There are lots of anecdotes like that. Send the same digital master to 2 different mastering houses and get back 2 CDs that sound quite a bit different.
dave
Try Google. I would name names but I don't know if this statement was off the record or not. I subscribe to the Elusive Disc XRCD Blue Note series and I do know there was a delay of several months because they weren't happy with the original pressings.
John
I guess that I've mention over the years, the comparisons that our audio club has made, listening to an LP (on SOTA equipment), then a CD (played on SOTA player) made from the same master tape, xrcd, xrcd24 and sacd also from that master. All were considered inferior to the LP. A glass master and a SACD made from "that Master" have also been compared and the Glass Master makes the SACD sound like an am radio, no contest.
A CD copied and burned from a regular CD usually sound better, sometimes significantly better and for those that are interested, use an external Blu-Ray burner and you'll have even better results, perhaps the finest copies you'll ever make.
One of our members that owns a SOTA recording/mastering studio burned two copies of the same master, one with a cd burner and the other with a Blu-Ray burner and found that the Blu-Ray burned disc sounded much better. BTW, both discs came off the same blank CD stack. He wondered about this and took them to the UW hospital (his other work) where he examined them under an electron microscope and found that the cd burner had burned pits that had irregular edges and looked frayed, while the Blu-Ray burner had burned precise, sharp and even edges. That was evidently the only difference between them.
Stamped commercial discs are often even worse than those produced using cd burners, as many that are into this can testify. If there is such a huge difference as detailed above, then how in the world can anyone maintain that the lowly CD is better than vinyl. Our comparisons between the best Hi-Rez 24/96 and 24/192 played off of SSHD's are getting pretty darn close to the best vinyl, although the concensus seems to be that it's still just a bit shy.
Like I've mentioned before it's getting very close, but we're not there yet!
Best Regards,
TerryO
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I googled for XRCD and inter alia found the following marketing dribble:
Throughout this process, the word clock is amplified and distributed to the other stages to keep signal quality at a maximum. Similarly, all equipment is run off regulated AC power feeds to provide a pure base from which to work. All cables and connections between equipment use the SDIF-2 interface for sonic quality and music integrity. Tests determined the SDIF-2 offered a superior transmission of digital audio, far above the AES/EBU standard.
With stuff like this in their propaganda, even the open-minded are likely to be turned into skeptics😀 Anyway, a bit OT...
Throughout this process, the word clock is amplified and distributed to the other stages to keep signal quality at a maximum. Similarly, all equipment is run off regulated AC power feeds to provide a pure base from which to work. All cables and connections between equipment use the SDIF-2 interface for sonic quality and music integrity. Tests determined the SDIF-2 offered a superior transmission of digital audio, far above the AES/EBU standard.
With stuff like this in their propaganda, even the open-minded are likely to be turned into skeptics😀 Anyway, a bit OT...
So when a big company like JVC attempted to improve cd they were perpetrating a scam? Exactly how is that propaganda? They lost more money on that venture than they made.
John
John
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Many replies, some really excellent. Nice to see that CD's are being put in their place.
Vinyl has to be the better medium as its pure and simple 100% analogue sampling. No losses no filtering, no compression.
Well except for the RIAA equalization but thats an industry standard anyway and not important to sound quality.
I use Cd's for what they were designed for, digital storage of data from PC's, oh and a stand for my Tea cup as they fault so often.
Funny, every time I put Santana's third album on my turntable it never skips, always plays exactly the same.
Part of putting the disk on a platter, positioning the SME V correctly, slowing watching the Shure Ultra 500 plop gently on the surface, the faint click as it makes contact. This is what the fun is all about surely?
Turn the volume up on the Quad 405'2s until the KEF 105'3's sing into life and hearing Holst's "Mars" The Bringer of War shake the putty in the windows is a joy.
Somehow the CD version just didn't sound the same. I used a switch box and borrowed a LINN SONDEK CD12 from a friend. Not that I like LIN stuff, too pricey.
The Arcam 10 sounded better.
Its hard to describe whats different other than it just CD seems to lack "life", sort of manufactured.
Back in the day Cd was touted as the greatest thing soley because an LP cost £2.50 to make and they sold for £6-7.00. CD cost 10p (now its about 1p) to make and sold for £15.00.
Do the math. Profit seems to be the true God.
The old Corporation trick as usual. Tell the public what they want to hear and then sell it to them in quantity. Cd's. Political Parties,you name it they sell it.
This fools the sheep but not the shepherds!
At the end of the day its up to each individual to make his/her mind up, but only after listing to both media with good equipment.
