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

[John Dyson]

One thing -- I have to mention about the DHNRDS decoded copies -- they are not mastered further than a DolbyA decode.  Most of the time, If I was to distribute the DHNRDS copies, I'd give a 1.5dB cut at 9kHz.  It seems like the material might have been 'tweaked' for vinyl, so a bit of 'softening' might be in order.  When I mess with material not intended for vinyl, it seems like it doesn't need the  1.5dB cut.

 

John

 

[fas42]

10 hours ago, John Dyson said:

* With the 'Superstar' example, the undecoded is 'brighter', but the cymbals/percussion all the same level on the undecoded (wrong).  This is due to dynamic range compression.  The decoded version has both softer and louder cymbals, which is correct.

 

Not decoded - gritty, grainy, hissy -- dynamic HF boost WRT input the DolbyA/tape recorder complex

DHNRDS - less gritty, less grainy, less hissy -- flat WRT input into the DolbyA/tape recorder complex

(DHNRDS version had to be re-uploaded -- I forgot the correct calibration -- corrected.)

(Usually, not always, a quick check with sox will show a bit wider dynamic range upon decoding, but sox only measures the high level dynamic range, not the hiss reduction and regularization of the middle/lower dynamics)

 

And yet again I'll have to disagree with you, John ... in Superstar, the undecoded is full of life, the musical backing immediately piques one's interest - the DHNRD, in comparison, has become Muzak, "elevator music" - in terms of inspiring me to keep listening, there is a clear winner.

[sandyk]

43 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

And yet again I'll have to disagree with you, John ... in Superstar, the undecoded is full of life, the musical backing immediately piques one's interest - the DHNRD, in comparison, has become Muzak, "elevator music" - in terms of inspiring me to keep listening, there is a clear winner.

 

 Frank

 Please come back and report again when you have something better to evaluate John's efforts with than your tiny , ragged frequency response laptop's speakers and their vastly inferior amplification.

 You did mention recently that you hoped to be upgrading soon. Possibly, like me, finances are tight though ?

[fas42]

Just now, sandyk said:

 

 Frank

 Please come back and report again when you have something better to evaluate John's efforts with than your tiny , ragged frequency response laptop's speakers and their vastly inferior amplification.

 You did mention recently that you hoped to be upgrading soon. Possibly, like me, finances are tight though ?

 

Alex, you're on the money with your last comment, ...

 

No point in getting a "superior" system which is full of subtle distortion issues that all have to be sorted - the advantage of the laptop is that it's good enough to hear what's going on; the path is so simple that minimal disturbing artifacts are present.

 

I have listened to far too many misbehaving ambitious rigs to be willing to put with their shortcomings - that type of setup does so much subjective damage to recordings with intense mixes of sound, meaning one learns very little about what has been intrinsically improved in a recording that's been manipulated.

[John Dyson]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Alex, you're on the money with your last comment, ...

 

No point in getting a "superior" system which is full of subtle distortion issues that all have to be sorted - the advantage of the laptop is that it's good enough to hear what's going on; the path is so simple that minimal disturbing artifacts are present.

 

I have listened to far too many misbehaving ambitious rigs to be willing to put with their shortcomings - that type of setup does so much subjective damage to recordings with intense mixes of sound, meaning one learns very little about what has been intrinsically improved in a recording that's been manipulated.

And there are people (like me) actually working on the problems.  The DolbyA problem has persisted for many years -- I cannot even figure out why it has lurked so long -- other than people just not knowing any better.  (Stuff like high performance pre-amps are boring to me -- they are designed 100's of times per year, and it really wouldn't help the world to have another preamp/amp/etc with theoretically near perfect specs -- they already exist.)

 

I decided that it was worthwhile to solve a new problem (or a  languishing problem -- sometimes luddites still avoiding the truth.)

 

The DolbyA problem is NOT normally  consumer solvable, other than trying to avoid the garbage (non-prepared) material that they are often stuck purchasing.  It is not easily remedied by the consumer, but knowledge of the problem might eventually be known enough/become common knowledge that there will be really, helpful and useful solutions appearing.  The distributors do know that the consumer will purchase garbage, and it is getting worse.  We need to re-educate the distributors by better educating the consumers.

