Is your analog audio contaminated by digital processing?
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- Опубліковано 31 тра 2023
- If your vinyl is recorded analog, mixed analog, and mastered analog, will a single stage of digital ruin your listening experience completely?
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INCLUDED VIDEO CLIP: Studer A80 mastering version - Analogplanet Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series • Tone Poet Audiophile V... @Analogplanet_Video
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Food label - Brett Jordan CC BY 2.0
SPARS codes on CDs - Attosaur CC BY-SA 4.0
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Vinyl fans - Public domain
Studer A820 multitrack - Presumed to be a publicity photograph, sourced from Reverb.com reverb.com/uk/item/69154811-s...
Studer A820 stereo - Presumed to be a publicity photograph, sourced from Reverb.com reverb.com/uk/p/studer-a820-m...
Ampex ADD-1 - Vintage ad
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Choky, slang for prison - Porridge www.imdb.com/title/tt0071036/
Ampex ATR 100 - Manufacturer's brochure
Shure V15 - Publicity photograph
The Munsters - www.imdb.com/title/tt0057773/
I am not a purist myself, and as long as the music sounds good, I am personally happy, however, having said that, I do believe that the end-user having spent their hard earned money, deserves to know what they’re buying
I recently bought a technics 1200 GR Turntable and fitted a mofi mm cartridge stylus totaling £2000.00
I've played vinyl in time with my Linn Akurate ds streamer dac.
Which you can now fetch for 3/4 thousand .
I can honestly say there is nothing in it.
Really no difference.
So I'm probably going to end up buying a magnificent phono stage and get the tiniest benefit or not.
Seriously though,side by side..I could say that perhaps the sonically the streamer was just a tiny bit better.
As for detail..no difference.
Sound stage etc separation was the same.
Same here!
The Ampex ADD-1 digital cutting delay was introduced at the Audio Engineering Society convention in May 1979. It uses 16-bit digital audio with a sampling rate of 50 kHz and an audio lowpass filter that cuts off above 20 kHz. It was patented in 1980 as U.S. patent number 4348754.
Thanks again. If it was just purely getting the best sounding music to the masses (affordable, durable) CDs won every time. But CDs go above and beyond that for most music enthusiasts. I'm biased after purchasing hundreds of LPs in the 70s and a good part of the 80s then finally having the opportunity to have an affordable media (CDs) that rivaled the $1000 turntable with Japanese LP pressing's sound quality. CDs were all that they were hyped up to be, when they were done correctly.
Totally agree. CDs became & remains my main audio format. Affordability & extended content compared to vinyl 👍
This truly is an Audio Masterclass! Thanks for spelling this out and actually explaining how these recordings have been and are done. Too much emphasis is being placed on how “all analogue”is so much better…and not enough on the progress of new technology in recording. As you say, “we are living today not yesterday.” Brilliant work as usual. Cheers!
Wow, as always excellent presentation and good points. Your conclusion where you express in a small sentence the whole method you need to record down analog, leading to the: "so, it's digital audio that's more pure, the purest of the, inevitably, impure, if you like." is so spot on.
This looks like the Mobile Fidelty (aka Mofi) issue, many audiophiles who have long argued that "analog is better" or "they can hear the difference between analog and digital", not to say the "specialists" and journalists telling people the MoFi releases are the best there is for analog. Latter they learned that MoFI either use DSD sources or convert the master tape source material into digital DSD files before remastering and pressing the LP's.
Thanks for the video! I own some DDA vinyl records from the Dutch band Doe Maar. They were chosen by Philips to help promote the first CD-players. So the recording was done digital while most sales were still analog LPs.
You truly make my day publishing the facts of digital in the praised golden age of analog and the effort to get the facts. I have been in the pro scene for a while in the analog to digital transition time of the 1980s, also as concert organizer and I am still a music lover. I love to hear the most out of the music with good recordings on good playback setup. So, I know music production from stage/studio to the speaker of the listener.
With presenting the dig. delay for lacquer cutting you give a reason for detecting no good vinyl beginning the mid 1970s. I prefer original releases, regardless vinyl or CD, but I do not like new Vinyl because of price and to many bad releases. Keep on dispelling myths of believers and telling the true stories. It is all about music culture and workers like you, and not of believing in technology.
8:50 A good analogy you can also use is the actual video you're watching now. Chopped-up reality is presented as frames that you see as smooth motion. Love your channel, sir. Your calm, rational, fair and technically correct discussion is enjoyable.
I just love your explanations, you are serious, sarcastic and witty at the same time, while messing with audiophools heads. I have watched some of your videos several times just to make sure I have not missed anything!
Great video. As far as I know most vinyl records press today are actually recorded digitally so they are actually DDA or DAA, very few are recorded on tape, which would earn the label AAA. Most persons over 40 years don't hear beyond 14 or 16kHz, and very few people over 20 can hear over 20kHz. Though there is scientific proof that we can perceive over 20kHz but not through our ears, our body also perceives frequencies below 20Hz, once again not through our ears. I have read in several websites of companies that print vinyl records today, that the recordings must not exceed 18kHz because if produces over heating in the cutting heads even though the specs might state that the can go up to 27kHz, the reality is that mastering engineers will filter anything above 18kHz. The same happens with the lower end, cutting lathes don't handle well very low frequencies because the can cause the stylus to jump out of the groove and they take to much space on the record. The irony is that those who prefer vinyl over cd/digital is because they prefer the more compressed, lower dynamics, narrow noise floor and less bass heavy sound needed for vinyl mastering add to that a very high appreciation of surface noise, clics, pops and hiss. I can understand great sound that can be achieved on a top of the line 2 inch STUDER or AMPEX tape recorder that costs a fortune (with the flaw of physical degradation of the tape), but vinyl records are simply an imperfect medium, great for 1930s but not up to the possibilities of today. I am 53 years old, I like the nostalgia of vinyl, have quite a few hundreds of them, but as soon as I was able to afford a CD player and buy CDs (they were 3 times more expensive than vinyl back in the day) I embraced the tech, I find infuriating having to pay 30 USD for a cheap piece of plastic with a nice cardboard art. As a reference a kilogram of vinyl costs about 2 USD.
You list a lot of factual things but the if the cutting head on the lathe over heated with high frequencies then how did they make quadraphonic records where the rear channels were modulated on a 30 khz carrier with 45 khz being the highest frequency cut on the record. Aside from a de-modulator you needed a cartridge with a shibata stylus to be able respond to these high frequencies.
@@leekumiega9268 The CD-4 quad records might have been cut at a lower speed? With half-speed mastering 45kHz becomes 22.5 kHz, and 30 kHz becomes 15 kHz.
@@michaelturner4457 I had wondered if that was how they did it but can not find any information to prove it. But it would seem to be the case as MFSL got its start doing Quad sound effects records, mostly of train recordings.
Hence the use of half speed lathes that would go on to make them famous.
