Post by rammiepie December 19, 2011 (21 of 45)
|
|
Arnaldo said:
An illogical association between completely unrelated issues, not unexpected though, considering the source. Just like comparing apples to oranges, the disclosure that EMI uses noise suppression is the reporting of a fact, but with no connection whatsoever to posting biased and strictly personal opinions against multi-miking, a recording technique openly used by Polyhymnia/PentaTone and so many others. This was a missed opportunity to allow the EMI findings to rest on their own merits, but unfortunately, the poster seems unable to keep his resentful nature out of his remarks. Nor can he apparently let go of an obsessive competitiveness over the (un)popularity of a few reviews.
Coming from the man who thinks Analogue sucks in the first place and that 16/44.1 is good enough for the common cold!
Talk about the Grinch who stole Christmas..........
At least JonaLOGIC took the initiative to compare his old EMI vinyl pressings on an excellent Goldmund turntable with an equally impressive Esoteric SACD player and reported what he actually heard.......not merely imagined.
Amaldo........life is but a dream! Methinks you're overmiked and no where in YOUR name is the word LOGIC.
|
|
|
Post by rammiepie December 19, 2011 (22 of 45)
|
|
Arnaldo said:
What are you talking about? As I clearly said, while the EMI findings stand on their own merits, there's no correlation between the issue and one's strictly personal opinion over multi-miking.
And by the way, where in hell did you get the idea that I don't like analog recordings or that I endorse 44.1/16? Me thinks you need to take a break to clear your head...
Sorry, you're the headphone man. Got you mixed up with Mr. P..........
Apologies.
But I DO need a break!
|
|
|
Post by Ogrady December 19, 2011 (23 of 45)
|
|
Jonalogic said:
1) A Studer (A80?) tape deck for mastertape playback.
2) A CEDAR DNS single ended noise shaping/reduction setup.
3) A SADIE Digital Audio Workstation, presumably for any editing, EQ, dynamics and other post-processing.
My gut feel would be that the CEDAR is primarily responsible for the loss of air and top-end quality that I hear. I really don't know what they were doing with the SADIE. But the upshot is that EMI was subjecting the sound to single-ended post-procesing in the digital domain.
I've recently had the opportunity to work on roughly 2 dozen late 50's safety master 15ips tapes as well as a 15ips master from 1967 where the goal after straight capture to DSD was to reduce the hiss, which meant folding down to the PCM domain for broadband noise reduction.
After much comparison of the original tape to the resultant de-hissed 192khz-24bit digital copy I don't hear a loss in anything over the tape, for me, it's been recovery of musical information that was masked by hiss in every instance. I apply but this one process to the 192khz PCM file, nothing more, not even a volume change such as normalization. The result has excellent sound.
I concur that over zealous application of digital treatment results in gross results, that being of course that the digital plug-in was good when used in a limited fashion to start with! I haven't played with the Cedar software so I don't know of it's capabilities. I do know from my own experience that generic single ended digital noise reduction 'solutions' create a result that is a lot worse than what the so called problem, hiss, was in the first place. They are a total waste of anyone's time.
If the Studer A80 was stock, I'd wonder about it's trademark warming of sound that critical listeners are able to identify this deck by is a negative here.
I can pick out finished DSD product produced by 2L within seconds. 2L is using Pyramix equipment and their sound my ears tell me is over processed and on multiple violin simply hurts my ears. The lone ISOMike SACD I have also doesn't sound up to snuff either and I see Pyramix workstations are used here as well. Is it the Pyramix equipment that messes up the sound or is it too much processing or both? Likely it's too much processing without realizing just how fast the sound is messed up when you 'play' with it.
|
|
|
Post by rammiepie December 19, 2011 (24 of 45)
|
|
Ogrady....are you familiar with the Grimm Audio converter and if so, would you agree that the straightest path is also the better one. Analogue>Grimm>SACD....cannot get much straighter than that. The Grimm operates at 1 bit and why it is not widely used (it certainly is NOT outrageously priced) is beyond me. But then again, I don't work in that profession but have been following the debacle of screw~ups with a lot of the older analogue conversions, lately and try to purchase SACDs which I know are done correctly by Analogue Productions who works directly from the masters and doesn't charge a fortune for their SACDs.
Paying outrageous prices for a product which in NO way is definitive and "dishonors" the integrity of the original analogue master tapes when a little more effort could be exerted to get the job done properly is pretty lame in this day and age because Hollywood is doing a masterful job of converting 1920's, 30's and 40's film, etc. to Blu~ray disc and are charging relatively little in comparison to the gouging perpetrated for a 37-78 minute music only disc.
|
|
|
Post by Jonalogic December 20, 2011 (25 of 45)
|
|
Ogrady said:
I've recently had the opportunity to work on roughly 2 dozen late 50's safety master 15ips tapes as well as a 15ips master from 1967 ...
I do know from my own experience that generic single ended digital noise reduction 'solutions' ...are a total waste of anyone's time...
If the Studer A80 was stock, I'd wonder about it's trademark warming of sound that critical listeners are able to identify this deck by is a negative here.
I can pick out finished DSD product produced by 2L within seconds. 2L is using Pyramix equipment and their sound my ears tell me is over processed and on multiple violin simply hurts my ears....
Is it the Pyramix equipment that messes up the sound or is it too much processing or both? Likely it's too much processing without realizing just how fast the sound is messed up when you 'play' with it.
Hi!
Thanks for these insights- your studio experience is certainly a lot more recent than mine!
