AntiCurrent Audio Archives Vol. 15: Waite Hoyt- In the Rain

This is the fifteenth edition of the "AntiCurrent.com Archives", a collection of rare or bootleg-albums I'm releasing through this blog. Click here to view all past AntiCurrent.com Archive Albums.

My Love of Baseball

I root for The Cincinnati Reds, but I’m not a “sports guy” by any means. I grew up in Middletown, Ohio and my uncle Bill would quite often take me out the ballpark to catch games whenever he was in town. It was there that I developed my love of baseball despite not regularly following the sport. Rather than keeping up with the latest developments in the game, I spent my youth sitting in front of my Grandmother’s TV and recorded old replays of The Big Red Machine on VHS tapes.

I value the history, the magic, and the old timey-ness of the game. As a pre-teen, I'd make my Mother drive me to Reds fan-conventions where I met every single member of The Big Red Machine (save for Pete Rose). I even have a baseball signed by the entire 1976 team. Other than shaking Johnny Bench's hand and feeling as if he was a giant, the one standout moment of these conventions was meeting The BRM's manager, Sparky Anderson. Though well into his 60's, the dirty old man's libido was seemingly unfazed as he asked my mother out to a "steak dinner" in front of me.* 

*I once told this story to my baseball loving friend Andrew and now have a Sparky Anderson bobble-head to commemorate the time the white-haired old man tried to have sex with my mother. Thanks Andrew...

Love of The Cincinnati Reds was the one thing my PTSD’d Grandfather and I had in common. Thus, he gave me his copy of "The Best of Waite Hoyt: In the Rain". Several times, we actually sat down together and listened to the album on the self-amplified turntable I had gotten after my school had discarded it. Those times huddled around the record player were as close to a bonding moment I ever had with him (outside of blowing up random toys with black powder) and I’ll always prize this vinyl for that very reason. But that wasn’t my only familial connection to The Reds.

My ancestor Edd Roush played for the team from 1916 to 1926, he even coached the team during the 1931 season. Though I’d like to say he’s famous for his amazing fielding, he’s a Roush and we’re a rather anti-authoritarian family. Legend goes that on June 8^th, 1920 there was a disagreement going on between the managers and the umpires. The argument went on for so long in fact, that Edd decided to take a nap in center field. Either he was incredibly comfortable or incredibly obstinate, because the Umpires could not awake him when play resumed and he was kicked out for delaying the game.

Waite Hoyt

For 24 years, Waite Hoyt was the voice of The Cincinnati Reds. Beyond being a legendary storyteller, the man was best known for calling games in the past tense. Rather than stating “here’s the pitch” he would say “there was the pitch”. He felt this was more accurate, quite correctly explaining, "…as I speak to you, what happened a moment ago is gone." Though he was a recovered alcoholic, he had a strong loyalty to one of The Reds main sponsors, Burger Beer. The man had such a fixed moral compass that after the team replaced Burger Beer with Wiedemann, he chose to instead retire rather than promote a new beer as he thought his credibility may be tainted. In 2007, he, Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall were honored by The Reds with replica microphones hung under the radio booth at The Great American Ball Park.

Note: The documentary Waite’s World features interviews with Nick Clooney, Joe Nuxhall, and more. A copy can be purchased here and a stream of it on YouTube is available here.

This Release

As you can tell, my Grandfather didn’t keep this vinyl in immaculate shape, but it is entirely listenable audio and is likely the best this record will sound without a professional machine cleaning. I dusted off any loose debree, soaked this vinyl with cleaner, scrubbed it clean, and used a wet-dry vacuum to remove the grit and dirt from years of abuse. I ripped this on my Pro-Ject USB turntable into Audacity, capturing at 16bit and normalizing it after. Next I took a sample of the surface noise and removed it from the entire project. Afterwards, I ran a de-clicker and de-popper to remove more noise. I then exported this into 16bit FLAC files and 320mbps MP3’s.

