16 bit files almost unlistenable now...

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, esldude said:

I'd expect the CD accurately shows the tape which would include hiss, tape saturation, and perhaps anomalies in the low frequencies.

 

Just as it is also capable of capturing the deficiencies of Vinyl, and in most cases sound almost identical to the original vinyl playback provided that a good A/D converter is used in both cases.

[semente]

Yesterday I was listening to Tchaikovsky's 4th Mravinsky/LePO (DG Originals CD version).

The tape hiss (~ -57dB) is clearly audible in the end of the Scherzo at my normal listening level which is quite low in audiophile terms (90dB peaks at the listening spot, 2 metres away from the speakers, 15.75m2 room):

 

[PeterSt]

24 minutes ago, esldude said:

I don't know, but you seem to have this idea the implication is CD would reveal tape deficiencies that wouldn't be heard listening to tape.   I've no idea where you thought I or anyone else was saying such a thing.

 

Either

a. you learn Dutch better;

b. you read better;

c. I write better.

Maybe all of it.

 

IOW of course not. 

 

Quote

 

So yeah, it can capture tape hiss the tape itself does not show.

Right.

Not.

 

 

Was that so difficult to grasp ?

 

Now with the promise that I will try to read your American better, it is you who suggested this in the first place. Not me.

But let it be. We agree anyway. 

[PeterSt]

So re-set.

 

"The Music on this Compact Digital Disc was originally recorded on analog equipment. We have attempted to preserve, as closely as possible, the sound of the original recording. Because of its high resolution, however, the Compact Disc can reveal limitations of the source tape."

 

I claim this is BS. You seem to disagree with me saying this is BS.

How ?

 

(and I say it again : this is supposed to come forward from a head to head comparison with the tape itself and a replay of a digital recording of it)

 

Mind my emphasis because that is how it should read.

If the "however" would not have been there, we are supposed to read it all differently and it would NOT be BS.

The "however" suggests something (more) negative. And this is not so at all. Instead it will show the very same as how the tape did (sounded).

 

 

 

 

[semente]

7 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

We have attempted to preserve, as closely as possible, the sound of the original recording. Because of its high resolution, however, the Compact Disc can reveal limitations of the source tape."

 

I agree that the writing is confusing...

 

I think that they mean limitations of tape recording vs. digital recording. Things like hiss, wow and flutter, modulation, etc.

 

I was a teenager when my dad got our first CD player and it amazes me how much  "clearer" DDD sometimes was compared to ADD or AAD.

[PeterSt]

1 minute ago, semente said:

I think that they mean limitations of tape recording vs. digital recording. Things like hiss, wow and flutter, modulation, etc.

 

Riccardo, yes. That is obviously how it is supposed to be read. But you know, I am from those days (like many), and this wasn't the gesture. This merely was about "digital is better than analogue" (to be read as a commercial) and I see it in this context. What we most certainly did NOT know back in the days is how we in the future would be able to prove that digital (16 bits !) is so good that you would not be able to discern the recording's playback from the direct playback. Heck, even today this is difficult to bring across (didn't I try myself early in this thread ?).

So I (seem to) know, but for 95% etc. of people this is not obvious at all; they's need to believe the few who really tried (with appropriate equipment).

 

 

[Andyman]

38 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

So re-set.

 

"The Music on this Compact Digital Disc was originally recorded on analog equipment. We have attempted to preserve, as closely as possible, the sound of the original recording. Because of its high resolution, however, the Compact Disc can reveal limitations of the source tape."

 

I claim this is BS. You seem to disagree with me saying this is BS.

How ?

 

(and I say it again : this is supposed to come forward from a head to head comparison with the tape itself and a replay of a digital recording of it)

 

Mind my emphasis because that is how it should read.

If the "however" would not have been there, we are supposed to read it all differently and it would NOT be BS.

The "however" suggests something (more) negative. And this is not so at all. Instead it will show the very same as how the tape did (sounded).

 

 

 

 

 

Peter. This can be considered disingenuous or not dependent on how conspiratorial you’re feeling.

Consider. Analogue master tape as others have posted will “contain” hiss etc. 

On transfer to lp these “defects” will mostly be masked (by the higher noise floor).

Most consumers of the day will have had no access to the original tape and on listening to their lp will be aware only of its own noise.