 

It would be nice if people knew earlier (decades ago) about the lack of decoding problem -- even though a lot of damage has occurred, it doesn't do any good to stick fingers in ears and go nyaa nyaa nyaa either.   Frankly, nowadays, recording quality has little to do but improve.  We have the technology for perfection, but keep on wasting it on bad things or inaction (MQA and not decoding DolbyA are similar sorts of abusive problems -- but frankly, from a quality standpoint, undecoded DolbyA is WORSE.)

 

About knowing and accepting reality -- I learned many years ago, it is generally better to try to grow rather than languish -  I am much happier to have at least an idea about what I don't know -- and be totally honest (honest with myself and others) about it.   The bad thing about the knowledge thing -- some people are selfish,  wanting to own know-how themselves, and when they cannot own it -- try to deny it to others.  Eventually attempt at ridicule backfires.

 

Given that I don't benefit from being selfish, I really try to share.  It is best to try to avoid trying to deny others from growing.  Just a kindly suggestion & response.

 

John

 

[rando]

@John Dyson

ABBA can't be helping your ability to listen for enjoyment.  I'm struggling to rectify how it should sound and how that can be good.  

 

Trusting at this point your ability to spot Dolby A leaks is robust.  You mentioned a few classical albums earlier.  Could you suggest a couple discs to track down (possibly even already in my library) to hear the effects on repertoire I'm more familiar with?

 

In the last year or slightly more I've collected a fair number of '83/'84 - '88 CD releases.  Plummeting reactions in Album of the Evening aside.  Bettering extraction of these recorded sounds captured my interests where a current overt focus on crafting inhumanly plastic high resolution artistic "perfection/ruin" was found less rewarding.  

[John Dyson]

4 hours ago, rando said:

@John Dyson

ABBA can't be helping your ability to listen for enjoyment.  I'm struggling to rectify how it should sound and how that can be good.  

 

Trusting at this point your ability to spot Dolby A leaks is robust.  You mentioned a few classical albums earlier.  Could you suggest a couple discs to track down (possibly even already in my library) to hear the effects on repertoire I'm more familiar with?

 

In the last year or slightly more I've collected a fair number of '83/'84 - '88 CD releases.  Plummeting reactions in Album of the Evening aside.  Bettering extraction of these recorded sounds captured my interests where a current overt focus on crafting inhumanly plastic high resolution artistic "perfection/ruin" was found less rewarding.  

Answering/commenting on each question/comment: :-).

PREFACE:  last night was not happy -- my decode attempt of all of the ABBA albums failed -- I screwed up with one of the parameters.  That means that I probably wont' be able to produce any examples until tomorrow.  I like to do decodes of material like ABBA (their albums), Carpenters (their albums), etc -- in one big effort.  SO, I am hoping to have a run of all of ABBA complete tonight (again!!!)

 

About ABBA -- the best way to describe how ABBA is supposed to sound:  I'll put together some REALLY GOOD examples.  The DHNRDS just had two major breakthroughs that pushed it even farther beyond what the  old DolbyA could do -- esp WRT vocals.  Of course, ABBA being choral vocals along with a sort-of wall-of-sound is an interesting gain control challenge (when the gain control is SUPER fast at 30msec release time range, like DolbyA.)   The best that I can do is to produce some *private* ABBA examples where they actually sound kind-of good from a high fidelity standpoint.  I am not promising miracles -- but nearly so.  (I'll also supply public snippet examples to make sure that I am not excluding anyone from the discussion.)

 

About the 'classical' material -- just checked my personal RELEASED music supply (I also have some master tapes), and I don't have any *released* pure classical that is 'DolbyA' -- I did just check.  I have precious little consumer released classical -- frankly, classical is usually easy to DA decode, so haven't focused on acquiring it for test material.   However, I will do some research (look around to friends) and see if I can find anything where public examples can be shown (or I do have bona-fide DolbyA with-tones classical material that I cannot disclose -- which stops any kind of even limited sharing.)  *Look below for my offer to assist in detecting and/or decoding DolbyA classical material.  

