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Julien said:
Why is that? Many of the old Sony Columbia releases on SACD have that problem, huge tape hiss. Is the hiss really on the original tape, and would getting rid of it compromise the sound quality?
If any sound engineer sees this thread, could you help me here?
Hello Julien. As you probably know, hiss is an integral part of analog recording. If during mastering of the CD one does not have access to the original master, as I am sure is often the case, 'X-copies' (1:1 copies of the original) are utilised and could have increased hiss levels - if we are talking about the pre noise-reduction era - and to try to remove hiss would certainly compromise the quality of the sound. If one has the original master, several things have to be done by the engineer to optimize the quality of the original. Degaussing of the playback heads. Accuracy of playback equalization and accurate alignment of the master tape itself is extremely important. The master tape should have at the head a set of reference tones. If no tones exist problems start right there. These are for setting up playback level, equalization and azimuth of the original recording. If any part of the playback equalization, the playback head or the tape master, especially in the upper frequency range, is not aligned properly, it would result in either a dull or an unnaturally bright sound. Emphasised hiss can result from the signal and, to some degree, the playback amplifier and this would be passed on to the copy. If the audio is bright it can be carefully adjusted by an experienced mixer and this would minimise some of the hiss. All I can suggest to you is when you encounter a noisy cd is to carefully reduce the high-frequency attenuation of your amplifier until you start to hear any negative effect of high frequency information. I have only just scratched the surface and I am sure there are more knowledgeable engineers out there that could explain more easily and fully.
Hope this helps.
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