I humbly sign of my Vinyl (bigoted, really prejudiced, totally convinced) statment.
Regards All.
Phil50
Vinyl has to be the better medium as its pure and simple 100% analogue sampling. No losses no filtering, no compression.
Well except for the RIAA equalization but thats an industry standard anyway and not important to sound quality.
I use Cd's for what they were designed for, digital storage of data from PC's, oh and a stand for my Tea cup as they fault so often.
Funny, every time I put Santana's third album on my turntable it never skips, always plays exactly the same.
Part of putting the disk on a platter, positioning the SME V correctly, slowing watching the Shure Ultra 500 plop gently on the surface, the faint click as it makes contact. This is what the fun is all about surely?
Turn the volume up on the Quad 405'2s until the KEF 105'3's sing into life and hearing Holst's "Mars" The Bringer of War shake the putty in the windows is a joy.
Somehow the CD version just didn't sound the same. I used a switch box and borrowed a LINN SONDEK CD12 from a friend. Not that I like LIN stuff, too pricey.
The Arcam 10 sounded better.
Its hard to describe whats different other than it just CD seems to lack "life", sort of manufactured.
Back in the day Cd was touted as the greatest thing soley because an LP cost £2.50 to make and they sold for £6-7.00. CD cost 10p (now its about 1p) to make and sold for £15.00.
Do the math. Profit seems to be the true God.
The old Corporation trick as usual. Tell the public what they want to hear and then sell it to them in quantity. Cd's. Political Parties,you name it they sell it.
This fools the sheep but not the shepherds!
At the end of the day its up to each individual to make his/her mind up, but only after listing to both media with good equipment.
I humbly sign of my Vinyl (bigoted, really prejudiced, totally convinced) statment.
Regards All.
Phil50
I have no idea whether the whole shebang is a scam, I just know marketing billshut when I read it. Not all of their ideas towards improving the process are dubious - if U-matic really is still being used then of course MO disk is superior.
Are you seriously asking how the sentence :
Throughout this process, the word clock is amplified and distributed to the other stages to keep signal quality at a maximum.
can have a technical meaning? Or have I misconstrued your question?
Stupid is as stupid does.
Mr. FedEx just dropped off a Rek-o-Kut Rondine. Need to throw together a plinth and see(hear) what vintage idler drive sounds like. I've been looking for a rim drive SACD, but no such luck to date.
Or Sony with their completely compatible Blu-Spec format ?
They even made available comparison sets where 1 version was burned used a normal "red"laser, and the other using a glass stamper burned using the shorter wavelength "blue"laser. The Blu-Spec version CD also uses an improved polymer formulation.
CD Japan has full details of this format, as well as available CDs in the format.
SandyK
Fairly low tech- the record I used for testing has a particular spot that's quite hot. I set the input levels so that I hit -3dB at the peaks while playing that section. Probably not the best technique for your purpose.
Bandwidth limiting is built into the soundcard (M-Audio 192)- it has its own antialiasing filters. I used a 10k pot at the output for level-matching.
Interesting (but not unexpected) that much bird is being whipped and very little real experimentation is being done. I think Phil nailed it:
probably the best time to sell my thorens TD124 before the hopla ends and everybody will run to source AR -AX for silly money.To me charm of vinyl lies in the tons of recorded classical music nobody ever played (like nobody reads poem books given as a birthday gift) and given away for free. Properly built CD playback should be as equally musically enagaging as vinyl and sound close enough. The most amusing part of forums like that is people express strong opinions based on listening synthetic music trough 5" fullrange speakers and gainclones😉
I believe that JVC uses the same clock to keep everything synchronized. I know this is the case of their HDK2 mastering technique and they sound as good and sometimes better than SACD, although they're Red Book compatible.
There's more to it than the clock, but that's another story.
Best Regards,
TerryO
I can't speak for others, but our club (Pacific Northwest Audio Society) does most of our comparisons using SOTA gear, so I guess you're wrong about that one.
I agree, CD's should sound better than LPs, but they don't.
Best Regards,
TerryO
I didn't write that CD should sound better but be equally musically satisfying. SOTA is very broad description. For some SOTA is big Krell and Wilson for others top flight Audio Note gear. I do agree that LP is more pleasant (I have Rega P9/benz combo) but only because I dropped 10 times more on analog than CD player (20 years old McIntosh , heavilly modified😉
OK, I'll reword that, how about "several of the top systems in the World."
Best Regards,
TerryO
Where did you find this sentence? Whatever the case may be, most people agree that XRCD represents an improvement over regular cd and I know some people who prefer it to SACD.
John
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