how do vinyl records work? How does the sound come through so clear?
In: Engineering
I tried to think of a good summary, but I wouldn’t do it justice. It’s a cool, complex process that’s easier explained by professionals: https://hub.yamaha.com/audio/vinyl/how-does-a-vinyl-record-make-sound/
I actually used to make copies of LPs from my own pressed blanks back in the day, had a Jerry rigged process with some flex tubing and everything haha. The science is neat, enjoy the read!
The sound waves are essentially stamped into the vinyl and reproduced when the needle follows the groove. From there it typically goes through an amp and you hear the result.
The original master record is engraved with the sound waves by a machine similar to the player, but the microphone feeds into the machine to carve the sound waves into it. Then the masters are used to make other metal records that are used to stamp the vinyl ones.
Edit: I’ll add a bit for the clarity of the sound. You are listening to a physical representation of the actual original sound wave. All kinds of things were done to it before to master the sound that can affect the quality, but if it’s all done to the proper standards, the resulting record will sound better than any digital copy could, if you play it on extraordinarily expensive equipment that prevents the record from wearing out with each play and faithfully reproduces the sound waves. Otherwise, the first time you play it will be nearly perfect, and it will degrade with each listen. The expensive stuff reads the grooves with a laser and uses analog circuitry to convert that into sound. You can actually get a best case scenario digital file out of a laser turntable on a new record, and crank up all the FLAC quality options. All that said, they still have their limitations, and won’t perfectly reproduce a live performance.
As the stylus moves in the grooves of the record it vibrates. As it does this it transfers these movements to two magnets in the cartridge. The movement of the magnets across wires generates an analog electrical signal that is sent to a pre-amplifer, amplifier, and finally a pair of loud speakers that convert that now amplified analog electrical signal into a audio signal.
If you’re wondering how we discovered how to record sound into groove. Technology connection has a [good video on it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vbyoZDQaIY).
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