Post by DSD July 27, 2011 (191 of 253)
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Agreed using all analogue equipment, no Pro Tools, editing with razor blades and then releasing the final product as a CD is really sad. Such a project should have been released as a pure analog LP and SACD.
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DSD said:
Agreed using all analogue equipment, no Pro Tools, editing with razor blades and then releasing the final product as a CD is really sad. Such a project should have been released as a pure analog LP and SACD.
I have the Foo Fighters One By One on DVD~Audio 5.1 and think it's not only a great Rock album but is one great sounding surround disc and agree that going to the trouble of recording analogue is wasted on RBCD.
Hoping there is a 5.1 SACD mastered from the Grimm Audio Converter in the near future!
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Agreed. I'm hoping that since they've done multichannel in the past that they'll be releasing or already have in the works a high-res version.
The album really is very well done.
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Post by AmonRa July 28, 2011 (194 of 253)
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rammiepie said:
going to the trouble of recording analogue is wasted on RBCD.
Now you forget that even CD greatly surpasses every technical analog tape spec (dynamic range, all distortions, speed stability, low frequency range, noise floor is about 1000 times lower etc etc) except slightly higher high frequency limit. Even that is largely inconsequential as typical microphones used for pop & rock start to cut off at 18 kHz.
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Post by DSD July 28, 2011 (195 of 253)
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AmonRa it is ironic that analog sounds so much more natural, realistic, smoother and more relaxing than CD. Technical specifications help insure a product is working correctly but they cannot yet measure the most important aspects of sound reproduction. Analog and SACD are vastly superior to CD in the critical midrange (300Hz–5kHz) not just the high frequencies.
From http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/How-check-recording-quality#comment-90543
"Analog tape sounds better and is our choice for multitrack recording. From there we mix to DSD.
I'm grateful we can deliver DSD audio to the music lover who is interested to hear what we heard in the studio. PCM is always a disappointment for playback.
If you get the chance, do the comparisons for yourself. Buy an hour of studio time at a mastering house and hear the difference between analog, DSD and PCM. Believe what you hear, not what you read."
Enjoy your music,
Cookie Marenco
www.bluecoastrecords.com
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AmonRa said:
Now you forget that even CD greatly surpasses every technical analog tape spec (dynamic range, all distortions, speed stability, low frequency range, noise floor is about 1000 times lower etc etc) except slightly higher high frequency limit. Even that is largely inconsequential as typical microphones used for pop & rock start to cut off at 18 kHz.
In theory, absolutely. But how much must one spend to achieve this sonic windfall? I have the luxury (finally) of owning the Meridian SooLoos which incorporates the "guts" of Meridian's $23,500 808.3 Reference player and even my older DTS 5.1 discs sound pretty awesome.
But the various Oppos and even the Sony 5400 and any under $5000 dedicated RBCD player cannot even begin to "unravel" the "mysteries" of 44.1/16bit redbook compact discs.......
It is a pity that so much music continues to be released in the RBCD format in over compressed, almost unlistenable form (yes, even the SooLoos cannot work miracles on such sonic outrage).
I will concur (in all fairness) that as played on the SooLoos SOME RBCDs sound absolutely magnificence with NO discernible fatigue and amazing bass.......if only all RBCDs could achieve this status and yes, not all hi~rez (SACDs/DVD~As) sound much better so it really ALL depends on the final mastering/pressing of those discs .
I presently own 21 SHM~SACDs and except for one in particular, they have a fullness and sonic bloom which I can only describe as wondrous........but they're now almost $55 each plus shipping from CDJapan and when one can purchase the 11 disc DSD~multichannel~ recorded SACDs of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas from Cambria Music, a small independent company, for US $78 ($7.64 per disc) and with a custom hardcovered booklet, it's almost Ludicrous!
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Post by hiredfox July 31, 2011 (197 of 253)
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rammiepie said:
dedicated RBCD player cannot even begin to "unravel" the "mysteries" of 44.1/16bit redbook compact discs.......
It is a pity that so much music continues to be released in the RBCD format
a) it is not the fault of the players, there just isn't enough information on the discs
b) ...even 'though most majors now record at 96/24.
All is not lost seemingly as EMI are releasing SACD versions in Japan of recent Rattle/Berlin Phil discs so who knows, maybe just maybe they'll launch 96/24 SACD versions in Europe and the US soon?
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hiredfox said:
a) it is not the fault of the players, there just isn't enough information on the discs
b) ...even 'though most majors now record at 96/24.
All is not lost seemingly as EMI are releasing SACD versions in Japan of recent Rattle/Berlin Phil discs so who knows, maybe just maybe they'll launch 96/24 SACD versions in Europe and the US soon?
(a) There ARE players that resolve the "limitations" of RBCD MUCH better than others and IMO, some RBCDs sound pretty astounding considering their somewhat limited origins.
And the same could be said for SACD and DVD~A playback. State of the art players which do cost a King's ransom are better at resolving hi~rez playback.
And the majority of modern 96/24 recordings will probably end up as Hi~rez downloads and we can only be thankful for the few that will be released in 5" optical disc form (whether SACD or the occasional DVD~A or even BD 96/25 5.1).
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Post by hiredfox August 1, 2011 (199 of 253)
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rammiepie said:
(a) There ARE players that resolve the "limitations" of RBCD MUCH better than others and IMO, some RBCDs sound pretty astounding considering their somewhat limited origins.
And the same could be said for SACD and DVD~A playback. State of the art players which do cost a King's ransom are better at resolving hi~rez playback.
Of course because of better timing and lower jitter errors not because better players lift more or less data from the disc.
This is where people like Gerald miss the point, more money has to be spent on hardware to include more accurate clocking and jitter performance. Every player is built to a price; it is salutary to remember that hardware and development costs are probably only between 7 - 10% of the ticket price. Think of just how much or how little one can possibly fit into a box for $35 including the box, if you sell a CDP at $500!
Manufacturing scale then becomes everything. This is where companies like Marantz really come through with colours flying. I know of one expert insider - a manufacturer - who calculates that had Naim (e.g. or ANO small specilaist company) produced the SA7 it would have to have been marketed at over £20k to break even. I don't need to remind people that Marantz offer this benchmark product for under £6k.
It explains why Meitner and dCS SACD solutions are largely unaffordable, not because of 'high-end rip-offs' as Gerald would misleadingly have you believe but because they just don't know how to make and sell enough of their kit to get the price down to real world levels.
In fairness to Gerald as I love him really, anybody buying these products expecting them to be significantly better than (say) the SA7 would have a right to be disappointed especially if the simple economics of the situation had eluded them.
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Post by AmonRa August 1, 2011 (200 of 253)
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Remember that when using a reclocking DAC all "transports" are equal. Any cheap reliable CD-player connected digitally to a good DAC is likely to be cheaper and as good or better than an über-CD-player. Like the Tascam (yack!) industrial rack player I have, connected to a professional monitor controller cum pre-amplifier cum oversampling DAC from Crane Song. Before DAC it is just data which can be read and handled absolutely perfectly with extremely cheap components (we are talking just a few bucks here...). DAC and analog circuitry after that is critical part, only that. Even those need not cost thousands, good ones can be found for a few hundred euros even. And it is easier and cheaper to experiment with relatively cheap DAC instead of changing the whole player. You just get less brushed aluminum and bragging rights, but what comes out of the output sockets is the only thing that matters.
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