The cd transfer (notwithstanding changes to mastering) will have been sufficiently resolving to render the tape hiss audible. 

Thus revealing the (previously masked) “limitation” of the tape. As per the disclaimer/marketing hype.

No- one is referring to a comparison of original tape vs cd.

 

As an aside, previous references to frequency balance should take into account that transducers (cartridges) vary wildly in their fr compared with CD players - to all intents and purposes flat.

 

Of course you know all this. Maybe you’re having a niggly Dutch morning!

[esldude]

24 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

So re-set.

 

"The Music on this Compact Digital Disc was originally recorded on analog equipment. We have attempted to preserve, as closely as possible, the sound of the original recording. Because of its high resolution, however, the Compact Disc can reveal limitations of the source tape."

 

I claim this is BS. You seem to disagree with me saying this is BS.

How ?

 

(and I say it again : this is supposed to come forward from a head to head comparison with the tape itself and a replay of a digital recording of it)

 

Mind my emphasis because that is how it should read.

If the "however" would not have been there, we are supposed to read it all differently and it would NOT be BS.

The "however" suggests something (more) negative. And this is not so at all. Instead it will show the very same as how the tape did (sounded).

 

 

 

 

Maybe a case of being a native speaker of the language matters.  And the context at the time. 

 

When CD was released your other choices for sources:

LP

RTR

Cassette

8 track

 

Nearly all music had as a master source a reel to reel tape.  All of the other sources, including duplicates of RTR onto RTR were less than full fidelity if compared to the final master tape.  That was one of the BIG promises of digital and CD.  It was good enough to allow finally for never before heard fidelity to the direct master tapes themselves.   To allow you the listener to hear it as if you had the master tape on the actual tape machine upon which it was produced. Further the digital process promised fidelity beyond what was possible with analog tape for the future once all digital recordings would be available.  

 

So CD was trying to adhere to the sound of the original recording, but for those who might think hiss or wow or flutter or uneven FR were not on the analog reels, CD is able to reveal limitations of even the finest source tapes.  

 

Was it also some advertising putting into people's minds that all other sources that weren't digital were of lesser fidelity?  Sure it was.  CD promised unparalleled fidelity, a disc that wouldn't wear out or be deteriorated by repeated playing, and offered access in ways other formats couldn't match.  

 

I find it hard to believe there is this much problem agreeing on what the disclaimer means from reading it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PeterSt]

3 minutes ago, Andyman said:

No- one is referring to a comparison of original tape vs cd.

 

It is exactly about that and what I tried to say. No-one WAS doing that, because it couldn't happen (OK, I had a couple of DAT recorders). But today we can and today the disclaimers does not make sense. Not to me.

 

Quote

Maybe you’re having a niggly Dutch morning!

 

That is undoubtedly so, with a couple of servers out of the air because of some DNS subscription expired without me being notified about it.

But I think it is not related - haha.

 

Thank you Andy.

[Andyman]

2 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

It is exactly about that and what I tried to say. No-one WAS doing that, because it couldn't happen (OK, I had a couple of DAT recorders). But today we can and today the disclaimers does not make sense. Not to me.

 

 

In the immortal words of ABC,

 

”that was then and this is now”

 

?

[PeterSt]

3 minutes ago, esldude said:

I find it hard to believe there is this much problem agreeing on what the disclaimer means from reading it.

 

Exactly as you now indicated : that it was a commercial. And we dug it. But we also did not believe it much because it didn't sound the best at all (my father experimented with te digital video recorders for audio back at the time (14 bits I think) - he hated it all).

 

So one more time and only to smoothen my mood :

 

I find it hard to believe there is this much problem agreeing on what the disclaimer means from reading it.

 

When I read that text you put up, I recognized it from back then. I read it a 1000 times and btw the software for registering my catalog I had back at the time, also registered the AAD, ADD, DDD (ADA). I wondered some times,  but couldn't really deal with it. To far from my bed (but was educated in ICT right from the start).

So ... today I read that text again, and immediately see : what a BS statement.

 

And that is really all. It has no value. Not worth debating.

But a bit fun for me.

 

Right. Now we can move over to the what's better : DDD or AAD etc.

Oops.

 

I think i never liked the DDD. Back then.

But so much has changed. And today (with Tidal and such) I don't see the icons any more ...