@@michaelturner4457 I suppose it comes down to budget. If you master half speed you need twice the amount of time on the lathe, so it's cheaper to filter out the high frequencies.
Thinking about the end bit. Such debates were heard during transition from Edison gramophone (purely acoustic) to RCA Victor (assisted by electricity) which pre-figure the analogue/digital debate. It's all to some extent sociology, some humans/societies become more fundamentalist than others and people wind up at different ends. All digital media like CD are fundamentally deterministic in what you will get out of the end. In analogue you can push things by making better kit but with falling off and diminishing returns. If there were a reading list I'd suggest 'Perfecting Sound Forever' by Greg Milner especially for the early historical stuff covering up to the naughties.
Very nicely done, thank you!
Your channel is amazing by the way. Keep it up!
Thank you for another Masterclass episode, I'm glad you explain these things so clearly instead of just fighting for a certain side as people often do, leaving us wondering about the truth.
You touched the issue of the loudness war. For me that was the turning point in pop music, and is infinitely worse to my music enjoyment than digitization ever was.
If there's something that audiofiles and non-audiofiles probably agree on is that digitzation means filtering because of the Shannon-Nyquist theorem. That's needed to prevent aliasing during the recording stages, but there's no need for it during the reproduction stages.
I own a non oversampling, non analogue filtered DAC. I appreciate the aliasing problem, but I simply can't hear any difference between a OS and an NOS output. Sure, on a 100 MHz bandwidth oscilloscope, I can see the difference, but I can't hear it. To me this means that what many audiofiles think they hear is not actually what they do hear.
To me the vinyl revival is just like the valve/tube equipment revival/continuation, quite similar.They distort in a way we find pleasing, but it may not actually be truthful in a HiFi sense.
I was a turntable guy for decades, I enjoyed all the pops, crackles, scratches, and skips that inevitably occur over time. First play... nirvana! Now, IMO digital is the way to go.
Quoting Wikipedia (Digital recording, timeline section): "January 1971: Using NHK's experimental PCM recording system, Dr. Takeaki Anazawa, an engineer at Denon, records the world's first commercial digital recordings, The World Of Stomu Yamash'ta 1 & 2 by Stomu Yamash'ta (January 11, 1971)...". I think the soundtrack for Disney's "The Black Hole" (1979) was also recorded digitaly.
I became a digital bloke long ago. Now I have everything on a NAS. Giving up pops and clicks was a revolution. I wonder sometimes how Nicolas Cage would be responsible for the vinyl revival, when he says in Michael Bay's "The Rock", when receiving a Beatles LP he definitely paid through the nose for, "Besides, it sounds better". I imagine a legion of youngsters going home after the screening giving their parents' old records a spin to exclaim "He's right!". Ah, psychology, power of suggestion! ;-)
To me vinyl sounds different. It's just a different colour. But those damn pops and clicks... But in the end of the day, everything is analog. When someone plays a digital record a DAC coverts the signal to analog, so what's heard is analog anyway. But wait! According to quantum theory, there's a mimimun amount of time one can measure (OK, it's incredibly tiny). There you go, digital again... ;-) But after all it's all limited by human perception, which varies from one person to the next, but can be averaged. Anything above that is superfluous.
Thank you for your wonderful channel, very informative. I have an unrelated question for you: once in a while I like to spend time looking at the spectrum of recordings, and very often there's a thin line at around 15.6 to .7 KHz. Was it customary to have a CRT telly in the studio? Because that frequency would be related to the line frequency of analog television (15625 Hz for PAL and 15734 Hz for NTSC).
Thank you for your comment. The line scan frequency did have the potential to be a problem, especially when older engineers couldn't hear it. I would presume the CRT built into SSL consoles would have been better designed or better shielded but I've known studios to have closed circuit TV so that could well be the cause. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Thank you for your reply. Maybe one day I'll gather such data from old records, a sort of audio archeology research. Probably not very useful, but potentially funny, who knows... ;-)
Sir, your information is PURE GOLD!!! Thank You !!!!
Maaan. This information is pure gold!
Some cutting lathes could go even higher. It was required for the CD4 quadraphonic record system, which used an ultrasonic carrier for the surround channels.
I suspect the CD-4 discrete quad records were cut at a lower speed using a normal lathe and cutting head.. At half-speed, the ultrasonic carrier and surround channel sidebands are no longer ultrasonic. These days half-speed mastering for an LP is considered desirable.
Yes I considered touching on this but it would have required further investigation, and I may do that in a future video. Also, the requirement for a special stylus makes it a different issue in my opinion. DM
@@michaelturner4457 I grew up in the nineties and by that time, tape was being fazed out. I do find the manipulation of speeds of tape fascinating though. I also find “that 70s” drum sound on tape are so much more natural sounding of the kits played. Bass also sounds good but it can also sound bloated if not recorded right. Also keeping the levels low makes a huge difference. I would imagine some sound engineers (the knowledgeable ones) still record drums on tape as you don’t have to run the tape so “hot” if you are then converting to digital in a some sort of “gain stage” so little to now hiss but nice “airy” sound.
@@AudioMasterclass Didn’t Brian Eno have in one of his records and recommended 3 speaker set up that gave you the impression of surround sound on just a stereo recording??
@@joesmith4443 I haven't heard of that but I'll try and keep it in mind for when I make a video on surround. And quad. DM
Thanks. Great video.
The first CD I bought was Dire Straits Brothers in Arms. DDD sounds beautiful almost 40 years later. 😃
Agreed. DM
Yeah but it's an album with a rather low maximum volume IMHO..
I have the first pressing from 1986 and the 1996 remastered, i have to say the remaster sounds way better.
Who does not have that. I have the ANALOG version as well.
It was one of the first digitally recorded albums. But, I found that music, especially voice, sounds a bit harsh and grainy.
I replaced my vinyl collection with CDs back in the day. Mostly the CDs sounded much better - especially labels such as ECM. Getting rid of the scratches of my Ralph Towner records ... great! But some sounded worse especially my 50s Jazz records, and one Mingus one in particular. I suggest there was a rush to re-master tracks to CD to get new sales. Some of this was just sloppy. Some were remixed to emphasize the dynamic range and became a bit hard to listen to. In some cases the original musicians had died, so could not be acting as the final gate keeper. Perhaps this was part of what started the backlash against CDs? For some records the purists had a point, but it got lost in the argument.
The amazing Thing is: After 40 Years-the good old Compact Disc ist still good enough for everything.
It was an amazing technology for its time and still quite good now. DM
About cutting lathes, in the 90s I think, Linn bought two used lathes, reworked them and used them to re-issue some 1960s analog recording on their label. If anyone at Linn reads this, I hope they would comment.
I have one of these records (Ravel Piano concerto and Bartok’s Concerto for orchestra). Linn Records also launched in analog a group called The Blue Nile. These records sound amazingly good, even by today’s standards… on a proper turntable.
