Audio pedigree
Join Our Community Subscribe to Paul's PostsPedigrees authenticate bloodline lineage. They’re important for dogs, royals, and source materials.
If you’re hoping to purchase an analog recording, it’s not genuine if it was first recorded digitally. Which is why there’s often so much confusion around modern LPs or even remasters. I shake my head when I learn a particular vinyl released remaster was first digitally transferred from analog tape.
That’s a mutt.
In a similar vein, it’s unhelpful when labels offer us versions of their libraries in multiple formats without being clear as to their pedigree. First recorded in PCM then released in both DSD and analog does not a DSD or analog recording make.
Here’s a vote for transparency into proper breeding.
If I want to purchase only purebred DSD recordings, I want an accurate pedigree.
Is this the right equation/analogy ?
A mutt is usually healthier (no inbreeding !) than a purebred.
So true. I use to own a race horse operation and we found that to much in breeding netted us a PURE NUT!!! I love original recording when I can afford and find them. Lost one hold box of originals when moving 🙁 So trying to rebuild my collection. To busy updating my system for now but I think I’ve found the right stuff now so I can get back to my music and just listening 🙂
Hawk
It is certainly an issue with DSD if it started as PCM. It is a larger issue with DSD if you can’t actually hear that it was at some time PCM, because it makes the format choice moot.
With vinyl it is a little more complicated because digital recording preceded digital playback by 10 years and in those early years digitally recorded vinyl releases (14 and then 16 bit recordings) were marketed as premium quality vinyl. Denon, who made the PCM recorders, had their own record label and I have a few of their issues. Teldec and Telefunken I think took the lead in Europe. Along with DMM (direct metal mastering), vinyl reached its apotheosis shortly before its temporary death.
When CDs came out they had a traffic light coding and the earliest ones were ADD, because many studios still only had analogue recording, whereas digitally recorded DDD was considered of premium quality. One of the earliest DDD recordings I recall was Trevor Gilbert’s Bach-48 recorded by Harmonia Mundi and released on CD in 1983. I still have the original box set and still stands as a classic performance and recording today.
There is an interesting view on the digital format discussion from a neutral Swiss point of view: https://www.weiss.ch/assets/content/41/white-paper-on-DSD.pdf .And for vinyl reproduction the correct RIAA equalization is most crucial! Who knows and has exactly (!) the identical the RIAA curve used for mastering? Same for the A/D conversion and reconversion process!!!
Thank you for that. I referred in the forum the other day to a much more detailed critique by Benjamin Zwickel on his Mojo Audio website. It is amusing that Weiss use exactly the same word as me to sum up the issue, saying: “What is better? The discussion whether DSD is better than PCM is moot.”
My all-in-one audio system has the functionality to set the equalisation curve (and resitance and capacitance loading) during playback. There are 14 equalisation choices, although how many people use it I don’t know. You can also program one of the buttons on the remote to be used to flick through the equalisation choices. Not a common feature on phono amps.
I seem to remember early Quad preamplifiers having a choice of RIAA equalisation. Think they labelled them under particular record companies RIAA Eq curves
Hi Steven. What system is that ? Sounds interesting. And complicated.
Jim
Woof woof!
So now we’re back to woofers?
No, mutts! 😉
Talking of going down the rabbit hole, I have a Sony turntable which allows me to rip vinyl direct to DSD. Very nice it sounds too. But that means I may have something recorded on analog tape but digitally transferred and remastered and then cut to vinyl and then ripped to DSD before being digitally manipulated by Roon then handled by a streamer before being turned back to analog by my DAC and played back using a valve amp.
It’s all a bit dizzying, but so long as my toes are tapping and I am singing along loudly and off key I guess it doesn’t matter.
Incidentally, Paul, you didn’t mention Pedigree cats. Careful, this is The Internet. It’s run and funded by cats. They don’t like being ignored.
“loudly & off key” is best with headphones Jim 😉
I agree, clarity in what we are purchasing, as within the audio chain itself, is of the utmost importance. The reality is that so much in sales relies on obfuscation and muddied waters.
