Blind squirrels
Join Our Community Subscribe to Paul's PostsThere’s an old saying that even a blind squirrel on occasion finds a nut. A humorous aphorism about stumbling into success.
The more we get involved in the recording industry the more convinced I become that the paucity of great recordings comes from the same set of circumstances dictating the quality of the average home stereo. Most people wouldn’t know what we audiophiles consider truly great sound if their lives depended on it. Run-of-the-mill recording engineers included. The majority of their work is by audiophile standards mediocre. Once in a while, they stumble upon a great recording.
At Octave Records, we record exclusively in DSD because it sounds better than PCM and analog tape. But it’s a pain in the butt to edit which is why few engineers take the time and effort to use it. And, if what you’re working with sounds great to you, why would you bother?
Audiophiles know what remarkable sound is.
We’re a rare breed of sighted squirrels.
“A stopped clock is right at least twice a day”
Paul, your passion, enthusiasm & your quest for perfection in audio reproduction is to be commended; long as it doesn’t eventually ‘send you around the twist’
I’m thinking that it’s more of a pain in the butt for Gus than it is for you 😉
I just wish that DSD & SACD was available since 1967.
Heck, I wish DSD and SACD had been available WAY before that. Why, oh why, couldn’t have Edison invented them instead of the “cylinder”?. Think how much better the likes of Ellington, Fitzgerald, Sinatra, Goodman, etc. would sound, particularly their early stuff. Just the thought of it has my head spinning. Or maybe the 1440 degrees of spinning did it.
thn,
Shades of ‘The Exorcist’ 😮
Yes!!!! Frustrating that so much fabulous music is forever trapped in poor recordings. Your list is great. I feel motown suffers also – so many great melodies and lyrics!
BTW – I suspect by your tarheel handle that we were collegiate neighbors.
I was an ECU Pirate. Class of 89.
.
A Chapel Hill student here. My step-daughter graduated from the ECU medical school, and now is at UNC in the sports medicine department.
It’s great to have one more label caring for audiophile details within the recording/mastering chain!
Also among those, certainly music quality rules most and there they differentiate even stronger than in audio quality.
Linn Audio had more foresight than any squirrel or, frankly, most audio companies, when 20 years ago they predicted the death of the silver disc to be replaced by streaming. So they designed a range of streamer/DACs, including the state-of-the-art Linn Klimax DS, that was launched in 2007 and has been very successful ever since. Their sales of source components are about $15m annually (at trade prices, they don’t sell direct) and about 75% are exported. Their in-house R&D team is 30+ strong. Moreover, every machine has been fully upgradeable to current specification. Their systems are now fully active with DSP.
Since the late 1980s Linn have also built up a highly successful record label, mostly classical, with a great range of artists and orchestras world-wide. Their recording quality is world-class. In the early 2000’s they produced DSD recordings, released as both 2-channel and 5-channel SACD, for example https://www.linnrecords.com/review-mozart-requiem-highfidelityreviewcom.
So they were recording in PCM and DSD and designing streaming DACs at the same time. Their architecture is described thus:
“The signal is fed through a data optimization process (a 16x, 768kHz upsampler working at 35 bit precision, then to a 8x, 6.144MHz modulator) before being passed to an array of bitstream DACs, and finally passed to a new analogue output driver. The whole digital signal path from upsampler to the main conversion of the DAC array, is governed by a high precision master clock. This data optimization system largely obviates the need for super high-resolution files and DSD, because the upsampling process raises 16/44 to 24/192 PCM files up to such a high performance level internally.”
More can be read here: https://www.hifiplus.com/articles/linn-klimax-ds-network-music-player/
So I think it is fundamentally incorrect to make pseudo-factual statements about DSD recordings out of context of how they are processed, not least given PSA does not yet produce a streamer. Linn appear to have done DSD recordings for at least 10 years and were selling DSD files in 2015. They have now opted for 24/192 PCM as their music file format upsampled by their players in PCM.
Upsampling in PCM was clearly also a choice as dCS (also in the UK) had already been upsampling/processing in DSD in the 1990s.
