Post by Ear March 1, 2006 (1 of 8)
|
|
Hello everybody. I hope this has not been asked befor.
I am fairly new to this and so the follwing question came to my mind:
If I have a CD that claimes to be remastered at 20 or even 24 Bit does this mean it plays at this rate as well?
I have a Van Morrison CD and a Gil Evans CD wich both say this, the GE even on the CD itself(20 Bit super). What would be the KHZ in this case?
And what about DSD recored CD's like the Star Wars Soundtracks. They claim to be remastered with DSD but off course they cannot play it since they are not SACD. What is the advantage of it then?
Thank you so much
Ear
|
|
|
Post by zeus March 1, 2006 (2 of 8)
|
|
Ear said:
If I have a CD that claimes to be remastered at 20 or even 24 Bit does this mean it plays at this rate as well?
All CDs are 16bit/44.1kHz ... otherwise they wouldn't play in people's CD players! The advantage of higher bit depth/rate for recording/remastering (as I understand it) is more headroom (allowance for losses in mixing/mastering). The final result is then downsampled for CD. Nobody today is going to remaster at 16-bit so really these claims are just marketing. I'm not sure what the advantage of DSD mastering for CD of PCM sources is, other than it permits use of SBM for the downsampling.
PS. I should add that "HDCD" supports higher bit depths by hiding a few bits in the data stream. This requires players with supporting chips to detect and decode the signal. None of my players do.
|
|
|
Post by Ear March 1, 2006 (3 of 8)
|
|
Ah, Ok thank you!
They do indeed sound better then others.
Do you know by any chance the usual rate of mastering (new recordings) nowadays?
PS SBM is Super Bit Mapping, or am I mistaken (sorry I have to get used to the terms yet :-) )
PS HDCD : non of mine either. It seems to be deader then DVD Audio anyway. XRCD seems to be the new version of it and you do not even need extra hardware as far as I know. But they are very very expensive.
And since I have a SACD player they are not very interesting for me since most of the issues have released as SACD anyway. And the others on DVD with very good sound like Hell Freezes Over from the Eagles. Great sound!
|
|
|
Post by Claude March 1, 2006 (4 of 8)
|
|
20 or 24bit remastering alone offers little improvement compared to 16bit, because the bitrate used is just one of the smaller factors of good remastering sound. If 24bit remasters sound better than the previous 16bit remaster, it is not only due to the new A/D converter technology, but mainly to better tape copies (if the master tapes aren't available), more careful transfer and better choices in remastering (noise reduction, equalizing, etc).
The number of excellent recordings and remasters from the 80's and early 90's shows what can be achieved with 16bit technology. To fully compare 16bit and 24bit remastering, one would have to listen to CDs using the two technologies mastered at the same sessions, to eliminate the other factors.
XRCD is not a new CD technology (unlike HDCD), it's a 16bit CD with very careful remastering by JVC. The choice of the name "XRCD" is an excellent marketing decision, because people think it's more than a regular CD.
|
|
|
Post by Ear March 1, 2006 (5 of 8)
|
|
Claude said:
20 or 24bit remastering alone offers little improvement compared to 16bit, because the bitrate used is just one of the smaller factors of good remastering sound. If 24bit remasters sound better than the previous 16bit remaster, it is not only due to the new A/D converter technology, but mainly to better tape copies (if the master tapes aren't available), more careful transfer and better choices in remastering (noise reduction, equalizing, etc).
The number of excellent recordings and remasters from the 80's and early 90's shows what can be achieved with 16bit technology. To fully compare 16bit and 24bit remastering, one would have to listen to CDs using the two technologies mastered at the same sessions, to eliminate the other factors.
XRCD is not a new CD technology (unlike HDCD), it's a 16bit CD with very careful remastering by JVC. The choice of the name "XRCD" is an excellent marketing decision, because people think it's more than a regular CD.
Thank you.
And Good to know that about XRCD! With prices over 34 Dollars a piece this is very worth knowing, even though I never considered buying them.
|
|
|
Post by zenbret March 3, 2006 (6 of 8)
|
|
I have a DVD-A player that has a HDCD decoder. It is slightly better. I think CD's suck- I can only listen to them for about 1/2 hour, then they drive me crazy. Why they are still around is only inertia, the sound is way obsolete. If you listen to Donald Fagen The NightFly you can hear what was recorded in 80's PCM code (probably 16 bit 48K or 44.1K resolution) but upsampled or otherwise extrapolated mathematically for 24 bit depth. The 24 bit depth even if still only 44.1 thousand pulses ( as in Pulse Code Modulation) per second is much better. Put on his Kamakiriad DVD-A on a DVD-A player and you can hear 24 bit depth with 96 thousand pulses per second-big sound improvement. Put on Steely Dan's new DVD-A Everything Must Go on the Stereo mix and hear 24 bit depth in 192 thousand pulses per second (also must have DVD-A player). Every one has marked improvement in sound. But the weakest link is the weakest link- if that is a bad transfer, so be it, but if it is old PCM code it is still limiting. Steely Dan (Becker & Fagen) went back to recording in Analogue for the last one. DSD is single bit information- so the resolution is way fast- 2.8 million times a second. The multi bit PCM is supposedly better for accurate waveforms per sound engineers. DSD loses on the high end, but is great for lower frequencies. There is also a lot of ultra high frequency noise I read. SACD sounds fast and accurate, but a little thin. PCM is not as detailed and accurate but has a fatter and warmer sound, not near as acoustical but ok for electronic music. One day someone will combine these for a great sounding digital source. Another example of 80's PCM code is Rudy Van Gelder's remastered SACD of Joe Henderson's Lush Life- it was recorded back them digitally. It does sound pretty good anyway.
|
|
|
Post by Johnno March 7, 2006 (7 of 8)
|
|
Claude said:
20 or 24bit remastering alone offers little improvement compared to 16bit, because the bitrate used is just one of the smaller factors of good remastering sound. If 24bit remasters sound better than the previous 16bit remaster, it is not only due to the new A/D converter technology, but mainly to better tape copies (if the master tapes aren't available), more careful transfer and better choices in remastering (noise reduction, equalizing, etc).
The number of excellent recordings and remasters from the 80's and early 90's shows what can be achieved with 16bit technology. To fully compare 16bit and 24bit remastering, one would have to listen to CDs using the two technologies mastered at the same sessions, to eliminate the other factors.
XRCD is not a new CD technology (unlike HDCD), it's a 16bit CD with very careful remastering by JVC. The choice of the name "XRCD" is an excellent marketing decision, because people think it's more than a regular CD.
I've just purchased the latest reissue of the Beecham "Faust" symphony on a Gemini 2-disc set (coupled wih more Beecham Liszt and Silvestri conducting a couple of the symphonic poems as well)and could hardly believe how much better the "Faust" sounds to the previous reissue that came out in the early nineties. The string sound is far richer than before, there is greater spaciousness and depth as well as considerably greater transparency. It's now quite excellent.
nevertheless, it's still a crying shame that EMI won't jump on the SACD bandwagon.
|
|
|
Post by mdt March 7, 2006 (8 of 8)
|
|
Johnno said:
nevertheless, it's still a crying shame that EMI won't jump on the SACD bandwagon.
They are probably even proud of not having jumped on and think they new more than others, now that fellow majors have jumped off again.
|
|
