The Nirvana un-plugged was recorded at Sony Studios, New York. Since it was 1993 for Sony that probably means a DASH multi-track. Fortunately at least, it would have been mixed in an analog desk. One thing I know about Fremer is that he is partial to Aural Exciter. How do I know this? Because I was at demo last year he did and he pulled out a recent Mo-Fi lp of Elvis Costello that very nicely showed the Exciter effect. I was taken a little aside as he espoused the greatness of the remaster. When I read his closing description on the Nirvana review I smell Exciter crystal dust sprinkled on the mix. Could be wrong, but there is an audio rat of some sort in this Nirvana unplugged. I'v only heard the tracks over FM radio so I really need to look into this more. Quite interesting.
Of course, at 68 years old my hearing is not what it was at age 18, but of all the LPs and 4 track reel to reel tapes, CDs I have, I can honestly IMHO say that the best sounding music to my ears was recorded when stereo was first announced (around 1957) and has degraded steadily since. The only thing in my collection that sounds better was direct to dics recording by Sheffield. Most re-issued CD of previously recorded stuff is balanced roughly for a Ghetto Blaster. The best CDs I have are the Mobile Fidelity re-issues re-mastered on equipment designed by Tim de Paravacini. But something must be said for going back to the original master tape. Nothing sounds better than an original master tape IMHO. Ray
Well of course the beatles output could be viewed as junk as was mastered for playing on portable record players!
Thank goodness a few labels still focus on quality.
Thank goodness a few labels still focus on quality.
Exciter | Products for Professional Audio, Recording, Broadcast, Audio Applications | Aphex
So it 'adds harmonics' but THD is 0.003%? I assume the added harmonics are not considered distortion!
So it 'adds harmonics' but THD is 0.003%? I assume the added harmonics are not considered distortion!
So we dont' listen anymore Fleetwood Macs Rumours?
This record was promoted here to be very good sounding due the introduction and massive use of the Aphex Aural Exciter...
This record was promoted here to be very good sounding due the introduction and massive use of the Aphex Aural Exciter...
Aural exciters were a passing fad. At first people thought they sounded new/cool/better, but after awhile it became apparent it probably wasn't the best thing to do. Now mostly used as a band-aid for basket case recordings that come in with dead high end.
Grhughes, right on! What you appear to like best is all tube electronics, including the Sheffield direct disks.
It is really hard to get solid state to sound as good. Of course, nobody believes me! '-)
Now when it comes to the Aural Exciter, I found it subjectively interesting in 1973 when I first heard it in New York City. I found it accidentally when I met up with a girlfriend from California and she wanted me to meet her brother in NYC who worked with Aphex. This is when I tried the Aural Exciter on the Grateful Dead recordings. I was surprised, and the Aphex (the maker of the Aural Exciter) employees were so impressed that they wanted to hire me as a mixing engineer. I said that I could only do the Dead that well because I was traveling on tour with them and I knew what they sounded like, live, but I made friends with the inventor, Kurt Knoppel (sp) from Sweden. I, in fact, was so impressed that I got several members of the GD to come by and listen themselves. They (correctly) said that it was an 'effects' generator, like what they had access to often in recording studios, and didn't go for it.
Still, it did do something 'right' unless too much was used, better than straight EQ, and I was intrigued. Markw4, your opinion is dead on! It was a fad, and sometimes it makes the sound too 'bright', even annoying.
Now, thank goodness, some here actually listened over the decades and remember what audio used to sound like.
Of course, 'cut and try' is sometimes the only way to make progress. It worked for me with the GD, then Mark Levinson, and so forth. I did not have to advertise myself to get well known, my designs did it for me, BUT they would only have been successful, because I listened to 'what works' and attempted to make my designs in much the same way.
This included high slew rate for low TIM, high open loop bandwidth for low PIM, and over the decades, improved selection of caps, resistors, etc. It is a subjective process at first, then we TRY (and are usually ultimately successful) to find a measurable reason for our subjective responses to various design approaches. We don't need no 'stinking' ABX tests for that! '-)
It is really hard to get solid state to sound as good. Of course, nobody believes me! '-)
Now when it comes to the Aural Exciter, I found it subjectively interesting in 1973 when I first heard it in New York City. I found it accidentally when I met up with a girlfriend from California and she wanted me to meet her brother in NYC who worked with Aphex. This is when I tried the Aural Exciter on the Grateful Dead recordings. I was surprised, and the Aphex (the maker of the Aural Exciter) employees were so impressed that they wanted to hire me as a mixing engineer. I said that I could only do the Dead that well because I was traveling on tour with them and I knew what they sounded like, live, but I made friends with the inventor, Kurt Knoppel (sp) from Sweden. I, in fact, was so impressed that I got several members of the GD to come by and listen themselves. They (correctly) said that it was an 'effects' generator, like what they had access to often in recording studios, and didn't go for it.