😂your image of vinyl fans is hilariously right on and made me laugh out loud. Mostly because I am one but also try not to take myself too seriously. Love the videos!
I remember this! I always checked for DDD on my CDs back in the 80s. If it was a CD I really wanted, I'd buy it regardless of the code, but I was always happy to find a DDD CD!
Nowadays I take it for granted that all music I buy (except for classics) is DDD without even checking.
Your suggestion sounds like a winner to me.
DDA is most LPs now. MoFi uses that method.
Only way now to listen to pure analog is to go to a philharmonic concert. Even pop-rock concerts have digital mixers and dsp enhancements.
I saw Stevie Wonder at Wembley Arena either 80s or early 90s. Close to the end of the concert all of the band left the stage and the music kept playing, I guess coming from his Synclavier. It was supposed to be impressive. These days it's impossible to know what's live and what isn't. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Instruments on stage not plugged in to anything is a dead giveaway. Especially the synths.
Even a single guitar amp could hide some digital amplifier modelling before or after its analogue looking valves. If you take up amateur orchestral playing, you can enjoy hearing unprocessed analogue mistakes in rehearsals too.
@@martineyles I would regard this as being part of the instrument. If the musician likes what they hear, then it's an intrinsic part of their sound. DM
According to quantum mechanics, all sound pressure changes being transmitted through air are dependent on discrete packets of energy of uniform (albeit very small) size. Therefore, all audio has always been and always will be digital. Wait, where's everyone going? I didn't even use any math... 😀
Now that is nonsense.
@@nicoras8803 Yup, that's my motto, "stuff and nonsense in all things". I'm sure I'll grow out of it someday.
Packets? You've got to be kidding
@@Mrsteve4761 I am, indeed. Some silliness and hyperbole to make light of the extremes that some folks go to in insisting that paradigm A is vastly superior to paradigm B for esoteric and often irrelevant reasons.
@@CaptainJack2048 Well ok then, well done LOL
Fun fact: Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms" was one of the first albums to be labeled "DDD", and while it indeed used digital machines to record the initial multitrack signals, the stereo mixdown and the final master - there were analog interconnects. The multitrack recording was mixed on an analog mixing board and output of that re-digitized by recording on a digital tape machine. So it should more precisely be labeled as DADD?
Not that it matters all that much. Both digital and analog equipment can be transparent to the ear as long as it's of sufficient quality. Or not, for deliberate artistic effect if desired. Making a selling point of producing a recording with a specific type of tech is just a gimmick, or worse, snobbery.
This is a good point but analogue recording was a much weaker link than analogue mixing so for the time period I think it was best to ignore that the signals travelling through the console were analogue. I'd seriously doubt whether this would bother digital fans today. But an AAA record being mixed through a digital console, well that's going to be unpopular with some. DM
Call me evil, if you want, but I absolutely LOVE the fact that there are hardcore analogue-vinyl-enthusiast-audiophiles out there who will now be fretting about whether their "pure analogue" 1970s LPs might have been mastered with the 12-bit Ampex ADD1 😂😂😂 Priceless!!!
I truly don't believe that any of these self-proclaimed "audio experts" (especially audio reviewers) would be able to tell the difference between an LP played "live" and the same LP recorded to my 25 yr old DAT machine...let alone a modern "audiophile grade" AD/DA conversion. They're all "full of it" as far as I'm concerned. Still...if these muppets are also prepared to spend $1k on a 1-metre interconnect...maybe I should just get onboard the audiophile train and start selling my own brand of absurdly-priced cables?! After all, there's literally no way they'd be able to tell the difference (aurally) between a $30 alibaba-special and a "genuine audiophile-grade" interconnect. I could definitely put my principles aside for a 3000% profit! 😂
I rate your show AAA-A!
Thankyou for your interesting insights.
Most Intertaining!!
Ian Shepherd mentioned this (12 bit) digital delay in the Mastering Show podcast.
These details to the populace are like pearls of wisdom (Before Swine), but ultimately we produce our synchronous racket, and the swine don't care if it's been recorded and processed AAA, or DDD, or ADD
(A bit of a plus, that last one.😉)
The porcine cares not how the nourishment arrives, only that it does.
Another great instruction from Mr. Paul McCartney. 👍
Recently I recorded a traditional flute album on Tascam MS16...DDA desk mixdown.....editing studio then required files in digital format 48K 24bit for compiling stereo mixes and running order to create vinyl master cut?? ADA. Pure analog seems almost impossible these days unless we start posting tape reels all over the country again!
IAbout 1990 I wanted to buy my first CD player and went with others to a demonstration at a local dealer. However, the dealer sold (and still sells) Linn products and the demonstration was really comparing a Marantz CD player, costing at the time £200, with a Linn Sondek LP12 turntable and SME tonearm costing several times more. The expectation was that we would all hear how superior the LP12 was compared to CD's but actually I thought it was just the opposite. Incidentally, despite eventually making a CD player themselves, I don't think Linn really liked CD's. I remember reading that at a HiFi show, people on the Linn stand had T-shirts with the logo "CD, its the pits". I assume that CD players must have affected sales of their turntables.
In fact at the time a friend had an LP12 and since he had bought a CD player his LP12 was consigned to collecting dust on the top of his wardrobe. I did eventually buy a CD player but not from that dealer. Music was increasingly being recorded and mixed digitally so it didn't make sense to me to transfer it to an analogue medium with all its inherent limitations. I already had a collection of vinyl discs and was irritated by the pops and crackles when I played them despite handling them very carefully and trying to avoid dust. I have a couple of friends who don't seem to know about DAC's and think that analogue must be superior because digital equipment outputs a square wave to the speakers!
Always knew Rasputin (2:45 bottom right) was a vinyl enthusiast. Bought many discs from his shop back in the 1980s.
Congratulations. You're the first to spot. DM
Great vid, especially pointing out the faults of early cd production and vinyl recording. The only way to tell if it's 'good' is to listen for yourself.
Thanks for the info about the digital delay being applied during the analog mastering stage. Didn't know that.
As you've mentioned frequency responses of tape recorders, record lathes and phono cartridges - it would be great if you'd cover Direct Metal Mastering (DMM) or CD-4 (or discrete) Quadrophonic recordings in the future. The CD-4 standard required a frequency response up to 50kHz and the cartridge+stylus combo had to be able to read that information off the disc. It's why the Shibata stylus profile was originally developed and has had a comeback of sorts ever since the Ortofon 2M Black cartridge.
