LISTSERV mailing list manager LISTSERV 16.0

Help for ARSCLIST Archives


ARSCLIST Archives

ARSCLIST Archives


[email protected]


View:

Message:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Topic:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Author:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

Font:

Proportional Font

LISTSERV Archives

LISTSERV Archives

ARSCLIST Home

ARSCLIST Home

ARSCLIST  January 2008

ARSCLIST January 2008

Subject:

Re: Ampex ATR-102 opinion (was MD5 Hash Generators

From:

Bruce Kinch <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:56:17 -0700

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (235 lines)

Hey, this is a fun list , after all!

On Jan 22, 2008, at 7:21 PM, Tom Fine wrote:

> Hi Scott:
>
> Yes, and that "trimming" thing is highly dubious too! Just because 
> there's some psuedo-"science" "explaination" for Barnumesque hooey 
> doesn't make it true or have anything to do with sonics. There was one 
> of those "deep frozen oxygen-free elevated" cable "manufacturers" 
> briefly on another list, which is populated almost entirely by genuine 
> professionals in the audio field. That person and their alleged 
> "science" (which was just long strings of $5 words and straw-man 
> arguments) was laughed out of the list very quickly.

But if you base your opinions on what genuine professionals on a list 
say rather than testing the hypothesis yourself, you have simply denied 
yourself a legitimate personal (as opposed to professional) opinion. 
Not so long ago genuine professionals thought the world was flat, that 
human flight was impossible, that applying leeches was good for what 
ails ya. Now they are saying cholesterol isn't so bad, after all. 
Columbus, the Wrights, and Dr. Bernard just had open minds where others 
trusted the professionals. Have some more cheesecake, please.

>  If you feel you have purchased an off-center CD, return it for an 
> exchange.  Finally, shaving too much of the edge off a commercial CD 
> can damage the aluminum, then you really will get read-errors, some of 
> which might not be correctable -- oh and you can also create 
> micro-cracks in the plastic layers which might interfere with some 
> laser/mirror interactions. Again, if your CD won't play and your other 
> CD's will, then that one is defective and should be returned to the 
> manufacturer for an exchange. If a bunch of CD's won't play, then your 
> equipment is broken. BTW, the precursor to "shaving" was the "CD pen" 
> (an overpriced Sharpie). That myth has been well-debunked, use Google.

How would you know you had a an off center CD? If it didn't sound good? 
Well, as you pointed out earlier, a lot of CDs don't sound good. A trip 
to a machine shop with a precision lathe would be more definitive, no? 
Or try the audiophile version with a money-back guarantee.
>
> As for the "cleaning and polishing," well I suppose if you bought a 
> scuffed used disc there is more than a shred to this. I always clean 
> fingerprints off library discs (with regular 90% isopropynol and a 
> lint-free wipe, ie less than a penny per "treatment"). I believe there 
> are some actual scientific papers about how horizontal scratches and 
> fingerprints can and do create very high error rates and uncorrectable 
> errors in some situations (especially with cheapo players). CD's 
> definitely seem more fragile than original music-company claims BUT 
> like I said, less than a penny per cleaning and unless they are gouged 
> they play just fine in a decent player. By the way, I recently tested 
> this theory with a used CD I bought. The thing wouldn't play well in a 
> cheapo discman portable. I was afraid it was gouged but it was just 
> scratched. I had no problem reading it into the computer using Exact 
> Audio Copy (which reported 100% quality on all read-ins) and burned a 
> new copy on a CDR. That copy plays just fine in any player I have and 
> sounds great (I must certainly not be a golden ear because I'm too 
> skeptical, but I can say I do know good sound quality when I hear it 
> and I certainly know what digital-playback errors sound like). So, 
> bottom line, I'm not discounting the idea of treating a CD surface 
> with much more care than is commonly used based on early advertising 
> claims, but I see no need for exotic potions and other pricey 
> products.

Again, an opinion about something tried is different than an opinion 
about something not tried, as you concede. Alcohol might not be optimal 
for cleaning whatever is on or attracted to CDs (Duane?), and coated 
optical surfaces do transmit more light than uncoated. Even 
polycarbonate eyeglass lenses are routinely treated to an 
anti-reflection coating; why should a CD's polycarbonate be different? 
Can you further concede that someone might hear a justification for 
something you can see no need for? Or are they wrong simply because you 
can't see what you can't hear?
>
> Scott, CD's aren't the only things some of the "high-end audio" mags 
> talk about "de-gaussing" (just how do you de-magnetize aluminum? and 
> how about CDR dye?). One mag actually advocated purchase of an "LP 
> degausser" -- as if there is a SINGLE magnetic property to a vinyl 
> disk! And we won't even get in to the idiotic hooey surrounding this 
> sudden "need" to "elevate" your cables!

If you lived in the New Mexico desert, you might have a different 
opinion on the effect of static electricity on cable dielectrics.

> Ha! I think some of these golden-eared types wouldn't survive a trip 
> through the recording sessions that produced their favorite music -- 
> it would so shatter their universe-view that their heads would 
> explode! Bundles of ordinary Belden cable running through a studio, 
> sometimes digital and analog in the same bundle or the same conduit, 
> sometimes even video or data in there too and in the old days mains AC 
> and relay DC running nearby. Recording consoles full to the brim with 
> ordinary IC's, resistors and capacitors and in the old days exposed 
> garden-variety tubes with no exotic "shock mounts" -- all with blaring 
> monitors nearby. Studios getting their electrical service from an 
> ordinary power company with, gasp, no special "treatments" or 
> "regeneration", and in the old days most power cords made of ordinary 
> "lamp cord" or zip-cord (nowadays more typical are the 
> stock-from-the-box Chinese IEC power cords). Location recordings in an 
> ordinary concert hall in the middle of a noisy city, with no special 
> humidity or static-electricity treatments and ordinary 
> Belden-or-similar microphone cables (running hundreds of feet in some 
> cases with no "elevation" or "magnetic wraps"). Oh, the horror of it 
> all, to think that so many great-sounding recordings could be made 
> with such ordinary work-horse equipment and those "simple" old-school 
> professionals with their "tin-eared" ways! The truth could well put a 
> whole "industry" out of business (and I don't mean the recording 
> industry)!

