Post by Arnaldo June 15, 2012 (151 of 366)
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DSD said:
... if a recording company is unclear how a recording was made, it might be safer to claim nothing.
stvnharr said:
... it's not about the sound quality, even if ClassicsToday has it at 10/10, it's about what's printed on the booklet.
If a recording company doesn't know how their recordings are made, they shouldn't call themselves a recording company, maybe a distribution company at best. And yes, this is about what's printed on the booklet, which is a statement by the company about the product they're selling.
Whatever the digital recording format though, it's in no way the reason why the few Chandos recordings I've tried sounded harsh, with an unnatural and metallic sheen. Instead, a more likely culprit is excessive reverberation, whether natural, or according to (unsubstantiated) internet gossiping, artificially enhanced on certain occasions.
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Post by Arnaldo June 15, 2012 (152 of 366)
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DSD said:
Raffells everyone heard it, not just Cookie Mareno. DSD music files from a computer are sonically superior to SACDs, this is to be expected, you do know both modern PCM and DSD masters are made on computers and computer playback doesn't have to deal with the inaccuracies of a physical disc. This is no different than 24-bit PCM music files sounding better from a computer than from DVD-Audios...
Identical digital music files will either sound the same, or simply not sound at all, i.e., dropouts. What "everyone heard" as you put it, is just the quality of different DACs and audio circuitry at play, whether from SACD players or stand-alone processors. The rest is just wishful thinking.
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Post by stvnharr June 15, 2012 (153 of 366)
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Arnaldo said:
And yes, this is about what's printed on the booklet, which is a statement by the company about the product they're selling.
Hi Arnaldo,
I beg to differ, but it's how the music on the disc sounds, not what is printed on the booklet.
There is no reason to discuss this ad infinitum as the two positions are diametrically opposed and nobody is going to change opinion.
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Post by tailspn June 15, 2012 (154 of 366)
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Arnaldo said:
Identical digital music files will either sound the same, or simply not sound at all, i.e., dropouts. What "everyone heard" as you put it, is just the quality of different DACs and audio circuitry at play, whether from SACD players or stand-alone processors. The rest is just wishful thinking.
My experience with a Sonoma of playing original edit masters, or ripped .dff files from a SACD, A/B against one another, or A/B against the same SACD playing simultaneously agrees with your statement. They're identical sounding using the same DAC.
The demo being referred to had so many variables, and the quality of the equipment so high, I believe it was the individual manufactures interpretation of correct "voicing" of their products that caused the very obvious sonic difference.
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Post by tailspn June 15, 2012 (155 of 366)
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AmonRa said:
You keep repeating this misinformation. There were PCM ADCs even before decimating 1-bit converters were invented. Never heard about successive approximation converters. 1-bit ADC/DAC converters are just cheaper, not better.
Correct, I never implied differently. It's just that you can't buy A/D Converters today (or for the last 10 years) that are anything but Delta-Sigma Modulator converter front ended, followed by a decimation processor to yield a PCM output. So how is it PCM can possibly be more accurate?
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Post by jeff3948 June 15, 2012 (156 of 366)
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OK. Everyone, getting back to Chandos. Yesterday, I sent an e-mail to Mr. Dean Austin apologizing for my angry response to his last e-mail and asked for a response from one fo the Couzens regarding the examples over the past 7 years I previously showed here and how this could happen. This morning, I found an e-mail address of Mr. Ralph Couzens (one of the in-house recording engineers at Chandos) from a previous correspondence a while back, so I e-mailed him directly. I then got the following DEVISTATING NEWS from Mr. Dean Austin at Chandos. Here is the e-mail:
Dear Mr Poss
Your message was forwarded to the appropriate individual here, and please find below what must unfortunately be our final word on the matter :
Chandos is one of the last labels producing SACD's, made at the last press in Europe. When this press stops, it will be the end of SACD's for Chandos.
I suggest customers of SACD's make the best of it while they can and stop arguing about the technical side.
The final result is what counts after all.
Best regards
Dean Austin
Here was my response:
Dear Mr. Dean Austin,
I have over 50 Chandos SACDs in my collection, that is about 2/3 of all the SACDs you have produced. so I have been a huge Chandos SACD fan. Dean, I usually do look at the final result. But it was Chandos that touted the technical advantages of DSD recording in all their SACD booklets, not me. I'm very sorry to hear that Chandos will no longer be producing SACDs.
Sincerely,
Jeff
I'll let everyone know if and what Mr. Ralph Couzens says about the matter.
I guess everyone should buy the Chandos SACDs they want now, because it looks like this will be the last run of SACDs ever produced by Chandos.
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Post by jeff3948 June 15, 2012 (157 of 366)
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I just realized that I may have misinterpreted Mr. Dean Austin's e-mail. I think what he said was that if and when the last manufacturing plant stops making SACDs, then and only then Chandos will stop making them. But he made it sound like it was a sure thing that the last plant will stop making them. I didn't know there was only one manufacturing plant that makes SACD in the entire world. Does anyone know if that is true? Is there only one plant that makes SACDs in the world? And more importantly, is that plant scheduled to stop making SACDs?
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You both acted with impulsiveness with your responses, in my opinion. Also, there is no place in his message that Chandos SACDs will stop ASAP.
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Post by tailspn June 15, 2012 (159 of 366)
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jeff3948 said:
Chandos is one of the last labels producing SACD's, made at the last press in Europe. When this press stops, it will be the end of SACD's for Chandos.
Perhaps you are reading more than intended in Dean's statement. The only European SACD stamping facility is Sony DADC Austria, which the vast majority of Western labels use, including Chandos. It is quite busy, and VERY profitable. To my knowledge, its SACD processing business is not going away anytime soon.
I believe Dean's statement is WHEN/IF it (Sony DADC Austria) does cease SACD production, so will Chandos. Actually, so will most labels.
There are SACD pressing plants in Hong Kong, Japan, and Austria within the Sony DADC business. SACD pressing plants are actually DVD, CD, and Blue Ray pressing plants with additional machinery attached to a DVD press for the unique SACD hybrid CD/DVD layering. The number of stamping facilities capable of producing SACD's are product of demand. It would take about an evening to bring another DVD stamping plant online to stamp SACDs, if volume should increase, and the same amount of time to mothball one if volume drops. I give it MINIMUM of another ten years.
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What's the devastating news? Last time I checked, the top 10 sales charts are resplendent in SACD releases.
I can't keep up funding all the new releases ... it's nice being able to be picky.
Chandos don't even know what they are producing. Labels who mis-label ... or who try to get on to the hi-rez bandwagon with less than hi-rez recordings ... give the product a bad name and spoil the market for everyone. That's the one good thing about downloads ... it is forcing some discipline upon an industry that has too many rubbery ducks.
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