The special stylus required is why I didn't mention this, nor the half-speed mastering. These are topics I can cover in a future video. DM
@@AudioMasterclass the "special stylus" you are talking about is Shibata or equivalent. Not very "special" for audiophile discussions in 2023. Also, these days, even the relatively affordable elliptical styli on carts such as Sumiko Evo Special III can reproduce 50kHz well enough for a CD-4 de-modulator to work and I can testify to that. I distinctly remember reading an article few years back about "setting the world record" for highest frequency ever recorded on vinyl ... but cannot remember what that was and cant find it right now. It was probably the Analog Productions peeps or equivalent. From memory there was a photo of guys fiddling with the late in it. Suffice to say I was not particularly surprised so did not pay much attention to it. I have a spectrum analyzer permanently attached to my Perreaux phono preamp and I regularly see music content up to 90kHZ in particular on live recorded Jazz and classical records from 60s and 70s. I mean, vinyl, for young people. Records. The thin round things you put on the thing that spins and has a "needle" (Could not resist, sorry)
@@andrejfalout4238 Is it music content or harmonic distortion?
Interesting post, thanks! Would like to add that Studer also published a digital look ahead delay in 1982 (Studer DAD 16) for the same use case. So chances are high that many vinyl releases since the early 80ies are "digital contaminated"😉. BTW, most of the popular condenser and dynamic mics roll off before 20kHz. So still with 44.1 kHz recordings there shouldn't be any loss of musical relevant information.
Great video. What is your thoughts about DSD. I do needle drops of my vinyl and DSD seems to sound just like the vinyl record. I should be explicitly mention DSD256+. This isn’t really an analog/digital discussion. It really more about how best to present the music, mastering, etc. vinyl masterings seem to be more dynamic in general. CDs and even some high res PCM seem to smear the original signal causing the sounds to not sound “real”. Vinyl playing of a violin seems to sound more like a real violin than a CD of a violin. I am not sure where the hole starts or ends. I will say that CDs of the 80s seem to sound better than the loudness war modern CDs. I have some killer Telarc disks from the 80s that used the sound stream system with discrete ADC as opposed to silicon based ADC. This could be a silicon/chipset vs discrete ADC using solid state components that are not chipset based. At any rate. Use your ears. Just because digital isn’t bad. Digital done right can be amazing. Pickup a disk called “Star Tracks” by Telarc. I have the CD and Vinyl version. The vinyl version sounds more “real” but the CD version is amazing too!
In multi-tracking recording, the best "analog" music instrument turned into digital for later mix in DAW. If an "analog-purist" demands pure analog; then he/she should not listen to those at all. Better yet, only listen to unamplified live performances only.
After all, music appreciation should be leisure activity. By any means and with any format.
PS. Your videos are always straight A's as usual. Enjoyable and informative at the same time.
Two thoughts.
- digital doesn't contain discrete steps. It always recreates an entirely smooth waveform. The lower the bit depth the higher the noise floor, but even at low sample rates it still recreates a smooth waveform.
- no one old enough to afford a decent turntable can hear beyond 15khz (let alone 20k) 😉
Good point you raised about honest marketing.
If only I had remembered to use the sarcasm emoji when I commented on what digital audio does to the waveform. This comes from several comments I've received, and elsewhere, where analogue enthusiasts don't believe that a smooth waveform can be reconstructed. DM
@Douglas Blake If I were on the side of analogue disbelievers of digital, I would say that an oscilloscope can't show you visually as much as you can hear. But that's if I were on that side of the argument. DM
Still, as long as the signal IS in the digital domain all steps are discrete. The "smooth waveform" exists just in the analogue domain (even if it has been reconstructed from a digital signal).
Don't get me wrong, I don't support this "our brains don't like rectangular signals" theory, because that "rectangular signal" never makes it to the brain. However I do to some degree question the concept of "lower bit depth just means higher noise". That "noise" is not stochastic noise, it's actually deterministic. Listen to say a 4-bit recording and few people would call the distortion added to the original a "noise". Does this matter with 16 or more bits? Well, probably not ...
@@naibafabdulkobor4301 It's commonly held that noise is random, distortion is correlated with the signal. That makes sense to me so that's how I normally use these terms. I don't think I'll be using the term 'stochastic' very often because I'm just going to have to explain it every time. DM
@@AudioMasterclass That's perfectly fine with me, I was mainly referring to @Seiskid mentioning quantisation noise. It's usually called "noise" and most everybody directly compares dynamic range based on bit depth with the analouge definition of dynamic range. Strictly speaking quantisation noise is correlated with the signal, indeed (even if the correlation is complex). If the input signal is repeated and quantisation starts at exactly the same point in time then quantisation "noise" will also be exactly identical.
Yes, I left out dithering on purpose. ;)
This sure explains a lot. Especially the Ampex ADD1. I think what a lot comes down to is the care taken from the original recording to the final product. Somehow I would bet that the Phillips Classical Recordings never used the ADD1. It also explains why some labels transferred over to CD better than others. With all the modern convenient playback devices, there are too many steps to do things wrong or for someone to think they are making things better.
Now that processing power and storage is so cheap, hopefully a simple foolproof workflow can be developed like old AAA analogue.
To me, Peak Audio was back in the late 80s with my 200 Watt system with 16 inch bass 3 way speakers and a Philips Classical CD on a component CD player.
Wow, I’m shattered - but I’m still going to enjoy my Vinyl, my tapes and my CD’s as well. What about streaming did I hear you say? Maybe that too as it’s more about the music in the end. Although do love my system which is the instrument that delivers the music.
Thank you for your comment which I appreciate. Streaming would be a topic for a different video, and indeed I have mentioned it several times on this channel. DM
3:30 there were a few disc cutters dotted around London (one had one in his living room) who were craftsmen and used their ears & eyes didn't need delaylines
I was first drawn to your channel fairly recently by your presentation on why I should stop listening to vinyl. I was much intrigued but concluded that everything you said was in the main stuff I knew and accepted to be something that just goes with the territory. It did make me think “Oh Mr negativity“ until your next presentation told me why I should stop buying CDs. Consequently I found myself completely immersed by your much entertaining broadcasting style and brain-size-of-a-planet knowledge. So I find myself realising you are not Mr negative but Mr reality. As a hobbyist, composer, recording artist, tracking engineer, mixing engineer and mastering engineer I find your broadcasts, not just welcoming, but heart rate increasing each time I see you have posted a new chapter.
Here, once again, you deliver a thumping, good broadcast, well interpretable and understood by a hack such as myself. I encourage you most heartily to keep up the good work Mr reality. I look forward to further education which allows me as an analogous consumer of audio (was that the phrase you were looking for?) with a place for digital in my life to rest easy in the knowledge that perfection is not an issue in the world of audio reproduction. I await in ridiculous anticipation of your next offering and all those to follow. I hear you loud and clear. Thank you and love to Bette.