So I do not accept that other labels are lazy and it really does seem inappropriate to characterise the rest of the industry as such. Linn is a perfect example because they do recording and playback, used PCM and DSD and did it for years, and made an informed choice. Gus Skinas is on record for being a “DSD-only” advocate, not least because he is a former Sony employee and has spent years pushing their Sonoma DSD technology.
Steven,
Well if Linn Audio predicted the death of the silver disc then they’re not very bright people, are they; because they certainly got that wrong as far as I can see.
Just like the morons who said that vinyl is dead.
Seems pretty sensible to me. The rare reviews I’ve seen of new CD players in recent years start with an expression of disbelief that anyone would still bother designing new ones. The sale of CDs have fallen 95% over the last 15 years or so. My last audiophile CD player lasted me 12 years and was working perfectly when I sold it, replaced by a streamer. A problem with CD players is that they last too long.
Linn also had a bit of success with vinyl. Not many companies have been making the same turntable since 1973, possibly the best known audiophile turntable in the world. Linn may have completely reinvented their electronics business, but the LP12 remained untouched.
Steven,
Marantz has just released a new model SACD player, the ‘SACD-30n’ (August 2020) & a new model CD player, the ‘CD6007’ (September 2020) with a five star review from WHAT Hi-Fi magazine.
HEGEL built a CD player that plays only 16/44.1 called, get this, the ‘Mohican’ & it retails for US$5,000 (AU$8,000)…you should read the stunning reviews on this machine that only plays Redbook CD’s & apparently they have sh!tloads of Sanyo CD drives for back-up spare parts, about 30 years worth, from what I’ve read.
PS Audio have just brought out a brand new CD transport retailing for a lot more than HEGEL’s Mohican.
Schiit Audio is close to releasing their first CD player…
…need I go on??
Don’t deny people still play CD and people still make CD machines, but how many are sold relative to network players and streamers, which now generate the majority of the music industry’s revenues?
PS Audio only made a revised transport because their old one became unserviceable as Oppo stopped making the main component. You can’t even press an SACD in the USA, I think there are only two places left in the world (Austria, Japan).
You make my point referring to the Mohican. Wonder where the name came from? This is what Stereophile says:
“As I cleaned my glasses, Anders Ertzeid explained that the dark metal box atop the stack was Hegel’s new CD player, designed as a special love-project by Hegel’s founder and chief engineer, Bent Holter. Ertzeid said that Holter named it Mohican (as in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the . . .) because it plays only “Red Book” CDs—no SACDs, no digital input—and so is among the last of a dying breed. He said that Holter had engineered it to last a long time, and quoted him: “‘I don’t care if I sell only seven! I want to put my best effort and everything I got into making the highest-quality CD player I can.'”
And that was in April 2017 … almost 4 years ago.
More to the point, I just find it really objectionable that Paul finds it necessary to insult other manufacturers and record companies, sometimes the entire industry, as he does with mains conditioners, often on a false premise stating his opinion as fact, based on some audiophile superiority complex. People make commercial decisions for good reason. If Octave was recording Taylor Swift instead of David Grusin, the sound would be optimised for mp3 and 16/44 PCM.
Steven,
My point was purely about your statement about Linn Audio having “more foresight than any squirrel” predicting the death of CD’s.
News flash; everything dies eventually, even the pyramids…that’s my foresight.
So Linn Audio gets credit from you for stating the bleeding obvious…really?
For now CD’s & CD players are still popular with many & are certainly not dead; maybe in decline…but not dead yet.
The why’s & wherefores that you have typed out in your 5:30am reply I am well aware of & they are inconsequential to my original point.
After all it was I that typed, “…called, get this, the ‘Mohican'” & I would have stated that purely to make the point that even HEGEL thinks that ‘this is it’ for them manufacturing CD players.
Ok, you typed, “Not many companies have been making the same turntable since 1973” & that “the LP12 remained untouched”…so-o-o you’re saying…what? That CD’s are dead but vinyl isn’t?
I’ve obviously missed the point of your paragraph about the LP12.
I’m pretty sure that the ‘Technics SL-1200’ turntable has outsold the LP12 five fold over the last 4 decades & like the Porsche 911, said Technics SL-1200 has gone through some iterations but has still basically remained the same, well respected & world class Technics SL-1200…manufactured from October 1972 until 2010 & resumed production in 2016 by Matsushita Electric.
