Digital bullshit

[William Sommerwerck]

Anyone who worked in the recording industry when vinyl was the main replay
medium knows that the end result was frequently disappointment after the
master tape. And was likely not that happy with that analogue master tape
either, compared to what he heard during the recording. Good digital when
it arrived was a revelation. Of course that's not to say vinyl didn't give
- and continues to give - pleasure. But things move on. Sadly in the wrong
direction with the dreadful mastering of many current recordings.

There are plenty of lousy-sounding digital recordings -- too many mic poorly
placed, and too much electronics between the mic and the recorder.

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <slrnhg09kv.7hu.aznomad.3@ip70-176-155-130.ph.ph.cox.net>,
AZ Nomad <aznomad.3@PremoveOBthisOX.COM> wrote:

On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:18:29 -0800, William Sommerwerck <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:
Words fail me. Another who can't or won't hear the intrinsic
faults of vinyl.

I've compared 45-year-old LPs to their CD transfers, and they are often
remarkably close. LP /can/ be a good recording medium -- it just isn't
a very good playback medium. Good LP playback costs about 10 times (at
least) what good CD playback costs.

There is only one situation where I've found vinyl superior to CD,
but it had nothing to do with either medium. I've had CDs made from
20 year old master tapes that had a terrible S/N due to the age of the
tapes. The LP was superior, but only because the LP aged better than
the master tape used for the CD.

Anyone who worked in the recording industry when vinyl was the main replay
medium knows that the end result was frequently disappointment after the
master tape. And was likely not that happy with that analogue master tape
either, compared to what he heard during the recording. Good digital when
it arrived was a revelation. Of course that's not to say vinyl didn't give
- and continues to give - pleasure. But things move on. Sadly in the wrong
direction with the dreadful mastering of many current recordings.

--
*Why does the sun lighten our hair, but darken our skin?

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

 

[AZ Nomad]

On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:21:48 -0800, William Sommerwerck <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

Anyone who worked in the recording industry when vinyl was the main replay
medium knows that the end result was frequently disappointment after the
master tape. And was likely not that happy with that analogue master tape
either, compared to what he heard during the recording. Good digital when
it arrived was a revelation. Of course that's not to say vinyl didn't give
- and continues to give - pleasure. But things move on. Sadly in the wrong
direction with the dreadful mastering of many current recordings.

There are plenty of lousy-sounding digital recordings -- too many mic poorly
placed, and too much electronics between the mic and the recorder.

That they were digital is irrelevent.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

There are plenty of lousy-sounding digital recordings -- too many
mics poorly placed, and too much electronics between the mics
and the recorder.

That they were digital is irrelevent.

Exactly. Digital does not automatically mean "good", any more than "analog"
means "not so good".

 

[AZ Nomad]

On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:56:47 -0800, William Sommerwerck <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

There are plenty of lousy-sounding digital recordings -- too many
mics poorly placed, and too much electronics between the mics
and the recorder.

That they were digital is irrelevent.

Exactly. Digital does not automatically mean "good", any more than "analog"
means "not so good".

Nope. It just means that if you have poor recording and mixing, then
the fault won't be the mastering if it is to a digital medium.

With either digital or analog, it depends on the medium. You can get
a lousy capture with digital if you're using an 8 bit a/d. For analog
media, vinyl was mediocre and only looks good when compared to 8track,
pre-recorded cassettes, or am/fm radio.

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <hdpgu9$aba$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
William Sommerwerck <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

Anyone who worked in the recording industry when vinyl was the main
replay medium knows that the end result was frequently disappointment
after the master tape. And was likely not that happy with that
analogue master tape either, compared to what he heard during the
recording. Good digital when it arrived was a revelation. Of course
that's not to say vinyl didn't give - and continues to give -
pleasure. But things move on. Sadly in the wrong direction with the
dreadful mastering of many current recordings.

There are plenty of lousy-sounding digital recordings -- too many mic
poorly placed, and too much electronics between the mic and the recorder.

Oh, digital doesn't guarantee a good end product. Just a faithful
reproduction of a lousy one.

--
*If a mute swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap?

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

 

[David]

Whew, that was a long reply to my tongue-in-cheek comment meant in jest!