Still, it did do something 'right' unless too much was used, better than straight EQ, and I was intrigued. Markw4, your opinion is dead on! It was a fad, and sometimes it makes the sound too 'bright', even annoying.
Now, thank goodness, some here actually listened over the decades and remember what audio used to sound like.
Of course, 'cut and try' is sometimes the only way to make progress. It worked for me with the GD, then Mark Levinson, and so forth. I did not have to advertise myself to get well known, my designs did it for me, BUT they would only have been successful, because I listened to 'what works' and attempted to make my designs in much the same way.
This included high slew rate for low TIM, high open loop bandwidth for low PIM, and over the decades, improved selection of caps, resistors, etc. It is a subjective process at first, then we TRY (and are usually ultimately successful) to find a measurable reason for our subjective responses to various design approaches. We don't need no 'stinking' ABX tests for that! '-)
Right on target!!!
Well recorded classical music shows how GOOD is the SOTA digital. Neither vinyl, nor analog master tape is able to make it.
On the contrary, in pop music recordings (including rock etc.), high resolution only shows how empty is this kind of music, so low res of vinyl, tubes etc. hiding details and providing special masking, are helpful then 😀
All of the time and live for that matter. Here is the last performance I was at.
Attachments
Don't even have to try. Brains do it automatically all the time. And then confirmation bias does its thing.
"What you appear to like best is all tube electronics, including the Sheffield direct disks.
It is really hard to get solid state to sound as good. Of course, nobody believes me! " John Curl
I think it all depends on the designer of the equipment and the producer manning the recording. It seems to me that the recording engineer has little anymore to say about it or contribute. Consider a recording studio mixing console. This behemoth has steadily grown like topsy getting more and more complex with LSI opamp after opamp. It's almost like a producer just has to have the next JOY STICK or BLACK BOX to patch, push and pull to give him that "unique" sound he is after. With this complexity IMHO also comes putting the listener further and further away from the music. It's interesting that many are going back to Neve 1073 modules designed in 1970 that were all discreet and Class A but used 2n3055 transistors in series with an output transformer. These units were infinitely less complex than modern mixers with LSI opamps. It's also interesting if you take an opamp topology and then create the same with discreet transistors like a JE990, the discreet version sounds better. But I'm not an EE just an audiophile and I don't understand how one could design an completely open loop solid state circuit that functions with stability without feedback. It seems that feedback is absolutely necessary to make the thing stable and producing gain.
I agree, that to make solid state sound good or as good as tubes requires GREAT topology sophistication. Cordially, Ray
It is really hard to get solid state to sound as good. Of course, nobody believes me! " John Curl
I think it all depends on the designer of the equipment and the producer manning the recording. It seems to me that the recording engineer has little anymore to say about it or contribute. Consider a recording studio mixing console. This behemoth has steadily grown like topsy getting more and more complex with LSI opamp after opamp. It's almost like a producer just has to have the next JOY STICK or BLACK BOX to patch, push and pull to give him that "unique" sound he is after. With this complexity IMHO also comes putting the listener further and further away from the music. It's interesting that many are going back to Neve 1073 modules designed in 1970 that were all discreet and Class A but used 2n3055 transistors in series with an output transformer. These units were infinitely less complex than modern mixers with LSI opamps. It's also interesting if you take an opamp topology and then create the same with discreet transistors like a JE990, the discreet version sounds better. But I'm not an EE just an audiophile and I don't understand how one could design an completely open loop solid state circuit that functions with stability without feedback. It seems that feedback is absolutely necessary to make the thing stable and producing gain.
I agree, that to make solid state sound good or as good as tubes requires GREAT topology sophistication. Cordially, Ray
Neve 1073 has a lot more distortion than a modern clean preamp, such as a Grace M101, for example. Among other things, a good deal of it comes from the output transformer. And many people like that particular coloration, which to them sounds better than the undistorted sound. I don't think anybody here has a problem with people who like distortion, so long as they don't claim there is no distortion.
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