PS AAAA & AADA works for me 😊, I have long since believed there should be an obligation for record sleeves to show a precise lineage. I arrived at this conclusion after recently treating myself to an “upgrade“ of Tubular Bells, the very instant that playback ensued I realised I was effectively listening to a compact disc! Armed with my compact brain I shall happily plough on as a disciple of yours and to the beauty of vinyl which when expertly executed makes a Miles Davis trumpet sound like a trumpet as opposed to the veiled digital approximation perceived via digital within said compact brain. Thanks again, I award you a full AAAA/DDDD (delete as applicable) ranking for entertainment and knowledge. 👍
Brain the size of a planet? I don't think I'd even match a minor asteroid. DM
I like to think of the newer Tubular Bells as a new performance of it. Mike Oldfield was directly involved, so there's no question that the result wasn't what the artist intended.
The only digital interfaces to my brain are attached to my hands, so if you're like me, you're stuck with an analogue of whatever your signal transducers are passing through the air regardless of the playback media.
@@poofygoof It raises the question whether the new Mike Oldfield is the authentic Mike Oldfield. This is a problem in classical music where composers would often revise their works. Sometimes the revised version is clearly better. Or it can just cause massive confusion, looking at you Bruckner. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Perhaps it should have 4 different names, like a Dvorak symphony.
vinyl can actually more. Up to 40khz afair. There were quadrophic LPs out there. The other two channels, rear left and right, were encoded in upper bands above the hearable spectrum. On a 30 kHz or so carrier frequency. Just like the stereo side signal in FM radio. Or the colour signal in NTSC or PAL tv. (not exactly, the colour signal is IN the visible 5Mhz band, but first tv sets indeed filtered out anything above 3 MHz for Y-Signal.) You get the idea.
I’m trying to shed some light about the frequency response of vinyl. My understanding is that vinyl couldn’t exceed 20KHz because of the following factors…some geeky stuff for anyone interested 😊
I tried to post also links for everything but UA-cam is deleting the comment.
Recording
Studer A800 series (the most successful recording machines)has a frequency range of 50Hz-20KHz
Mastering stage
Ampex ATR100/102 has a frequency range of 35Hz-28KHz just in only configuration - at 30ips (within +/- 2db) using Ampex 406/407/456 tapes. In any other configurations it’s up to 20 KHz
Some tapes themselves couldn’t record more than 20KHz
ATR Ampex Master Tapes specs are showing this.
Neumann VMS80 could go up to 20KHz, because that was the maximum frequency of AKS80 - the unit module responsible for the delay preview.
I would tend to think of a true, studio quality ADC/DAC chain as basically equivalent to a short length of copper wire these days.
you could not be more wrong. a really obviously wrong thing.
Along with the Ampex ADD-1, CBS labs (part of Columbia Records in Stamford, CT) developed the DisComputer about 1978 integrated with a lathe for managing groove spacing. It used a first-generation Intel 4004 as its main CPU. The audio path to the cutter head was ALWAYS pure audio by playing it back twice. First for the computer, second for cutting the lacquer
Now that sounds like a MUCH better way than the Ampex approach, however I do wonder whether having to play the master tape twice, as in it takes longer, meant some saw the Ampex approach superior (yuk)
Aha, I shall investigate this further. DM
@@AudioMasterclass why playback twice when you could have two playback heads? it's constant angular velocity, not constant linear velocity, so the heads stay a fixed distance apart for a given cutting RPM. three-head tape decks already have a "preview" in the form of a repro head ahead of a dedicated playback head, and I could imagine studio techs adding a custom hardware to mechanically extend the loop size between the repro head and playback head of an existing deck to get preview at a desired pre-delay...
@@AudioMasterclass CBS gave it a name, but most "modern" cutting lathes have a computer to assist the process. The computer analyses the amplitude of the "preview" signal and helps determine the best groove spacing for loud and quiet passages. So it could be fed by an analog preview or a digital preview. To quote mastering engineer Steve Hoffman: "Every cutting system uses a computer. All it does is let the cutting head know in advance when the music gets loud or soft so it can save room."
@David Gravereaux Amplitude measure head upstream gives the groove spacing servomechansim time to respond. No digitaldelayline involved.
De-skilling the process so cutting engineers can retire from the industry.
At the moment I'm enjoying Katie Melua (In Winter) fully digital in HiRes (24bit/48kHz) with good headphones. In the end, it's the music and how you feel about it that counts.
Another thought occurred... In the '70ies there were quadraphonic records: 4 discrete channels; 2 front, 2 rear. In order to do this, the rear channels were multiplexed with the normal stereo signal at very high frequencies (up to 50k), in the same way that FM stereo still works. This required special cartridges with special styli in order to achieve 50k playback from vinyl. So, yes, playback beyond 20k is possible... (however, play the record 10 times, and that high frequency info would have worn off anyway...)
This is correct, although the system required half or even slower cutting. I have this from a JVC document from the era. And the Shibata stylus, well this might be of benefit for normal stereo. I might look into this for a future video. DM
That was really interesting, AAdA! It reminds me of the great controversy around Mobile Fidility (MoFi for short nowadays) had to come clean and admit that the pristine, original analogue studio master was converted to DSD to create the pressing lacquer to manufacture their records for many, many years. All audiophiles up in arms, suddenly the records didn't sound good anymore. Great, as otherwise that master tape would wear out very quickly to produce new lacquers as these wear out quickly. Releasing that master tape it in a decent digital format type is the way to go, not going vinyl again...
I like your version with the lowercase 'd'. The industry should adopt it. DM
For those who think that it is useful to go beyond 20 kHz, realise that around that frequency our threshold of hearing crosses the threshold of hearing damage.
So, if you’re hearing around that frequency it is not for long, or you will hear it also when it’s not there…
Or stated otherwise, if you take the advice for preventing hearing damage into account, nobody can hear from 20 to 20 kHz.
So interesting! I'll have to check for the A's and D's next time I'm thrifting for tapes and CDs!
Hey, what's your take on recording above 20k? I'm one of those people that cymbals don't sound right to me on recordings because they're missing the frequencies above 20k... but most speakers don't even play those frequencies, so I've avoided recording them so far, thinking it'd be a waste of time for 999 out of a thousand listeners.
I don't think I'll tire of saying that just good enough isn't good enough. If the accepted range of human hearing is up to 20 kHz, then I'd want an octave above that as a safety margin. As storage costs decrease and bandwidth increases I don't see why we can't have that in future. DM
On the question of cutting lathe bandwidth, there were records produced in the 70s which had 4 channels encoded onto a record using a 30Khz carrier, so the cutter must be capable of around 45Khz bandwidth for this to work. This was referred to as CD-4 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatible_Discrete_4)
I did look into this for the video but it added so many extra complications that I left it out. I will research further in future and I expect that half-speed cutting and the special playback stylus will feature strongly. DM
Before watching your video: From a physics standpoint, digital signals are samplings of discrete points along an analog signal. Therefore, by definition, any time digital processing is done, the analog signal has lost something. However, unless the sampling is done poorly, it will be indistinguishable by human ears from a fully analog signal once the signal is reconstructed.
