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PWK Tape Reissues available later this month


Alex L

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As we all know, Paul W. Klipsch was the original "Keeper of the Sound"....

PWK Tapes

These tapes will be released later this month. For more information, click here.

Don't miss out on this piece of PWK and Klipsch history!

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Wait just a minute there young forum administrator pup.

Why can't I get these on tape?

Busted! You're just proposing this time out from music so you can be first in line! knew Marty was up to something.... or is there more to it and this is all a smoke screen?

Yeah young Forum Pup. Whay aren't these available on tape? 15 and 7-1/2 IPS.

These would make nice Pilgrimage door prizes... even better on tape with a nice Studer-Revox reel to reel to play them on. That'd be SWEET

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Great news!

Since I'm a little light on format lingo, please rank order the following from the highest to the lowest audio quality: 24/96 DVD, HQCD, and SACD. I'm set up for SACD, CD, DVD, and BD on an OPPO BDP-93 player. Will it play 24/96 DVDs?

Hopefully, the notes will tell us what microphones, etc. PWK used in making each recording.

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Great news!

Since I'm a little light on format lingo, please rank order the following from the highest to the lowest audio quality: 24/96 DVD, HQCD, and SACD. I'm set up for SACD, CD, DVD, and BD on an OPPO BDP-93 player. Will it play 24/96 DVDs?

Hopefully, the notes will tell us what microphones, etc. PWK used in making each recording.

I know the feeling there Gary.... I'd say in the order you have it? 24/96 DVD more data than any CD will hold, but no idea if HQCD better than SACD. I do have an oppo DVD that I keep forgetting will at least do SACD but not sure about DVD Audio (forget the model) but it's DVD and not BD so maybe SACD is the best I can get.

Many would argue 7-1/2 or 15 ips analog tape, even 30 + yearr old NOS blows away any digital approximation. Who am I to argue, many of those have KILLER rigs.

I have a single pair of pimped Hereseies. But solo acoutic piano I'm playing now sounds like a piiano. [8][8][8][H][8][8][8].

Maybe on a Studer-Revox if they still make 'em or you can pry one away from it's owner. I'm sure I've read but image PWK might of used a Studer or something comparable or better that he may have tweaked himself. I think they should be avalible on Klipschtape as well as all formats. I think standard CD is available. And compressed mp3. Ugh.

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Many would argue 7-1/2 or 15 ips analog tape, even 30 + yearr old NOS blows away any digital approximation.

I would say that the overall sound with my old Crown reel to reels at 15 ips 1/2 track was superior to anything digital I've heard anywhere, anytime , anyplace. When recording, I couldn't tell the difference between "source" and "tape" with most music. For the rare piece of music that required super wide dynamic range, I would plug in my outboard DBX, and the DR was recordable, but a bit of the ultimate clarity of the Crown "raw" was gone. Also, modern movies don't sound as good as the 6 track magnetic sound that used to be used with 70 mm, except that 70mm/6 track didn't go very far below 40 Hz in the bass (some of the soundtracks did, but the best theater speakers they had back then -- big horns -- rolled off at just below 40 Hz, and there were no subs untill the late '70s). I have little doubt that general sound quality in all venues went downhill with digital. I say "general" because one thing is an improvement: surround sound in the home, as available with SACD for music, and the various BD sound formats for movies. I've grown quite addicted to it.

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I'm curious, with all the formats listed, why isn't SACD/DSD an option?

One of the main reasons for using Direct Stream Digital is that it is1 bit depth with an extremely high sampling rate. The idea here being that "1" is evenly divisable into any whole number. Therefore as sampling rate capability increases in future playback equipment the original DSD recording can be played back at the higher sampling rate resolution without any interpolation artifacts due to various bit depth/sample rate combinations. DSD is perfect for archival use.

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Great news!

Since I'm a little light on format lingo, please rank order the following from the highest to the lowest audio quality: 24/96 DVD, HQCD, and SACD. I'm set up for SACD, CD, DVD, and BD on an OPPO BDP-93 player. Will it play 24/96 DVDs?

Hopefully, the notes will tell us what microphones, etc. PWK used in making each recording.

I heard a few of PWK's master tapes in his home (2 Khorns in false corners, 1 mono Belle). I asked him about his miking technique........2 spaced omni mikes, not sure the spacing, but I think about 20 feet is what he said.

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BTW, the best of the digital medium far outperforms the analog in terms of resolution and Signal to Noise. So putting those master recordings on Blue Ray's format DTS Mater being my fave, should capture all of the analog data, what is left of it, with no problem.

Trouble is. No one does this because teen agers don't give a crap about fidelity, only being able to put 10,000 songs in their pockets.

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No one does this because teen agers don't give a crap about fidelity, only being able to put 10,000 songs in their pockets.

