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In Reply to: RE: Bob Ludwig gathered colleagues to do a comparison test of live mic feed versus encode/decode posted by beppe61 on May 02, 2015 at 10:40:46
That said, were people voting for what they were nostalgic about, or, do wide-format very fast analog tape and record/playback electronics have some fundamentally euphonic character?
Recording is an art as well as a science. In theory, a recording of a piano made in an anechoic chamber would be more "accurate" than a recording made in a recital hall. But that is not how we experience music.
Once I choose microphones and where to place them, I have eliminated many other valid options.
DSD sounds great but it is still almost impossible to hear it as "all pure DSD" unless you own a professional workstation and listen only to raw recordings. Adjust the level by one dB, and it is no longer pure DSD, it has been handled as PCM. Most consumer DSD playback is via PCM, that's why they call it "DoP."
jm
Follow Ups:
Hi John,
No PCM in the shootout?
"...were people voting for what they were nostalgic about, or, do wide-format very fast analog tape and record/playback electronics have some fundamentally euphonic character?"
Perhaps, they anticipated less post processing to obtain the desired sound...the finished product?
"Most consumer DSD playback is via PCM, that's why they call it "DoP." "
This is a kludge, imo.
Vbr,
Sam
As it was related to me years ago, there was rapid consensus.
NOW OF COURSE ADMITTEDLY, one could postulate that there was a "groupthink" dynamic at work. However, in my years of audio, I have found the contrary--some people have a need to counter the most recently expressed opinion rather than join it. So, perhaps having everyone listen together in one room was an experimental-design mistake--but I think not.
The mic feed was, what the mic feed was. The consensus was that the DSD encode/decode was closest to the mic feed, but people preferred the sound of Bob's Tim de Paravicini-modified 30 ips one-inch stereo tape deck. As Bob Ludwig related it to me, noboby stood up and yelled, "You are all deaf! There CANNOT be a difference favoring DSD over PCM!" Nope.
AGAIN, not everything that is operative I think is obvious, there. I have experience in using a tape machine as a mid-pass filter to rehabilitate troubled digital. The secret (Shhh!!! Don't tell anyone) is that when you take virgin tape and imprint the signal at the record head and then immediately take the signal off at the monitoring head, there is no possibility of tape stretch and no possibility of print-through, and so the signal lacks many of the audible markers we usually associate with tape.
Especially the tape as used in the old days when after a take was scratched, they would often rewind and record over, to save money. And then during all the backing and forthing to decide which takes to use and where to edit--lots of mischief can arise.
So, this setup with the absolute possible best showing for analog. But once the recorded tape is on the take-up reel, and it gets played again a few times, I don't think it will be as shockingly vivid.
And, [ITAL]pace[ITAL] Michael Fremer, who has spent the past 186 years dumping on the unveiling of the CD medium with Roxy Music's "Avalon," I was the classical-music editor of the first English-language magazine dedicated to the CD, and the many classical engineers and performers I spoke with who liked digital recordings mentioned strong points Mr. Fremer ignores--the lack of print-through, and the absence of vibrato added to piano notes by mechanical problems endemic to analog tape and LPs.
Anyway, it's only one data point, and it should be obvious that the comparison was non-real-world. DSD in and out with no conversion to and from PCM for editing or level adjustments or EQ, versus the equally non-real-world hearing the tape 1/5th of a second after it has been recorded and before it hits the take-up reel.
And among Bob's PCM converters at that time was one that many people think or at least some people think has never been surpassed, the Pacific Microsonics unit.
JM
I understand folks like the PM2 for its AD converter...its other side may have been superseded.
I need to find your recordings :-)
Vbr,
Sam
Thanks again for the very helpful advice
I read of this test of comparing direct feed with feed after a double AD and DA passage performed i think by Millennia to show the very high quality of their converters, actually a stack of AD-DA converters wired in series.
But i cannot find again the link to what i read exactly.
It was not a pro report from an audio fair but just a comment here from one Inmate.
It was many years ago and i could be wrong about the test conditions.
But it is clear that something must be lost in the process.
I agree about euphonic sounds, but for instance soundstage is a very telling parameter.
Usually in this passage it tends to shrink substantially.
Thanks again.
Kind regards,
bg
Edits: 05/02/15
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