In any technology industry the strategy and aim of R&D should be to see into the future and get ahead of the curve. For example, European and Japanese car manufacturers saw electric vehicles as the future. USA manufacturers (the world’s largest auto market) stuck to gasoline because it’s cheap in the USA, leaving the field open. In comes Tesla, now worth twice as much as the world’s next manufacturer, Toyota, and 8 times the next USA manufacturer, GM.
On a microscopically smaller scale, you can contrast electric and gasoline to streaming and CD. There will always be gasoline cars just as there will always be CDs. Electric cars and streaming are the present and near future, and no doubt something will follow thereafter.
The only relevance of Linn, and the reason for mentioning it, is that they went through the DSD process starting 20 years ago, both with a (successful) record label and as a high-end audio manufacturer. Naim did the same, also with a record label founded in 1993, but no DSD.
The outcome with Linn was upsampled PCM and it was somewhat ironic that they were producing DSD recordings that could not be played back on some of their consumer audio hardware, which could not play DSD.
Linn also decided against implementing MQA and were very vocal about it, a pointless compression of PCM for commercial gain. In retrospect, another good judgement.
Where I disagree with Paul is his accusing others of not using DSD out of laziness. (“few engineers take the time and effort to use it”)
Steven,
Whether ‘less effort’ can be construed as laziness is as subjective an opinion as to which loudspeakers are the best.
And, last month, vinyl sales officially passed that of CDs, according to Billboard magazine. I think CDs will be one of the stronger niche products for years to come, but I don’t see them growing in popularity as vinyl is doing.
With kids aged 23 and 20 I can see a future for vinyl. My eldest owned vinyl before he owned a deck, not uncommon, now he has a nice collection and a Rega P3. They had CDs when very young, none for the last 10 years, basically stream from Spotify or Youtube. I can only see CD surviving for existing users who don’t stream, a market I suspect of over-45s and rapidly diminishing, and will remain strong amongst older classical listeners.
To my mind the silver disc is far from dead. Sales may be down and even overtaken by vinyl but with the growth of streaming I would expect sales of all physical formats to be reduced. I’m sure there are many people still relying on their CD collections for their musical enjoyment.
Linn are a forward thinking company but I don’t buy in to all their thinking. Ivor Tiefenbrun was certainly inspired when he turned conventional thinking on its head by suggesting the front end was the most important component in the system. He was also lucky that this suggestion became so widely accepted in the hi-fi industry at the time. At the other end of the chain, many years ago I listened to a pair of midrange Linn speakers and wondered what all the fuss was about, they weren’t for me. As for Linn Records, sure they do good recordings, I even have a few. I just wish they recorded more music that I actually wanted to buy. Im sorry to say I find their artists on the edge of obscure. If audiophiles are already a rare breed (of sighted squirrels) then Linn Records would be a sub set of that species (sighted squirrels that wear glasses).
Ivor Tiefenbrun drove Linn into the ground. His son Gilad was working as a mobile phone engineer and went to Linn as head of R&D in 2002 and led the rescue of the company and development of their streaming products. It was not Ivor. I think he also has an MBA, he’s certainly been shrewd. The rebuilding of the business was advised by a former colleague of mine.
The record label was Gramophone’s Label of the Year back in 2010. Independent labels don’t aim to take over the world and often have a narrow focus. Linn’s classical roster includes quite a few A-listers whose concerts sell out rapidly. Robin Ticciati, for example, is generally considered the world’s leading conductor under age 40, and is musical director of Glyndebourne and the DSO Berlin as well as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
Steven, I’ve always followed Linn’s progress with great interest. Maybe of some small interest to you but Linn Industries is built on the ground originally owned by my family. On the site orginally was our family home, my father lived there.
https://canmore.org.uk/site/204397/eaglesham-glasgow-road-eaglesham-house?display=image
Unfortunately the house burned down so ending their long history in timber and shipping.
The family burial site still remains within Linn’s ground.
Its pure coincidence that I became interested in audio. I go there from time to time to tend the site.
Allan, that is a fascinating story. Weren’t Ariston next door. Can you claim them as well? There are people around who would have liked Linn’s factory to burn down, with Ivor in it.
