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Now the dust has settled - the Karousel

Zombie said:
Mechanical engineering is a young discipline so further development is expected...
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Well, it has taken Linn quite some time to realize that three tiny screws might not be the best way to hold the bearing on. So they are now attaching it in the same way as Rega did, in the eighties! Let that sink in for a while...
 
guydarryl said:
And I have spent all these years believing that the Linn bearing was excellent, due in part to the precision engineering expertise of Castle engineering; live and learn I suppose.
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Let me try and a explain this from a mixing point of view and it illustrates how Linn hit sweet spot and were the dog's danglies until music production caught up with them. When people talk about "prat " what they really mean is "the preservation of the leading edge of notes without any smearing artefacts". When the Linn first hit the market analogue was king and tape's inherent problem is capturing transients, particularly large dynamic swings involving them. When people talk about analogue "warmth" the immediate assumption is it is related to the low mids and bass end and it isn't. it's actually the opposite, digital source merely give you a far more accurate representation of the top end and this "masks" the lower frequencies because of how our ears work and make it sound "cold" for want of a better term.

Remember how Linn/Naim used to big up the the LP12 as "the best way to hear a rimshot"? That was true because the Linn and Naim kit is "voiced" to add that sheen. That was a brilliant trick until mixing technology caught up and suddenly, what was once a boon turned into a bit of nightmare. Where the Linn/Naim kit had added a certain euphony to the sound that it benefited from, all of sudden, it was now seen to over emphasise those parts of the mix.A classic example of this would be Trevor Horn's mix for the Yes album 90125. It can sound , well let's say, "a tad shouty" on a Linn, as Horn had worked out how to capture huge transients without any smearing of them on tape. Thus, the voicing of the Linn moved from being a positive advantage, to a bit of an issue. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" on a LP12 with Linn arm and cartridge through a Naim amp into Linn Kans is probably listed under the United nations definitions of "torture and unusual practices".


One of the reasons so many early digital recording sound so bright is because, engineers with vast experience were still cranking 12-15 db of gain from 7khz upwards on pretty much every source on their desks as that was "learned practise". John Lennon used to insist of them driving the Abbey Road "bright boxes" with 12db+ of gain on his voice or he wouldn't be happy. Most people in the digital domain these days, initially often cut a fair bit of top end then reintroduce it later in the mixing chain so it's under their control. That's why cymbals were all but banned in the 80s, to achieve the level of transient attack and weight in a drum sound, you couldn't slam them , even using parallel techniques of compression without the cymbals totally dominating the sound. The answer, ...don't use cymbals. If you wish to ruin your ears go have a listen to the original CD release of Zeppelin 4 and the song "Rock N Roll", the cymbals....argh

Back to Rick Beato, he recently did a recreation of the acoustic guitar tone on "Ramble On||" and lo and behold Page, though owning a myriad of Martin acoustics used the 30 quid bolt on neck generic acoustic for what has become a "landmark tone". Why you ask? The answer is, in the context of 1969 recording, the cheap guitar sits exactly in the right frequencies whereas, the expensive and "better guitars" simply don't.

The upshot of this was, by 1984-85 Linn knew they had to change some components to remain on their perch or risk losing a generation of acolytes.
 
That's all very interesting, I'm not being sarcastic, it really is, but we all have records spanning decades. We don't listen to seventies records only on seventies turntables.

My experience is that a good turntable can play anything you plonk onto it and my LP12 was just as likely to get tripped up by a seventies recording as a modern one. I think this correlation between the record player and its ability to play only records of the same age is largly imagined.
 
Checking pics online the lower part of the Karousel bearing looks a larger diameter than the original and Cirkus bearings. I wonder how much room there is if it protrudes through the hole of a Valhalla board?
 
david ellwood said:
do you think that production today is better than it was in the 70’s?
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In certain genres yes without a doubt, they probably couldn't exist without today's technology. They are so reliant on the leading transient edge of virtually 80% of the mixes constituents they might never have fully formed as genres without digital. With my mixing hat on, I don't think I have heard anything in the past 20 years that sonically has floored me quite like the Kate Bush album Never Forever did the first time I heard it on the old fruitbox. Some of the Flying Lotus stuff is insanely well mixed, he's like the King Crimson/Robert Fripp of "Rap/Hip/Hop", takes it to places it really shouldn't be taken and makes it work.

If you're into rock the Kings X, the Dogman album from the mid 90s is a seriously well recorded album and I think for me, mixing reached a peak in the 90s and hasn't really quite found where to go since. I've never heard a folk, folk rock album i didn't think wouldn't sound better recorded at Sound Techniques in the late 60s early 70s. Sound Techniques, in effect, invented the modern mixing console as we know it. The list of albums and singles recorded there, is legion.

Some Flying Lotus...


Kings X title track from Dogman.. this really gives a system a good going over.
 
