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I FOUND IT! It was Doug Sax....

September TAS issue #174. Letters section page 8. Letter:

"Robert Harley states in his LP Primer on page 39 June/July 2007 issue that "some have even suggested that the LP in many ways sounds better then the mastertape from which it was cut." This is a good thing? The mastertape is the last step upstream next to the microphone--thus by definition, as close as we can get to the "absolute sound." If the LP sounds better then that, then it must be adding or subtracting some part of the mastertape sound, and what we're preceiving is euphonic coloration, distortion or noise. I don't call that "better," no matter how pleasant it sounds, because it is not faithful to the tape......"

RH replies:
The idea that an LP can sound better then a master tape comes from Doug Sax, who has perhaps the most experience listening to master tapes and the LP's cut from them of any living person. (Sax founded The Mastering Lab, and as co-founder of Sheffield Lab is considered "the father of the modern direct to disc recording.")

His theory is that because the cutting head converts an electrical signal into mechanical motion, the signal has been "pre-conditioned"(sax calls it predigested) so that the loudspeaker (which must also convert an electrical signal to mechanical motion) has an easier job. You can read Sax full comments in issue #149.

Here's another way to look at the question. Does a DSP room-correction device, which massively alters the signals frequency response, degrade the signal or improve it? The changes made by the DSP are certainly a deviation from the source, but result in flatter response--a response closer to what's on the source--when the signal is reproduced by loudspeakers in a room."

Anyhow, I can sleep better now that I found this thing!!!!!! Food for thought too....
Regards,
Joel

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