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Discussion: Elgar: Cello Concerto, Sea Pictures - Jacqueline du Pré, Janet Baker, Sir John Barbirolli

Posts: 45
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Post by jdaniel December 20, 2011 (31 of 45)
Jonalogic said:

Indeed. And such a pity that the Soundmirror/RCA project was cut off in its prime:

Right recordings, right transfer to SACD and right price.

The mind boggles at what they could have done, for instance, with some of the British Shaded Dogs, many recorded by Wilkie of course: Witches Brew, Royal Opera, Venice etc, not to mention the phenomenal Reader's Digest productions.

Sigh...

Yes, so sad they stopped. I believe Decca now owns the rights to those British Dogs. FWIW, a $20 Technics TT and a .99 cent Treasury (orange UK label) or RCA VICS lp record of the above and you'll be more than set for the time being. The more I listen to those famous "Shaded Dogs," though I can't help but notice that more than a few are duds: not all deserve the SACD treatment because both their sound and performance has been surpassed.

Post by Jonalogic December 20, 2011 (32 of 45)
jdaniel said:

Yes, so sad they stopped. I believe Decca now owns the rights to those British Dogs. FWIW, a $20 Technics TT and a .99 cent Treasury (orange UK label) or RCA VICS lp record of the above and you'll be more than set for the time being. The more I listen to those famous "Shaded Dogs," though I can't help but notice that more than a few are duds: not all deserve the SACD treatment because both their sound and performance has been surpassed.

Completely agree. We can get easily too precious about these, though. There are indeed plenty of dud dogs in Living Stereo land, but the good ones more than make up for these!

A good SACD of these missing pedigree pooches, especially some of the Wilkies, would make my 2012... and Soundmirror did a good job one the ones they got their hands on a few years ago.

Plus no problems with pressings, pops, crackles, end of side distortion etc which can make high-end vinyl such a PITA medium (as Rammepie puts it).

Maybe we should start a thread on great doggies we still want to see on SACD?

PS - does anyone know why the original Soundmirror series stopped in the first place?

Post by mwgfrg December 27, 2011 (33 of 45)
On December 17 rammiepie wrote, questioning the sound rating of 4.5 on the Elgar:

"Sounds to me like a clear cut case of LP playback superior to SACD playback equipment. Don't logically think mastered from the original analogue tapes at Abbey Road Studios should produce anything less than a duplicate of the originals.
I'm sure the SACD playback would sound just like the original on something like the Playback Design MPS-5...albeit at a bank breaking premium."

Playback first: my digital side is the Esoteric P-03 and D-03 transport and DAC and G-ORb digital clock. Analogue is the SME-20/2a table and SME 5 arm with a Koetsu Onyx Platinum cartridge playing through an Esoteric E-03 phono amp. Both come through an Esoteric C-03 phono amp. The point is not that this is expensive equipment, but that both sides of the system are, and were intended to be, as comparable as to tonality, dynamicals, and definition as I could make them. While I use Purist Dominus cables throughout most of the system, the Koetsu cartridge tends a bit to the warmer, richer side, so I have balanced the analogue side accordingly by substituting a Mexcel cable for the Purist I used to use between the phono amp and preamp. Of course, you can write off any comparison of sound I might make by assuming my ears can't discriminate--they used to be younger--but not that any judgment is based on the assumed superiority of one side or the other of the system.

As to the 4.5 rating: frankly, I think (like many others) that many of the ratings on this site are inflated, and that compared to the broad spectrum of SACD releases I have heard, these were excellent however they compared to the LPs. SACD is a major step forward, but digital sound is digital sound, and engineers are still perfectly capable of screwing it up, and do it all the time. I thought, based on a careful comparison, that the EMI engineers had done a fine job on the SACD transfers--not perfect, but fine--light years ahead of previous digital transfers. But the idea that a digital release will sound like the analogue original 30-40 years later just because the technicians are working at a studio with a pedigree, if the playback equipment is good enough to hear the supposed similarities, is naive. The digital release may sound better, may (and frequently does) sound worse, and may conceivably sound the same (but rarely). Just as an obvious example, the RCA SACD reissues were wildly erratic: some were excellent, some were lousy, and not one I ever heard sounded exactly like the originals. And even the Classics 33.3 r.p.m. LP RCA reissues only occasionally sounded like the originals, for that matter, let alone the Classics 45s. In fact, last weekend I did a detailed comparison of three LPs--the original HMV release of Barbirolli's Tallis Fantasia, a '90s audiophile release, and a second, different 2011 audiophile release. Guess what? Each of the audiophile issues sounded very like some aspects of the original, but very different from each other. And you think a digital reissue should sound the same as the original analogue? The better your equipment, the less likely that is.

Post by Claude December 27, 2011 (34 of 45)
It's all in the mastering, as they say on the Steve Hoffman forum.

Post by hiredfox January 2, 2012 (35 of 45)
Simply stunning. This is by far the most successful analogue to SACD digital transfer I've ever heard and to all intents and purposes this new SACD is indistinguishable from the original vinyl. Not one micro-gram of emotion has been lost in translation. These original brilliant performances have been preserved in all their technicolor glory. Du Pre's Cello Concerto and Baker's Sea Pictures have remained unsurpassed for nigh on fifty years and this new breath of life should ensure their status for decades to come

This is the first of the new tape transfers to reach me; if this one is a guide to the other 100 or so then EMI deserve our highest praise for a job very well done.... and all of this on the first day of the new year.

