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It's on a case-by-case basis

Posted by John Marks (M) on November 24, 2014 at 09:35:10

In Reply to: Thank you, John, for a well-reasoned response! posted by rlw on November 24, 2014 at 08:32:21:

Hi.

I can only speak for myself. But my situation is the same as the case with many shall we say second-tier analog master tapes.

When I picked up various pieces dropped by North Star and the Herb Belkin-era MFSL to start JMR, I issued Songs My Mother Taught Me in a Bob Ludwig LP remastering. That LP has sold on eBay for as much as $324, sealed... . Once I got conventional record-store distribution, I asked Bob to remaster that tape for CD release. IIRC, that digital transfer was done with Apogee Digital UV-22 22-bit/44.1kHz conversion, which was SOTA at that time. IIRC, the last analog master Bob transferred for me was done at 44.1/24 and then changed down to 16-bit to cut the CD Glass Master.

All my digital recording (except The Bulgarian Job) were high-bit but standard sampling frequency, and the last of those, Bob used the HDCD converter on, more for its downsampling abilities rather then encoding abilities.

So, to make a "no stories, no excuses, SOTA" SACD or DSD download at this point (the business model I have followed is to allow my trading partners only to sell MP3s, in order to protect the US and foreign market for pressed CDs) would in my case and in the case of any project in the same posture require a fresh start on a clean slate. Which would be expensive.

And then, EVERYBODY could hear the garbage truck now buried in the tape noise... .

(It's Monday, and somebody has to amuse me, and, faute de mieux, c'est moi.)

As things drag on (as you will read about with bated breath in Stereophile's February issue) I am growing more and more intolerant of SACDs etc. that are not "all they can be." So, when an international conglomerate sends out an SACD where the transfer was to 24/96 PCM, given that the incremental cost of doing it right compared to not-right is less than feeding shrimp cocktails and wine to 24 hungry music journalists in a nice hotel ballroom, I get annoyed.

BTW, most people never knew or have forgotten that Dietrich Fischer Dieskau tried his hand at conducting, obviously, in the analog tape age, and I thought his Schubert Symphonies were charming. That would be a great project to Kickstart, if someone has the time and patience.

So, long story short, I think that the industry owes the consumer complete transparency and accountability on the provenance of the downloads and SACDs they want us to buy, and I will make as much of a fuss as I can if I catch anyone selling a DSD download that did not start out at least as a DXD recording (given the possibility that a consumer might be able to decode DSD but not DXD natively). From here on out I will declare "DSD Downloads from 24/94 PCM" to be Non Kosher in my little world.

Ciao,

jm

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