DolbyA decoding feedback -- 'feral' examples (yes/no)

[sandyk]

20 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Alex, don't make a fool of yourself. You are not entitled to claim that.

Stop your loop.

 Stop my loop ?

 I doubt that most members would disagree with my statement, as Frank has consistently come up with adverse findings to John's samples in this thread.

Frank has also made it abundantly clear that he prefers the original recordings, warts and all , over any of John's provided samples.

[sandyk]

32 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I have in fact borrowed some remasterings of ABBA from the local library - there were indeed grotesque, pumped up bass, squashed treble, a travesty of the early releases I have.

 Don't you think that John also has access to those early releases too, for comparison purposes ?

Recordings including the attached which is from Sweden, and is as early as (perhaps earlier than ?) any of your early CD  releases ?

[sandyk]

24 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The CD I have is of the '75 album, from Discogs,

 

ABBA ‎(CD, Album, RE),

Polydor,

831 596-2,

UK & Europe,

1987

 The point here, was that this is a genuine Swedish CD  from the 1973 recording .

 There is no guarantee that yours isn't a remastered copy, or that it even sounds the same as the genuine Swedish release !

 Neither does it have tracks like  Me And Bobby And Bobby's Brother which John has provided comparisons for.

 Yours is a very different CD !

[sandyk]

15 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Quick rip, and listen - suspect it's the same as what you already have ... anyway, here's 30 secs from the start,

 

RingRing,30s.wav 5.05 MB · 1 download

 

That sounds like undecoded Dolby A to me !

 The original POLCD -242 version is way more balanced sounding.

[sandyk]

9 hours ago, John Dyson said:

I don't have full copies available to the review group yet, but here are some killer snippets...

 Hi John

I found Rudy particularly interesting, especially with the realism of the storm and the more precise location of the voice in the soundstage, and the improved quality of the voice itself with one version.

 

Regards

Alex

[sandyk]

53 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Hmmm - for the umpteenth time ... 😜.

 

... tried The Logical Song, and the -r version has crippled treble ... the sparkle of the percussion elements has been heavily dulled - even my poor laptop sound, which I'm getting more used to, tells me that I would never pick the -r to seriously listen to, 🙂.

 

Perhaps you should have traded your Laptop in, instead of repairing it ?

[sandyk]

12 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

You know I'm going to disagree with you, John 😝 ... we're back to the bell curve of unpleasantness that is part and parcel of the audio journey - with low cost gear, 'ordinary' recordings sound fine, but start sounding worse and worse, the more "high end" you go - until you get past the peak of the highlighting of distortion artifacts, and move down the slope on the other side, towards fully competent playback.

 

"High quality equipment" normally isn't - I've only come across a handful that were not mine that didn't make a complete mess of 'more difficult' recordings - so I would need to to listen to precisely what the musicians were using, to judge playback quality, before accepting their verdict.

 Frank

 G.I  Still = GO  !

[sandyk]

19 minutes ago, fas42 said:

This comes across very well on the Toshiba - not HP - laptop; the gutsiness is fully there, with plenty of nice cymbal splash happening - this is what the "real thing" sounds like, and what I aim for.

 

 What weird video format is that in ? MKV  perhaps ?

 The 1920 x 1080 downloaded version will not play the audio with JRMC25, VLC player or GOM player in my setup.

Perhaps they are using this Video format to circumvent YouTube converting it to low bit rate .aac audio ?

[sandyk]

30 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

I'll probably pull these in a few days -- I have some recordings that i want to send to Alex (some Linda R big band stuff that he sent me to do some decoding tests on.)

Hi John

 I am hoping for results like the other Linda Ronstadt tracks that crapped all over the 24/192 commercially available version , despite being in your case, from a 16/44.1 source originally.  This clearly demonstrated showed that high quality mastering is even more important than the actual format they are recorded in.

It would be great though  if your S/W could do the same for what is generally available in high res that still had some genuine HF content in the original old masters.

 

Kind Regards

Alex

[sandyk]

18 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

John,

 

I noticed that one of the file sample rate was 44.1 and another 88.2 of the Supertramp encodes. Reason??

 

MAK

 MAK

 John processes the original 16/44.1 in 24/88.2 most of the time and saves them in .flac format usually.

 They are still 44.1 but in an 88.2 container. Note also the absence of HF rubbish unlike normal Hi Res files.

[sandyk]

18 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

, I doubt there really is a benefit to above 44.1kHz sample rate, I guess...

 

  More relaxed filtering.

 

Quote

it might be advantageous in this case to distribute at a higher data rate to avoid up/down conversions later in the chain.

 

I.M.E. , Most definitely .

[sandyk]

8 minutes ago, fas42 said:

it seems that you're after a heavily damped sound from the cymbal - which is not what an actual cymbal sounds like, live

Frank

 Your present listening equipment appears to be incapable of correctly reproducing material like that without  added HF emphasis !!!  

 People like Robin who is a Classical musician, and I believe may be the person that John alluded to previously, has WAY better equipment than you have. FULL STOP !

[sandyk]

5 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I do know what a drum kit sounds like, in the flesh - I have listened to plenty of them over the years, in numerous places - and even now I grab any opportunity to check what the raw sound is, bypassing the normally egregious PA setup ... and that sound is full of HF 'shimmer'; it has quite an intoxicating impact, to my ears.

 

So, I want playback of drums to include that specialness; it creates part of that magic of what one gets listening to live music.

 It appears that to achieve that, you need quite a few dB of additional HF emphasis to compensate for the greatly diminished HF response in the transducers that you are listening to. 