 

Not 'classical', but instead POP/'orchestral' -- I did just verify that 'Henry Mancini, Greatest Hits, yr 2000'  IS DolbyA and will provide some examples tomorrow (my screw-up last night made my schedule today very tight.)

 

About 'detecting' DolbyA encoded material.  A *strong* indicator can be provided by a spectogram, and looking at the 'background fog' -- of course hiss/noise.  Often (not always), the background fog is stronger if material is DolbyA encoded (but not decoded), but the more strong indicator is an increasing strength of the fog beyond 10kHz.  Pro 15-30ips tape decks don't ahve that much of a hiss increase, but the extra 5dB of gain on DolbyA above 10kHz does show an increase in hiss (stronger fog.)  That is NOT a 100% indicator, but is very strong.

 

* I will provide an example spectogram of some DolbyA material to give a sense of what I am writing about WRT the 'increase in fog above 10kHz.'

 

About 'verifying' -- if you do the first check of 1) seeing the fog density increase above 10kHz or 2) you hear a kind of HF compression, excess ambiance on instruments biased towards HF, or 'compression' when it really shouldnt' be compressed -- then I am willing to do an evaluation & decode attempt with a 30second snippet ...  It is easier if there is material in the snippet where there is ambiance and HF content so that you&I can hear the effects, and the decode attempt will be more definitive.

 

I am also willing to 'give a hand' about decoding material if it ends up being something that you might want.  Using the DHNRDS can be tedious, and I don't feel that it is best if a consumer need to use it -- but I am willing to supply a trial copy (generous license timeout) and help using it.   As the DHNRDS has gotten better and better, it has become more robust WRT errors in calibration setting.  That-is, it is easier to use than it used to be...  However, it is still a bit of gritty kind of piece of software to use (like an ancient MSDOS program.)

 

Talking with me about this isn't all or nothing -- I understand that this matter is both sensitive and important, and MOST IMPORTANTLY -- one can enjoy listening to music, whether or not it is still DolbyA encoded.  Not life & death at all.

 

John

 

 

 

 

 

[rando]

Thank you for your generous offers.  I understand sample material was not chosen on the basis of pleasant listening.  Should a classical release come forward I'd be quite interested.  In any other case there is no need to expend any effort towards discovering one you can discuss.  Unless it is deemed an interesting case for your own usage.  Please do post a spectogram clearly showing a clear example of the effects you detailed.   

 

Under normal conditions letting you follow your own path to insanity on the DHNRDS would be advisable.  Somehow I suspected the small diversion from intense observations based off laptop speakers disagreeing with your entire body of work on this project wholesale would be welcomed.  

[fas42]

I decided to look around yesterday for solutions, currently, to the "I have encoded tapes, but no tape setup on hand to decode them scenario!" - and it turns out there are a couple of options right now: there is steady turnaround of the actual Dolby decoding circuitry cards one can buy; add these to standard tape deck, decode, and then resell them, with little money lost - or use a software solution. The best one out there appears to be Satin, by u-he, https://u-he.com/products/satin/ - the Compander on the interface is where the action is, it has about half a dozen encoding and decoding algorithms, including, though it can't say this directly , Dolby A. It also has the mastering engineer's "Dolby trick", which was the deliberate encoding in the treble region only - apparently this was a hardware hack on the actual boards: resistors linked in the various bands for the encoding and only the resistors that enabled the treble bands were left in circuit.

 

For those who want to "nicefy" recordings with simulated, extra reel to reel 'goodness', this seems to be a pretty good option. There's a demo to play with, which I verified works; the cost for a full working example is tiny compared to what people pay for hardware in the replay chain, that do similar things. Of course, this is distortion, pure and simple, of what is actually on the recording that you paid for - but that's precisely what happens anyway in the recording studio, before you get your hands on it ...