For the latter 10 or 11 years when CD ruled I never saw the need to change anything in my audio system and when streaming arrived I went to Linn as they were the only game in town. Gilad apparently made some basic decisions: (1) streamer/DAC combined (2) PCM upsampling (3) no usb (4) data by ethernet only (5) no DSD (6) Class D amplification. He clearly wanted the system to be used one way only, as it was designed. I don’t think they’ve ever had usb input or ever made a separate DAC. The Akurate DS streamer/DAC I had didn’t even have a digital input should, heaven forbid, you want to attach a CD transport. I think he was fortunate being forced to start with a blank sheet.
We’ve escaped fires, but I had a relative whose garage in the East End was the first victim of a flying bomb.
“Linn may have completely reinvented their electronics business, but the LP12 remained untouched.”
I think what you meant to say is that vinyl remains the same. I purchased my first LP-12 in 1973 and now on my third. This classic turntable has gone through multiple revisions and upgrades and today’s full blown table is vastly superior to the LP-12 of the 70’s & 80’s at a significant price increase. There certainly are better tables out there, perhaps an emotional attachment to the product.
The nail in the coffin for Ivor was the CD-12 project, culminating with the player’s launch in 1999 at a $20,000 price point in an attempt to recover R&D expense and conservative unit sales projections. Awesome product design imho, it just never caught on. Was it Einstein or a Zen metaphor, and i’m paraphrasing here, “in every crisis there lies opportunity”.
The US should be their number one market in terms of global sales. Linn has often struggled to take America and Asia by storm, with several distribution starts and stops beginning here with Gary Warzin at Audiophile Systems, then Linn USA (twice) and once again back to factory direct.
The post Warzin, Linn USA folks were always pleasant to deal with and just like Meridian, i view the Linn system methodology as a high performance niche product, a B&O marketing approach mainly outside of the audiophile community, a luxury automobile if you will. You either love it or you don’t.
In 1989, Adcom sales in the US approached $50 million through 250 outlets and Nakamichi USA sales were $35 million. $15 million in annual global turnover appears conservative in retrospect but then again, my hasn’t the world changed as Apple dominates and leaves everyone else in their dust.
If memory serves, DCS brought the first upsampling DAC to market in the late 90’s. The Ring DAC was popularized on these shores integrated into Arcam CD Players. I purchased a Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista 21 DAC in 2003 which featured selectable 96khz & 192khz upsampling and always preferred the 96khz setting which delivered a more relaxed music presentation when compared to the brighter, more hi-fi like,192khz fwiw.
I was summarising. I assume Gilad just left the LP12 people to do their thing, evolving the product.
Linn has a cult-like reputation, much of which is probably to do with the fact that the products are designed as a system, and Exakt can only be used as a system.
Hi.
Well done Paul for showing the red squirrel which is definitely the DSD of squirrels unlike the poor seemingly everywhere gray the PCM of squirrels.
Eyes open while designing and recording.
Eyes closed while listening!!!
Sending prayers for you Paul and your PSA family to stay safe amidst those Colorado wildfires.
.
djB-O-B,
Ooh, really?
All we hear about here in Australia is the wildfires in California…nothing about Colorado.
Yes, Paul, since I’m not religious my prayers wont help you, but I hope & wish that you & yours stay safe & well “amidst those Colorado wildfires.”
“…Sending prayers for you Paul and your PSA family to stay safe amidst those Colorado wildfires…
Prayers won’t help…nothing nada, rien, nichts…..if you really wanna help, send money.
As for today’s post and comments : I wont entter the stupid debate about what sounds better.
All OPINIONS presented as fact,
Like saying red cabbage IS the tastiest vegetable in the world.
jb4,
No, that would be the ‘choko’…it’s just so incredibly tasty & delicious!
Never heard of choko Fat Rat, I had to look it up.
See if I can find it in the supermarket, but I think it’s not available here.
jb4,
Don’t bother; it’s totally bland & tasteless.
I was being facetious…as usual.
I’m just happy that PS Audio’s not engaging in the compression/loudness ‘wars.’ (…right…?) I know, a bar too low, a bridge too far…
I’m still laughing about Paul’s Piano “Fiasco”…
Thanks, guys (and girls). Aside from heavy smoke days, we’re fine. The fires are just over the hills from us and often we can see billowing clouds of reddish brown fuming out of the canyons.