[sandyk]

John

My CPU fan has died so I will be off air until I can get my son to replace it as I gave no transport

Regards

Alex

[sandyk]

33 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Sorry to hear about that.  CPU fans are definitely one of the troublesome aspects of maintaining computers (I am a bit too much of a bachelor, and allow too much dust.)  I worry about my current main computer, several years old -- about the time for fan problems to be possible.   Maybe just replace my computer with a nice 8 core?  Nahh... Rather eat first, even though the computer is important to me :-).

 

John

 

 

John

I was able to put on new HS compound where the old stuff almost fell off, but the plastic retaining clips had become so brittle due to heat that a couple snapped off when refitting the fan

I am having major problems with the forum timing out most of the attempts. Perhaps email to me may work better if needed.Are you able to advise in the small forum for me ?

Kind Regards

Alex

[sandyk]

33 minutes ago, Don Hills said:

John,

Your filter sets do point to a way forward. With the decoder and a list of settings, others can process their own copies of the tracks you have analysed so far. Armed with these for before/after comparison, those who are interested can learn how to recognise the processing (mis)applied to other tracks and decode them. Settings can be freely shared, unlike the processed tracks themselves.

 Don

 This sounds like a good idea, however John has developed his Decoder in collaboration with Richard, and there then become commercial considerations involved. It may however be possible further down the track to purchase a licensed copy from Richard.

 With somebody who has a vast collection of CDs from that period it could be a very worthwhile solution.

 

Alex

[sandyk]

4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

You think I'm wrong; I think that you have worked out one strategy to compensate for the general lack of sufficient capability of current playback systems - how about we leave it at that?

 Frank

 Please do so .

You have contributed very little worthwhile to the discussion as you do not currently have a high enough quality system

available to properly evaluate the results from the decoder, unless you do something like saving the comparisons to USB memory and take the USB stick to your audiophile friend's house. Both of you could then sit down and listen to before and after versions via his system, and you then take on board his comments as well..

[sandyk]

12 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Alex, you still don't don't get it

 

No Frank, you don't get it. Your experiences are completely at odds with the vast majority of members.

 Do what I suggested about saving to USB then trying John's before and after versions in a system far better than the one that you are currently using.

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

BTW -- Alex, I have a big backlog of good decodes now.  I am doing Carly Simon's colleciton again -- noticeable further improvement.  The 'Crime of the Century' and 'Breakfast in America' are done.  I am still not happy with Linda Ronstadts' pop hits, but the wonderful band stuff is amazing.  Let me know if you hear signifcant defects.  I think that there are a few possible choices left, I tried to make the best ones that I could discern.  I might go ahead and process 'In the Quietest Moments'.  Oh -- also I have GOOD Brasil'66 and Herb Alpert decodes also -- the instruments sound really good.  The Brasil'66 vocals are still a little 'enhanced' somehow., but better than ever.  Listening to the regular 'Herb Alpert' release -- it is hissy and compressed -- might even be compressed DolbyA -- YUCK!!!
Still have the totally *perfect* ABBA and Carpenters decodes (all of the actual albums) complete also.

 

Take care!!!  Will probably discuss more privately later on.

 

John

 

Hi John

 I presume that these will also be made available to other participants in your current PM series ?

 Anybody else interested in helping with constructive comments could also contact you directly via PM about being included in this group.

 

Kind Regards

Alex

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, John Dyson said:

I am esp hopeful about the Supertramp and Carly stuff (other than the decoding that I did for you personally -- it was really special.) 

 It was indeed, and not only was it way better sounding than the original CD, it then was also markedly superior to the official 24/192 version despite being from a 16/44.1 source. 

PM me for a couple of samples (You're So Vain, and We Have No Secrets) They are .flac in a 24/88.2 container

[sandyk]

3 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Sorry -- had some problems -- all fixed, and very nice...  Just got 1971 done onto the demo site, and now should be uploading 1972 in a few minutes, and 1973 in about 1/2 Hr.

 

 

Very nice doesn't even come close to describing John's just completed test of a few corrected tracks from Supertramp.

 They absolutely put to shame most Hi Res recordings despite being sourced from 16/44.1 .

[sandyk]

 I should also point out, that in a couple of cases where I have felt that the latest version has lost something when trying to correct for excessive sibilance that may not have been as bad on the original Master  recording, I ask a couple of friends of mine from overseas, one of whom is a performing classical musician from the USA who is resident in Germany, to check my findings, the results of which are then directly forwarded to John. In the case of Supertramp, it is also helpful in  that both of these friends have the Supertramp album on Vinyl for comparison.

[sandyk]

41 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

FULL anti-MD:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yiy1yru9r7fk8rt/08. Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa-FULLantiMD.mp3?dl=0

 

NO anti-MD, but still some distortion reduction:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x9xf41e72qfhhxq/08. Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa-noantiMD.mp3?dl=0

 

John

 

 I have no problems hearing the improvement with FULL anti MD

[sandyk]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

John, just to say that I prefer the original 😜 ... again. I have no trouble hearing the strength in Linda's voice, in that one - but in the processed variety I hear the backing losing its strength; the instruments have "withered" a bit …

 Frank

 Your reports are of no value whatsoever unless you at the very least use a conventional stereo set up, not rely on what you are hearing from tiny little speakers on a laptop with a far from ideal frequency response and a mediocre S/N ratio.

If you wish to be taken seriously, you need to, at the very least, DL them and save them to USB memory, and listen to them through your Audiophile friend's system.