And still Abbey Road hangs on*. And still people try to get killed on the level crossing 
*Yes I know they've considered selling it quite a few times.
Recording Studios | London | AIR Studios seems to be doing ok. And for classical a number of new studios are popping up at least in UK. Luckily the 'protools can fix it' view has not taken over the music I prefer.
What does confuse me is where does the producer fit into the 'project studio' world?
*Yes I know they've considered selling it quite a few times.
Recording Studios | London | AIR Studios seems to be doing ok. And for classical a number of new studios are popping up at least in UK. Luckily the 'protools can fix it' view has not taken over the music I prefer.
What does confuse me is where does the producer fit into the 'project studio' world?
Tournesol, I am as glad to see those days ended as you and am not nostalgic for the technology itself one bit...I haven't recorded a cassette in perhaps 25 years! Regarding the capability of the cassette medium, as I have made clear: it took advanced engineering at high record speed to get a great result one could never achieve recording real-time, even with the best Nak decks. If you are interested in the particulars of that technology we can discuss it off line so people can stop barfing at my posts.
Cheers!
Howie.
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Dear Howie
This thread is as retro as it needs to be for such subjects.
You are always welcome here to inform us of these things from the past (which we are all part of it
)George
hhoyt, English is not my native language. So, i try my best but i understand sometimes my answers can sound a little 'rude' because they can lack sometimes of formulas of politeness and nuances... See what I mean?
if this was the way for you, please excuse-me.
I can believe that some people are able, with some acrobatic procedure, to make a cassette tape that sound surprisingly well for the medium.
My purpose was to recall people to the luck we have with digital, even with those diabolical CDs that John would like to send to hell. ;-)
To take a parallel with photography, there may be a slight difference in white balance between two CD players, or between an original master and its CD copy.
With analog, it will be loss of sharpness and dynamic, add of graininess and noise, in addition to even more complex variations of white balances and color nuances.
Dear Howie
This thread is as retro as it needs to be for such subjects.
You are always welcome here to inform us of these things from the past (which we are all part of it
George
And Howie definitely has some of the highest SNR in his posts. Always welcome even if half of it makes no sense to this youngun.
And keep in mind the high-speed replication technology I was describing then went on to create literally billions of much better sounding cassettes, so it was not a laboratory curiosity.
Ahhh optical discs, that other obsolete technology (ducks)... It is my opinion after making billions of them for 20 years that the biggest differences in "sound" from player to player is not the DA, not the output filters, or any other esoterica: it is the mere fact that optical discs are an analog record medium and subject to all of the handling and other degradation mechanisms as the LP. The difference is, of course, that an uncorrectable error threshold must be reached with a CD before the physical flaw affects the output.
If one monitors a disc transport's E22 and E32 error decoder (if available) you will find the player is encountering errors and interpolating far more than you would hope. Only the cleanest, most well-molded and pristine discs played on a relatively good condx transport will actually stream the original bitstream without errors. The most reliable CD transports are those used in CD analysis equipment like the CD CATS system, and they rely on a clean-room environment to stay accurate. I'm not implying there is no difference from one DA to another, or filter topology to another, just that the biggest source of sound abnormalities is due to relatively mundane opto-electric problems.
Cheers,
Howie
In all cases but one where I checked, all the CDs and CDRs I tested had no errors requiring interpolation. Also IIRC, if using EAC it performs retrys as many times as you specify until no errors requiring interpolation remain.
There was one badly scratched CD of my son's that would only play on one old CD transport. However, EAC ripped it successfully without interpolation errors occurring.
Since what you describe is inconsistent with my previous experience, could you elaborate more on your findings?
My experience too. There was a time, many years ago, (70-ies?) when I build the Elektor CD tester, that I saved up the CDs with interpolation errors as they were so rare. Never got more than half a dozen iirc.
Edit: I do remember that it was not unusual to see 1000's of corrected errors on a single CD.
Jan
Edit: I do remember that it was not unusual to see 1000's of corrected errors on a single CD.
Jan
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Hi Mark,
Howard's experiences agree with my own. But then, I'm dealing with readit it once through type machines. These are by far the most common CD type player out there, so the bulk of the population will see what I'm seeing.
Your experiences are a-typical, not the norm by any means.
-Chris
Howard's experiences agree with my own. But then, I'm dealing with readit it once through type machines. These are by far the most common CD type player out there, so the bulk of the population will see what I'm seeing.
Your experiences are a-typical, not the norm by any means.
-Chris
And my inability to write coherent text once again surfaces, I apologize.
The pretext for that comment which I failed to state clearly was analysis of discs for which audible differences from the original master were detected. In these situations I was tasked to analyze what was causing the recording engineer to think we had replicated either the wrong data or molded a bad disc.