We keep asking ourselves what else 2020 has in store for us but then remember that the world doesn’t pay attention to calendars.
But, we’re safe. Many thanks for the kind thoughts.
Paul,
In my inevitable style, the last Year of the Rat (2008) we had the Global Financial Crisis, this YotR we have CoViD & a few big BBQ’s…what do we have to look forward to in 2032.
We’ve got twelve years to guess.
Maybe CD’s will be dead 🙁
Bruce Springsteen says he will move to Australia if Trump is re-elected over here. So you have that possibility to look forward to 🙂
djB-O-B,
Yeah, so I heard.
I wish that more intelligent, talented & wealthy Americans would move to Australia, before America tears itself apart with the help of Russia, China & Iran.
Just leave your guns there before you migrate please.
Shalmaneser,
Paul’s Cello ‘fiasco’ was better; or worse, depending on how you look at it.
“We’re a rare breed of sighted squirrels.”
From the viewpoint of blind squirels, we’re sailors with our rudders in the wind.
How more enriched might my life be if I had spend my money on attending live concerts
than on the equipment that adorns my listening room? From the handful of great performers
I’ve seen and heard, I suspect my experiental wealth would far exceed my net worth today, had I spent more time and money attending live concerts.
Paul there isn’t one thing you posted today that I agree with.
“Audiophiles know what remarkable sound is.”
Actually they don’t. Read the posting by Longplayer just above this one. He knows great sound because he’s heard it at concert halls. The best hi fi sound systems can’t come close to duplicating the essential qualities of that sound that he heard at live concerts.
I’m sorry to say it but audiophiles and worse the people who design sound systems for them don’t know:
music
sound
acoustics
hearing
What some of them do know is electronics. There are more electronic tools available today than ever before. The question is what to do with them.
“Run-of-the-mill recording engineers included. The majority of their work is by audiophile standards mediocre. Once in a while, they stumble upon a great recording”
Here I strongly disagree. I have a vast collection of great recordings made by great engineers. They did the best they could with the technology available to them. So many great performances, so many great recordings. So many great recording engineers. I can get beautiful sound out of every one of them, even with music I don’t like.
I’m reminded of a master class I went to about 5 or 6 years ago. One of my sister’s violin teachers Aaron Rosand was critiquing about half a dozen very fine young violinists. They would play a piece they prepared and in his habitual way he’d tear them to pieces telling them what they were doing wrong and how to improve. There was this one guy from I think Croatia or Serbia who had great tone, great technique, played letter perfect. But it wasn’t music. Rosand finally told him in frustration “try to make something out of it.”
So when you are handed a recording, your job meaning this industry’s job is to try to make something out of it. But you don’t. This industry is designing the same sound system it has been designing for over 60 years. The details change but the system is exactly the same. Small wonder what comes out is the same. Only the details vary, the essence of it never changes. What’s wrong with it? Just about everything. Blind squirrels looking harder and harder in all of the wrong places. The equipment is the last step in figuring out what to do, not the first. The first is understanding of they things I listed that they don’t know. Blind squirrels don’t find nuts. They starve to death first. So you (the industry) have pointed all of your bullets at the wrong targets. You had BB guns, now you have Howitzers but it still doesn’t hit the target. How could it? It’s pointed in the wrong direction. And they blame everything, the recording system, the microphone placement, the phono cartridge, the preamp, the DAC, the amplifiers, the speakers, the wires, and now the recording engineers. They blame everyone and everything except themselves. They failed. Can it be done? Yes! How do I know that? Simple, I did it myself and it didn’t cost a fortune.
I enjoy watching YouTube reviews by young and not so young audiophiles like Thomas and Stereo, Zero Fidelity, and Audiophiliac. They are so enthusiastic about the equipment they try. Yet it’s hardly out of the box, “broken in” whatever that means, and they’re starting to shop for its replacement. Thomas has gone through about 80 pairs of speakers so far, maybe 40, 50, 60 amplifiers, dozens of DACs, dozens of preamps. The others have done more or less the same. Thomas has one friend with a $300,000 sound system he wishes he owned. But how long would he be happy with it if he did?