 

[John Dyson]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

I decided to look around yesterday for solutions, currently, to the "I have encoded tapes, but no tape setup on hand to decode them scenario!" - and it turns out there are a couple of options right now: there is steady turnaround of the actual Dolby decoding circuitry cards one can buy; add these to standard tape deck, decode, and then resell them, with little money lost - or use a software solution. The best one out there appears to be Satin, by u-he, https://u-he.com/products/satin/ - the Compander on the interface is where the action is, it has about half a dozen encoding and decoding algorithms, including, though it can't say this directly , Dolby A. It also has the mastering engineer's "Dolby trick", which was the deliberate encoding in the treble region only - apparently this was a hardware hack on the actual boards: resistors linked in the various bands for the encoding and only the resistors that enabled the treble bands were left in circuit.

 

For those who want to "nicefy" recordings with simulated, extra reel to reel 'goodness', this seems to be a pretty good option. There's a demo to play with, which I verified works; the cost for a full working example is tiny compared to what people pay for hardware in the replay chain, that do similar things. Of course, this is distortion, pure and simple, of what is actually on the recording that you paid for - but that's precisely what happens anyway in the recording studio, before you get your hands on it ...

 

The DolbyA cards produce a DolbyA decode fog (solved by the DHNRDS.)  It is well known by people worried about very good quality.  We ARE also working on a Telcom C4 decoder, and those cards ARE failing (falling out of tolerance.)  Many DolbyA cards have also been hacked into uselessness except for vocal enhancement.

 

The Satin doesn't sound like a DolbyA AT ALL.  It also seems to leave hiss in the audio.   We were astounded about how it just barely did some EQ, and possibly 1 band expansion.   Hisss.....  The whole original purpose for DolbyA.  (My guess is that the Satin was intended as a quick work around for when there isn't a DolbyA available instead of as a very superior solution.  The DHNRDS DA is a more complete solution with full noise reduction/etc.)

 

The thing about the HF bands only -- yes the DHNRDS allows disabling any of the bands individual on a per channel basis and also allows changing the calibration on each band/channel.  These features are useful when an old A301 had bands/channels disabled (which has the cards that can be enabled/disabled) or using a circuitry modification on the cat22.   Sometimes they DID disable the LF/MF bands because of calibration issues also.

* Also the calibration on a per channel/band basis is very useful when different tape recorder channels have different gains.  This allows easy reading of the calibration tones and setting the calibration accurately per channel.

 

The DHNRDS wouldn't have been done if it wasn't so very superior.  The really good feature is that the DHNRDS actually does the full NR function, including slightly better NR than a real DolbyA.  Additionally, when running in a basic quality mode, it sounds VERY VERY similar to a real DolbyA.  No other solution does.  * When the DHNRDS runs in a higher quality mode -- it is slower, still sounding VERY similar to a real DolbyA -- except the decoding fog and various kinds of MD/IMD are very substantially reduced.

 

The DHNRDS DA is a full 4 band expander with the gain control vs. time a very close emulation of the DolbyA, except for very careful (calculated dynamically at the most fine level) trajectory modifications for minimization and almost effective elimination of IMD, MD (the bad old DolbyA decoding fog.)   It is indeed a 'decoding fog', and since the DolbyA does the encoding job very well -- it gives the DHNRDS the ability to significantly improve the results by decoding in a VERY superior way.

 

We already know about all of the above issues as I have been guided by a well known tape restoration expert.

 

Thanks for letting me explain these things -- I wouldn't have bothered if it wasn't SOOOO good (at least, that is what they say.) :-).

The users manual (I think I am posting a slightly older version) explains some of this stuff..

 

John

Dyson-Hess_NRDS_Manual_v0-7-1a.pdf

[John Dyson]

This is the start of some forum postings -- responding to some other comments or fill-in some context.   This first response is probably least-important and about ABBA/ how they ?should? sound.   I have my opinons, but most of them are 'not like the way that any CD or vinyl rip that I have sounds'.   This ABBA thing is probably the 'least' important discussion that I am following up for today -- but I think that it is fun.

 

Since I happen to have some software that can decode DolbyA material (DolbyA material often being close to unmastered), and I *have* been using ABBA for test material, I think that I can answer how ABBA was *probably* meant to sound.  But, this IS a guess, perhaps somewhat educated -- esp when considering the comments that I have heard about the reasons for a certain 'ABBA' sound and the limitations of 1970s technology.

