Thread: Identifying DSD Recordings

Posts: 9

Post by randy December 15, 2003 (1 of 9)
The "liner notes" for Nickel Creek: Nickel Creek Nickel Creek: Nickel Creek and Jerry Douglas: Lookout For Hope Jerry Douglas: Lookout For Hope both say "DSD recording and editing by Tracy Martinson." Can we take this at face value, or might "recording" mean the process of transferring from the original recording to DSD?

Post by zeus December 15, 2003 (2 of 9)
randy said:

The "liner notes" for Nickel Creek: Nickel Creek Nickel Creek: Nickel Creek and Jerry Douglas: Lookout For Hope Jerry Douglas: Lookout For Hope both say "DSD recording and editing by Tracy Martinson." Can we take this at face value, or might "recording" mean the process of transferring from the original recording to DSD?

"DSD recording" is pretty unambiguous. I'll update these accordingly. Thanks.

BTW, if you want to reference a title, you can now embed the string [t=nnnn] in your text, where nnnn is the id of the title in the database. See the thread "Embedding a title link in your post" below.

Post by Dan Popp December 16, 2003 (3 of 9)
zeus said:

"DSD recording" is pretty unambiguous.

Normally (without further explanation) I would take this to mean that the original multitrack recordings were done in DSD. Especially if it mentions "editing." That multitrack is mixed to _something_, however, and that's a little less clear to me than it is to zeus. The old SPARS code is pretty meaningless now (DDD etc.), but for those of us who are interested in such things, it would be good if such a code existed to tell us actually what happened as the recording progressed from raw source to SACD.

Just as there are (DAD) CDs out there, it's conceivable that a recording that starts as DSD could be mixed to PCM or analog, then mastered to DSD again. Yikes!

Post by zeus December 16, 2003 (4 of 9)
Dan Popp said:

The old SPARS code is pretty meaningless now (DDD etc.), but for those of us who are interested in such things, it would be good if such a code existed to tell us actually what happened as the recording progressed from raw source to SACD.

In an ideal world, yes. But there's so many steps along the way that simple codes will never tell the whole story. What code would they use when they played back the master in the stairwell and re-recorded it to add reverb? Unlikely now, but things like this used to happen.

The original recording type tells you how much information they captured at recording time, not whether the recording engineer knew what they were doing or whether the end result will sound good. The more information that is made available the better, but I'm not going to toss a disc that sounds good just because I read somewhere that it came from a less than hi-rez source. Reviews are a more reliable indicator of sound quality, IMHO.

Post by Dan Popp December 17, 2003 (5 of 9)
zeus said:

The original recording type tells you how much information they captured at recording time, not whether the recording engineer knew what they were doing or whether the end result will sound good. The more information that is made available the better, but I'm not going to toss a disc that sounds good just because I read somewhere that it came from a less than hi-rez source. Reviews are a more reliable indicator of sound quality, IMHO.

Stephen,
I agree that the codes don't tell us much about the quality of the recording. OTOH, if I knew that a particular disc was kept in the DSD format from start to finish, I might be more interested in hearing it. Transcoding is the enemy. If we can avoid PCM-to-Analog-to-HiRezPCM-to-DSD mangling, and a SPARS-type code would expose those frankensteinian monsters, I would be for that.

Post by Johnno January 6, 2004 (6 of 9)
As I've mentioned elsewhere, the Matthias Bamert/Herschel Symphonies/Chandos SACD states "Recorded in DSD" at upper left on the rear panel notes and I assume it means just that -- that a DSD recorder from Sony (or some other company) was used at the actual recording sessions -- particularly as Chandos is usually specific about its PCM recordings (24/96 etc).

When I wrote to Chandos yesterday, I asked for confirmation about that Herschel disc. The recording is superbly clean and atmospheric and I personally find both the music and performances enjoyable, although I have noted that the disc hasn't been especially well received.

Post by Johnno January 8, 2004 (7 of 9)
I overlooked mentioning Telarc's approach to identifying DSD masters which is simply to state "Pure DSD" on the rear panels of the SACD cases (plus further reference to exclusive DSD mastering at the recording sessions if you read the fine print). I guess you can't get anything more straightforward than that!

It would appear that Telarc is firmly committed to SACD.

Post by randy January 14, 2004 (8 of 9)
Michael Bishop confirmed my concern that "DSD recording" in an album's notes might refer to PCM to DSD transfer.
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/hirez/messages/164822.html

Post by Dan Popp January 14, 2004 (9 of 9)
randy said:

Michael Bishop confirmed my concern that "DSD recording" in an album's notes might refer to PCM to DSD transfer.
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/hirez/messages/164822.html

Considering how sophisticated the PCM editing tools are, and how unsophisticated (or nonexistent) the DSD editing tools are, this way of working hardly makes sense. Especially if it had to go back to PCM for the CD release anyway.

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