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Arnaldo said:
The article doesn't really address "some of the points raised in these forum pages," in as much as it merely restates facts already known to all, mainly the arbitrary Analog>96/24>Sweetening>Analog>EQ>DSD process. And the author's analogy of his work to the restoration of a painting is absolutely invalid, since hiss and noise were for the most part already present in the original EMI master tapes.
My disposable income is going instead to reissues from the folks at Polyhymnia and Analogue Productions, for their nimble Analog-to-DSD approach, now being (wisely) copycatted by their colleagues at Universal Japan. Somehow, they have managed to achieve incredibly transparent transfers without the need to book so many man-hours in the process.
Which ones of the new EMI SACDs have you listened to, Arnaldo?
:-)
I also recommend listening to these recordings through a good set of speakers; that way their qualities can really shine.
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Post by huizhu55 April 23, 2012 (332 of 535)
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Polarius T said:
My experience is just the opposite: compared to those Japanese EMI-Toshiba 1300/1500 series remasters by Okazaki (whose big fan I have been for years), these new EMI SACDs are a big step up (and those Okazaki remasters were already a big step up from anything existing up to then). The sound is really very tangibly opened up, and you can hear this not just in the added detail, clarity, and nuance, but also in the notably bigger "soundstage" (depth and width of the sound picture) and far more natural timbres and tonalities. There is an entirely new sense of realism that is extremely engrossing.
Interesting, so far I've only compared the Richter concerto discs. Did you by any chance have the Okazaki transfers and compared them? I did notice the SACDs add a little depth to the sound stage, but it is narrower compared to the CD.
I'm using Esoteric sa-50 player in a all Naim setup with cd5x RB player.
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huizhu55 said:
Did you by any chance have the Okazaki transfers and compared them?
Yes, I had them all (for the music I was interesting in acquiring, that is), and am now busy replacing them with these EMI SACDs, hoping for more to come.
I spent the first week or so after getting my first batch of those EMI SACDs in comparing the two (the Toshiba-EMI Okazaki remasters and these new ones from Abbey Road), but then gave up and concentrated on the pleasures of just sitting down and enjoying them instead as the differences were uniform and never in doubt.
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Post by canonical April 23, 2012 (334 of 535)
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I am rather puzzled how it is possible that I disagree with the opinions of Polarius on almost every issue raised on sa-cd.net //// even conductors, or famous recordings, or performance. Not just the techno-mumbo stuff. I mean ... the probability that that can happen ... is so very very very small.
Is that why the name is polarius??? As in polar opposite? :)
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canonical said:
I am rather puzzled how it is possible that I disagree with the opinions of Polarius on almost every issue raised on sa-cd.net //// even conductors, or famous recordings, or performance. Not just the techno-mumbo stuff. I mean ... the probability that that can happen ... is so very very very small.
Is that why the name is polarius??? As in polar opposite?
Well, if you ask me the main difference is probably that I don't listen to numbers, logos, and names but the music. And I have a very good system and setup to do that, too.
And why is your name "canonical"? I try to be just the opposite and avoid all orthodoxy, religion, and rigid conformity to some set rule in my approach to art.
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canonical said:
I am rather puzzled how it is possible that I disagree with the opinions of Polarius on almost every issue raised on sa-cd.net //// even conductors, or famous recordings, or performance. Not just the techno-mumbo stuff. I mean ... the probability that that can happen ... is so very very very small.
Is that why the name is polarius??? As in polar opposite? :)
Polarius is not the only one who disagrees with you. The vast majority who listen to music on this forum disagree with you. Again, 7 of 7 on this forum recommends the Dvorak/Grieg/Schumann recordings.
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Post by canonical April 23, 2012 (337 of 535)
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Polarius T said:
And why is your name "canonical"?
Because I like canons (the contrapuntal variety). Back to business ...
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canonical said:
Because I like canons (the contrapuntal variety). Back to business ...
And I have fondness for polar life (of the geographic variety).
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canonical said:
Unlike EMI, ... Universal, to their credit, have recently started doing direct analog master tape to pure DSD conversions on all their latest SACD releases. Unlike EMI, they haven't had the need to distort the conversion with PCM, nor adding unnecessary conversions to and from analog, and then back to DSD ... removing hiss and who knows what else at the same time.
1) I'm pretty sure that somewhere on this forum Simon Gibson explained that only a single digit percentage of the hundreds of hours of the remastered music needed to go through removal of noise / clicks / pops.
2) Unless you have listened to the unequalized tapes, how would you know that they sound good / acceptable without equalization, or if they were not always intended to go through equalization somewhere down the chain? I'm sure you can appreciate that every studio has developed its own mastering methods as they have miking techniques and etc.?
3) This idea that PCM is somehow inferior to DSD is not an universally accepted truth. Just as many professionals would argue for the benefits of working in PCM (e.g. DSD introduces irreversible high frequency noise outside of the audible bandwidth), let alone that fact that a lot of studio tools are only avaialble for PCM. DSD may be the preferred playback format, but that doesn't necessarily make it a suitable working format.
4) Format worship is a very midfi tendency. Let the end result speak for itself.
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Post by rammiepie April 23, 2012 (340 of 535)
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I received the four disc SACD set of Walter Gieseking's Debussy and having played only disc one I can attest that a significant amount of noise reduction was performed and there is only a slight instance of overload. It does sound better than I anticipated but since I don't have the original vinyl nor RBCDs to do a proper comparison I think that those who were curious about the sound design as remastered by Simon Gibson and Company: it is probably as good as these early 50's Mono recordings will ever sound.
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