Re: [ARSCLIST] "All hail the analogue revolution..."

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Don:

Have you tried home-brewing DVD-Audio? For 2-channel stereo, like tranfers from tapes or really 
excellent LPs, you can make 96/24 5" discs that play in most decent DVD players (and can be D-A'd 
thru the external unit of your choice, assuming it supports 96/24). Now that DVD media has gotten so 
cheap, I've been enjoying going back and taking the best-sounding stuff in my collection -- most of 
it from tape but some from LPs -- and re-"disc-ing" in high resolution. I've been transferring at 
96/24 for a couple of years now, so in some cases it's just go back to the original "raw" digi-file 
and slice/dice it into cuts and make a DVD-A, other times it's re-transfer to 96/24. There is a 
little bit of audible difference, to my ears. More "depth" and "air and space". Not something you'd 
hear on an iPod or with the music in the background, but it's audible over good speakers with 
careful listening. LP transfers in particular sound just like the LP, not a transfer of the LP. The 
higher resolution seems to capture the "character" a bit better. I don't have an exact theory as to 
why.

One comment you made -- that jazz and classical remasters may be more likely to sound better than 
rock. I have to disagree. I have a shelf full of awful, terrible, ptui! jazz remasters. By the time 
CD's came along, the jazz nuthouse was being run by the hardcore enthusiast crowd, few of whom had 
training as professional producers or engineers. Some of the original labels, of course, were run 
the same way and the sonic results speak for themselves.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Cox" <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, September 23, 2006 12:23 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] "All hail the analogue revolution..."


> On 22/09/06, Tom Fine wrote:
>
> > You obviously misunderstood what I was saying. Of course a reissue CD
> > from the master tape will generally sound better than one made from an
> > LP.
>
> It should. I have seen it argued that all old tapes will have
> degenerated so much that a transfer from LP is bound to be better.
>
> > I'm talking about my own home-brew CD's made from my LPs. In a lot
> > of cases, the material never made it to CD. In other cases, the
> > reissue CD sounds like garbage due to bad remastering.
>
> Yes, of course bad mastering can happen. Probably more often in the rock
> and popular fields than in classical and jazz. I have some Bowie CDs
> which sound very strange.
> > Why would that Jo Stafford CD be made from vinyl? Is it a bootleg or
> > was the original tape lost?
>
> It is one of a budget series from British EMI. Each CD holds two LPs.
> Possibly the tape is mislaid and there was not enough of a budget to look for it.
> Others in the same series do not have the same note about being sourced
> from vinyl. They all give credit to certain record shops, but this may
> be for supplying the LP covers for scanning.
>
> Sinatra reissues from the same year (1955) do seem to be made from master
> tapes and are OK.
>
> > I agree that in many cases on commercial CD's where they've had to go
> > to someone's collection and play a record -- especially a 45 single or
> > 78 -- the sound quality is awful compared to surviving tapes of the
> > same time or session. And like I said, I just don't mess with lousy
> > LPs (originally-bad surfaces, originally-bad manufacturing,
> > originally-distorted cutting). I like vinyl and all but I am the first
> > to say that a digital transfer of the original tape SHOULD sound much,
> > much better. When it doesn't, it's not because vinyl is some mythical
> > wonderful thing, it's because the remastering was lousy.
>
> OK. We are in total agreement, then. I misunderstood you.
>
> One of the pleasures of modern life is to listen to a new, well made
> reissue from the original tapes of an LP that you have known well for
> decades. This can also happen with an SACD issue that you know well as a
> CD - for example, the Janos Starker Bach suites.
>
> Regards
> --
> Don Cox
> doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx