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Analog-Digital Challenge---48 hours later

Posted by mikel (A) on June 25, 2007 at 23:30:23

there are three other threads with thoughts on this subject; a couple early ones that are already history and a third with a different agenda than mine at this time. this forum moves so fast that i just do not have the time to keep up. back in the earlier days i use to post here all the time; but now it's mostly furstrating that by the time i find a thread it has already run it's course. does anyone around here work for a living?.....or do anything while at work except post here?

in any case; as this whole 'Challenge' was my idea to begin with i felt i owed the forum my perspective on the events.

the Challenge began as a way to settle a basic disagreement between myself and John. John felt he could make a digital recording from vinyl that could not be distinguished from the vinyl......i felt strongly there was no way i could not clearly recognize the vinyl. i stated that i could choose 5 out of 5 without a mistake.

i would characterize the result of the test as a victory for both of us. John won the bet since i missed one out of 6. John acknowledged that there were clear differences between his recordings and the direct vinyl on playback as my statistical result showed. my point was proved resonably.

really; we had a great time. John is a real gentleman, a class act, and a very knowledgable and thoughtful person. i feel we connected and became friends. we both took the matter of the test very seriously and yet it was never personal; we were both seekers of the truth.

on Friday we started at 1pm. about 10 of us were present to start with. mostly memebers of my local audio club, John and his friend Ki. we first listened a bit to the system and got aquainted a little. initially we had a few logistical problems. it turned out that some new cables i had purchased developed a 'hum'....so i went back to my long-term reference the Nordost Valhalla RCA's. then i was not getting vaccuum to my Rockport for the 'hold-down'. it turned out that i had kinked the hose upstairs in my loft when i had installed my compressor in a new enclosure a couple of weeks prior. the kink was quickly cut off and the vaccuum hose reconnected. these were the only gear problems we had for the weekend.

John set up his recording gear and i selected some music. we did a couple of test recordings. John did some measurements. (i'll let John fill in the details here). we did 2 test recordings; John made some adjustments.

John then recorded 9 tracks from the Rockport/vdH Colibri/darTZeel. i selected the tracks that i loved and that the observers would enjoy.

1-'Helplessly Hopeing'-CS&N--45 RPM.
2-'At the Great Gates of Kiev', Mussorsky-45 RPM.
3-'Satin Doll', Johnny Hodges, Blues-A-Plenty, 45 RPM.
4-'Stormy Monday', Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan, 45 RPM.
5-'Julsang' (Oh Holy Night), Cantate Domino, 33 RPM (first pressing).
6-'Send in the Clowns', Bill Henderson, Live at the Mint, 45 RPM.
7-'Old Man', Neil Young, Greatest Hits, 33 RPM.
8-'Malletoba Spank', Duke Ellington, Jazz Party in Stereo, 45 RPM.
9-'Duke's Place', Louis Armstrong/Duke Ellington, Recording Together for the First Time, 33 RPM.

as a sit here typing this i am listening to a copy of the CD John made for the test. too bad the commercial CD's don't sound this good. it does capture 'some' of the magic of the Rockport.

i did hear each cut on Friday on the Rockport and then the digital recording after.....so i was able to have an idea of the differences sighted. OTOH during the Saturday test i did no sighted listening; the test session was done 'cold' with only one break. after we finished John's recording we started in with Bruce's recording for a short time prior to breaking for dinner.

i will continue with my perspective tomorrow morning as well as add some pictures.

EDIT---this added this morning.

initially during the recording i felt that John was feeling a bit defensive about the perceptions of the group regarding the differences between the PCM recordings and the direct LPs. understandably; he was under stress to somehow match the direct Lps. when one initially listens to both it is easy to say that from a frequency response and soundstaging perspective that they have much in common. after maybe half of the recordings were done i think he started to 'get it' regarding the qualitative differences that we were hearing. at this point i poured him a wee bit of Heaven, the Lagavulin Single Malt, and he was much more at peace. he was now having fun.

i want to mention the great support from my local audio club, the Pacific Northwest Audiophile Society. i have been in this Club since 1995 and have made some great friends. as much as the music is important to me; this hobby has allowed me to establish lasting friendships i would otherwise have missed. there is a true passion and commitment to learning and sharing.

for this event, club members Ted Smith and Joe Pittman administered the test on Saturday, our President Jerry Pomeroy organized the food on Saturday, Andrew Kosobutsky helped out in many different ways including bringing and BBQ'ing the steaks, Gil Loring took lots of pics, and many others contributed food and support.