After watching your video: I always did think that LPs had a bit of flatness in their frequency response, but I never knew where it came from. The way I describe it is that "records sound a little tinny," but that isn't exactly accurate -- I just don't have a better way of describing what I hear. Anyway, that's interesting about the digital delay. Its also been my experience that my CDs from the late 90s early 2000s had frequency clipping. At the time, I attributed it to "they're trying to make the CD as loud as a cassette and over-amplified the signal" but that would be a uniform clipping and not just high-frequency. Of course, I have some other CDs from that time that are definitely mastered too low, to the point where if your volume is set so that "my ears don't bleed" on the loudest parts of the song, you can't hear the quiet parts at all on average headphones.
what frequency was the shibata pilot tone used on quad vinyl? wp says 30kHz...
Sure was and the signal went up to 45 khz at the high end.
I really dislike that virtually all concerts are mixed with digital consoles.
Ironic considering they are much more expensive to attend compared to the 1990s and earlier.
Sometimes convenience wins, and a digital console is MUCH more convenient than analogue. DM
7:10 One can argue that LPs only have useful bandwidth up to about 16kHz or so whereas CD goes up to 20kHz BUT, one must consider what the brick wall filter needed for digital recording does to the in-band audio signal you want. Such filters have nasty phase characteristics unless they are designed VERY carefully. So in digital recording the brick wall filter will remove everything above half your sampling frequency, but it can also introduce phase distortions in the parts of the signal it passes through. When cutting an LP from a master tape that can record up to 28kHz, sure not all that sonic information will actually make it to the grooves but you don't have nasty filters with super steep cutoffs in the signal chain.
Testing my 65 year old hearing range, I barely got anything beyond 12,000Hz. I seem to be fairly acute within my limits, but doubt my young ears were ever able to appreciate the full 20kHz of CDs, and certainly not any higher frequencies on my scratchy, wobbly vinyls with standard cartridges never set up by experts. Basic first gen. CDs and players sounded far cleaner and clearer, pop and hiss free, and the "warmth" of vinyl I attributed to less clarity and more midrange, not some extra imbued magic. I have just one actually bad CD, a Zevon Greatest Hits I believe was either very poorly remastered, or else might even be a counterfeit - but one of the first ever digitally mastered recordings, Ry Cooder's Bop Til You Drop, still sounds amazing. Mastering and engineering makes or breaks quality recordings, not "Digital" versus "Analog."
You're doing well, you still have nine and a bit out of your original ten octaves left. DM
I recall a heated conversation with a record company insisting there cassettes bore DDD in the side label!
I take it they weren't DCC.
@@martineyles Nope, basic analogue cassette, mastered from a DAT on to a bin loop tape. So two analogue stages away from the DAT.
Wow! I've completely forgotten about that code. I think I first heard a German Gramaphone CD that was labelled DDD and was taken aback by the quality of that CD to such a point that I avoided buying CD's that weren't DDD.
Do you have a reference for how many people can hear beyond 20k?
I can remember some truly dreadful earl Classical Music AAD CD's where some old hissing master tapes were dug out to produce cheap CD's. You could still hear the tape hiss on the CD.
Wings early album - WILD LIFE is another example. The tape hiss is awful on the Vinyl and the CD - though interestingly the 128kbps MP3 floating around the Internet version sounds like a quite different album than the original as the treble has been ALMOST completely suppressed. Though it sounds a bit like someone hit a Dolby switch on a non-Dolby recording. Pretty muddy.
The current vinyl editions of The Beatles albums are all cut from digital masters. Another great video. Loving your channel. 😎
I have to say that there are only so many times they can go back to the original tapes, considering how old they are. There will be a point when digital copies sound better than the degrading originals. It might be an interesting point of discussion when the crossover point would be when digital technology would be good enough yet the tapes were not too degraded. Maybe that was in the 1990s, maybe it hasn't come yet. DM
@@AudioMasterclass thanks for the reply. You make some great points.
Not only that, the latest ones are completely remixed digitally. On Rubber Soul and Revolver, they even used digital signal processing to separate out stems (isolated vocals or single instrument tracks) so they could create full stereo mixes of songs that had never had them. To my ears the results are stunning -- superior to the originals -- but some analog purists will surely disagree.
@ yeah I agree. I love the new mixes. Of course the original mixes are still available so everyone wins!
I had totally forgotten about the A&D standard we had back then. I remember clearly looking for CDs that had the holy grail of DDD, thinking to myself: This is as pure sound as we,can produce! Interesting to see the opposite happen today with ‘audiolites’ analog enthusiasts looking for pure analog sound 😂. Truly the quest for ‘pure’ sound has become a new religion.
From Studio Sound 1979 November, p40:
"AMPEX....ADD-1 Audio digital delay unit for disk mastering preview (2-channel). Allows a standard tape recorder to be used as the mastering machine, the standard output being fed to the lathe preview input and the ADD-1 input, while the delayed output of the ADD-1 becomes the programme input to the lathe cutter amplifiers, suitably delayed. Delay time may be preset up to 5.12 s in 5ms increments, while the digital delay uses 16-bits for 90dB dynamic range with samples frequencies of 25kHz, 50kHz or 100kHz. The unit is totally compatible with half-speed cutting. Frequency response is 5Hz to 18kHz +/-0.5dB, to 20kHz -1.5dB."
I've checked the mag and yes this is what it says. 1979 is early for 16-bit but I can believe it. I have my doubts about 1973 though and further information on this would be interesting. DM
What about direct to disc recording using two mics, or old Mercury living presence releases? What about albums released by, for example, Pablo Records?
Regarding frequency responses of Vinyl and / or cutting lathes: My old late 50's vinyl records on the "Audio Fidelity" label state that the frequency response is 15 CPS ( Cycles per second) to 25,000 CPS, however, that does not mean that any signal could be cut with full frequency response up to 25KHz. Famous engineer/ producer Robert Fine (of "Mercury Living Presence" and "Command records" fame) stated that their mastering Engineer George Piros ( another famous name) had to routinely Low-pass the audio at 15,000 CPS during mastering because the Chinese bells' high frequency content would burn up the cutter head.
My own take on whether it matters if it's all analog my opinion is simple: It does matter a great deal to me even if I can't reliably identify it (of course I can't, nobody can) because all analog represents the only format that can be relied on to maintain the original recording's integrity, once it's zeros and ones anything is possible, just ask the guys from Melodyne who saw it fit to showcase their "Direct-note-access" algorithm by altering Chet Baker's trumpet solo on one of his classic recordings. All Analog is the only honest medium out there and knowing that that is what I'm listening to pleases me, nothing more. In order to ensure that it is what I think it is I only listen to original issues or reissues predating the advent of digital technology in the 70s.
I should add that in my dayjob I only listen to and work with digital audio, have been for 30plus years but during those 3 decades my desire to listen at home for recreational purposes has diminished to zero until I started listening to analog again, cassettes and Vinyl. The old enjoyment is back. Let some neuroscientist figure out why, I don't really care, I only know what my preferences are, not why they are my preferences.