[PeterSt]

17 minutes ago, esldude said:

 

 

[sandyk]

 

Even an Antipodean can grasp what they are trying to communicate. 

[PeterSt]

Changing the subject ...

 

 

(this was from Recording Engineers : You molest our recordings ! back in 2010)

 

What I never told back then - because it wasn't a subject, is that this recording of the drum kit was done deliberately with 16 bits. And well, after I created "the speaker" for it (see sig) everybody (blindfolded) would unconditionally tell that there was a drum kit in the room playing (while it were loud speakers). This (obviously) includes all the feel in the stomach from the kick drum and all, and also the various cymbals and means of hitting them. Mind you, this is not sooo easy, but anyway I did it for the purpose and in the end the speaker (building).

 

So, 16 bits.

 

Now the fun - and this was mentioned indirectly in the thread - I also took 24 bits recordings, but regarding my "purpose for life" (improve on 16 bits) I never worked with it, or really listened to it (or let people listen to that version(s) for that matter). However, the 24 bits version did sound different and actually better on one and one only component : the cowbell.

Yes, who would have thought that.

 

The moral : when people listened to this, I'd take them upstairs and show the real drumming, and back downstairs again. WOW this and WOW that, obviously. Nobody, including me, would ever claim the cowbell not to be 100%. But this is only because of the too large distance because of walking the stairs etc. and the memory not being sufficient to "see" any difference. But compare the playback versions (16 vs 24 bits) would reveal it; the 16 bit cowbell sounds a tad more harsh (read : not 100% real life).

 

Conclusion : of course 24 bits matter. But as long as people can't even discern the real life "almost impossible drum kit thing" from a recording with 16 bits, 16 bits sure can do a hell of a lot more than most would imagine.

 

Another moral would be that me myself and I apparently is not able to destroy a recording (btw over a run of 50m or so XLR) which turned out to be so infinitely better than anything I have on CD (or 24 bit digital) that we can trust that we are not able to judge for real, without an experience like this. Reading the link I gave above could be interesting for those who never saw it, knowing in advance that Barry Diament and Cookie Marenco contribute to it largely in a such eye opening fashion that ... well, you should read it (but it is from old forum software and quotes etc. can be difficult to discern from normal text). For me, what they both laid out, was quite a revelation.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

Now the fun - and this was mentioned indirectly in the thread - I also took 24 bits recordings, but regarding my "purpose for life" (improve on 16 bits) I never worked with it, or really listened to it (or let people listen to that version(s) for that matter). However, the 24 bits version did sound different and actually better on one and one only component : the cowbell.

Yes, who would have thought that.

 

The moral : when people listened to this, I'd take them upstairs and show the real drumming, and back downstairs again. WOW this and WOW that, obviously. Nobody, including me, would ever claim the cowbell not to be 100%. But this is only because of the too large distance because of walking the stairs etc. and the memory not being sufficient to "see" any difference. But compare the playback versions (16 vs 24 bits) would reveal it; the 16 bit cowbell sounds a tad more harsh (read : not 100% real life).

 

Conclusion : of course 24 bits matter. But as long as people can't even discern the real life "almost impossible drum kit thing" from a recording with 16 bits, 16 bits sure can do a hell of a lot more than most would imagine.

 

 

I would disagree, Peter ... for me, the "16 bit cowbell sounds a tad more harsh" thing is the same ol' story - the playback chain in that case is having a harder time getting to being 100% audibly accurate - not because it can't, but because the implementation has to be completely on the money.  I find the story every time as one gets closer to optimum is that the SQ becomes richer, 'creamier', more "real life" - "harshness" disappears from the vocabulary.

 

Now, a shortcut to getting to more satisfying playback with real life components may be through using the 24 bit "trick" - and that's fine. 16 bits will also do it, but one may have to take more care to make it happen.

 

[Jud]

4 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

I think i never liked the DDD. Back then.

But so much has changed. And today (with Tidal and such) I don't see the icons any more ...

 

I bought what I think was the first one, Ry Cooder's Bop 'Til You Drop, which did/does sound pretty good because it's Ry.  I remember buying some DG Classical stuff and expecting that it might sound better than it did.

