[Leporello]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Comrade Penguin I'd be rather intrested in reading that article.

See http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/ba...x_testing2.htm


Regards,

L.

 

[hciman77]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leporello See http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/ba...x_testing2.htm Regards, L.

Thanks - I never know where to find things these days - old age I guess

Jim

 

[sgrossklass]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yikes Over the past couple of years the single greatest perk of my job is that I have been able to listen to the original session master tapes of many of the Living Stereo recordings that have been re-issued by BMG. I also have been able to actively compare the original CD issue to the Tape-DCS A/D - DCS D/A output and then the SACD-DCS D/A. First the original CD sounds like crap, even when compared with the CD layer of the new SACD releases. Second and more importantly the DSD when decoded by a world class D/A is all but indistinguishable from the master tape.

This was to be hoped. I guess the original CD was mastered back in the '80s? Back then, common problems in A/D converters were high jitter levels, junky opamp based analog stages (Walt Jung et.al. had yet to come along), and the ADCs themselves weren't that great either. (Same applies to old CD players.) I don't know about accuracy in mastering/mixing, but I wouldn't be too surprised when this had been plain 16 bit with no dithering in the olden days. (Listening to the old 1985 issue of the Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms", the sound is rather thin and lacking quite a bit of warmth. Same goes for Roxette's 1987 "Look Sharp!".) Now, 20 years later, we have top-class 24 bit ADCs with good implementations, and software has become a touch better, too. What would be interesting to know now is how much the CD layer on the SACDs has been processed apart from the usual final dithering/noise shaping to make it a fair comparison. (There have been cases of this being noticeably different, mostly inferior sounding to the SACD part, apparently due to dynamic compression.)

 

[Ferbose]

In this thread, Bob Katz said that CD has surpassed LP years ago:
http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showt...highlight=katz

If we talk about recording medium, I have not heard any well-regarded reocrding engineer saying that digital master sounds better than analog tapes or vice versa. The famous engineers seem to work with both. Even right now, Bob Katz still thinks it is cheaper to get good sound by mastering in the analog domain rather than digital.

 

[flibottf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot When I do a straight transfer of an LP to CD, it sounds exactly like the record. If there's a difference between analogue and digital, it isn't bits and bytes you're hearing... it's the choices of the mastering engineer. See ya Steve

This exactly how I feel about both. I love the sounds of vinyls, and recording em to digital keeps that fuzziness i love from vinyls... But I thinks it's hard for most of us to stay objective anyway.

 

[bigshot]

The noise floor of an LP is plenty low enough for normal listening levels. The S/N and THD are plenty good too. Most of the improvements (aside from convenience and lack of wear and generation loss) of the CD format are beyond the range of normal listening. Both CDs and LPs are high fidelity formats.

See ya
Steve