[KeithPhantom]

I went looking for a "direct DSD" recording back when I was doing my tests on SACD vs CD. I found a few on the Pentatone label. There aren't many of them because all the recording and mixing has to be done live on the fly since the DSD stream isn't able to be modified without converting to PCM. It doesn't matter though, because direct DSD doesn't sound any different to human ears than 16/44.1 PCM.

You can always record and mix in the analog domain if having "pure DSD" is your goal. It won't be purely digital though...

 

[bigshot]

Kind of defeats the purpose.

 

[Davesrose]

I have a friend who works in music licensing. He worked on building the library for the company of the files that would be licensed out. For legacy titles on analog recordings, it can be a royal pain to pull the masters and make a transfer. A CD is all signed off on and approved by definition. I remember hearing him saying that they were ripping CDs to PCM for a lot of older material. Stuff that was produced digitally probably does exist as a mastered digital file, but the older stuff wasn't always archived in that form. Also, just because a company has the rights to license a recording, it doesn't mean that they possess the physical master for it.

It doesn't really matter though because you can take a mastered 16/44.1 PCM file used in CD replication and rip a 16/44.1 PCM file ripped off the CD and they will be identical. The format doesn't matter.

But are there many studios that archive their album with a consumer pressing of the CD? I'm just wondering that it may not be that archival, as there has been some notorious batches of plants not maintaining standards and having discs that are susceptible to CD rot.

I'm not familiar with the audio industry, but I do think it's interesting what TV broadcast and film industries have done for archiving. Older TV shows might have been filmed on 35mm film, and if there's demand for a HDTV master, they can go back to that stock. Before the realization of home distribution, TV studios wouldn't have an archive. Some of the oldest episodes of Dr Who have survived because people have found original 16mm films in an attic (which BBC sent for international distribution that was supposed to be destroyed after broadcast). Star Trek Next Gen was popular enough for the studio to go back to all film elements for a new digital edit with the HD mastering (that during broadcast were just scanned to video and edited in analog SD). Likewise, for film restorations, its been quite a few years that a company will scan 35mm film to 4K and 70mm film to 8K. They do their color correcting, de-specking, etc. Then they've had a 4K master in a digital format, and they still print the final edit to new film stock. They've spent the money and effort, so they want to be safe in having the digital backup and analog. To also get back to Star Trek NG, it did have some shots that had early computer graphics. They used 3D software that's now considered primitive and very hard to try to get running on a modern computer (similar also to early video codecs older folks might remember). For those, shots....especially being in HD and modern standards, it was easier to just recreate in new software.

 

[bigshot]

But are there many studios that archive their album with a consumer pressing of the CD? I'm just wondering that it may not be that archival, as there has been some notorious batches of plants not maintaining standards and having discs that are susceptible to CD rot.

Well the fella I know says that their archive is PCM files on a server. I would guess they have multiple cloud backups too. But they had to source some of the music they licensed from CDs because the masters weren't available. The example he mentioned to me was a country musician who had a career that spanned over fifty years and multiple record labels. They received master files on some of his catalog, but they had the rights to license music from his entire career, so they had to source some material from commercial CDs. I believe Universal Music had to do something similar after a fire destroyed some of their vaults. A lot of music was archived there in all kinds of different formats... whatever format was standard at the time. All it took was one bad backlot fire and it was all gone.

Yeah, there is a huge push to digitize as much old film as possible. The most problematic are the shows shot on videotape, and the ones that were shot on film and finished on tape. It can be hard to pull all the elements together again to rebuild a show from the film elements. The thing about studio archives is that they are very practical. They don't pay to do any work that isn't directly profitable. That means a lot of stuff falls through the cracks. It can take sleuthing to put it all back together again. Sometimes bits only survive in work prints. And often when shows are reformatted, the original film elements get cut up and the trims are lost. It's not always as organized as one might hope.

 

[Davesrose]

Well the fella I know says that their archive is PCM files on a server. I would guess they have multiple cloud backups too. But they had to source some of the music they licensed from CDs because the masters weren't available. The example he mentioned to me was a country musician who had a career that spanned over fifty years and multiple record labels. They received master files on some of his catalog, but they had the rights to license music from his entire career, so they had to source some material from commercial CDs. I believe Universal Music had to do something similar after a fire destroyed some of their vaults. A lot of music was archived there in all kinds of different formats... whatever format was standard at the time. All it took was one bad backlot fire and it was all gone.

Yeah, there is a huge push to digitize as much old film as possible. The most problematic are the shows shot on videotape, and the ones that were shot on film and finished on tape. It can be hard to pull all the elements together again to rebuild a show from the film elements. The thing about studio archives is that they are very practical. They don't pay to do any work that isn't directly profitable. That means a lot of stuff falls through the cracks. It can take sleuthing to put it all back together again. Sometimes bits only survive in work prints. And often when shows are reformatted, the original film elements get cut up and the trims are lost. It's not always as organized as one might hope.

Yeah, one thing I've gathered is that archiving for distribution to home media is very piecemeal. Many of the oldest films have been lost because they were using highly flammable nitrate film emulsions. When it comes to music studios, it would make sense that they have a priority for the most popular albums being archived in a WAV format in redundant storage. Assume for the smaller catalogues, if it's from CD, it's still a master pressing vs the mass produced runs.

For awhile, Warner Bros had stopped commercial printing of their classic movies, and you'd order directly from them for a DVD-R! Now with streaming, it's a heyday for distribution of older catalogues. You have the older movies that had been restored for blu-ray now making it to original 4K (with possibly more edits for an Atmos/DTS:X mix). The earliest digitally filmed movies don't have as much an upgrade since they might have been filmed DV without HDR.

I have seen the workflows from ILM when it comes to VFX. What you're mentioning about sleuthing studio archives is exactly what they did for the Star Trek NG remasters. Even though the initial output was just going to be NTSC, and with tight deadlines they edited on analog consoles, ILM was involved with the special effects. ILM already had a standard for filming the Star Trek movies, and applied the same workflow for the series. They had many passes filmed in VistaVision (higher resolving power film than standard 35mm cinema standards). The stage shots were done in Super-35mm. Then all these film elements were scanned to video for editing. For the blu-rays, they went back to finding all film elements. It was a lot of work finding some of the original elements, but the outcome is pretty spectacular (the VFX still holds up). This compared to the original Star Trek series, where they were able to do quite a bit of clean up and color grading of the stage shots. The VFX didn't hold up as well since they did shoot and print to academy film (which the quality difference wasn't seen in 60s analog TV). For that mastering then, they had 3D artists re-imagine all the special effects.

 

[Brahmsian]

1)The first paragraph just says they add a data fork to tag the music. That is nothing special at all.

2) First of all, there is no such thing as a "native DSD" master. You can't mix in "native DSD". It has to be bumped to PCM to do that, and each song is a separate project file. Until an album is mastered, the songs aren't in sequential order and the levels and EQ aren't all matched to play through as an album.

3) There is absolutely no audible difference between a 24/96 mastered album and a 16/44.1 bounce down to a CD, so the file on the optical CD is audibly identical to the mastered file. If music is poorly mastered, that has nothing to do with how early in the process it is. Digital has no generation loss. This whole paragraph is made up.

4) If you then take that rip and put it in a DSD file, it's just going to be a massively large file that sounds exactly the same as the CD and the 24/96 master. It doesn't matter what file format it is.

1) NativeDSD claims to have a custom procedure that involves ”extra work” to ensure the most accurate metadata possible. They mostly host classical music labels, and I think they realize that there’s a problem with how that metadata is handled by other services, which basically treat it like pop music. So their boast about metadata might be aimed at classical music listeners who see how the big download sites and streaming services fail to treat that metadata with the extra care it deserves.

2) They make a distinction between the DSD Edit Master and an SACD Cutting Master, and then again between the ”deliverable release DSD” and the ”DXD edited master itself.” Whether or not it’s all a distinction without a difference is another matter.

3) I’m going off what the guy I quoted above said. You’re saying that a master recording will always be just as compressed as the final commercial release? There is never a version of the recording with less compression?

4) Not only are DSD files massive, a single recording can easily cost you $40 and up. Some people will pay that and more because it’s multi-channel. If you’re happy buying the redbook version, great. Let others spend their money as they please.

 

[Davesrose]

1) NativeDSD claims to have a custom procedure that involves ”extra work” to ensure the most accurate metadata possible. They mostly host classical music labels, and I think they realize that there’s a problem with how that metadata is handled by other services, which basically treat it like pop music. So their boast about metadata might be aimed at classical music listeners who see how the big download sites and streaming services fail to treat that metadata with the extra care it deserves.

2) They make a distinction between the DSD Edit Master and an SACD Cutting Master, and then again between the ”deliverable release DSD” and the ”DXD edited master itself.” Whether or not it’s all a distinction without a difference is another matter.

3) I’m going off what the guy I quoted above said. You’re saying that a master recording will always be just as compressed as the final commercial release? There is never a version of the recording with less compression?

4) Not only are DSD files massive, a single recording can easily cost you $40 and up. Some people will pay that and more because it’s multi-channel. If you’re happy buying the redbook version, great. Let others spend their money as they please.