This all sounds good to me. I knew from scuttlebutt (and its previously observed dire effects on even historic recordings) that CEDAR and its single-ended DNR clones were poisonous, particularly on high-quality sound.
I suspect this may be the single most toxic constituent of EMI's post-processing here. Why on earth did they use it?
But, as you point out, too much post-processing, particularly in a low-res digital domain like 24/96, is always a bad idea.
Out of interest, how did you do the 192/24 broadband de-hissing?
Not sure I'd point the finger at the A80, though. Warm as it might be, this always sounded relatively innocuous to me.
In conclusion, I find your comments about Pyramix and 2L most interesting. Despite all the hoop-la in this Forum, I always found their string sound too etched and antiseptic.
It's a pity you were not in charge of EMIs re-releases!
Cheers
Jon
|
|
|
Post by Jonalogic December 20, 2011 (26 of 45)
|
|
rammiepie said:
Ogrady....are you familiar with the Grimm Audio converter and if so, would you agree that the straightest path is also the better one. Analogue>Grimm>SACD....cannot get much straighter than that. The Grimm operates at 1 bit and why it is not widely used (it certainly is NOT outrageously priced) is beyond me. But then again, I don't work in that profession but have been following the debacle of screw~ups with a lot of the older analogue conversions, lately and try to purchase SACDs which I know are done correctly by Analogue Productions who works directly from the masters and doesn't charge a fortune for their SACDs.
Paying outrageous prices for a product which in NO way is definitive and "dishonors" the integrity of the original analogue master tapes when a little more effort could be exerted to get the job done properly is pretty lame in this day and age because Hollywood is doing a masterful job of converting 1920's, 30's and 40's film, etc. to Blu~ray disc and are charging relatively little in comparison to the gouging perpetrated for a 37-78 minute music only disc.
Hi, Rammepie
You have hit several nails on the head for me, here.
The more I think about it, the more annoyed and disgusted I get at the engineers who have semi-trashed EMIs great recorded legacy. Actually, I rather like your term - 'dishonoured ' :- le most juste.
It didn't have to be like this. Plenty of other companies have shown the right way to perpetuate great analogue recordings, though minimal intervention and direct DSD transfer.
Actually, and despite my emphasis on SACD/vinyl comparisons in these EMI auditions, this is actually something of a red herring.
Consider the messy process of turning a pristine analogue mastertape into a commercial vinyl record: all the EQ, dynamic tinkering/compression, cutting lathe, groove variation, end of side overload etc. It's a wonder, given all this, that vinyl can sound so good!
Given a good A/D processor, therefore, a DSD bitstream produced directly from the mastertape should, potentially, sound much better than even a carefully produced piece of vinyl.
But no-one seems to have quite done this yet. Folk like Sony, Analogue Productions, MoFi and Sound Mirror have done a great job, to be sure - together with some of the small boutique labels. And often at sane prices. But Esoteric and - now - EMI seem to have cornered the market in making their SACDs not only stupidly expensive but actually sound a lot worse than the originals.
Who knows, Maybe Sony will get hold of the EMI archives and do a better job someday?
Cheers
Jon
|
|
|
Post by DSD December 20, 2011 (27 of 45)
|
|
Jonalogic said:
I always found their string sound (2L) too etched and antiseptic...
Agreed, 2L is one of the labels I avoid due to "digital" sounding strings which I find odd as many of their recordings are DXD (24/352.8kHz). Which means even hi-rez digital can still sound "digital" with certain microphoning and recording techniques. OTOH analog seems to be more forgiving.
|
|
|
Post by Jonalogic December 20, 2011 (28 of 45)
|
|
DSD said:
Agreed, 2L is one of the labels I avoid due to "digital" sounding strings which I find odd as many of their recordings are DXD (24/352.8kHz). Which means even hi-rez digital can still sound "digital" with certain microphoning and recording techniques. OTOH analog seems to be more forgiving.
Hi
And it certainly isn't the DXD process itself responsible here. I find other recordings using this from Ondine to be quite sensational...
Happy Chanukkah
Jon
|
|
|
Post by rammiepie December 20, 2011 (29 of 45)
|
|
Jonalogic, funny you mention Soundmirror as the insert booklet for the Living Stereo SACD series remastered in part by John Newton speaks of the amazing condition of the Living Stereo Master tapes and describes that the only editing tool used (and VERY few edits at that) was a razor blade. So you know that the Living Stereo SACDs were, in fact, directly from the ABSOLUTE analogue masters>dCS converter>SACD...period!
The Japanese can keep their pricey LIMITED editions as they're limited in more ways than one....because we all know that there are NO splices in the "masters" used to create their newly~minted SACDs
|
|
|
Post by Jonalogic December 20, 2011 (30 of 45)
|
|
rammiepie said:
Jonalogic, funny you mention Soundmirror as the insert booklet for the Living Stereo SACD series remastered in part by John Newton speaks of the amazing condition of the Living Stereo Master tapes and describes that the only editing tool used (and VERY few edits at that) was a razor blade. So you know that the Living Stereo SACDs were, in fact, directly from the ABSOLUTE analogue masters>dCS converter>SACD...period!
The Japanese can keep their pricey LIMITED editions as they're limited in more ways than one....because we all know that there are NO splices in the "masters" used to create their newly~minted SACDs
Indeed. And such a pity that the Soundmirror/RCA project was cut off in its prime:
Right recordings, right transfer to SACD and right price.
The mind boggles at what they could have done, for instance, with some of the British Shaded Dogs, many recorded by Wilkie of course: Witches Brew, Royal Opera, Venice etc, not to mention the phenomenal Reader's Digest productions.
Sigh...
|
|