Question : if the cutting head on the lathe over heated with high frequencies then how did they make quadraphonic records where the rear channels were modulated on a 30 khz carrier with 45 khz being the highest frequency cut on the record. Aside from a de-modulator you needed a cartridge with a shibata stylus to be able respond to these high frequencies.
@@leekumiega9268 Because he has no idea of what he is talking about.
@@leekumiega9268 updated cutting heads and electronics? I thought quad was a 70s thing, not a 50s thing.
@@leekumiega9268 You can cut at a lower speed. That takes more time though, and thus costs more. Not necessarily a problem if you can charge a premium, or if you expect the record to sell well.
Interesting video. I ask the reverse question: Can digital audio be comprimised by analog mixing that was optimized for vinyl replication? I think there are so many really dull CD recordings from the 80s that could use more detailed treble and lower bass on CD compared to a vinyl record where you have to care about the laquer and avoid sibilance.
I think it would have been inevitable that vinyl mastering engineers would work with regard to the limitations of the vinyl process through to the finished disc. Opinions will differ on whether a CD or digital file should replicate the original vinyl sound. I have a video coming up that will touch on this topic. DM
So, what microphones are capable of usable levels above 20KHz? The ubiquitous Neumann is stated to only reach to 20KHz. I suppose there are some mics that exceed that range but most are limited to even less than 20KHz.
Seems to me this delay for spacing of the grooves would not directly affect the quality of the signal path. It reminds me of the side chain on a compressor - I can use a crappy equalizer on the side chain and it does not appear to harm my analog signal path
Yes, but no-one hears the side chain of the compressor. It's the reverse here - no-one hears the output of the playback head directly. DM
I'm also pro-digital but I do like vinyl for its "experiential" properties. But I have noticed that quite a few of the new releases I've bought on vinyl sound weirdly compressed and distorted, almost like they used the digital master without alteration, so it actually sounds noticeably worse on vinyl. I'm sure that can't be, but I used to expect that vinyl releases would have at least equal to or better dynamic range than the corresponding streaming or digital download, and that is definitely not the case any longer. I doubt it's because they've suddenly started using the ADD-1 again, but something else definitely seems to be going on where "digital" is touching vinyl in even worse ways today than was the case in the 80's or 90's. It's almost like the loudness war has come to vinyl, but vinyl has less headroom available to deal with it.
I don't have hard data but anecdotally it seems to be a thing that masters intended for digital distribution are used directly for vinyl. This is clearly suboptimal and in an ideal world would not happen.
I'd venture that there are more digital incursions into currently available vinyl discs than you have mentioned.
What about the optical audio track along the edge of films?
As ever great thought provoking video must say I have a 1976 Uriah Heep Demons and Wizards and digital remastered version from couple of years ago I always go back to 1976 version am I just bias or something else that’s more analogueie how about that for new word for a old symptom 😊
Lol booop boooop said Thomas tank engine blowing steam at his engineer 😂😂
Even DDD has analogue microphones and pickups. This lets in the crud that happens when A/D converters are over-ranged, even if the components are high quality. Analog tends to treat overdriving on 'too loud' passages more gently. Limiting rather than having a hissy-fit. And of course speakers are analogue. Some chips have problems, the most widely known is the TL07x common mode overload where it ceases to function under certain conditions. They are quite a commonly used chip, even in digital equipment.
Wondering what your take is on RIAA recording and playback filtering and the possibility to obtain something that has non lossless compression artefacts contamination.
RIAA EQ on vinyl is necessary to achieve duration. The side effect is it boosts rumble and other LF noise. Overall though it’s a good thing. DM
For the new recording - Digital. For old recording - Analog. Why? Take a Michelangelo`s picture, for example. You scan it, you ˝enhance˝ it a bit and then, you print it. And you spread copies all around the world. No one ever know what is no.1 copy. Then, you bought original painting. And you compare it to the copies. You found out that there are many different copies around. At first, some of them looks more contrasty, more colorful. But then, you look closer at the original and found out many more brush strokes, much more details that were gone missing in copying. Same thing with audio. When I play my `77 Fleetwood Mac, I hear ambience, echo, every grain in voice, all of the tiny details on guitar solo. With CD version, it`s all mushy and dull. PS. all of the post `84 albums sounds a bit harsh and shrill due to digital recording, especially with voice. Those first 14-bit ADC was a disaster. Take, for example, Sting, Phil Collins, Dire Straits, they all produce some level of ear pain with a bit of `sand grain` in music.
Great video. Will there always be digital discrimination by consumers in droves? Yes, I've heard digital remastering and cds where the midrange instruments sound paper thin, grainy, lacking in color and warmth. But I've also heard compact discs and digital lp remasterings that leave the original pre-digital lp in the dust. I had to laugh the other day reading a few years old comment in a videos comment section where someone says "Analog is like someone taking a photograph of something and digital is like someone verbally describing it. NO.........Not even close, Even with digital at it's worst was there ever a gap anything like that. The best $500 cartridge would not come close to my cd playback sound quality. Digital at it's best can be as convincing as analog and as analog sounding as analog. However, digital is not always at its best, just as analog is not always at its best. I think what's more important than what is better, is what is usually the better pressing? I find your average cd is a way better pressing than most lp pressings. Maybe if I lived in the U.K.I wouldn't think that, as they're known for their great pressings. But your average cd is way cleaner sounding than your usual American lp pressings, vintage or current. In fact, if when half speed mastered Audiophile lps started coming out in the late 1970s, if they were as clean and as high in sound quality as most cds are, they would have sold ten times as many. Cds generally have the kind od sound that we dreamed of getting with half speed mastered lps. Isn't that something to celebrate? Cds are like finding half speed master lps used, with no noise, for a buck in used bins, if your cd player is good enough.
.People complaining about cds sounding grainy or thin are talking about the deficiencies of their own playback equipment; not the inherent quality of cds, which are about 7 grades higher than they think. So bias should be against bad digital mastering not digital mastering itself. How to ferret it out could be a problem though.
One last thing; Brothers In Arms was NOT one of the first digital recordings.
When that came out in the 1980s there were already hundreds of digital recordings on the market which were digitally recorded in both recording studios and concert halls.
And where does the Direct to Disc recording come in, I have a few Vinyl albums that were done in this way.
The list of topics I want to cover is long but I'm sure I'll get to this one eventually. DM
A passing thought.. in these comments, and oft heard from audiophiles, is the statement about "i can hear details in the analog that are missing in digital", or similar references to subtle nuances and the like... But....
1 they are almost always non specific
2 they are never the results of properly documented blind tests
Happy to be shown some examples. But please don't bother if you are not that sure what a blind test, or proper documentation, looks like..