I only use EAC for the reasons you state (although others have similar engines) and have excellent B4B results as analyzed by Eclipse ImageVerify.
However, keep in mind an audio CD transport reads all data just once and has to make a call on what the data was supposed to be based on what is in the read buffer. EAC in conjunction with a CD-ROM drive can make multiple passes at different speeds to try and obtain two passes that match, giving a much greater chance of success. Also, many CD-ROM drives feature both tracking and focus servos with higher bandwidth than those of audio transports because they are multi-speed. This can give improved playability as well.
In general, if one takes care of a molded, replicated disc the situation will be as you describe. The rate of CD-Rs with E32s in general is an order of magnitude higher than a molded disc due to poor quality blanks and recording strategy compatibility between the recorder and blank disc.
Cheers,
Howie
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+1, on my side.
I agree the mistake with the CD was the use a "stream". But when you use a CD to save pure datas, IE files from a computer, where no error is allowed, it rarely occurs one file is unreadable.
On opposite to DATs, the digital brother of the cassette, that you can throw away after some time, even unused. ;-)
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+10 here, the DAT was an unmitigated disaster as a professional format. However the actual digital version of the Compact Cassette was the DCC:
Digital Compact Cassette - Wikipedia
Which was perhaps the biggest POS ever foisted as a music storage medium.
We were an official trial site and it was a disaster. And the straw that broke the camel's back for both DAT and DCC as well as MD was the cost and difficulty of making pre-recorded titles. THAT is the factor that determines a format's success.
Talking about failed formats makes me sad...let's talk about something happy like how the proliferation of personal music listening has driven really excellent headphone and IEM development! Thanks to a friend who is a Sennheiser dealer I really enjoy using the Sennheiser HD800s and IE800s, but wish I could afford the best sounding IEMs I have heard: the FitEar ToGo 334s...but at $1400 a bit out of my budget.
IE800S ... 1000$ ? For in ear earbuds ? Are-they serious ?
Are-they so different that the ones that comes with my smartphones, those I use to throw in the trash without to plug them even once ? ;-)
Fairly easy to determine by recording the digital out of an ordinary player compared to an EAC rip.
The comparison between cheap ear buds and serious IEMs is, to quote a famous philosopher: "...just like to pretend a photo from a pro full frame camera and one from a smartphone look the same." Seriously, the IE800s sound extremely accurate with very little coloration. At the risk of sounding like an idiot (why stop now?) I have 20 or so serious headphones and IEMs, most likely because I like to listen to music at the times of day when my wife is asleep. My biggest complaint about the IE800s is they are sensitive to the seating of the tips in the canal. A little loose an all low end disappears...too tight and your ears ache and the tips become lodged even when the IEMs are removed. But when they are in the right place (which one becomes adept at doing) they are excellent and the sound field is very immersive and accurate. If you lived close I'd be glad to let you audition them, they are my favorite IEMs for jazz and acoustic string music. For rock I prefer IEMs and headphones with a slightly boosted low end.
Of course the final transducer is the part of the chain where personal preference plays the largest role, so YMMV.
Cheers !
Howie
hhoyt 1, Tournesol 0. New balls.
I have somewhere in my cellar old ones:
Sennheiser hd 230 and HD 430
AKG K240s
But i prefer my cheap Koss Porta pro over all of them. (it is very sensitive to its placement as well)
Cannot afford earplugs, or anything *in* my ears.
But i will try to find some IE800s to listen to, teased by your comments.
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Interesting. Differences in quality of the optical (tracking) part of the readers ? Precision of the clocks ?
Never had the idea to compare them.
I too cannot justify $1000+ IEMs. But one day I would like some custom moulds for my Etymotics.
Regarding CD, I still reckon that, for the technology of the time (1980 the first spec was issued) and the fact that it was a consumer product so you couldn't go all Tek on it the fact that you could drill a 1mm hole in the disk and it would still play was pretty impressive. But a lot has happened in the intervening 37 years. Much of which we couldn't have imagined at the time.
And with a nod to the thread, the Parasound CD player uses a CD-ROM drive and reads at 4x. It's not entirely clear if this improves fidelity.
Regarding CD, I still reckon that, for the technology of the time (1980 the first spec was issued) and the fact that it was a consumer product so you couldn't go all Tek on it the fact that you could drill a 1mm hole in the disk and it would still play was pretty impressive. But a lot has happened in the intervening 37 years. Much of which we couldn't have imagined at the time.
And with a nod to the thread, the Parasound CD player uses a CD-ROM drive and reads at 4x. It's not entirely clear if this improves fidelity.
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