 

The best way to evaluate the results is to do quick-listens.  This shouldn't be considered to be a science project, even though it has been a tedious effort.   I did as much of a full rework and passive clean-up that I could, on all of the standard group of ABBA albums -- it is A LOT of work. There is ZERO manipulation on a per song basis -- all manipulations are on the entire albums.  There is ZERO compression/expansion (other than DolbyA decoding), and remixing or cut and paste of any kind.  This is only intended to present the best unmolested results from the recordings at hand.

 

I am providing some public examples --and for reference, a vinyl rip (vrip) of the best vinyl copy that I can find.  This is approx the same quality as a good CD -- sometimes better and sometimes worse.  However, the vinyl should be close to 'intended' (given the constraints of the 1970s')

 

So, I have produced these  'remastered' snippets -- they are the result of a significant effort, but admittedly FAR from perfection.  Trying to make a recording sound 'right' is NOT a simple thing to do -- esp with material like ABBA.  *Some of the results might seem to be surprisingly good.   I can say that almost all of the decoding results are significantly more clean/crisp but not peaky or 'enhanced' sounding.

 

There are much more complete private examples if anyone is really curious.  If you do comment on the sound -- just don't beat me up -- but give me some ideas as to what other kind of emphasis or modification you think might be helpful.  I am not dealing with .flac copies here, even though I could make them available.  .mp3 is showing enough to judge what is going on in the recordings.   Given it is ABBA, probably 96k mp3 is good enough :-).

 

Vinyl rip has 'vrip' in the filename.  Files with 'remastered' in the filename were remastered using DHNRDS DA and SOX as the primary tools.  Some of the file names are not exactly the same, but should come from the same original master tape.   Normally, I never go so far as to fully prepare material for listening.  This SHOULD be fairly close.

 

Constructive negative/positive FEEDBACK WELCOME.  PS:  I have troubles getting the L or R channels right -- different releases seem to swap the channels!!!

 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vi7qwhk741two7b/AACjoiazLhfbY08nFADk7Ttma?dl=0

 

John

 

[John Dyson]

This post is about the very tedious and sometimes tricky detecting DolbyA encoding.  The compression can be very stealthy, only noticeable when hearing a properly decoded copy of the material.  Sometimes the HF compression is just not all that horrendous.  Very often, they'll chop 3dB or 6dB off at 3kHz to compensate for the excess boost caused by the DolbyA compression.  When chopping things off like that, then the compression is less obvious -- and we all hear compression so often now, some of us are blind to it.  I have to admit, sometimes I cannot hear the HF compression after the 3dB or 6dB EQ has been done.   When really confused -- is it DolbyA or not, then other methods to detect it can be helpful.

 

Here, I am discussing the spectogram, and the hiss veil.  This is NOT a very accurate method, but is good for confirmation.  The difference in the 'fog' starting in the 10kHz range can be helpful (maybe 6-15kHz depending on the noise characteristics and the music).  Sometimes, there is NO additional fog -- because the recording might have been clean and noise reduced to begin with, the DolbyA being used for some kind of distribution standardization.

 

I am attaching a few examples, along with the recording for one of the examples.  I chose a POP orchestral recording (Pink Panther)  because it is fairly easy to hear the compression on the un-decoded material.  Also, I have included the 'as distributed' snippet -- that is, it has the -6dB at 3kHz EQ as it was sent to the listening public.  Next, I include a pure DolbyA snippet (minus6dB in its name), and that snippet doesn't have the EQ -- the 'minus6dB' version can be used directly as input to a DolbyA or DHNRDS.   The final verison has the 'V0.9.7N' in the filename, and it is fully decoded (no mastering -- just a raw decode.)

 

I included a snapshot of the spectogram for the pure dolbyA copy -- it is tricky to see the increase in fog (it represents hiss) above 10kHz -- but look at the top or bottom diagrams of the 'Pink panther' spectogram -- the top RIGHT hand side, you can see the hiss background as a 'blue fog' in the background.  You can see the blue fog get just a little more intense as the frequency goes up.  It can be very hard to see, and vision can sometimes be tricked -- however, when desperate trying to determine if something is DolbyA or not, looking at the spectogram can help.   It is not foolproof, but I do use this method from time to time.