Ted, Joe and Gil have been three mentors of mine for a long time and i have learned much from their knowledge and experience.

after dinner we returned to the room and continued the DSD recording. Bruce's first 2 recordings were too low in gain; Ted and Jim Ellis discussed with Bruce their perspective that possibly the impedence from our cable arraingment (discussed in earlier threads) was causing a loss of gain. Bruce made some changes and we did a couple more DSD recordings that sounded quite a bit better. then Bruce played a few DSD recordings he had made. the first was a live female vocal in a church that was very impressive. another was live off a mic board feed from a local Jazz Club, Jazz Alley, of 'Tower of Power'. again, very nice. Bruce then played a DSD recording off his tt set-up that he had cleaned up on his pro tools.....quite good.

after this we played music and discussed things until quite late. most of the participants left by midnight.....and by this time i was running out of gas. i went in about 12:45pm but Jim and Ted continued to discuss things digital until about 1:30pm...true passion.

Saturday started about 10 am. i was a bit amped up and i could tell John was too....in anticipation of finally completing the test after 14 months of consideration.

at this point we settled on a testing methodology. we used some safety glasses and hearing protection i use for my gas grass trimmer and duct taped over the clear plastic of the glasses. all i could see was a slight bit of light around the edges; my whole periphial vision was covered and top and bottom. i could only hear loud talking and no laed-in groove noise or whispering. we did a trial test run thru...all ok. the volume level of the music would be raised and someone would tap me on the shoulder to remove the hearing protection. i would then adjust the volume with my remote. when i had heard enough of the cut i would lower the volume and put back on my hearing protection. they would then change sources. they kept the time between sources consistent so i had no clue which would be played. in any case; we had a workable testing method.

at a few minutes after 11 am we started; Joe ran the tt and Ted ran the preamp and digital switching on John's CD setup.

suprisingly; i was a bit nervous to begin with. i had done no practicing blinded; the 'blacked out' glasses were a bit irritating and distracting; but it did not seem to affect my hearing at all. it was likely less stressful that i could not tell that there were lots of people in the room; everyone was very quiet and in the spirit of the moment.

the first cut, CS&N's 'Helplessly Hopeing' is a favorite, and quite short. the smoothness of the direct Lp was an easy thing to hear for me compared to the digital. i was confident of my choice.

the second cut, Mussorsky's 'Great Gates' seemed easy too......'at first'......'A' seemed clearly the more natural. i only played a few minutes of 'A' and then about the same of 'B'. i choose 'A'. after my choice my inner voice told me that 'just maybe' that 'B' had been more enegetic.

during the playing of cut three, Johnny Hodges, Satin Doll, my mind went back to the Mussorsky. had i been too hasty? Satin Doll is a 'most played' cut for me and i only listened for a very short time and choose 'B'.....which turned out to be my only miss. in retrospect i should have relaxed, played it all the way thru for 'A' and 'B' and made sure i was not distrated.

after we completed #3 i asked them to play 'A' of the Mussorsky again and i quickly confirmed my initial choice.

---------to be continued later today or tonight--------------------

NOTE---Based on John's written remarks today i have elected to withdraw from further discussion of this event as i don't see any positive that can come from it.

mikel

*********************************

the only comment i'll make on Bruce's perspective is that DSD did not 'kick ass' from my viewpoint. DSD was better than John's PCM recordings but not THAT much better. i have the EMM Labs SE gear as my digital reference and have been a DSD/SACD fan since early 2000.....i was the second poster on the new Hirez board in 2000. i own about 800 SACD's and just installed multi-channel in my room because i want to experience multi-channel SACD. i am clearly a big DSD fan and have no 'anti' agenda.

the fact that i only got 1 out of 2 DSD tests correct proves nothing at all. a sample of 2 is not a meaningful sample. i got the third PCM recording wrong and ended up 5 out of 6. were i to have had 6 chances at DSD who is to say what might have happened. my opinion is that i would not have done any different than with John's recordings. i may have needed to listen longer or more times but the differences were still evidant to my ears while sighted. if more care were taken by me i would match the PCM results. i think Bruce feels strongly that better DSD recordings of vinyl can be made than what we did this weekend. fair enough; we both see things our own way.

Edits: 06/25/07 06/26/07 06/27/07

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