Hey Tom, you started this discussion with a statement that "the 
majority of CD product on the market is not well-mastered, so the 
garden-variety CD has a bad rap for sounding awful through no fault of 
the technology". The above paragraph simply expands on that to include 
technical concerns that at one time were never given the slightest 
consideration, and again blames the engineering personnel. I doubt that 
you really mean to diminish the insights of the tin-eared professionals 
from Decca, EMI, RCA, Mercury, the BBC and ORTF, Bell Labs et al who 
identified most of these problems for us-and figured out the solutions, 
often by rejecting the conventional wisdom of the day. OK, maybe you 
do, as their greatest success was with analog recording.

And why the snide attitude towards anyone who questions a status quo 
you agree is unsatisfactory, or suggest improvements? The CD was not 
intended to be the Platonic Ideal of music reproduction. The fact is 
the CD design brief simply specified a disc that would fit in a 
Japanese auto dash player and play Beethoven's Ninth on one side. What 
we got was the best they could do at the time with those parameters. 
Anybody you know still thinks the '82 Accord was a perfect ride 
forever? Why then the dogged defense of the format designed to provide 
it with perfect sound forever? Afraid it might flunk inspection, too?

The deeper truth is that the recording industry may well be putting 
itself out of business, at least as far as physical media is concerned. 
Trashing those serious audiophiles, designers, manufacturers and 
tweakers who have striven for 25+ years to actually extract music from 
those pits plays right into the hands of the corporate conglomerates 
for whom quality is a threat to the bottom line.
>
Bruce


> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Phillips" 
> <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 8:21 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Ampex ATR-102 opinion (was MD5 Hash Generators
>
>
> WHAT on earth could degaussing have to do with improving a CD..?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce Kinch
> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 6:30 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Ampex ATR-102 opinion (was MD5 Hash Generators
>
> Well, I split my college years between physics and psychology, so I may
> be more open to the oddities of audio than many. It is often easier to
> deny a phenomena than to explain it. Hell, we have presidential
> candidates running on that very platform.
>
> De-gaussing involves a strong magnetic field, cleaning/polishing 
> removes
> production residue and optimizes the optical interface, precise 
> trimming
> at an angle insures centering and minimizes internal reflections, which
> may reduce error correction. Physics, optics, mechanics haven't been
> hokum for a while.
>
> If person A can hear effects person B can't, it's hardly something to
> get one's knickers in a twist over. My dog hears things I can't. Fair
> enough, that's why we let her ancestors into the cave. Actually, so can
> my wife. Part of our courtship involved demonstrating that a good 
> stereo
> allowed her to hear the differences between analog and digital, between
> wires, components, speaker positions, etc. Once she decided I was a 
> just
> discriminating guy and not a lunatic after all, it became much easier 
> to
> justify the occasional upgrade.
>
> It is true that virtually all magazines exist to sell advertising. And
> like the man said 97% of just about everything is junk. Some people
> would rather read Wine magazines than imbibe based on price and the
> picture on the label.
>
> Bruce
>
>
> On Jan 22, 2008, at 4:10 PM, Tom Fine wrote:
>
>> More importantly, Bruce, I don't want to throw a big bucket of facts
>> on the audiophillic fire here, but "de-gaussing, polishing, trimming,
>> etc" is HOOEY, JUNK "SCIENCE", P. T. BARNUMESQUE HOKUM!!! This is why
>> I can't take those "high end audio" magazines seriously -- they will
>> sell advertising and write articles about this junk!
>>
>> -- Tom Fine
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew Hamilton"
>> <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 5:58 PM
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Ampex ATR-102 opinion (was MD5 Hash Generators
>>
>>
>>> On 1/22/08 1:42 PM, "Bruce Kinch" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> One problem with the "bits iz bits" argument is that all sorts of
>>>> tweaks (not just better players/DACS) change (often subjectively
>>>> improving) the sound of CDs - de-gaussing, polishing, trimming, etc.
>>>> One of the nice things a good DAC can do is demonstrate how a
>>>> "bit-perfect" CD-R copy can sound better than the original CD, and
>>>> that is truly weird.
>>>
>>>
>>> This is truly weird.  I thought that Dr. Dunn's/Prism Sound AES paper
>
>>> on bit-identical CDs sounding different stated that the differences
>>> all disappeared when using an external DAC.  It's the internal (to
>>> the CD
>>> player) DAC which he surmised gets its quartz timing futz'd by the
>>> servo arm's tracking fluctuations caused by a hard-to-read (less
>>> reflective) disc.
>>> So a slow burn on compatible media might make a better reference disc
>
>>> than a fast burn on compatible media (which might make for fewer
>>> errors but sound worse (on a CD player that is using its built-in
>>> DACs) and is, ironically, the better master disc!).
>>>
>>> _andrew
>>
>

Top of Message | Previous Page | Permalink

Advanced Options


Options

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password


Search Archives

Search Archives


Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe


Archives

March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003

ATOM RSS1 RSS2



LISTSERV.LOC.GOV

CataList Email List Search Powered by the LISTSERV Email List Manager