Hi Ted:

I'm sitting here listening to an early 90s example of good CD remastering. On Pablo/OJC - "Soul 
Fusion" by Milt Jackson and the Monty Alexander Trio." This is definitely a "produced" jazz 
recording -- very close mic'ing and wide-field stereo mix, so it's more wide than deep, but it's 
very detailed and pleasing. Phil De Lancie at Fantasy Studios did a good job remastering the 1977 
recording, in 1992. I think, by then Fantasy wasn't dubbing to Mitsubhishi X-80 and then copying to 
U-Matic tapes to make CDs. So this would be playback of the original master tape (which was a 
live-to-2-track recording) to the CD master recorder. The good sound quality, particularly the ring 
and impact of Milt Jackson's vibes, tells me that a better-than-Sony ADC was used. If there was EQ 
used, it was tasteful. Vibes sound like close-mic'd stereo vibes. Piano sounds like close-mic'd 
stereo piano. Drums and bass sound like drums and bass. Typical Norman Granz session -- really good 
playing, more about the music than the recording.

My point is, they could do this in 1992. So it's all the more depressing that 22 years later, 
lousy-sounding CDs still come out every day.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ted Kendall" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 5:07 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Fwd: [ARSCLIST] "Why Vinyl Is the Only Worthwhile Way to Own Music"