Is there information available about the process used in the production of the disc in all its forms or are we rolling the dice when we buy music?
Hi Paul, do you have any conversation with Mark Waldrep about this theme ?
Regards,
Gert R.J. Smit.
Mark and I don’t agree on this topic, but that’s alright. It makes life interesting.
Didn’t know him and just googled…he seems to question several of widely prooven sound beneficial measures as hocus pocus.
Questionable imo.
About which matter exactly he’s arguing with Paul? I guess not about today’s topic transparency of sources…
Maybe it’s time for a new labeling system along the lines of the SPARS code used to denote how analog and digital recordings were made when CD first came out. From Wikipedia:
AAA – A fully analogue recording, from the original session to mastering. Since at least the mastering recorder must be digital to make a compact disc, this code is not applicable to CDs.[1] While it was originally intended that the code could be used for analog releases, which would have the final letter ″A″, this virtually never occurred in practice. (RykoDisc apparently released some cassettes coded ″AAA″.)[2].
AAD – Analog tape recorder used during initial recording, mixing/editing, Digital mastering.
ADD – Analog tape recorder used during initial recording, Digital tape recorder used during mixing/editing and for mastering.
DAD – Digital tape recorder used during initial recording, Analog tape recorder used during mixing/editing, Digital mastering.
DDD – Digital tape recorder used during initial recording, mixing/editing and for mastering.
Or, expand the SPARS code to accommodate DSD, hi-res audio and so on.
Great idea, Frank. If only we could get this passed and then have companies pay attention to it honestly.
Hi Paul and Frank,
Not much has ever made me angry about “audiophile” recordings I’ve purchased, except this. The purposely deceptive advertising on LPs (usually on a big shiny sticker) claiming the album was “Re-mastered from the Original Analog Tapes!” only to find, seconds after needle-drop that it was obviously “DIGITALLY Re-mastered from the Original Analog Tapes!” I have made a point of returning these purchases when I can, hoping that it would get noticed up the chain of deception.
Alón
Good idea! As far as I learned from Paul’s videos Gus Skinas prefers analog mixing and mastering of the recorded dsd-files. How would you label the RBCD version or high res PCM version made from the final DSD master?
C’mon Frank, SPARS, that’s a code in itself. I had to look it up.
Society of Professional Audio Recording Services for anyone else who didn’t know. Or was it just me?
I confess, I had completely forgotten about SPARS, or never knew what it stood for in the first place. I Googled “CD mastering” or something like that and the SPARS code reference came up. So I was able to reference it and sound more knowledgeable than I actually am.
I can think of some potential abbreviations — HR96/24, HR 192/24, AHR (analog master to hi-res digital), NRHR (not really hi-res), NORK (no one really knows), WRCA (who really cares anyway?)…I’d better stop now.
Frank,
‘Deutsche Grammophon’ label had ‘4D’ for a while, back in the mid nineties, & I have one of their CD’s recorded in that format & it is absolutely stunning for a 16/44.1…one of the best that I’ve ever heard.
As I’m not qualified to comment on the quality of digital remasters copied to vinyl, I will say that when digital recording first became popular in the 1980’s and before my first CD player, many of my classical LPs proudly proclaimed “DIGITAL” on the cover. And yes, I found that I preferred the sound of these digital LPs to my otherwise analog recording. To me, the concern is in the quality of the sound and not in how that sound was recorded. I listened to a few just the other day and found them still as enjoyable as back then.
The majority of my vinyl library dates back to pre-digital pre transistor times and mostly I really love them. Contrary to you I’m afraid, when digital first appeared it was imo a backward step, recordings both on CD and vinyl were edgy and tiring. Technology has improved in leaps and bounds to where CD’s are now very good and hugely enjoyable but generally I have to say I prefer SACD and all analogue vinyl the best.
One exception on vinyl are the earlyish digital Donald Fagen recordings.