However, I tend to think you haven't really sat and listened to good
gear fed from a digital source - eg a quality cd

Around 1971- to 76 I was a sales rep for a HiFi equip importer, and
later ran a specialist HiFi store selling all but the very costliest
gear - speakers up to around $5 or $6k and amps to a couple of grand -
plus AR etc turntables and Shure V15E etc cartridges. Top gear at that
time.

The weak link was the records that were the main source of music then -
noisy, scratchy, and the better the gear you played them on the more
their short comings became apparent. Of course since that was the best
that we could get, we thought it was pretty good.

But once people heard the same sort of good gear fed from quality cds,
there was no going back - like chalk and cheese the new medium had a
brilliance and clarity that previously we had only heard in live
performances.

But, as I thought then, and still think now, horses for courses - if you
prefer your scratchy old records and the his and rumble from the
turntable, then that is fine. If you are happy with what you use, then
that is great, and no one should denigrate your choice.

cheers

David


In article <pan.2009.11.15.08.15.01.487664@mailinator.com>,
Gnack Nol <mchozfcesujcfc@mailinator.com> wrote:

On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:43:38 +0000, David wrote:

Some cut out:

You just haven't put your ears in for the A>D conversion - doesn't hurt
(much) and is cheap. Kids these days are born that way, but us oldies
have to convert - bit like when decimal currency came along

David - who converted back in '79


Sorry David you just have very low standards like the people that think cd
based audio is good quality. A-D conversion can bever reprduce a real
simple sine wave nor can it even approximate a complex multi sine wave
with any accuracy even with the best smoothing circuits.

I know the real insides of your so called A>D conversion and it really
stinks since it was based on not ready for prime time theory that was
several years ahead of what the technology was actually able to deliver.
The result was a very poor sampling rates that have flat response and
lacking both transient and brilliance reproduction. In spite of all the
attempts to cover up its short comings (multiple over sampling (probably
the best way of producing muddy sound ever invented), double data rates,
etc. ) have never corrected the base 2K sampling rate that was the fastest
they could make at the time with the fastest ram and AD converters they
had. Blu-Ray is poor quality for that reason since it uses cd audio
recording as it's base instead of using a real high quality sampling rate
like the alternitive format that was not as well funded.

If Sony and Phillips had waited just two years they could have used a at
least a 4K sampling rate with triple the number of words and that could
have produced better audio but they had tied up a lot of money in the low
quality system and wanted to profit from it. If cd audio was actually so
great why did Sony have to buy up all the recording studios and kill all
vinyl production in order to sell it?

There was no real demand for cd recordings so they had to do this in order
to sell them is why.

Fact currently all real high quality recordings are now being reproduced
in vinyl once again because Cd's are poor for audio and really only fit
for data recording in spite of all the tricks that have been tried to
improve their sounds.

I was servicing those stereos in 1979 you listened to and remember the
deaf teenager syndrome caused by kids sitting on top of real 300 watt
audio systems turned up to full volume. Believe me I encountered more
than one idiot that had a 300 watt system with the speakers sitting on
either side of their desk running at or near full volume.

Poor kids never had a chance to really hear any actual quality audio since
they likely lost more than 20% of their overall hearing and most of their
hearing in the 12000-20,000 cycle range. While blasting their ears with
high power base notes and even higher powered high frequency.

I have suffered some high frequency hearing loss just because I worked
with these high power systems for years but I can sure still tell the
difference between digital audio and genuine analog. Digital looses hands
down always! I have my "system destroyer" record still it is a Phillips
recording that has sound from 15 to 20,000 cycles with a brilliance that
no cd can ever approach and no A/D converter can touch.

Gnack

 

[William Sommerwerck]

Whew, that was a long reply to my tongue-in-cheek comment meant
in jest!

However, I tend to think you haven't really sat and listened to good
gear fed from a digital source -- eg, a quality CD.

Around 1971- to 76 I was a sales rep for a HiFi equipment importer,
and later ran a specialist HiFi store selling all but the very costliest
gear -- speakers up to around $5 or $6k and amps to a couple of grand -
plus AR etc turntables and Shure V15E etc cartridges. Top gear at that
time.

The weak link was the records that were the main source of music then -
noisy, scratchy, and the better the gear you played them on the more
their short comings became apparent. Of course since that was the
best that we could get, we thought it was pretty good.