 

That old copy on the back of CDs wasn't there as a public service or a technical statement meant to be closely parsed, however accurate we might see it as being, reading out of context 3 decades later. It was put there for one reason, to translate to this: "Your CD not sounding so perfect? Well believe us, it's not because we pulled the LPs off the shelves and rushed all the silver discs we could manufacture out the door, remastered by my mom and my wife's second cousin because we needed product, y'know? Blame the limitations of the source, not us, folks."

 

Now about that cowbell...do you think there may have been other stuff that didn't sound quite the same, that was so close it was beyond your power to accurately recall? Do 16 and 24 bit sound precisely identical now, with better reproduction equipment?

[sandyk]

8 hours ago, Jud said:

"Your CD not sounding so perfect? Well believe us, it's not because we pulled the LPs off the shelves and rushed all the silver discs we could manufacture out the door, remastered by my mom and my wife's second cousin because we needed product, y'know? Blame the limitations of the source, not us, folks."

 

 A pity there wasn't more room on  the CD to put that instead !

[Ralf11]

Best Face Palm:  

[Rexp]

Went to an audio show yesterday, the best digital sound came from CD,  Audio Research CD9 feeding Nagra HD DAC. 

[R1200CL]

On 7/14/2018 at 4:30 AM, AudioDoctor said:

The Current

 

there, modern music from Minnesota Public radio, stream it for a while.  No Taylor Swift, just good music. If you use Jriver, you can stream them from inside the player.

 

https://tunein.com/radio/The-Current-893-s20620/

 

This link to be used for Roon

[AudioDoctor]

28 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

 

https://tunein.com/radio/The-Current-893-s20620/

 

This link to be used for Roon

 

I hadn't even realized ROON could do this, thank you.

[Rt66indierock]

On 7/21/2018 at 7:19 AM, Jud said:

 

I bought what I think was the first one, Ry Cooder's Bop 'Til You Drop, which did/does sound pretty good because it's Ry.  I remember buying some DG Classical stuff and expecting that it might sound better than it did.

 

That old copy on the back of CDs wasn't there as a public service or a technical statement meant to be closely parsed, however accurate we might see it as being, reading out of context 3 decades later. It was put there for one reason, to translate to this: "Your CD not sounding so perfect? Well believe us, it's not because we pulled the LPs off the shelves and rushed all the silver discs we could manufacture out the door, remastered by my mom and my wife's second cousin because we needed product, y'know? Blame the limitations of the source, not us, folks."

 

Now about that cowbell...do you think there may have been other stuff that didn't sound quite the same, that was so close it was beyond your power to accurately recall? Do 16 and 24 bit sound precisely identical now, with better reproduction equipment?

 

The first one was the St Paul Chamber’s Appalachian Spring. The direct to disk failed and they released the test of 3M’s digital system at Studio 80.

 

I’m still finding my preference for a recording is based on the skill of the people making the recording. 

[gmgraves]

On 7/21/2018 at 1:40 AM, semente said:

Yesterday I was listening to Tchaikovsky's 4th Mravinsky/LePO (DG Originals CD version).

The tape hiss (~ -57dB) is clearly audible in the end of the Scherzo at my normal listening level which is quite low in audiophile terms (90dB peaks at the listening spot, 2 metres away from the speakers, 15.75m2 room):

 

That -57 dB tape hiss is fairly normal for analog recordings made before the advent of Dolby A or DBX companding. How old is the CD remaster? Because most reissues today of older analog recordings, are autocorrelated and the equipment to do that is quite adroit at differentiating between noise and music.

[semente]

29 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

That -57 dB tape hiss is fairly normal for analog recordings made before the advent of Dolby A or DBX companding. How old is the CD remaster? Because most reissues today of older analog recordings, are autocorrelated and the equipment to do that is quite adroit at differentiating between noise and music.

 

It's this one: https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/gb/cat/4775911

 

Int. Release 02 Feb. 2006

Ⓟ 1961 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH
© 2006 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH
Recorded at Wembley Town Hall, London, September 1960

[adamdea]

On 7/20/2018 at 8:20 PM, Jud said:

 

Interesting thought. You mean not being able to see the speaker's face in the dark - and when replaying over an audio system?  Or were you thinking of something else?

I meant that background noise level would probably be much lower at night. But I don’t reckon it would make that much difference. Come to think of it, it was probably a crap point.