Amen brother Claude. Amen. Our girls, 22 and married and 17 do. That said they listen to mp3 all the time. I do too but their first Creative Labs Zen XTra CDS were converted to mp3 with Creative's 60% sliding algorithm. I started using 100% for mine and listen to CDs and now even LPs when I can. Alea gets good sound. Really good sound having attended Pilgrimage 2008 with me. She has decided she wants Cornwalls. Never heard until later when CP1 gave a quick audition. She still wants Cornwalls. I'm hoping to at least move up to La Scala or Corwalls or Chorus. Of course a rig like yours.... but we have a small house and no basement.

Maybe Michael will demo this at HOK during Pilgrimage weekend? I took my 180 gram Cisco pressing of Steely Dan's AJA and with dialed in Jubilees loosely compared with stock CD. No level match so CD was a lot louder. Michael did have them synced up pretty good and said not even close. It took me a couple of times but he said it wasn't even close. I'm hoping we can do that more level matched. My reference is Groomized Heresies resurected from the dead I think so Jubilees are a couple of steps up the audio food chain.

Michael was also playing some awesome Jazz, I think he later said Stan Getz, when I arrived. I thought he took a Thelonius Monk off the TT but it was really good whatever it was.

Couldn't find anything with the heavy vinyl that said remastered or anything so maybe same master tapes. Good analog will sound betteer than bad digitial.

And I forget, was it Metalica, or some band who were so proud to release the loudest CD ever. Uh. To me that would mean it's all recorded near maximum levels and basically the life has been compressed out of it. UGH.

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Couldn't find anything with the heavy vinyl that said remastered or anything so maybe same master tapes. Good analog will sound betteer than bad digitial.

I don't think it's the medium as much as the care and feeding of the mixing boards from good miking techniques. Steely Dan has ALWAYS had good sound from great muscicanship and good recordings/mixes. A true benchmark for pop recordings. Even though "early digital" CD's were supposed to be bad, I still enjoy Donald Fagen's (1/2 of Steely Dan) "The Nightfly" which was made in 1983, and one of the first all Digital recordings.

It's ain't the instruments, it's the players. It ain't the technology, it's the practitioners.

The best Signal to noise ratio from an LP, is about 60 db. CD's have had over 90 db S/N ratios since the beginning. That's 1,000 times better and allows for WAY more dynamics. Now that we have 24 bits instead of just 16, the number is up over 120 db, which makes the digital medium 1,000,000 times better than LP or tape.

96 and 192 Khz. sampling provides resolution even dogs and bats can appreciate.

For me one tick or pop piece of dust/dirt on an LP completely kills the illusion. I was the first one in Michigan to order the very first CD player (Sony or nothing back then) because I had experienced a DBX master tape on Khorns and I wanted that for my Khorns, having been 'digital ready" since my teens.

For analog purists, it would be very easy to sample the tape hiss from various Reel to Reel machines with various Ampex or Memorex tape formulation and inject those into the recordings, thereby bringing down the S/N ratio to nostalgically acceptable levels.

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As to MP3's, 320 VBR comes pretty close to CD quality. The compression ratio is reasoanable when you want to convert CD's or LP's to save space on Ipods.

The reason the compression ratios are so high for the "downloaders" is because Apple and others want to crank as many $$ as possible per second, so the faster the downloads, the faster/more money they make...........product quality be damned.......................hmmmmmmmmmmm reminds me of the recycled vinyl used to make warped and noisy pop LP's in the 70's. I don't care how many Aphex Aural exciters they used on Linda Ronstadts voice, it still sounded like crap on those bad pressings, cusing many returns to get one that didn't skip right out of the new package.

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As to MP3's, 320 VBR comes pretty close to CD quality. The compression ratio is reasoanable when you want to convert CD's or LP's to save space on Ipods.

The reason the compression ratios are so high for the "downloaders" is because Apple and others want to crank as many $$ as possible per second, so the faster the downloads, the faster/more money they make...........product quality be damned.......................hmmmmmmmmmmm reminds me of the recycled vinyl used to make warped and noisy pop LP's in the 70's. I don't care how many Aphex Aural exciters they used on Linda Ronstadts voice, it still sounded like crap on those bad pressings, cusing many returns to get one that didn't skip right out of the new package.