I’m with you on the Donald Fagen recordings. They sound great! But I’m glad I haven’t experienced the “edgy and tiring” that so many report. Maybe it’s my ooolllddd British monitors! 😉 But they certainly love the M700 monoblocks I purchased last year! I say, enjoy your music, however you like to listen to it!
Cheers!
Mac
Absolutely Mac, its whatever you enjoy, thats the great thing about this pursuit.
Early digital may have been due to my experiences back then with a Linn Naim system plus Isobarik speakers, very exciting to listen too in the short term but listener fatigue soon reared its ugly head.
Thank goodness nowadays I’m Manley Labs orientated with a Ayre player, Manley Steelhead preamp with their Neo-classic 250w mono amplifiers plus a couple of 300w Classe amplifiers. Now I can listen all day – so maybe I’m being unjust on some early digital CD’s and digitally mastered vinyl from that era.
If you talk to vinyl junkeys they not only want to know if it’s all analog produced or not, but even if the mastering engineer used his tube equipment in that timeframe or the solidstate, if it was mastered after the cabling upgrade of his mastering setup or before and what eq‘ing preferences he got from the label responsible for this release. Rarely this info is even given on request nowadays, but meanwhile even info about sources are not given anymore personally by the mastering engineers.
Concrete info about an all analog process or not on the record cover is given even more rarely for vinyl meanwhile than info about a probable PCM source on an SACD inlay.
I fully agree with today’s post and demand transparency (at least to a major degree) from the labels!
I agree that clarity as to the actual source material and the mixing, mastering and re-mastering chain is essential if the end customer is to have any certainty about what they are purchasing. Unfortunately, all kinds of people who are in or touch the audio industry have other agendas. The suits at the labels and various equipment companies are only interested in how much money are they making. If clarity means sales are impacted then clarity is bad.
Consumer audio has not been simple for at least the last fifty years (which is about the time I started to take a real interest in how my music system sounded). Even before digital began to impact consumer audio there were problems. Do you remember the days of gear that measured great and sounded terrible? Then along came digital. First we had profession digital recorders and then the CD. “The perfect sound forever” – its clear the marketing people for the CD never heard of Fourier and the effect that frequencies above 20KHz have on the sounds that we hear everyday. Then along came the format wars and the alphabet soup: CD, DVD, PCM, PDM, DSD, SACD, DVD-A, Hi-Rez. In the general population I doubt that even 1% of people could explain digital to you and even among people who are into music, sound and audio I would be surprise if 20% of us can really explain digital audio. Given this is it any wonder that most people could care less exactly how their music was sourced.
Paul, I’m afraid a crusade to get more disclosure about how recorded music is sourced is not going to be very successful.
Today, I agree on all points, Paul!
I do not like to have at any stage digital flour tossed into my analog pancakes.
“To me, the concern is in the quality of the sound and not in how that sound was recorded”
As far as I am concerned you are today’s winner Mr Mac.
It’s all about (good) soundquality. HOW that is achieved is irrelevant for me as a consumer/listener.
Fifty years ago, the time I bought vinyl, I never paid much attention to AAA, DDD, ADD, DAD, DDA or whatever code.
Regarding these codes, they all had good and bad lp’s. Totally unpredictable.
Fifty years ago those codes did not exist, they were put in place at the introduction of the CD and only appeared on CD boxes.
As someone who listens only to digital it seems to make sense that the whole process, from recording through mastering to playback be digital, until the final conversion back to analogue for the speakers. That ‘common sense’ feeling is based on general principles about noise and distortion, not any any detailed knowledge of the processing involved.
NativeDSD.com makes a decent stab at providing “provenance” of all the recordings they sell. For their “in-house” label Channel Classics they are obviously in control of that provenance, but for third party labels they are constrained by the completeness and accuracy of the information those labels provide.