 

Also, there is a spectogram for the Carpenters 'Bacharach-David Medley'.  If you look on the LEFT hand side on this one -- you can see the fog starting just below 10kHz or so.   It is a very subtle variance in background hiss (or visual fog.)

 

The recording (the Pink Panther) with the 1) full decoded V0.9.7N, 2) Pure DolbyA "minus6dB", 3) As distributed version.

 

The difference between 'minus6dB' and 'AsDistributed' is that AsDistributed had 6dB boost at 3kHz/Q=0.707 and -6dB gain.

 

You Should be able to hear the compression in the 'AsDistributed' version once comparing with the fully decoded one.  Sorry about not including the spectogram of the 'fully decoded' V0.9.7N version -- but the big difference is that the fog has less blue in it -- in fact,the fog pretty much disappears on the spectogram unless the gain is turned up.

 

Music (Pink Panther snippet) is here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5xqd926xezqng43/AABP1FmgojfQliLlfohDCiWPa?dl=0

 

John

 

 

 

 

[John Dyson]

Stupid me -- almost all DolbyA recordings benefit from a slight cut (shelving cut) of about 1-1.5dB at 9kHz.  I don't know why they need that, but it seems like orchestral stuff not destined for vinyl does not need it.  So, it might have something to do with expectations when dealing with vinyl.  So, the orchestral example (Pink Panther) will benefit from a slight cut at 9kHz.  I did NOT modify the decoding results other than to convert to mp3 or whatever.  Just a heads up!!!  SO -- I did not do the slight 1.5dB cut.

The recording does sound better with the -1.5dB at 9kHz though...  Sorry about this.

 

John

 

[fas42]

If anything's being beaten up, it's poor old ABBA ... . You know what's coming, John ... I tried the Ring Ring- remastered, and most of the specialness of the ABBA sound has been lost - especially the voices; these have the dreaded, AM radio quality about them ... it just doesn't work as a listening experience.

 

Knowing how magic ABBA tracks can sound, I'm afraid this doesn't work for me - if people have systems which can't resolve the richness of the ABBA mastering, then it may be ideal to use a version which is made more bland - this is a trend which I have seen over and over again; audiophile remasterings suck the fullness out of an album; and one needs to go back to the original, to hear how much has been lost.

[Racerxnet]

Frank,

 

Your laptop is richless. You are not hearing much WRT sound quality.

 

MAK

[fas42]

3 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

Frank,

 

Your laptop is richless. You are not hearing much WRT sound quality.

 

MAK

 

Au contraire. The ABBA tracks have been heard on a system while in a zone of competency - and that system is not this laptop, note - and the qualities which are heard there, which are meaningful, can quite readily be picked on this laptop.

 

The normal audiophile rig is in a state of precarious SQ - it will be highly spectacular on carefully selected recordings, and make a dog's breakfast of many recordings that are "a bit difficult" - ABBA just might come to mind ... . ... This is not a good situation ...

 

So, I have no interest in listening to an audiophile approved setup which has obvious audible flaws, to determine what is better in mastering variations - unless the playback is highly transparent in key areas, using such to judge to recordings is a pointless exercise.

[Racerxnet]

If your speakers cannot reproduce the full audio content, then you are not hearing all of the material as was intended. 😊 Of course, a laptop makes dogs breakfast of just about everything, and worse when "a bit difficult". Enjoy your breakfast! 

[fas42]

29 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

If your speakers cannot reproduce the full audio content, then you are not hearing all of the material as was intended. 😊 Of course, a laptop makes dogs breakfast of just about everything, and worse when "a bit difficult". Enjoy your breakfast! 

 

"Full audio content" if referring to frequency response is of no use, if the treble is damaged - unlike many rigs which are unpleasant to listen to with one's ear anywhere near the tweeter, because of the distortion anomalies being generated in the playback chain, this laptop doesn't have that problem - one can listen using one speaker as if it were one side of a pair of headphones, at maximum volume, when all the software settings are dialed in.