Post by ar80 January 4, 2012 (36 of 45)
To help the debate going on in these pages, it might be useful for you all to know that the use of CEDAR audio's broadband hiss reduction on these catalogue SACD releases has been limited to perhaps 2 per cent of the discs. It has not been used on every recording. The actual equipment is CEDAR's standalone, PC-based 'Cambridge' system, not what might be illustrated in the booklets.
We take every care to make sure that the sound of these SACDs is as good as possible, taking into account the original recording's LP release and any previous CD releases.
SG

Post by Claude January 4, 2012 (37 of 45)
Simon, thank you very much for your input on this forum.

I watched your Youtube presentation on the Furtwängler remasters and was intrigued by the fact that after editing and cleaning the PCM transfer, you pass the resulting signal through a vintage analogue equalizer before digitizing it again with the DSD converter.

Was the same procedure used with the remasters of the 60's and 70's material, or was it limited to the Furtwängler project? Is the only benefit the use of the EMI equalizer, or do you see an advantage in going analogue again before converting to DSD, instead of a PCM-DSD conversion in the digital domain?

Post by Jonalogic January 4, 2012 (38 of 45)
ar80 said:

To help the debate going on in these pages, it might be useful for you all to know that the use of CEDAR audio's broadband hiss reduction on these catalogue SACD releases has been limited to perhaps 2 per cent of the discs. It has not been used on every recording. The actual equipment is CEDAR's standalone, PC-based 'Cambridge' system, not what might be illustrated in the booklets.
We take every care to make sure that the sound of these SACDs is as good as possible, taking into account the original recording's LP release and any previous CD releases.
SG

Hi, and many thanks for this input to the debate on this Forum. It's interesting to know. I am still trying to understand what I hear, however. Like Claude, I would be interested in knowing whether it was just equalisation (simple 1st or parametric/2nd order?) that was undertaken in the analogue domain.

This on its own wouldn't explain (sorry, but I report what I hear) the relatively dead top end I have heard on the four recordings I auditioned on my Esoteric SACD* and then compared with my Goldmund/Clearaudio vinyl front end (early and late pressings, as available).

If it were just me who had heard this, I could perhaps write it off as something system-specific or my ears, perhaps. But it does seem like a significant number of folk with access to vinyl and a good analog front end seemed often to prefer that, sonically. And others didn't...

I have to say that is not something that has bothered me nearly so much when doing similar SACD/vinyl comparisons with historic re-releases from companies who went straight from matertape to DSD (such as Soundmirror for the Living Stereos); this seems a far more direct and sonically proven approach to getting the most out of valuable and musically irreplaceable analog masters than 24/96 PCM, analog or digital domain equalisation, noise reduction et al then DSD.

One possible issue, suppose, might be the state of your masters. May one assume these were in good nick and vintage?

Regards

Jon

* TOGE-12044, 12020, 12012 and 12013

Post by ar80 January 4, 2012 (39 of 45)
Jonalogic said:
Like Claude, I would be interested in knowing whether it was just equalisation (simple 1st or parametric/2nd order?) that was undertaken in the analogue domain.

One possible explanation might be the state of the masters. May one assume these were in good nick and vintage?

Yes, simple parametric EQ is used.
The state of the master tapes is good - yes, they have been played over the years, but they have all been kept in stable archive conditions and show very little sign of deterioration.

I think the main issue that comes across here is one referred to in other posts: namely, whether it is sensible to try to compare a new hi-res A/D with the original analogue LP. Our approach is to consider the sound of the original analogue master tape as gospel and go from there. We have written records from the original engineer and producer to guide us in terms of EQ and level changes made at the time of the original LP cut, but it is our own ears and judgement that dictate the finished sound we achieve. Our approach is one of remastering, rather than producing a straight digital clone of the original master tape. Although this is a subjective process, we spend a long time making the decisions about EQ etc and never make changes just for the sake of it. Our aim is always to present the recordings in the best possible sound and some need more intervention than others. Audio restoration of archive recordings like these can be likened to picture restoration, where an old master is cleaned to show the colours of the original picture as seen by the artist. In our case, all we are seeking to achieve is, as close as possible, the sound that was heard in the studio. One can always argue that there are other ways of doing it, but this is how we work.
I hope this helps.
SG

Post by Jonalogic January 4, 2012 (40 of 45)
ar80 said:

Yes, simple parametric EQ is used.
The state of the master tapes is good - yes, they have been played over the years, but they have all been kept in stable archive conditions and show very little sign of deterioration.

I think the main issue that comes across here is one referred to in other posts: namely, whether it is sensible to try to compare a new hi-res A/D with the original analogue LP. Our approach is to consider the sound of the original analogue master tape as gospel and go from there...

One can always argue that there are other ways of doing it, but this is how we work.

I hope this helps.
SG

Thanks for this additional info, most helpful.

I agree, the sound of the vinyl is rather a sideshow. It's subject to mastering, RIAA equalisation, compression, disc cutting lathes, generations of stampers, end of side playback issues and many other ills.

In fact, vinyl really shouldn't ever really sound as good as a high quality master to DSD transfer, therefore. And I say this as a self-confessed vinyl junkie.

Like you, however, I believe that it's what's on the master tape that's the real deal. And that why many companies with similar philosophies have chosen to go as directly as possible from that master to DSD for their historic archive material. If the masters were good (and all the evidence suggests that they were here), why attempt to 'improve' them when that very process- when undertaken in the lossy analog or PCM 24/96 domain - is bound to degrade them?

To my ears, at least, and clearly others as well, the most direct mastertape 'cloning' - as you refer to it - seems to pay immense sonic dividends.

I like your analogy of picture cleaning/restoration; but my ears tell me you've removed some of the paint as well as the oxidised varnish...

But that's my opinion, you actually have the master tapes!

Cheers

Jon

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