In general, true provenance is a difficult thing to capture. For example, if an album was mastered at 16-bit and 44.1kHz (as, for example, Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits is said to have been), it does not follow that the CD release will be the most “sonically accurate” representation of the original studio master. In fact, that CD was known to sound poor. There is a lot of scope for the sound to be “interfered with” at the mastering stage to suit the whims and needs of various people in the chain of command. Listen, for example, (if you can) to the remastered SHM-SACD release. It is a world apart from the CD. In fact, so was the regular SACD release. The same even goes for Nils Lofgren’s “Acoustic Live”, whose 1995 CD release was hailed as an audiophile reference. The DSD remastered from the original 16/44.1 studio master is revelatory.
For LP, the question is, why should an LP made from a digital studio master sound any better than a direct digital copy of the studio master? There are the vinyl-phile arguments about the inherent sonic superiority of vinyl, but (in this specific case) those must deal with the fact that what comes off the LP can *only* be a degraded version of what was in the original digital files, which is … problematic. You might argue that the digital master has inherent flaws that can be “corrected” by LP playback – but it is ultimately an arm-waving hypothesis. The only reasonable basis on which the LP version can sound superior to the digital original is this: If the LP was mastered using a significantly superior DAC than the one through which you listen to the original digital files, then yes, the LP will have some basis for sounding superior.
That’s one small step forward for marketing
One giant leap backwards for technology
Hello distortion my old friend
I’ve come to hear you once again
Because a memory softly creeping
Left it seeds while I was listening
And surface noises planted in my brain
Still remains
I hate the sound of silence
If one listens to an original all analogue recording and a digital recording of the same tape the difference in sound is obvious. The conversion from analogue to digital and then back to vinyl lacks ambience and body as compared to the purely analogue vinyl making the sound drier and less involving though obviously better than a regular CD of the same. This is in side by side comparison. The advantage of digital conversion is when very old tapes are used. Partially lost information can be restored specially the loss of highs and also clean up the sound quite a bit. The lows can be improved too. But in most cases where the tape has not deteriorated much the analogue sound is preferable. I have some original all analogue vinyl records, digital vinyl records and CDs made from the same tape My opinion is based on this. The playback system being the same. If one listens to digital only then he or she won’t know the difference. Regards.
The skill to master an analog recording and get fine results is considerable. One reason well mastered analog recordings can sound better is ironically the necessary dynamic compression. At the end of each musical phrase the gain automatically increases extending the reverberation you hear. This is where the ambiance comes from.
If you ask the mastering engineers, nearly none of the prime audiophile (re)issues are compressed, not even those where digital masters instead of tape masters were used. Even the two examples of classical symphony recordings I mentioned above are examples again, I talked to those engineers.
So at best the vinyl copies of digital recordings will sound like the source digital recordings. Most pop music doesn’t really need compression because its dynamic range is inherently limited to about 10 db. I guess in the vinyl era they were just there so they used them even when they didn’t need to. They had many other techniques in the mixdown to make their products sound better. It was an art that required a lot of skill. These days with digital recordings it’s “let ‘er rip.” Fast, cheap, easy, and unrefined. The only recordings that really need compression for vinyl are orchestral and other large scale music with great dynamic range. They exceed the 50 or 60 db dynamic range of analog systems but not the 96 db of RBCD. RBCD has 4000 to 40,000 times the dynamic range of analog. Dr. Mark Waldrep says an analog tape is the equivalent of 11 bits. RBCD far exceeds the requirements to record and play any music without compression. Funny thing is though in the pop music loudness wars they deliberately compress the signal anyway and drive the digital system into overload. They couldn’t care less about distortion. Their audience uses ear buds and car radios as their sound systems.
Paul, I quite enjoy buying mutts, i.e. hi-def digital downloads from “High Definition Tape Transfers”. Many of these tapes contain forgotten or classic performances. All of these gems were originally analog tape and the best way to preserve and share these gems is thru remastering them with the finest state-of-the-art equipment. They do a digital re-master in DSD256 using the Merging Technology Editing software with the Hapi Analog to Digital converter. They do muddy the water when their web site says “(Pure DSD)”. REALLY, a Bruno Walter 1958 recording???