What Ics to use on a Neve V series ?

[Newmarket]

I never heard of LFUS so searched it.... Sounds like some variant on loudness compensation ( a very old concept but made new again for digital crunching) .

I have a couple patents for simultaneous LED display of Peak and VU (average). The slower average is more representative of loudness than peak.

Sorry about the veer, this is a pretty mature topic.

JR

It's actually LUFS. In "everyday use" it's often used by streaming platforms - Tidal, Spotify etc - to implement subjective level control. If not bypassed.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

You are watching audio on a meter. Precision has nothing to do with it.

Why watch when you can listen?
Precision is necessary for various reasons.
I don't need a VU-meter to tell me how loud is the signal.
For consistency of apparent level, as necessary in mastering, broacast or streaming, there are much better tools.
A VU meter doesn't make the difference between 200Hz and 8kHz in terms of perceived loudness.

 

[Gold]

Why watch when you can listen?
Precision is necessary for various reasons.
I don't need a VU-meter to tell me how loud is the signal.
For consistency of apparent level, as necessary in mastering, broacast or streaming, there are much better tools.
A VU meter doesn't make the difference between 200Hz and 8kHz in terms of perceived moudness.

LUFS beats the pants off a VU meter for loudness. There were quite a few years, 35 maybe, between widespread adoption of PCM recording and the development of LUFS. IN the intervening years a VU meter was as good as it got. I am in a unique situation, dealing with lacquer mastering, where a VU meter is more useful than a LUFS meter for understanding what is going on.

 

[kags]

B.S. The K-Weighting is a simple level shift for headroom. The equivalent of deciding whether your reference level is -20dBfs or -14dBfs. It's pretty useless IMO. It knows nothing about crest factor, RMS level over time or how to ignore outlier values. All the things that make LUFS sophisticated and useful.

I think we're speaking about K target levels vs the K-weighted filter. I agree about target levels regarding desired headroom being somewhat "whatever," but frequency-sensitivity is key to LUFS doing its thing. Here are some references:

https://www.soundonsound.com/glossary/k-weighting

 

[Gold]

Ahh. I wasn’t aware he put his name on a weighting filter.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

I am in a unique situation, dealing with lacquer mastering, where a VU meter is more useful than a LUFS meter for understanding what is going on.

I agree, as I mentioned earlier that VU-meters were serendipitiously adequate for tape recording; I should have added "AND for lacquer mastering".
Neuman recognized the need for peak-meters when they systematically included a taut-ribbon reflective "lichtmeter" in all their tenders, at least in Europe.
A LU-meter is not very adequate for controlling peak level, though, which is still an unavoidable issue.

 

[Gold]

Neuman recognized the need for peak-meters when they systematically included a taut-ribbon reflective "lichtmeter" in all their tenders, at least in Europe.

The light beam and later plasma PPM’s were included in all Neumann mastering consoles I believe German broadcast standards have always been defined by peak level. Neumann has two calibration procedures in the VMS70 manual. One using PPM meters and +6dBm as a reference level for Germany and another using VU meters and +4dBm reference level.

That doesn’t mean a PPM is more useful for cutting actual audio. I have VU meters and an RTW plasma PPM. I’d take the VU meter over the PPM if I had to give one up.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Well, each one his own.
In the course of my usual activities, recording, mixing, mastering, live sound, VU-meters are just indicators of signal presence.
I remember well people trying to record claves and wondering why they farted out without even approaching 0VU.
VU meters are adequate for setting up equipment though.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Well it's actually LUFS. Dyslexic. A boatload of money was spent on R&D for it. It is the de facto level standard for broadcast. It has been adopted by everyone. AES, EBU, SMPTE. The development was a hot topic and all over the AES journals. Surprised you haven't run across it.

I haven't read the AES journal for decades...

I was aware of Bob Katz's work with weighted metering.

JR

 

[kags]

Well, each one his own.
In the course of my usual activities, recording, mixing, mastering, live sound, VU-meters are just indicators of signal presence.
I remember well people trying to record claves and wondering why they farted out without even approaching 0VU.
VU meters are adequate for setting up equipment though.

The first time I was running a session on tape, I couldnt figure out why a triangle showing a level near 0 VU played back with barely a puff of sound ;-). I was given a scolding and a copy the AudioCyclopedia by the chief engineer. Never made that mistake again!

 

[Gold]

The VU meter was never meant as an accurate LEVEL meter. It says it in the name. VOLUME UNITS. It was tuned by eye/ear, by NBC broadcast to indicate loudness most specifically on voice. The 300ms integration time is a feature, not a bug.

It also happens that on analog recording mediums like tape or disk, brief clipping is of virtually no consequence. Things like transmitter over modulation wasn’t defined by PPM’s in the US for that reason.

 

[xarolium]

Great to read all your answer, it teaches me lot of thing on my futur Neve VR mods/update. I started recapping and fixing channels and like every Neve V serie owner i'm faced to Dialistat switches issue. The price of those switches on the market is huge and lot of them or not NOS but take on broken modules.
My goal is to re manufacture the switch by a Chinese Manufacturer. I would like to know if some of you has documentation or datasheet on Dialistat switches.
Would any of you be interested on channel switches kit ?

 

[abbey road d enfer]

In another thread, someone mentioned a solution. IIRC it means replacing the switch with a relay.