> Hello Tom
>
> I think the rush to more top petered out naturally after a few years, at least in most quarters, 
> but there is still a faction to whom "impact", as measured by pinned VUs and bathtub curves, is 
> the prime good. If their influence is in fact diminishing, this can only be a good thing. As to EQ 
> for corrective purposes, I couldn't agree more - it is still one of the prime functions of a 
> mastering engineer, to my mind, that he can recognise when such correction is need /and leave well 
> alone when it isn't./ If only it were more widely realised that light and shade is the essence of 
> impact, be it Mahler or James Brown, there would be many happier pairs of ears in the world at 
> large...
>
> Ted
>
>
>
> On 25/03/2014 15:53, Tom Fine wrote:
>> Hi Ted:
>>
>> I agree there were terrible problems with some CDs. I always figured the guys who made those CD 
>> master had no top end hearing, or terrible monitoring environments, and there was no low-pass 
>> right at the cutting chain like in LP days.
>>
>> Also, people need to remember that the master tape is no some Holy Grail - NOT TO BE EQUALIZED. 
>> That's just dumb (almost as dumb as not putting bypassable Baxandall-style bass and trebles 
>> controls on the most expensive "high end" amplifiers). In many cases back in the day, a master 
>> tape is harshly equalized or dull, and the magic of the original LP was the mastering engineer 
>> making it sing upon playback, after the RIAA curve. I do think some of the mastering guys still 
>> do this with CDs, but there were egregious examples early on of inadequate care and attention 
>> (and there are still mastering guys with poor aesthetics, at least to my ears, vis-a-vis 
>> equalization and dynamics).
>>
>> On a good note, all the debate about "loudness wars" seems to have gotten far enough that almost 
>> nobody is going in and slamming the dynamics on a jazz reissue anymore. If we could teach them to 
>> watch the dynamics on soul/R&B and early rock reissues, too, that would be great.
>>
>> -- Tom Fine
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ted Kendall" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 10:52 AM
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Fwd: [ARSCLIST] "Why Vinyl Is the Only Worthwhile Way to Own Music"
>>
>>
>>> Half the trouble with early CD transfers was that mastering engineers no longer had to be 
>>> careful about how much top they wound in. Too much top on an LP cut would, of course trigger 
>>> acceleration limiting or blow the cutter . Human nature being what it is, several issues had 
>>> ridiculous degrees of top lift - hair-parting stuff, in some cases.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 25/03/2014 14:12, John Haley wrote:
>>>> Can't get anything right this AM.  I meant several thousand Hz, not kHz.  I
>>>> wish we could just convert all of this to note names--life would be much
>>>> simpler!   If we could talk about "My stereo gets up to quadruple High C
>>>> and yours only to the G below that," it would all be a lot more meaningful
>>>> to most people.  Discussion of frequency in Hz can definitely lead to a lot
>>>> of techo-babble, but there we are.
>>>>
>>>> Best, John
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 10:07 AM, John Haley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Sorry.  Need more coffee here.   That cloud of quantization noise is not
>>>>> above 96 kHz, because that is where a recording sampled at 192 cuts off.  I
>>>>> meant between 48 kHz (where a recording sampled at 96 kHz cuts off) and 96
>>>>> kHz.
>>>>>
>>>>> You have to keep in mind that these large numbers way up there are really
>>>>> small differences in pitch, as the numbers double per octave.  Several
>>>>> thousand kHz of frequency way up there is a very small pitch spread, where
>>>>> in the lower end of the spectrum, several Hz is a large pitch spread.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best, John
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 9:59 AM, John Haley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I am just reporting what you see in a .WAV file (in spectral view), since
>>>>>> you can't directly hear it.  Noise does not look at all like music most of
>>>>>> the time.  What you see extending up above 22 kHz in the spectral view of a
>>>>>> hi-def .WAV file is the extension of certain tones that have a lot of upper
>>>>>> frequency content right up into the stratosphere.  I looks just like music
>>>>>> looks, not random noise.  Could it be "ringing" set off by that note?
>>>>>>   Perhaps.  But I would expect that kind of corruption of particular notes
>>>>>> to have some kind of audible effect in the range I can hear, or to be
>>>>>> visible as in increase in energy at upper levels, which would not happen
>>>>>> with musical overtones (not what you see).  All I can say I how it looks.
>>>>>>   Many LPs do appear to have content up there above 22 kHz, and good
>>>>>> cartridges can capture that.  What happens in the rest of an audio system
>>>>>> chain is up for grabs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Since I started doing restoration work at 96/24, I have noticed some
>>>>>> things.  I can also do it at 192 sampling rate, but when you do that you
>>>>>> get a .WAV file having a very visible layer of quantization noise (an upper
>>>>>> thick cloud of noise blanketing the top of the "picture") above 96 kHz.
>>>>>>   It's not audible, but why put the equipment and the media thru all the
>>>>>> trouble to produce/reproduce that, when (because it is noise) it cannot
>>>>>> possibly add anything to the musical signal?  At 96/24, all of this noise
>>>>>> is eliminated, and the audio signal at 96/24 is audibly indistinguishable,
>>>>>> to me, from the same signal recorded at 192.  At that point, whatever
>>>>>> benefit might be gained by using 192 has become insignificant in the real
>>>>>> world--i.e., not audible, and as Tom points out, possibly damaging to
>>>>>> equipment.  But that is not true at all for the comparison between 44/16
>>>>>> and 96/24, which is very much audible.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think a lot of early CD's had stinky upper frequency sound because of
>>>>>> phasing errors caused by the way upper frequencies above 22 kHz were
>>>>>> filtered out, causing "side effects" in the audible signal.  Not to
>>>>>> mention, human beings were doing the audio work, and not everyone really
>>>>>> knows what they are doing, or cares, then and now.  I don't think any of
>>>>>> the bad rap that early CD's got were the fault of the medium itself.  But I
>>>>>> agree that many of the earliest CD releases do not sound right, having a
>>>>>> "hard," unnatural treble.  I think that situation improved drastically as
>>>>>> time wore on, and generally a CD issue would sound better than a prior LP
>>>>>> issue, because (1) we got rid of the groove noise, and (2) the CD's were
>>>>>> often the result of a return to the master tape.  But these days, I don't
>>>>>> assume anything.  I listen to a lot of CD transfers that do not sound as
>>>>>> good as the materials they were created from.  That's the human factor at
>>>>>> work again, not to mention variations in equipment used, as pointed out by
>>>>>> others.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>> John
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 9:27 AM, Mark Durenberger <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> One refers to Rupert Neve's thoughts on why coherent super-audible
>>>>>>> response is useful if not necessary.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Someone else on the list may know where his paper was delivered...I have
>>>>>>> the audio of his remarks for anyone interested.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Mark Durenberger, CPBE
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -----Original Message----- From: Gray, Mike
>>>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 8:03 AM
>>>>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Fwd: [ARSCLIST] "Why Vinyl Is the Only
>>>>>>> Worthwhile Way to Own Music"
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Seconding Tom's comments - what exactly *is* that energy above 20kHz?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Mike
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>