wave peak on the screen - off center pressing - can't hear it as wow though. Stop watch out and 100 revolutions in exactly 120 seconds

another thing that would give the same audible effect as speed variation is a mismatched arm cartridge resonating well below or on the record warp frequency,especially one with very low/poor damping,if you use an old type London the vertical and lateral resonances can be quite different so matching one to an arm cam be hit and miss at times!,there are too many variables in the playback chain to even consider how they could possibly interact with possible problems in the record making chain

[cocoabaroque]

Trackside: aa 300hz test tone is relatively low frequency. The human ear does not detect changes in pitch very well at lower frequencies. This is why it is MUCH harder to play very high notes in tune on the violin- trust me! The wow from a swaying tonearm, especially at the end of an LP would be quite audible at 10khz, or even 5khz-- or 2khz.

I tried the adaptive pitch test--its a great starting point. Using my low-fi PC setup, at 500hz, I could reliably differentiate two tones 1.05hz appart. I suspect good headphones would be helpful.