I’ve kept this album as two full sides because though it is segregated track by track on the vinyl, there is no tracklist on the album art. This wasn’t meant to be experienced one track at a time, this was meant to be experienced as a whole.

Download the ZIP file here

16Bit VS 24Bit Audio Comparison, & Our Bigger Issues To Worry About

16Bit Vs 24Bit Music:

The Pono, a handheld 24Bit Music Player

A lot of noise is being made about high-quality, high-def audio recordings and whether or not the huge file sizes associated with them are worth the headache or not (for a detailed breakdown of Analog VS Digitally encoded music and the filetypes associated with them, click on this past blog from me). Recently, Neil Young has finally unveiled his consumer friendly 24Bit media playback device named the "Pono" and has reignited the debate about quality VS efficiency in music distribution, but can the consumer actually hear the difference? Well, I'm here to let you find out yourself and afterwards I'll show you why the entire debate is pointless when compared to an even bigger problem in the music industry.

Young promoting the Pono on Letterman

The primary question at play in this debate is can the human ear actually differentiate between CD quality 16Bit audio and "High Def" 24Bit? Well, the answer according to a double blind study is no. However artists such as Neil Young, Bobby Weir, and Flea wholeheartedly disagree. Audiophiles prefer the analog medium of vinyl, but for reasons I'll get into in a moment, even a lot of them don't care about the 16vs24 debate.

So, science says one thing, artists say another and although both have valid opinions and reasoning, what it will come down to is one thing:

"Can YOU hear a difference?"

The Test:

I'll save my opinions until after the test, but before we get there it is important for you to understand the limitations of the system you are listening on. If for instance you are operating a computer/device that plays back in 16Bits, then listening to the 24Bit stream is meaningless as your computer/device is downsampling them to 16. Also, make sure that you have the FLAC codec installed in your system or you cannot listen to it, I recommend downloading VLC.

For this test I sampled 30 seconds of multiple versions of Metallica's "No Leaf Clover" from a vinyl recording of their live album "S&M". I chose this track and section for several reasons. First, sonically it displays both strings and orchestral music via the San Francisco Symphony alongside heavy guitars, drums, and singing. This gives the listener an all around "view" of what both loud and soft music sounds like. Secondly, I chose Metallica because I believe they won't ask me to take the music down (I mean, its 30 seconds of a song). Plus, I'm pretty sure Metallica has had enough of giving their fans shit about their music digitized ;-)

 

24Bit HD Version:

24Bit/96Khz Version of No Leaf Clover

16Bit HD Version

16Bit/96Khz Version of No Leaf Clover

16Bit CD Rated Khz Version:

16Bit/44.1Khz Version of No Leaf Clover

Hear the difference? Personally I cannot. I have listened to it on Sony 7506 Headphones (industry standard), my DIY HiFi Tube Preamp surround system, and through standard shitty speakers. Although my systems sounded totally different, the quality between the versions did not. So even if there is a difference there, it is minimal at best.

So why would I call this a Red Herring????

The Real Problem: The Loudness Wars

These all sound amazing because they were ripped from the vinyl copy, NOT from a CD. Yes, technically CD's do have a higher potential dynamic-range (Dynamic-Range is the range of acceptable or possible volumes of sound occurring in the course of a piece of music) than vinyl, but the record-industry is embattled in what is known as the "Loudness Wars".

Dynamic Range Comparison of CD VS Vinyl

Every record label wants their music to be louder than the competitors, therefore CD plants compress their music, resulting in making the recording sound louder. Unfortunately, the downside result of this is less dynamic range meaning that there is less of a difference between quiet and loud sounds. Whispers are no longer as quiet and yells are no longer as aggressive... better yet, think of it this way:

Imagine that a song is a roller-coaster that is designed to have climbs to increase tension, and then descents to electrify you. Compressing a song effectively limits the entire emotional breadth of the experience by turning the peaks and valleys into a much flatter surface while maintaining speed. Thus, the differences between loud and quiet sounds are greatly eliminated.