But once people heard the same sort of good gear fed from quality
CDs, there was no going back -- like chalk and cheese the new
medium had a brilliance and clarity that previously we had only
heard in live performances.

But, as I thought then, and still think now, horses for courses - if you
prefer your scratchy old records and the his and rumble from the
turntable, then that is fine. If you are happy with what you use, then
that is great, and no one should denigrate your choice.

As an audiophile, amateur recordist, and product reviewer, I find myself
both agreeing and disagreeing -- rather more of the latter.

I can't think of any speaker in the early 70s that sold for $5K a pair (not
even Bozaks or the A7), or even amplifiers that sold for "a couple of
grand". The KLH Model Nine cost $1100 a pair -- and you needed two pair for
adequate bass without adding a woofer. Even QUAD electrostatics were
something like $800 a pair, which was well beyond the reach of most
listeners.

I remember when John Iverson's Electro Research class A power amp came out.
It was something like $1800 -- one of the most expensive power amps on the
market.

The AR turntable was hardly "top gear". It was a cleverly designed product
that sold at a moderate price. And there were plenty of people who didn't
care that much for Shure's V15 pickups.

I had never liked phonograph records (or at least, the way they sounded on
playback equipment I could afford) -- I liked open-reel tape, because it
lacked the distortion and colorations of LPs.

The ultimate issue is whether the reproduction sounds like the original --
not whether it's "musical", or whether it offers "a brilliance and clarity
that previously we had only heard in live performances". It's too easy to be
seduced by those elements of reproduction we like, while ignoring the
others.

I made a lot of live recordings, using both prosumer open-reel and digital.
There was no question that, with that equipment, what I heard on playback
from digital sounded more like what I heard at the microphones than analog
did.

I still strongly prefer digital. But the fact is that LPs can sound very,
very good -- if you play them back on equipment that costs rather more than
what a good CD player costs. Furthermore, LPs don't offer a convenient form
of surround sound -- SACDs do. (I've had surround playback in all my systems
since 1970.)

I invite anyone who doesn't like digital to listen -- in surround -- to the
Rilling performance of Britten's "War Requiem", or MTT's of Mahler's 3rd --
and then tell me what you hear is not a highly convincing reproduction of
live sound. (Ditto for some of Jordi Savall's recordings on AliaVox.) And if
you disagree -- name an LP that comes closer to "live".

I still believe that people who prefer LPs -- which includes young'uns born
after the introduction of the CD -- are simply reacting to the colorations
of a medium that, over a period of 40 years, was -- consciously or
unconsciously -- tweaked to "sound good". As J Gordon Holt said... "Live
sound isn't always 'pretty'."

 

[William Sommerwerck]

I remember being disappointed in some early CDs made from
analogue masters where they added a steep fade at the end
of each track to try and prevent the tape hiss being apparent.

Let's not forget the CDs that just plain sounded bad.

When a late friend visited in 2001, he brought along a remastering of a
Horowitz album -- which I happened to have the earlier version of). The
latter simply didn't sound very good -- it was hashy. The newer version
sounded like a different performance altogether!

 

[William Sommerwerck]

While we're talking about remasterings...

I got the Blu-ray of GWTW on Tuesday. This is an even-newer Ultra Resolution
transfer, at 8K rather than 4K.

Let's put it this way... It's the kind of transfer that makes you wish movie
makers would return to shooting in Technicolor.

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <he37ej$7kd$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
William Sommerwerck <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

I still believe that people who prefer LPs -- which includes young'uns
born after the introduction of the CD -- are simply reacting to the
colorations of a medium that, over a period of 40 years, was --
consciously or unconsciously -- tweaked to "sound good". As J Gordon
Holt said... "Live sound isn't always 'pretty'."

Absolutely. Many seem to think LPs and CDs just sort of arrive in the
home. And don't realise the expertise that goes into the recording which
they are made from. Nor is there usually any point in comparing one to the
other even from an identical commercial source recording as they both go
through different mastering processes. Sadly, these days there seems to be
the need to squash every last drop of level out of CDs resulting in actual
clipping.

I remember being disappointed in some early CDs made from analogue masters
where they added a steep fade at the end of each track to try and prevent
the tape hiss being apparent. Madness.

--
*I started out with nothing... and I still have most of it.

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.