Does a remastered cd normally have audible/modernized differences compared to the original release?

[r_w]

Agreed, Japan seems to care more for SQ, plenty of JP editions sound very nice.

[firedog]

Forgot to mention that some of the best Rock and Jazz remasters are tape digitized to DSD/SACD. Usually NOT volume compressed or fiddled around with much. DSD is the best digital medium for tape transfers, from what I've heard.

[gmgraves]

Agreed, Japan seems to care more for SQ, plenty of JP editions sound very nice.

 

 

As do JVC's XRCDs

[Rainer]

Forgot to mention that some of the best Rock and Jazz remasters are tape digitized to DSD/SACD. Usually NOT volume compressed or fiddled around with much. DSD is the best digital medium for tape transfers, from what I've heard.

 

Absolutely. At the same levels, the tape-noise I've been harping on about sounds much smoother and less intrusive on a DSD transfer than with 16/44.1 PCM, hence, as you say, maybe they tend to be left (relatively) un-molested.

 

Hi-res PCM isn't far behind, but it seems that the simplicity of the DSD process makes it easier to engineer 'natural-sounding' converters.

[semente]

There are other problems to mastering besides loudness and dynamic range compression.

 

 

Sometime ago I brought home the album "Blues Singer" by Buddy Guy, a Silvertone/BMG 2003 edition CD that I borrowed from a friend.

The sound of this (Grammy Award winning) album is "full" and "detailed" in a very artificial way but with that "hyper-realism" that "sounds" good, like a girl with tinted hair, a remade nose, plucked eyebrows, tons of mascara, botox lips, breast implants and overtight pants ... the kind of "audiophile" recording you hear on high-end equipment demos at audio shows.

 

 

In a way this had a positive side which was to raise my opinion of the sound that I have here at home, as I had never played of this kind of bluesy/jazzy "audiophile" stuff in my system before.

 

 

But after a while I started listening to a few "clicks" and decided to analyse one of the tracks; the result is obvious...loads of clipping (red lines in the first graph):

 

 

The album does have a reasonably wide dynamic range (for the genre).

I wonder why I was able to hear those clicks with my CD player for I have other CDs that exhibit clipping but could never detect any noise...I can't hear them now with the Teac DAC and HQPlayer.

 

 

Cheers,

R

[Rainer]

Yes, today's auto-correlaters are much better than the early ones. Most of the time you can't tell one was even used, and essentially all digital re-issues of analog recordings from the 50's, 60's and 70's have been run through a de-hissing algorithm. Just compare almost any digital reissue from RCA, Mercury, Riverside, etc. with the LP of the same performance to hear how much less tape-hiss is on the digital than is on the vinyl. In fact, even vinyl re-masters of these older titles have been cleaned-up with digital auto-correlation.

 

These sophisticated "correlational" de-noisers have their place, mostly with speech, such as old movie soundtracks, where the object is simply to make them 'clearer' and easier to follow.

 

 

But when it comes to music .... meh.

[Rainer]

And of course there is no such thing as a DSD DSP. It's called Direct Stream Digital for a reason. If the 'work flow' entailed any kind of digital processing, the transfer has to go via hi-res PCM. Essentially, the only processing possible when transferring to DSD is analogue EQ.

 

 

I believe that ultimately hi-res PCM is preferable for the highest possible fidelity in archiving, but the fact that DSD puts a hardware obstacle in front of obsessive 'tweaking' is a major plus in its favour.

[YashN]

And of course there is no such thing as a DSD DSP. It's called Direct Stream Digital for a reason. If the 'work flow' entailed any kind of digital processing, the transfer has to go via hi-res PCM.

 

No, you can process in the SDM domain, Miska does it.

[Jud]

No, you can process in the SDM domain, Miska does it.

 

Depends what processing. Do an advanced site search for some of Tom Caulfield's (tailspn) posts on this.