Due to the physical constraints on vinyl, compression is not possible. This results in the consumer hearing the proper version of the song, not what the record labels want to drown you out with. Amungst many other things, this adds depth and clarity to the entire song.

To give you an example, let's compare the CD ripped at CD quality FLAC, to the Vinyl ripped at the same Bitrate, but with the higher Khz allowed by FLAC compression.

Notice no level peaks

Notice the peaking levels

16Bit CD Version:

16Bit/44.1 CD Rip of No Leaf Clover

16Bit Vinyl Version

16Bit/96Khz Vinyl Rip of No Leaf Clover

Now to me personally I can hear a night and day difference between those two. If you can too, then perhaps ripping your own music is for you...

You Can Fight This (If You Really Care To):

Most people don't care to take good sound this far, if you don't, skip this section. If you do, read on.

Unfortunately this loss of quality due to the unscrupulousness of the record industry effects anything you download or purchase that is not a physical copy. To be repeated, this not only effects your CD collection, but almost every MP3 that you have ever downloaded from a store. But do not take this as my bashing MP3's. MP3's can be good quality when ripped at 320Kbps from your own source material. So how do you do this?

$500 Pro-ject Debut Carbon With USB

Well, it's not easy and requires money to do it from scratch. It requires purchasing a damn decent turntable/needle combination with a USB output or a 24Bit soundcapture device (M-Box) for your computer, recording the source signal and then outputting it to your preferred filetype and size. Or you can download an already ripped version of the album via torrent...

I AM NOT A LAWYER, but if you own an album, you ARE allowed to rip your own version of it. Therefore you ARE allowed to own a digital rip of a vinyl if you own the vinyl, and seeing as there is an ever growing online community of people doing exactly that, it is easy to find high quality ripped downloads of music that people have already made. Downloading music you own IS a legal grey-area, but one that I am comfortable living in if someone has already done the leg work for me. Simply import your audio file into a program such as Audacity and choose yourself whether you are comfortable with 16Bit, 24Bit, or even MP3 quality.

To reiterate: I AM NOT CONDONING THE DOWNLOAD OF MUSIC YOU DO NOT OWN. But I PERSONALLY am OK downloading albums I already own, regardless of whether it is legal or not.

And for you to choose your own option wisely, on top of the already provided examples of audio, here are some examples to compare and contrast of No Leaf Clover ripped from both CD and Vinyl to a MP3 format.

If you enjoy vinyl, buy this damn set. It's genius.

320Kbps MP3 From Vinyl Version

320Kbps MP3 From CD Version

192Kbps MP3 From Vinyl Version

192Kbps MP3 From CD Version

96Kbps MP3 From Vinyl Version

96Kbps MP3 From CD Version

In Conclusion:

Does 16Bit or 24Bit matter? Well, you now have a way to decide for yourself. Personally to me, it doesn't make a huge difference, but the one thing that I CANNOT and WILL NOT tolerate is over compression of music due to the greed of a corporation. If you're lucky or privileged enough to even concern yourself with this subject, then you should be worried about over-compression first, and which high bitrate works for you second.

Between the two bitrates, I choose 24. Why? Because with how cheap hard drive space is becoming, I have the room to deal with it. Can I tell the difference? Not really, but one day I may own a $20,000 system where I can and for now, it doesn't put me out to collect in the highest possible quality. But in this choice, I am fully OK with admitting that it is complete overkill for the amount of difference gained.

So to hell with the scientists, to hell with the artists, listen here and "choose wisely".

DIY Hi-Fi On a $300 Budget

I've recently gotten back into vinyl in a big bad way. Yes, I have always bought records throughout the years, but recently after doing research on the benefits on not having to deal with the over-compression plaguing CD's these days (known as the "loudness wars"), I've decided to only buy vinyl if and when available. Now, does that mean that many new albums produced today are not directly taken from the CD? Of course not, but it will always at least be on par with the CD quality and in most circumstances the over-compression stems from post-audio-engineer and takes place in the CD duplication factory. That means that 95% of the time, even if an album was recorded digitally, if the engineer is worth his salt, the vinyl will still be more listenable. Also, I personally just prefer to have a more substantial physical product to hold and study at the end of the day.

I work alot in the field of audio, so when I get time off, I want the biggest bang for my buck when it comes to creating the best sound possible from any given album. The problem with this is that a true Hi-Fi system can run you upwards of $20,000 depending on how much of an audiophile you are. Although I do want the best sound possible, I have limitations to what I am willing to spend to hear an album (you could get a car for the price of some systems after-all). This led me to piecing together my new setup from scratch which although the sound may suffer just a tad, it's basically unnoticeable to anyone except the best trained ears.

Hi-Fi systems can be broken down into this: The Needle, The Turntable, The Preamp, The Receiver, The Speakers. In the purchase of each of these, I was determined to get the biggest bang for my money possible. Some of these deals I had to hunt down, but most are readily available for anyone to purchase.

The Needle & Turntable:
With a bit of research, I found THE introductory model of turntable. It is the Audio-Technica LP60. For under $100 it is THE best deal on the market, however it's stylus (needle) and belt are a bit lacking for quality. This is best remedied by a company named LP Gear who sell a $99.95 LP60 that comes with a new diamond tipped needle and carbon fiber belt. The only downside of this model may become apparent when hitting the last few songs of a side of an album. As the needle gets further away from the outside, the downward pressure is greater. Too much downward pressure creates distortion and is bad for your LP's. This is fixed on most systems by adjusting the counter-balance of the needle-arm, however this introductory model does not have a counter-balance and must either be returned to the factory if the problem arises, or, you can follow my quick tutorial HERE to learn how to do a DIY counterbalance.

The Preamp:
The LP60 comes with a built in line-level preamp that is of decent quality, however the biggest piece of a HiFi system is the placement of a tube preamp in front of the receiver. After researching tube amps for weeks, I came upon the "Little Bear P-3". This is a DIY kit that comes with every piece you need to assemble you're own tube preamp. It is Chinese in origin, but the build quality is very solid. Communicating to the seller is occasionally hard to near impossible as English isn't even their 3rd language (pretty sure they just run everything into Google Translate) but they are easy to work with and very appreciative of your business. I had a problem with the left channel output of mine and they immediately sent me a replacement board for free. It takes just a bit of "balls" to assemble this as you are working with a transformer after-all, but just assemble it with common-sense in mind and look at the pictures on the site to mimic it's wiring and you're gold. The thing is quiet, has zero unwanted noise, looks beautiful when plugged in, and sounds absolutely amazing. I would recommend purchasing an in-line power cutoff so that you don't have to unplug/replug the system every time you wish to use it. The only downside is that the stock Chinese tubes aren't the highest quality, but that is easily fixed with a few quick, cheap purchases from The Tube Store

The Receiver & Speakers:

Honestly, this may be a point of contention to any audiophiles reading this article. For the price, it is my opinion that you should go with one of the cheaper "all-in-one" surround sound systems on the market. You cannot beat the price of these and they open you up to other uses aside from just the turntable. I would never buy one of these new however and used is another bad bet, but I purchased my "open-box" system for $125 and it had an MSRP of over $400. Just get last year's display model and purchase the optional 5-year insurance policy and you've made a solid bet. Personally after hunting 3 Best-Buys in the area, I purchased this one. Just make sure that the reciever has an "RCA In" option and you're good to go. The bad thing about these cheap systems is that they jack up the watts by using inferior 3OHM speakers (smaller OHM = Bigger Watts). This is easily remedied by purchasing good quality 8OHM speakers that can handle the amp load... which I have yet to do.


So that's it! I spent under $300 and assembled my own DIY HiFi Setup. My plan is now to upgrade one bit at a time to achieve my perfect setup. First up will be the speakers, followed by a well-reviewed receiver, but for the time being, this setup sounds amazing and is on par with systems I've seen costing around $1200!