JohnA Posted November 20, 2009 Share Posted November 20, 2009 Good Music IS getting hard to find. Both well played and well recorded. On my system, 24/192 DVD Audio sounds as good as vinyl, but has much greater, more natural dynamic range. It's really had to find, though. My turntable is a Thorens TD-125 with a Decca London tone arn, an AT OC9 MC cartridge all run through an Aragon 47k phono preamp. The rest you can see in my sig. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted November 20, 2009 Share Posted November 20, 2009 Heck, Max, I venerate Wild Turkey 101 and Superman comic books... As I am not familiar with the Haydn you reference, I can't comment. Bear in mind my position is that what matters to the ear is engineering, not medium or format. When I "hear" anything that can be traced to medium or format I considerate it inadequate to the task. That includes dithering and transcode artifacts on CD's and dynamic range compression and groove noise on vinyl, et al. If it doesn't sound right and it isn't the medium, it's almost always the engineering. The system, whether a boom box or audiophile, is transparent to both those factors to my ears. I'd be interested in your opinion on the Messiah I referenced (not the one we discuss in the OTHER forum[6]) as it is superior, IMHO, to any vinyl version I own...and that is a bunch and includes some of the most highly regarded. As to the limitations of classical and jazz and being in a "niche," frankly, I don't care. That limits me to around 10 centuries of music and only leaves out a few recent decades in which much of the non-classical or jazz material really loses little from compression as there is not a lot of complexity or nuance there to start with. And I am not being critical, just clinical, and I am not suggesting one thing as "superior" to the other. Whilst I prefer a nice, ancient port of distinction along with a Cohiba, a good vin ordinaire over ice and a King Edward has it's charms. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted November 20, 2009 Share Posted November 20, 2009 John Albright makes a good point: >On my system, 24/192 DVD Audio sounds as good as vinyl, but has much greater, more natural dynamic range. The underline is the key. When a medium is used correctly, and the engineering is on target, and the delivery medium is used as intended, any full range medium will sound IDENTICAL to any other. Basic science. To the extent they can be shown to differ, one is not up to par. In the case of the Franck "Organ" Symphony, it cannot sound as good on vinyl as it does in a high res digital format as vinyl doesn't remotely have the dynmaic range to contain it without compression. OTOH, most chamber music fits nicely within vinyl limitations and the only difference I hear from a digital version is performance and engineering, assuming the pressing is done well. The first time I ever heard Dolby noise reduction I went "YECHH." All the highs were gone. It took well over a year and an oscilliscope to make me understand that, as an audio engineer, I was used to determining the quality of the high end as much by the presence and quality of the tape hiss as the signal itself. Very important "learning" for me that I've applied many times to new audio technologies. "If the medium is the message, there is a problem with one or the other." (Dave's adapation of McLuhan for audio) Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted November 20, 2009 Share Posted November 20, 2009 Good Music IS getting hard to find. Both well played and well recorded. In the same spirit as the "Right This Minute" thread found on this forum, I'd like to see a new thread entitled something like "High Quality Recordings", the recordings of which the membership here owns or has heard. The sticking point, of course, is who is doing the judging on what is high quality. I'd be okay with folks that can screen for "profiles" of recordings using a digital analysis program, for starters. (I.e., I don't think that Red Hot Chile Peppers recordings will likely make the list), looking for obvious "loudness wars" dynamic compression, or FR compression due to other factors (...tending to bias the results toward newer recordings). What I'm thinking is really looking for those mastering or recording engineers that consistently do a good job, regardless of the "recording company" pressures to not do a good, clean, quality job. Also the list of recordings probably needs to be separated in some simple manner by genre, say (this is a strawman only): Classical Jazz (including fusion) Popular (but not cultural) Rock (all types including metal, etc.) Cultural/World (C&W, Bluegrass, Irish, African, Mid-Eastern, etc.) Newer mainstream genres, such as Hip Hop, Electronica, etc. In addition, I'd expect to see free or try-before-buy music done well in the list of recommended recordings. I think that we should indicate medium (CD, HDCD, SACD, DVD-A, vinyl [33 1/3/other RPM]). I know that there are certain high-quality classical labels that produce quality consistently (DG, Philips, Naxos, Reference, etc.?), but I'm not really talking about those recordings since they are so easy to spot. I'm talking about others that are not so easy to identify. I use Amazon to acquire about 100% of my recordings, so links to that source (wherever possible) might help out the casual reader. Bad idea? Is there an existing thread that we can resurrect and reuse? (Throw only small-calibre darts, please, i.e., my skin is thin enough for small darts to penetrate). Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted November 20, 2009 Share Posted November 20, 2009 I nominate Mallette to be the first judge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted November 20, 2009 Share Posted November 20, 2009 Oh I am quite sure it is far from impossible to make a great sounding CD - hell I have a few that are really not too bad at all. The thing is that vinyl has the huge advantage of being the medium of choise through the golden years of music production when production companies were still competing to make the best possible sound- as opposed to the loudest, most compressed sound that works well for radio transmission. It is also worth remembering that most of the vinyl produced over its lifetime as the primary source for recorded music was complete crap. That stuff, however, has probably almost entirely made its way into land fills and the like leaving us today with, primarily, the good stuff. I cannot recall the number of records produced over the years - I seem to recall a figure of something like a billion. Of those probably a few million are really really superb - and most of them are still around. Having said all of that - of the 3000 or so records that I have purchased over the last decade about 2000 have been given away - the remaining 1000 are generally some combination of superb performance, well made disk (properly centred for a start), well recorded and, in the case of used vinyl - well looked after. It is grossly unfair to compare these to a new medium - where I am buying off the shelf stuff and am surprised it is not up to snuff. Unfair as it is, however, it is the reality for the music I listen to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted November 20, 2009 Share Posted November 20, 2009 That's the spirit, Max... [] Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted November 20, 2009 Share Posted November 20, 2009 The thing is that vinyl has the huge advantage of being the medium of choise through the golden years of music production when production companies were still competing to make the best possible sound I'm not sure that I can agree with that statement- I think that distinction went to reel-to-reel tape in terms of reproduction quality IMHO, but that is another topic. Were we discussing CDs here? I did notice that DVD-As disappeared fairly rapidly. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted November 20, 2009 Share Posted November 20, 2009 I'd be interested in your opinion on the Messiah I referenced (not the one we discuss in the OTHER forum[6]) as it is superior, IMHO, to any vinyl version I own... You are a trouble maker...lol. []It is also worth remembering that most of the vinyl produced over its lifetime as the primary source for recorded music was complete crap. That stuff, however, has probably almost entirely made its way into land fills and the like leaving us today with, primarily, the good stuff. I think a lot of them ended up in my living room, Max. As much as I love my system, which often carries me away to another place when I put on some music, I still find I can often actually enjoy something played back at work on my cheap pc speaker system Maybe my brain is letting me place myself at home and hearing it through my own system. A bi-location, if you will... Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 The thing is that vinyl has the huge advantage of being the medium of choise through the golden years of music production when production companies were still competing to make the best possible sound I'm not sure that I can agree with that statement- I think that distinction went to reel-to-reel tape in terms of reproduction quality IMHO, but that is another topic. Were we discussing CDs here? I did notice that DVD-As disappeared fairly rapidly. Chris Chris, it's about release media. R2R had no more penetration, perhaps less, than DVD-A. Further, it had noise. Release R2R were duped high speed, the best at 2X, others far higher, and on less than studio quality tape. Even then, the quality could be extraordinary and the archival quality far better than vinyl. As to what we are discussing, I think the main topic is "obsolesense." Commercial obsolesence is one thing. CD's, as well as all physical delivery systems, are headed for that kind of obsolesense. Bandwidth will cease to be an issue in the near future and storage is near a non-issue now. The requirements for full fidelity storage will not increase. However, these are commercial issues. There is no such thing as an "obsolete" recording. No way I'd trade my nearly 90 year old Kid Ory recording of "Mustrat Ramble" for a new release by the Real Jass Band on a high res digital release. That might be fine, but it will never be Kid Ory. Great recordings are not subject to obsolesense. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 Great recordings are not subject to obsolesense. Except when the media on which they're stored falls apart... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 Great recordings are not subject to obsolesense. Except when the media on which they're stored falls apart... Actually a point I considered commenting on. Of all the physical media, I'd nominate the 78 as the most archival of all analog. Brittle, yes, but unless broken they hold up marvelously. Certainly the diamond tips used now to play them are no threat to the grooves compare to the sharp nails used back in the day. Further, I've even carefully glued a precious disk that got broken and had good results...try that with a CD. Most R2R holds up very well. Some of the 70's formulations on early mylar type backing will simply shed away leaving a clear tape. Others get "gluey" and clog the heads. However, the oldes acetates, though brittle, hold up very well and the top grade mastering tapes do as well. Cassettes share the same issues as R2R, but made worse by being so much smaller and by the addition of mechanical issues. Vinyl is subject to all kinds of issues from mold to warpage. Digital media sheds and breaks down. I think the most durable modern medium is flash memory, now very cheap and destined to be darn near free soon. 5 years ago I had a compact flash chip in my pocket and it went through a wash and dry cycle. I left it alone for about a week in a dry place, plugged it in, and it was fine. Still is. Incredibly robust. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oblio Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 Actually a point I considered commenting on. Of all the physical media, I'd nominate the 78 as the most archival of all analog. Brittle, yes, but unless broken they hold up marvelously. Interesting, I inherited a bunch of sealed 78 albums that should be in mint condidtion, I always assumed that they didn't hold up to playing, didn't think about the old timey lathes they were played on being the major cause of deterioration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 Actually a point I considered commenting on. Of all the physical media, I'd nominate the 78 as the most archival of all analog. Brittle, yes, but unless broken they hold up marvelously. Interesting, I inherited a bunch of sealed 78 albums that should be in mint condidtion, I always assumed that they didn't hold up to playing, didn't think about the old timey lathes they were played on being the major cause of deterioration. In the 1970's there was a record shop in Big Spring, TX that was quite famous. The old guys who owned it had never disposed of anything that did not sell, nor did they ever change the prices. They had thousands of 78's in the basement that had been there since they bought them in the 30's and later. They had lots of other things, too. I wish I'd bought the "Meet the Beatles" 4 track (!) cartridge NIB for 4.00. Anyway, I bought a number of big band recordings there that remain vibrant and "in your face." However, even well worn discs can reveal things that are counter intuitive. The bass sax on my well worn 1924 recording of "Rhapsody in Blue" with the Whiteman Band and Gershwin at the piano is downright spooky. I swear I can visualize the guy by looking into the speaker, which seems to disappear. Like the other "learned" responses I mentioned in this thread, reaction to noise in recordings is a learned response. Many conditioned to silky silent digital cannot even tolerate an occasional click or pop on vinyl and completely lose track of the music and hear only the noise. Those of us who focus on both the music and it's context have learned to filter such things to the point of not even noticing them. Hearing a Duke Ellington at 22 or so, or Louis with his Red Hot Six, or Kid Ory, or Robert Johnson straight from a disc they might have handled cannot be replaced by a "cleaned up" version or some "sounds like" band in a modern recording, no matter how well they are done. Those grooves were made by the very vibrations that emanted from the lips and fingers of those musicians and I appreciate that above all. In fact, an acoustic recording contains the DIRECT record of the vibrations produced...about as close to time travel as we are likely to have for a while. It's like having a copy of "As You Like It" penned by Shakespeare himself. I like that. Playing back 78's is not rocket science nor does it cost a lot. A phono preamp for 78's isn't expensive. I use the TC-778 which is only a bit over 60 bucks and it does an outstanding job. While I use a very fine Empire 598MkII as a dedicated 78 TT, a basic Dual in good condition will do fine. The Stanton 500AL is a great cartridge for 78's. Nauck's website has a very good common sense guide to enjoying vintage records. All in all, one shouldn't need to spend more than 250.00 to fully enjoy recordings that will never be duplicated nor improved upon while hearing them sound better than those who made them ever heard. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 Of all the physical media, I'd nominate the 78 as the most archival of all analog. Brittle, yes, but unless broken they hold up marvelously. A good friend of mine worked at the Edison Historical Site in New Jersey. They have hundreds of cylinders, of different compostions. They are transferring many of them to digital media. Edison would record just about anything, and his studio contained horns of different sizes to mathc what he or his staff were recording...speeches, soloists, bands, etc. They have a recording of the bugler who was in the Light Brigade (Think Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade" inspired by an incident in the Crimean War) AND the bugle that was used. THAT gives one an eerie feeling .Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 Great recordings are not subject to obsolesense. Except when the media on which they're stored falls apart... Actually a point I considered commenting on. Of all the physical media, I'd nominate the 78 as the most archival of all analog. Brittle, yes, but unless broken they hold up marvelously. Certainly the diamond tips used now to play them are no threat to the grooves compare to the sharp nails used back in the day. Further, I've even carefully glued a precious disk that got broken and had good results...try that with a CD. Most R2R holds up very well. Some of the 70's formulations on early mylar type backing will simply shed away leaving a clear tape. Others get "gluey" and clog the heads. However, the oldes acetates, though brittle, hold up very well and the top grade mastering tapes do as well. Cassettes share the same issues as R2R, but made worse by being so much smaller and by the addition of mechanical issues. Vinyl is subject to all kinds of issues from mold to warpage. Digital media sheds and breaks down. I think the most durable modern medium is flash memory, now very cheap and destined to be darn near free soon. 5 years ago I had a compact flash chip in my pocket and it went through a wash and dry cycle. I left it alone for about a week in a dry place, plugged it in, and it was fine. Still is. Incredibly robust. Dave I'm currently in the middle of a huge restoration process at church where sermons and other recordings were stored on R2R and then later on Mastering Cassettes. We're going to digital because you can make copies without ever affecting the quality. It's really just a matter of time until even the best materials start to wear out. Heck, even the harddrives we're storing all this stuff on are wearing out quite fast too...we've got it all backed up now, but some of the first stuff we did we had to make another pass at and it was apparent that each consecutive playback is causing more damage. Some of it is only 20 years old and it's all been stored in climate controlled environments... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Islander Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 It's really just a matter of time until even the best materials start to wear out. Heck, even the harddrives we're storing all this stuff on are wearing out quite fast too...we've got it all backed up now, but some of the first stuff we did we had to make another pass at and it was apparent that each consecutive playback is causing more damage. Some of it is only 20 years old and it's all been stored in climate controlled environments... That makes me think of the oil paintings of the astronauts. NASA commissioned an oil painter to make pictures of the astronauts (portraits and group shots, as I recall) because we know that oil paintings last hundreds of years, while we don't know for sure how long colour photos may last.Oddly enough, I couldn't find anything on the Web about the paintings when I looked a few minutes ago, but I'm sure I remember seeing at least one group portrait in a news item years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oblio Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 There is (was ?) a company that did archival storage for very long periods (IIRC it was something like 1 millionish years). Not only did they attempt to address media issues but also decoding, IOW attempting to ensure that if it physically lasts it also can be interpreted by the receiver FAR into the future. They settled on some sort of exotic microscopic engraving/lithography on a highly inert substrate, the details of which I've forgotten. Back here in the past, it wasn't but a few years ago that we were unable to access some software written on 8" floppies for an embedded system. The hardware that ran the software that we were replacing was inop and it was cheaper to redesign the S/W from the ground up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Islander Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 There was a BBC project in England in 1986 to produce a new version of The Domesday Book, a royally-decreed census from around 1086. The medium chosen was 12" video discs, which can no longer be read, due to their obsolete format, while the book is as legible as ever.http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/mar/03/research.elearninghttp://www.dpconline.org/graphics/events/digitallongevity.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 Pretty fascinating. My LaserDisc player still works fine. I don't know what the BBC MicroComputer disc system was, but by 1986 the LaserDisc standard that still survives was well established. In any event, I cannot think of any digital medium than can become obsolete as long as it is refreshed...copied to whatever digital storage device is current. As the digital information is not subject to any sort of deterioration, it is only the media that is subject to obsolesence, like the 8" floppy. I have considerable data that originated on PC floppies, Amiga format floppies, etc, that still remains perfectly accessible as I refreshed it over the years as the media changed. I have animations I did at the National University of Singapore in 1986. Given my stuff is intact, I consider the BBC loss to be pure negligence. They should have given me a copy. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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