Firemoon, congratulations in two posts you’ve produced more statements that I fundamentally disagree with than any I’ve ever encountered on PFM. I haven’t the time to address them all but I’ll pick one.


FireMoon said:
When people talk about "prat " what they really mean is "the preservation of the leading edge of notes without any smearing artefacts".
Click to expand...

The idea that you know what other people mean when they discuss music is deluded and arrogant on a scale I find bewildering.

I suspect I’m the first to grasp this nettle and everyone else is just typing nothing, as they’re still dumbstruck at the density of misinformed technobabble presented.

Or maybe it’s just me?
 
david ellwood said:
Firemoon, congratulations in two posts you’ve produced more statements that I fundamentally disagree with than any I’ve ever encountered on PFM. I haven’t the time to address them all but I’ll pick one.




The idea that you know what other people mean when they discuss music is deluded and arrogant on a scale I find bewildering.

I suspect I’m the first to grasp this nettle and everyone else is just typing nothing, as they’re still dumbstruck at the density of misinformed technobabble presented.

Or maybe it’s just me?
Click to expand...
Oh God help me, I agree with David Ellwood!
 
FireMoon said:
Let me try and a explain this from a mixing point of view and it illustrates how Linn hit sweet spot and were the dog's danglies until music production caught up with them. When people talk about "prat " what they really mean is "the preservation of the leading edge of notes without any smearing artefacts". When the Linn first hit the market analogue was king and tape's inherent problem is capturing transients, particularly large dynamic swings involving them. When people talk about analogue "warmth" the immediate assumption is it is related to the low mids and bass end and it isn't. it's actually the opposite, digital source merely give you a far more accurate representation of the top end and this "masks" the lower frequencies because of how our ears work and make it sound "cold" for want of a better term.

Remember how Linn/Naim used to big up the the LP12 as "the best way to hear a rimshot"? That was true because the Linn and Naim kit is "voiced" to add that sheen. That was a brilliant trick until mixing technology caught up and suddenly, what was once a boon turned into a bit of nightmare. Where the Linn/Naim kit had added a certain euphony to the sound that it benefited from, all of sudden, it was now seen to over emphasise those parts of the mix.A classic example of this would be Trevor Horn's mix for the Yes album 90125. It can sound , well let's say, "a tad shouty" on a Linn, as Horn had worked out how to capture huge transients without any smearing of them on tape. Thus, the voicing of the Linn moved from being a positive advantage, to a bit of an issue. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" on a LP12 with Linn arm and cartridge through a Naim amp into Linn Kans is probably listed under the United nations definitions of "torture and unusual practices".


One of the reasons so many early digital recording sound so bright is because, engineers with vast experience were still cranking 12-15 db of gain from 7khz upwards on pretty much every source on their desks as that was "learned practise". John Lennon used to insist of them driving the Abbey Road "bright boxes" with 12db+ of gain on his voice or he wouldn't be happy. Most people in the digital domain these days, initially often cut a fair bit of top end then reintroduce it later in the mixing chain so it's under their control. That's why cymbals were all but banned in the 80s, to achieve the level of transient attack and weight in a drum sound, you couldn't slam them , even using parallel techniques of compression without the cymbals totally dominating the sound. The answer, ...don't use cymbals. If you wish to ruin your ears go have a listen to the original CD release of Zeppelin 4 and the song "Rock N Roll", the cymbals....argh

Back to Rick Beato, he recently did a recreation of the acoustic guitar tone on "Ramble On||" and lo and behold Page, though owning a myriad of Martin acoustics used the 30 quid bolt on neck generic acoustic for what has become a "landmark tone". Why you ask? The answer is, in the context of 1969 recording, the cheap guitar sits exactly in the right frequencies whereas, the expensive and "better guitars" simply don't.

The upshot of this was, by 1984-85 Linn knew they had to change some components to remain on their perch or risk losing a generation of acolytes.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the explanation, I am just stumbling a bit in how Linn (unable to make a decent bearing according to some) have the technical/engineering expertise to "voice" their deck and arm to add enhance/emphasise parts of the mix.
Would it have been done with lots of listening tests/trial and error, or was it just luck?
 
I totally agree with firemoon in his assessment of the linn naim sound and how it fell out of favour as music production moved on and why they changed the house sound as a result.

Olive naim gear is just an effects box, a nice effect, but far from accurate. But people are want to like whatever they desire.
 
david ellwood said:
Firemoon, congratulations in two posts you’ve produced more statements that I fundamentally disagree with than any I’ve ever encountered on PFM. I haven’t the time to address them all but I’ll pick one.




The idea that you know what other people mean when they discuss music is deluded and arrogant on a scale I find bewildering.

I suspect I’m the first to grasp this nettle and everyone else is just typing nothing, as they’re still dumbstruck at the density of misinformed technobabble presented.

Or maybe it’s just me?
Click to expand...

Yes, it's just you, science doesn't give a hoot about your ignorance of the reality of recorded music and its various replay mediums.
 
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