 

Other laptops I have here fit your description - and therefore I don't use them, for listening, .

[John Dyson]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

If anything's being beaten up, it's poor old ABBA ... . You know what's coming, John ... I tried the Ring Ring- remastered, and most of the specialness of the ABBA sound has been lost - especially the voices; these have the dreaded, AM radio quality about them ... it just doesn't work as a listening experience.

 

Knowing how magic ABBA tracks can sound, I'm afraid this doesn't work for me - if people have systems which can't resolve the richness of the ABBA mastering, then it may be ideal to use a version which is made more bland - this is a trend which I have seen over and over again; audiophile remasterings suck the fullness out of an album; and one needs to go back to the original, to hear how much has been lost.

All I was is a specification of what you dont like.  Words like 'richness' are meaningless.   Also, methinks that the MD filled muck and mire of the originals are unlistenable.

Just use meaningful words, not blather.  Thank you.

 

John

 

[John Dyson]

2 hours ago, Racerxnet said:

Frank,

 

Your laptop is richless. You are not hearing much WRT sound quality.

 

MAK

I do fully expect some criticism -- unlike the original recordings -- I have full access to all of the detail.  The choices that I made was to expose every last bit of detail in the recordings, but some can be suppressed as needed.

 

I can say that I biased the results in the direction of intensity instead of mellowness.   The original goals were to 'punch-through' an AM radio -- therefore there is a bias towards that goal.  I can soften it -- even to the level of the vinyl as demoed in the 'vrip' versions.

 

The problem with the vinyl versions is that the 'fog' is overwhelming, but I can compromise more between fog and 'punch.'

 

John

 

[John Dyson]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

If anything's being beaten up, it's poor old ABBA ... . You know what's coming, John ... I tried the Ring Ring- remastered, and most of the specialness of the ABBA sound has been lost - especially the voices; these have the dreaded, AM radio quality about them ... it just doesn't work as a listening experience.

 

Knowing how magic ABBA tracks can sound, I'm afraid this doesn't work for me - if people have systems which can't resolve the richness of the ABBA mastering, then it may be ideal to use a version which is made more bland - this is a trend which I have seen over and over again; audiophile remasterings suck the fullness out of an album; and one needs to go back to the original, to hear how much has been lost.

If you cannot hear the 'mud' in the ripped vinyl version as posted (the CD versions are just as bad) -- and haven't mentioned it -- then your comments are worthless.

Rather than blather -- explain EXACTLY in reasonably technical terms what you dont' like.  Changes can be easily made -- I have access to ALL of the detail in the recordings, unlike what the original distributed versions have.

 

John

 

[John Dyson]

Maybe I should explain the defects in the original ABBA version -- and what was done to fix it.

 

If you listen carefully to the highs in a lot of the original ABBA versions -- the higs are at least partially existant, but they happen AFTER the initial impact producing the transient.   So, it is something like a group delay, where the highs are significantly delayed on the original versions.  A good example is that the sibilance in the original vocals is kind of 'sweet', but should have happend some milliseconds before it should actually appear.   Ring Ring is an especially egregious example, but the original might also have had a few dB of HF suppression.  By doing a flat and more time-correct remastering -- the signal brightens up (maybe too much.)

 

* to me, the original 'S' sounds are 'almost' like a "thuhs" instead of a "sthuh"...  That sure sounds like a group delay in the original signal.

Tretow might have been trying to compensate for some suppression in brightness somewhere, and that is probably where the strong brightness comes from in my versions.  He pushes it so far that the 'S' finally comes through, but only after the vocalization had happened.

 

I don't think that the high frequency content is delayed as severely as the envelope (technical term) of the highs are delayed, probably SEEMING to produce a kind of group delay, but not really.  This might result from 'gain control distortion' in the original.  (or modulation distortion -- I am not sure.)

 

The 'remastered' versions resynchronize the impacts and the highs -- therefore brightening up the sound.   The result might be a little too bright sounding, but it comes from the original recording once the 'S' or other high frequencies are happening at the correct time. That is where a good technical description of what might seem too intense, so itcan help direct me to bring the signal and the envelop back into a more subjectively desirable sound.