46 years ago I figured out why I’d never like the design that this industry uses as its invariable standard, a signal source, a preamp, an amplifier, a pair of speakers, and of course wires to connect them. That’s was the system then and it’s the same system now. Einstein said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Once I patented my “fix” I offered it to this industry but nobody was interested. It deviated radically from what they had always done, made money at, and would continue to do. When I understood it and saw what had to be done for the first time I figured I had a five year jump on the industry, ten at the most. But here we are 46 years later and it’s still the same thing. Here’s a beautiful and interesting recording I bought on ebay and got a couple of days ago. I heard this music once in 1978 and never forgot it. This version is the one to get. The recording is superb, the performance outstanding, and the music unusual and interesting. Forget politics, it’s about the music.
https://www.amazon.com/Ding-Shande-Philharmonic-Orchestra-Orchestral/dp/B01K8NB3YA
Look at the price, $985 on Amazon. I bought it for $11 including shipping on ebay. Condition, like new.
Sm,
Sean Fowler from ‘Zero Fidelity’ doesn’t shop for replacement audio gear nor does he “more or less the same as the others” when it comes to his private audio set-up.
He has a specific CD transport, a specific DAC, a specific pre/power combo & a pair of Harbeth P3ESR loudspeakers that constitutes his permanent audio system.
What you see constantly changing are the items of audio gear that he reviews for the public.
It would behoove you not to confuse the two.
It fascinates me how you can write basically the same complaint about the shortcomings of audio day after day after day…ad nauseam & not tire of it.
You are a beast; & I mean that in a good way.
I can only assume that you do so either out of sheer frustration or in the hope that Paul &/or ‘others’ will take on the challenge & think outside the box enough to come up with a better mouse trap.
Having said that, I do still enjoy reading your comments & when I hit a paragraph of repetition I just speed up my reading until I hit something ‘new’ in your writings. Consequently I’m getting through your dissertations more quickly these days, which is giving me great practice with my ‘speed reading’ 😉
I’m a fan of native DSD.
Just due to the discussions of the last days I cared a little more than usual about what recordings are really available and I was a little floored to see that:
…practically no audiophile label recording in DSD has music of larger groups than 4 and few anything but folk/blues
…the majority of DSD files and SACD available is either analog sourced or PCM sourced
…classical symphony recordings done natively in DSD format are more or less only available by the large labels and mostly not comparable in sound quality (due to recording skill) with what the best PCM recording labels offer
So I’m still a fan but I realize more and more how irrelevant native DSD unfortunately is.
But anyway it seems to be a great advantage to convert PCM to DSD in the DAC. So finally it was right to care little about formats and just listen to the music 😉 But I’d love to see native DSD recordings more often.
The point why I doubt that DSD is finally the better source for vinyl records than analog tape, is the fact that on a top vinyl rig usually all analog produced vinyl sounds clearly more superior to the same recording on digital media than digital sourced vinyl to the same recording on digital media. I doubt that DSD recorded vinyl sounds in a similar way better than this DSD recording played back by a good DSD capable DAC.
But I agree that DSD as a recording format is again theoretically and in many regards probably practically much better than tape…just as the CD format theoretically was…
Anyway, as soon as I find music I like, I will try DSD sourced vinyl!
jazznut,
“theoretically” …there it is! 🙂
… “This industry is designing the same sound system it has been designing for over 60 years. The details change but the system is exactly the same.” ….
What SM expressed in the quote above is still true, and here is the proof:
The following link will show the same concept that Nudel used 40 years ago when he launched the RS-1, with the “small” difference that this new system costs $ 100K, the rigorous question is: Is the huge difference in price even considering inflation, for something that in the best of cases may sound something different than the RS-1, but that ultimately, the concept is the same, it could even be said lower, because it is not indicated that the columns of bass contain servos like the RS-1?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVwoKrF1a04
Please note that the mid-treble panels have more ribbons, but the bass columns have fairly similar driver diameters, as well as having the same number of drivers.
Here the RS-1:
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1SQJL_esEC817EC817&sxsrf=ALeKk01n67CLF9QFPw5luVTSu0YX8hdhAQ:1603398003513&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=Infinity+RSKved88&ahcDXJVKE888-1b2bsa=ahcJVKVevKew2b2a=ahcJVKVew8b2Dhc
Judge for yourself !!