I would think that blu-ray concerts are more popular for the surround sound marketing aspect (I personally really like them for hi-fi sound and visual as well). I did invest in SACD and a good quality stereo player in the last decade (since then have an Oppo BD player that can output SACD multi-channel track). With the analog outputs, I still prefer my stereo SACD player (sounds a bit warmer and I'm sure due to coloration). When Sony was marketing DSD for studio production, classical albums were certainly the most popular followed by jazz (and some rock that was literally just PCM mixed to surround). Many of my SACDs aren't hybrids, so if I'd want to digitize I'd have to find some hack. Why bother, I'll just enjoy those titles and will see about options if and when I can't have SACD playback. SA-CD.net had been pretty comprehensive about those classical recordings that were DSD. Looks like SACD might have officially died in 2015. SA-CD.net

 

[castleofargh]

1) NativeDSD claims to have a custom procedure that involves ”extra work” to ensure the most accurate metadata possible. They mostly host classical music labels, and I think they realize that there’s a problem with how that metadata is handled by other services, which basically treat it like pop music. So their boast about metadata might be aimed at classical music listeners who see how the big download sites and streaming services fail to treat that metadata with the extra care it deserves.

2) They make a distinction between the DSD Edit Master and an SACD Cutting Master, and then again between the ”deliverable release DSD” and the ”DXD edited master itself.” Whether or not it’s all a distinction without a difference is another matter.

3) I’m going off what the guy I quoted above said. You’re saying that a master recording will always be just as compressed as the final commercial release? There is never a version of the recording with less compression?

4) Not only are DSD files massive, a single recording can easily cost you $40 and up. Some people will pay that and more because it’s multi-channel. If you’re happy buying the redbook version, great. Let others spend their money as they please.

I like that they don't try to pretend that DXD is DSD. It's a weird amalgam I've seen a few times and it bothers me. It's completely irrelevant in term of fidelity as both PCM and DSD can do better than what we can hear, and DXD is the super overkill big brother in that respect, but I do like honesty.

 

[bigshot]

You’re saying that a master recording will always be just as compressed as the final commercial release? There is never a version of the recording with less compression?

There could be a *different* mastering created for a different purpose that has different engineering, but that isn't an "earlier master", it's just a different master. And engineering has nothing to do with format. There's really no reason to take a recording made with PCM and transcode it to DSD for consumers. It's just a great big giant bag wrapped around the exact same candy bar. I think that whole thing was just sales pitch. Every streaming service does pretty much the same thing as that. And all the file types they discuss all sound the same to human ears... as would plain vanilla PCM 16/44.1.

Multi channel is different. That is actually something different than other streaming services can deliver. They should be talking about how the multichannel recordings are made instead of the way they tag and format the files. There are much more efficient ways to distribute multichannel than as DSD files.

Davesrose, I've noticed that classical has shifted more to live concerts on blu-ray too. I guess it just gives them one more medium to license it to. Now that I think of it, I've bought many more blu-rays and DVDs than SACDs in the past couple of years. I like the fact that you just put an SACD in and it plays like a CD with no menu screen. But everything has a bunch of extra options and content now that SACD doesn't support.

 

[Brahmsian]

I like that they don't try to pretend that DXD is DSD. It's a weird amalgam I've seen a few times and it bothers me. It's completed irrelevant in term of fidelity as both PCM and DSD can do better than what we can hear, and DXD is the super overkill big brother in that respect, but I do like honesty.

They do however point out that there are ways to edit in DSD and avoid converting to DXD except for crossfades. I think Channel Classics is one of the labels that do that. This is probably a phenomenon that is mostly limited to acoustic music.

 

[theaudiologist1]

Are audiophile music players like poweramp, neutron and audirvana just placebo snakeoil? At least when it comes to phones since Android/iOS only samples at 48kHz? I feel like I've wasted $4.

 

[dazzerfong]

Are audiophile music players like poweramp, neutron and audirvana just placebo snakeoil? At least when it comes to phones since Android/iOS only samples at 48kHz? I feel like I've wasted $4.

Not really, at least for Poweramp. Poweramp has its own audio engine that allows for a much more precise EQ. Also allows access to direct volume control, which makes the EQ changes go more extreme with less distortion. But, if everything's turned off, is it better? Nope. EXCEPT when dealing with USB DACs: native Android has terrible support for USB DACs in general which is really only resolved by using something like USB Audio Player.

Poweramp at least can support hi-res output without resampling, for what it's worth.

I personally bought Poweramp like 8 odd years ago because the Sony default player wasn't great, forgot about it, then only came back to it out of curiosity. Gotta say, looks very good now.

 

[bigshot]

Are audiophile music players like poweramp, neutron and audirvana just placebo snakeoil? At least when it comes to phones since Android/iOS only samples at 48kHz? I feel like I've wasted $4.

I can only speak for Audivana. I tried it to play multichannel music files and it was very temperamental. It skipped and had trouble. Plex played the same files smoothly.

 

[SennheiserNoob]

All I know is that in those blind online tests, I haven't been able to differentiate

 

[Sonic Defender]

All I know is that in those blind online tests, I haven't been able to differentiate

Of course not, nobody can if they're being honest.