Ah greed the downfall of any society, ruination of many good products and companies.... 128 kbs MP3 just isnn't enough. My Creative Zen XTra at 60 % variable sounds pretty good but I think better at 100% variable. Still save quite a bit of file space over full 320 kbs. I have a Linda Ronstadt CD, Simple Dreams, I think that sounds kind of muffled to me, or I supposed veild in audiphile terms. Have the LP also and was going to play the other day but it needs a good scrubbing. Do I expect it to sound any better. Not really but it could if the LP engineers did a better job then the CD.... now I''m expecting it to be extra noisy and/or skcip. For 25 cents it's nice cover art.... :)

But even if nobody cares about SQ, maybe they will some day. Our girls do, a bit at least. Youngest one more so except with hearing loss not as much.... but I can't believe there's not an option to at least download dfrom iTunes in Apple Lossless at least or other bit rates.

If I needed a new MP3 player today I'd think I'd go wiith Cowon or some other brand which supports non-proprietary lossless formats. Hard drive space last time I looked only up to 64 GB but I've not looked in a while and had SD or other flash card reader and with the cost of memory cards dropping and capacity increasing maybe a large harddrive not so important.

p.s. Most teenagers I think don't really care about capacity either... they're happy as a clam with 1,000 songs.

Our girls, Alea our youngest (Pilgrimage 2008) wondered why all her friends MP3 players sounded so terrible compared to hers. 2 theories.. 2 low a bit rate 128 kbps (not terrible) and below (God awful) or crappy ear buds. This long before Klipsch introduced 'phones. Our Image X10 and Customer 2 I think require better than 128 kbps, as do our Grado SR60.

One convert at a time. We need to get the word out as Keepers Of The Sound Klipschanatics

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Funny co-incidence you should mention Linda Ronstadt's Simple Dreams LP because I was thinking about that an Hasten Down the wind as the WORST pressings I ever owned on crap vinyl, had to take them back a few times before I got one that didn't look like the Himlayas on the TT........never mind the noise and distortion from recycled vinyl.

This is about the time Mobile Fidelity started offering Virgin Vinyl pressings of remasters for best sound from select pop recordings. There was a small HQ market just for us types. Sheffield labs and other direct disc recordings were good as well, but no with mainsteam artists. Made great Khorn demos though.

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Claude - my vinyl Simple Dreams is standard. I don't think warped. Kind of dirty but should clean up nice - gonna steam it so it may be warped [:@] though I'm not sure I've warped anything but have a nasty edge warp on a Simon and Garfunkel greatest hits collection.... that may have been there to begin with or I may have caused. Vinyl was kind of thin but I've never noticed the temporary warping people have commented on but I steam on a soft lint free towel instead of a TT so may not notice. On the other hand. I've steamed the 'ell out of an LP or two with no bad side effects. No real gain after the first time.

My standard Simple Dreams CD sounds like there's a blanket over the speakers to me.

I attempted oven baked in olvie oil low sodium Klipsch chips. Potential. Should've dried potatoes. Wax paper used like parchment may or may not work well. May have to try frying.

Are you coming to the Pilgrimage? I forget.

Now that we've thoroughly hijacked the PWK Tape Reissues I hope they at least demo one at the Pligrimage. Please.

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I'm curious, with all the formats listed, why isn't SACD/DSD an option?

One of the main reasons for using Direct Stream Digital is that it is1 bit depth with an extremely high sampling rate. The idea here being that "1" is evenly divisable into any whole number. Therefore as sampling rate capability increases in future playback equipment the original DSD recording can be played back at the higher sampling rate resolution without any interpolation artifacts due to various bit depth/sample rate combinations. DSD is perfect for archival use.

There is no quality difference between DSD and PCM...in fact, with modern delta-sigma converters, they're effectively the same thing (just different stages of the same conversion process). There is also no direct way to employ DSP algorithms effectively to a raw DSD encoding - it always ends up PCM at some point. If they're doing any kind of post-processing (which they probably are), then it needs to be PCM.

I also wouldn't worry too much about upconverting to better formats in the future. Is the potential for 1 bit of quantization error really going to ruin your enjoyment of these recordings?

Btw, anyone know about how much they're going to cost?

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" I also wouldn't worry too much about upconverting to better formats in
the future. Is the potential for 1 bit of quantization error really
going to ruin your enjoyment of these recordings?"

No, it's going to increase it.

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There is no quality difference between DSD and PCM...in fact, with modern delta-sigma converters, they're effectively the same thing (just different stages of the same conversion process). There is also no direct way to employ DSP algorithms effectively to a raw DSD encoding - it always ends up PCM at some point. If they're doing any kind of post-processing (which they probably are), then it needs to be PCM.

As you will soon see, I don't know much about this. Don't some pre/pros accept and use DSD directly and intact? My Marantz does not, but accepts PCM from my OPPO when I play SACDs. I think the scanning rate is 88.2K. I enjoy SACDs because of the surround (especially if it is 5.1 or 5.0) but I'm not positive the sound quality is any better, on the average, than straight CDs at 44.1K (I think). Should a mere doubling from 44.1 to 88.2 make an audible difference?

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