 

John

 

[pkane2001]

6 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Maybe I should explain the defects in the original ABBA version -- and what was done to fix it.

 

If you listen carefully to the highs in a lot of the original ABBA versions -- the higs are at least partially existant, but they happen AFTER the initial impact producing the transient.   So, it is something like a group delay, where the highs are significantly delayed on the original versions.  A good example is that the sibilance in the original vocals is kind of 'sweet', but should have happend some milliseconds before it should actually appear.   Ring Ring is an especially egregious example, but the original might also have had a few dB of HF suppression.  By doing a flat and more time-correct remastering -- the signal brightens up (maybe too much.)

 

* to me, the original 'S' sounds are 'almost' like a "thuhs" instead of a "sthuh"...  That sure sounds like a group delay in the original signal.

Tretow might have been trying to compensate for some suppression in brightness somewhere, and that is probably where the strong brightness comes from in my versions.  He pushes it so far that the 'S' finally comes through, but only after the vocalization had happened.

 

I don't think that the high frequency content is delayed as severely as the envelope (technical term) of the highs are delayed, probably SEEMING to produce a kind of group delay, but not really.  This might result from 'gain control distortion' in the original.  (or modulation distortion -- I am not sure.)

 

The 'remastered' versions resynchronize the impacts and the highs -- therefore brightening up the sound.   The result might be a little too bright sounding, but it comes from the original recording once the 'S' or other high frequencies are happening at the correct time. That is where a good technical description of what might seem too intense, so itcan help direct me to bring the signal and the envelop back into a more subjectively desirable sound.

 

John

 

 

John, if you have an example of a DolbyA processed recording and the original, not messed up version, it would be interesting to run it through some analysis to see the variable group delay/phase differences and dynamic compression effects. 

[John Dyson]

9 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

John, if you have an example of a DolbyA processed recording and the original, not messed up version, it would be interesting to run it through some analysis to see the variable group delay/phase differences and dynamic compression effects. 

I can do a pure decode -- but they appear to have cut the middle frequencies.  I'll do a totally raw decode with zero modifications other than to EQ the input to the decoder so that there wiil be no other modications.   The decode has to be presented a correct DolbyA signal or really sounds bad.   I have never had access to the before-DolbyA versions -- because they probably don't exist anymore, but I can do a very raw approximation posted RingRing below.    I'll do 'RingRing' below and one other.

 

For me -- the original 'RingRing' is horribly messed up.  I even have an ORIIGNAL vinyl version -- it is as bad or worse than the one that I demoed!!!

 

Listen 'carefull'y to the orginal 'RingRing' -- I have CD versions and ripped versions, they all have that odd sound.  The vinyl version is typical.  The RAW decode is temporally lined up (not mucked up like the vinyl version and many other CD versions), but still has an overly tight sound to me -- maybe just my own taste.  But what I have included here is as clean and simple as possible.  This doesn't even have the 1.5dB cut at 9kHz -- usually done for vinyl destined material.

 

John

 

01. ABBA - Ring Ring-RAWdecode.mp3

[John Dyson]

Also, here is SOS and Mamma Mia...  These are dead raw -- in these cases, the distributed versions are heavily EQed.  This was taken from material where the DolbyA was totally normalized and passed through flat.  The only thing done to these after decoding were reversing the channels (a lot of DolbyA copies of ABBA are reversed), and mp3 encoding.

 

As you can probably hear -- and compared with released versions, they really hype up the highs.  If you bring the highs up on these, the sound is very natural -- doesn't have that kind of 'distorted', 'swirl' sound of many of the released versions.  If you want to bring these closer to the released versions (but much cleaner) -- do a +3dB at 3kHz and +3dB at 9kHz -- it brings them to the more 'normal' sound.  I cannot do much to the pre-DolbyA, or they screw up so that they can never sound right.

 

02. ABBA - Mamma Mia-RAWdecode.mp3 01. ABBA - SOS-RAWdecode.mp3