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In Reply to: RE: I wouldn't sweat it. posted by Jim Treanor on July 04, 2014 at 07:10:29
I just checked the technical notes of my Mercury SACDs. Wilma Cozart is credited (produced, musically supervised & 2-channel conversion) with the CD transfer. However, the DSD transfer & 2-channel conversion is credited to Andrew Wedman and other associates. Wilma Cozart is thanked for her "advice" on the preparation of the SACD transfers, but that's hardly a hands-on participation.
I was always struck by the difference between the two transfers, not so much about the superiority of one over the other, but the differences in soundstage width, distance of perspective, and the sharpness of transient attack.
For superiority I still stick with the original Mercury 2-track tape issues. Of course, there are a limited number of titles (35), and most listeners will never hear these tapes. It indicates to me that we need better digital transfers. Too bad Cozart is no longer with us to do it.
Follow Ups:
but in addition to her "advice" on the SACD transfers, comparisons were made to the original masters played back on the Ampex 300 that, as the technical notes put it, "previously" belonged to her and to the CD transfers prepared by her. So whether or not--and to what to degree--the SACD transfers may have deviated from the production values embedded in those earlier efforts, her work and its working context constituted a reference point for those transfers.
Jim
http://jimtranr.com
We can all make our own judgments. The fact that the engineering team used the original Ampex 300 to compare doesn't necessarily guarantee that all the subtle decisions needed in the transfer would have been the same if Cozart had been intimately involved. It's certainly not the same as when Classic Records reissued six Mercury titles and Cozart sat at Bernie Grundman's elbow, insisted he use tube equipment, and urged him to cut another master when she thought it necessary. There's a great account of this in the December 1997 issue of Fi magazine.
With good recordings the goal of any transfer should be transparency to the original source. I'm the first one to admit that this is a subjective judgment and is system dependent. We often end up talking about different experiences. I'm only relating mine. I relistened to some of the recordings last night. I hadn't heard some of them in several years. I did notice that the digital transfers tend to diminish the acoustics of the recording venue. On the tapes and LPs it's easier to identify the characteristics of the various locations used by Mercury.
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