EDIT: actually two solutions. See post #22 and 31 in
https://groupdiy.com/threads/isostat-and-dialistat-switches-neve-and-ssl-desks.76682/

 

[TomCee]

As an ex Neve employee of the 70s I call that fighting talk. Yes maybe your EIN at max gain was a few dB better than Neve but at normal operating gains I bet there was nothing between them. OK so your max output is 28dBu compared to Neve's 26dBu. Definitely not a deal breaker and certainly not "streets ahead".


Ditto



Cheers

Ian

Ian:

Thank you for your response. A 'fight' is certainly not the point here - simply recalling specifications - AND actual measurements. A few dB of ein and a couple dB of peak output add up to several (about 5) dB of more dynamic range - which is the bottom line.

As I recall - and this can be measured - we (both ADM and Neve) measured ein the same way - same source impedance and bandwidth. The signal-to-noise ratio was maintained at all operation gains. The ein was a measurement of worst case. Peak output was measured with the same terminations.

Regards,
TomC

 

[JohnRoberts]

Ian:

Thank you for your response. A 'fight' is certainly not the point here - simply recalling specifications - AND actual measurements. A few dB of ein and a couple dB of peak output add up to several (about 5) dB of more dynamic range - which is the bottom line.

As I recall - and this can be measured - we (both ADM and Neve) measured ein the same way - same source impedance and bandwidth. The signal-to-noise ratio was maintained at all operation gains. The ein was a measurement of worst case. Peak output was measured with the same terminations.

Regards,
TomC

5 dB more dynamic range is a good on paper beat. I would generally dismiss the extra output level as unnecessary (can't say I've ever heard someone wishing for more output level) while API made marketing hay with their 40V rails and discrete circuitry back in the day.

EIN is a respectable metric to improve but many well executed designs were already bumping up against theoretical noise limits. A dB less of input noise might be audible in a shorted input WFO listen, but unlikely to make a serious difference in real world recording in the context of microphone noise and ambient room noise. When you get down below say 2dB NF a dB of improvement can get pretty expensive.

Next comes preserving this near theoretical noise floor when summing together tens of channels. Good practice, virtual earth summing amp structures generally suffer a N+1 noise gain. We didn't have modern uber op amps back in those days so this was an area for investing design effort.

I wrote a magazine article back in 1980 http://www.johnhroberts.com/des_art_1.pdf "Performance limits in contemporary console design". I feel like I need to apologize in advance, I spelled bus wrong over half a century ago, and the contemporary also refers to SKUs from 50+ years ago.

JR

 

[ruffrecords]

Ian:

Thank you for your response. A 'fight' is certainly not the point here - simply recalling specifications - AND actual measurements. A few dB of ein and a couple dB of peak output add up to several (about 5) dB of more dynamic range - which is the bottom line.

I disagree. The bottom line is, is the dynamic range of ADM "way ahead of Neve" (your words) under normal operating conditions. I think there is nothing to choose between them.

Cheers

Ian

 

[radardoug]

Ian:

Thank you for your response. A 'fight' is certainly not the point here - simply recalling specifications - AND actual measurements. A few dB of ein and a couple dB of peak output add up to several (about 5) dB of more dynamic range - which is the bottom line.

As I recall - and this can be measured - we (both ADM and Neve) measured ein the same way - same source impedance and bandwidth. The signal-to-noise ratio was maintained at all operation gains. The ein was a measurement of worst case. Peak output was measured with the same terminations.

Regards,
TomC

Actually as you vary the gain on a Neve preamp, the signal to noise DOES vary. And I would think it would also change on an ADM. The ein stays roughly the same.

 

[TomCee]

I disagree. The bottom line is, is the dynamic range of ADM "way ahead of Neve" (your words) under normal operating conditions. I think there is nothing to choose between them.

Cheers

Ian

Thank you Ian.

 

[TomCee]

5 dB more dynamic range is a good on paper beat. I would generally dismiss the extra output level as unnecessary (can't say I've ever heard someone wishing for more output level) while API made marketing hay with their 40V rails and discrete circuitry back in the day.

EIN is a respectable metric to improve but many well executed designs were already bumping up against theoretical noise limits. A dB less of input noise might be audible in a shorted input WFO listen, but unlikely to make a serious difference in real world recording in the context of microphone noise and ambient room noise. When you get down below say 2dB NF a dB of improvement can get pretty expensive.

Next comes preserving this near theoretical noise floor when summing together tens of channels. Good practice, virtual earth summing amp structures generally suffer a N+1 noise gain. We didn't have modern uber op amps back in those days so this was an area for investing design effort.

I wrote a magazine article back in 1980 http://www.johnhroberts.com/des_art_1.pdf "Performance limits in contemporary console design". I feel like I need to apologize in advance, I spelled bus wrong over half a century ago, and the contemporary also refers to SKUs from 50+ years ago.

JR

Hi John:

Good to hear from you - I do recall your article back in the day. A very thorough analysis.

The ads in that issue/time brought back great memories of Valley People/Allison Research/Paul Buff. I helped design a number of Valley People VCAs in a digitally controlled analog audio console at Harris Broadcast Products back in 1979.

Regards,
TomC

 

[abbey road d enfer]

I helped design a number of Valley People VCAs in a digitally controlled analog audio console at Harris Broadcast Products back in 1979.

Many mixer manufacturers went down this rabbit hole. I guess it was a financial debacle for most of them.
I was somewhat involved in the design of Soundcraft's take on the subject, which never saw the light of day.
I wonder how many of these hybrid mixers remain in existence today...