On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 05:56:17PM +0100, Rainer Buchty wrote:
My own CD-vs-LP "revelation" came a few years ago when I bought
some sufficiently high-grade analog/digital IO gear, and had a
go at digitising some of my favourite LPs. I noticed two things
immediately:
1. replaying the PCM sounded *exactly* like the LP, and
2. the mean recorded level (in PCM) was *significantly* lower
than the normal signal level of pre-recorded CDs.
I don't have anything profound except a quick question.
Maybe my perception is too easily distracted by imperfections in the media, but
when I have my picky ears on, will generally prefer digital recording and CD's
better than earlier tape or vinyl. The artifacts in vinyl and tape were
distracting enough to ruin any possible charm or 'warmth' added by the media. I
even preferred early digital recorders which had a reputation for being 'cold'
and 'brittle' such as the early Sony PCM adapters which recorded to video tape
cassette. To me even those early pro-recording digital recorders sounded better
than 15 IPS pro tape machines or vinyl.
On the other hand, artifacts do not matter at all if I'm listening for music. A
master like Ray Charles played on the most horrible media and equipment, is
still more pleasing than pedestrian artists recorded and reproduced on
ultra-state-of-the-art equipment. The old adage that there is no way to
gold-plate feces.
Ranier's test of recording vinyl to good digital for comparison-- That is a
great idea.
Regarding the technique of doing the comparison (looking for mastering dynamics
differences between commercial vinyl versus commercial CDs)--
I suppose one would first process the digital recording with an excellent
de-clicker and then normalize the digital recording, before making a dynamics
comparison for overall level? If a digital recording of vinyl has even one
click, then it would prevent the recording from normalizing anywhere near the
top rails of the CD format?
The volume wars go back to 45 singles-- The music industry superstition that the
loudest 45 on the jukebox will get the most play. Analog tape had advantages
that it would eat loud fast transients pretty transparently with soft clipping.
So you could make a quasi-clean loud tape recording even without compression. Of
course lots of analog pop music certainly relied on heavy compression as well.
However, about the same time digital audio was coming on, digital compressors
were coming along with squashing capabilities which put analog limiters to
shame. Waves L1 and such. Those new powerful weapons escalated the volume war in
the CD era. Though many expert mastering engineers were still using expensive
analog processors to master the early CDs.
Because the volume war pre-dated the digital era by decades-- Perhaps if
engineers in the 1950's had access to tools as potent as modern-day lookahead
digital compressors, then perhaps the vinyl would have dynamics very similar to
typical modern-day pop CD releases?
James Chandler Jr.
--
dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website:
subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp
links
http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp
http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