The little advertisement blurb for the ADD-1 says it has an 80DB signal-to-noise-ratio. If true, that would be at minimum either 14-bit and very close to the theoretical limit of what that bit-depth can provide, or 13 bits at what would have been an absolutely insane sample-rate at the time, something on the order of 192khz or more especially if it didn't have noise-shaping for the output.
Better tech-specs I guess than Vinyl is supposedly capable of, clocking in usually around 30-40 DB SNR from what I've found previously (not that I necessarily believe that it's that bad or that the digital stage wouldn't have had an effect on it), but yes definitely digital from what you're describing as the operational process for the ADD-1.
At first let's talk about some tech specs, if you produce a half speed master then frequencies above 35kHz are no problem and (if you remember) for quadrophonic sound 35kHz was important for some technical reasons (wiki it). Another total missconception is the Nyquist Theorem that says that half sampling frequency is max frequency response. Yes Nyquist was right but he was only talking about a pure sinus signal and music is not a pure sinus (unless yout records only contain test tones or certain types of noise). However the question of "what is better A or D?" does not make too much sense because there are clearly some areas where digital is clearly without a doubt better than analog i.e. bass performance on a record the bass is mono or dynamic range 100 digital vs 50ish on a record but analog has some advantages as well, more details, less phasing problems, easy to amplify etc. So IMO there is no better or worse there is only different. I love my records but I like streaming as well, if I had to pick one it would be streaming because access to all music ever produced IMO is more valuable than a hand full recordings that sound slightly different.
If only that pesky Fourier hadn't shown that all signals of finite energy can be expressed as sums of sine waves...
@@poofygoof Beat me to it. I will add that digital can represent phase differences much smaller than the sampling frequency - the peaks don't have to line up with the times of the samples - that common misconception is what has allowed MQA to get away with their misinformation about time smearing.
Very cool on a side note what are your thoughts on the switch mode power amps and let’s say class a b amps I mix a lot of live bands and have been finding issues with lack of low end on large switch amps and have gone back to a b. Amps half the size and having better control and results but very heavy though
I never thought Class D amps could hold a candle to A/B amps. Though my class D bass amp (Acoustic Image) wattage is rated higher than my old A/B GK, the GK absolutely destroys the Class D amp when you feed it the onions. I’m also partial to my A/B International power amps. They are beasts.
@@clicks59 yes this is the issue i have had for years but its funny how i can’t get the power out of a bunch of crown i tech 12000 and i can run crest power amps at 800 watts p ch and get the results needed
When the conversation turns to Class D, as it often does after a few drinks, the usual complaint is about damping factor. But then some expert will pipe up and explain why that's a non-issue. I might cover this in a future video. DM
@@AudioMasterclass I would love to hear (no pun intended) your take on Class D vs Class A/B Thanks!
@@clicks59 As I said in an earlier reply, the commonly held issue is damping factor. But there's also the question of elegance and efficiency vs. brute force. My subconscious is working on these issues for a future video. DM
Some of the high frequency during playback on vinyls, seems to only be needle rattle, and actually not content on the vinyl.
How likely is it that vinyl mastering will involve a digital delay? Did the advanced preview head and pure analog audio path fall out of use? Did the digital tech allow longer delays, and did this improve groove spacing?
It would be difficult to find accurate figures on what percentage of discs are digitally processed. However a web search will reveal mastering studios that use digital delay, and those that don't (where the information is given of course). Regarding groove spacing, there shouldn't be any difference. DM
…And what to think about modern amps for home use, with their DSP? And ‘analog’ FM radio’s (with DSP)? It’s becoming harder and harder to stay pure analog…
FM stereo is a form of (analog) sampling, even...
Did you just solved the digital to analog advantages? According to you , 20k filters limits digital music (at cd quality). With analog music there could be audio information above that limit as described on the ampex tape recorder specifications.
Does that apply to low end to; like at 20hz?
Apologies in advance if one of the 349 comments prior to mine mentioned it already but, mid 1970s technology used for CD4 quadraphonic records showed, frequencies in excess of 30kHz could be recorded on “vinyl.” That of course was to a different end - modulated signal for the front / back differences - but it is a ready proof of concept. I cannot hear anything much past 14kHz so, not relevant for me in any shape or form!
Signals that may not be heard or detected, once injected on a signal path can cause a waste of space on the physical medium and headroom on the signal processing causing overload on the electronics, including saturation up to overheating and burning of those hair-sized wires driving cutter heads, tape heads or speakers voice coils. Below 20Hz it's getting close to DC, supersonic frequency is used in DMM lathes to excite the stylus to actually cut into the copper disk.... I think engineers who designed audio equipment intentionally limited the frequency response, not by means of the device being capable to handle them theoretically but indeed to prevent erratic behavior on other devices, such as self oscillation. The same principle where manufactures of lamps (should) make them to stay within a certain wavelength of the visibile light without stepping into UV or infrared where such radiations could be either a waste of energy and potentially a physical harm, that doesn't mean they are not capable to produce specialty lamps for such spectrum for other purposes, and same as hearing capabilities also eyesight is different.
the 'carrier frequency' on CD4 quadraphonic discs was above 30khz - no idea if special lathes were used to cut these though. i don't think digital delays were ubiquitous, especially not in the 70s- if a recording studio had a mastering setup with a preview head i would assume there is no benefit of removing this head (or removing the tape player entirely) and replacing it with a digital delay.
i'm not an analog purist. i post rips of freaking vinyl on my youtube channel, lol. i do see the appeal in keeping everything analog just to prove how 'good' it can be if done well, but it isn't a requirement for me to enjoy the music - i'd say almost 100% of the stuff i listen to was recorded and produced digitally.
We have been recording digitally since the 80's, digital (sample based) synthesizers, digital fx etc. What are you on about? Even source material wore out and is only digitally (in what ever generation) available.
speaking of contamination by digital processing, what are your thoughts about the Technics su R1000 which processing every signal to digital, does Technics do the right thing or contaminate what is already contaminate.
In the olden days of pro audio, like the 1970s, people used to worry about the signal going through multiple transformers. One would be OK, but when every output and every input has a transformer surely there's going to be some degradation? The same can be said for video where there may be multiple data compression stages. In principle I'd say that the fewer analogue to digital and digital to analogue conversions the better. In practice, it might not matter. DM
"Analogue-ists" just want to be fooled.. 🙂
That said, I still use tapes, delays and R2R sometimes, but it purely is just for the fun of it (and I am not a pro).
Anyway, I enjoy your channel and I love your professional opinion on everything.
Just curious, can you name an album that you know made use of this Ampex ADD1 machine?
On really good equipment with critical listening , good vinyl ( original first pressing or Mo-Fi half speed mastering ) does sound better than CD and equal to SACD.
More and more digital stores are selling 24bit FLAC, and they should be 44khz sample rate so niquist is a bit higher. Not that I can hear the difference but I do wonder if interference in higher frequencies can cause audible differences lower in the frequency spectrum. So maybe higher than 20k IS needed after all