7 Channels Possible with ALL-DIGITAL Station

[Tom Wells]

I encountered a very eye-opening experience a couple of weeks ago. I was transferring a friend's Sheffield Labs direct-to-disk recording to digital. I have Stanton's best turntable and cartridge and was using a ProTools 002 rack system which has very good D/As and using a 24-bit sample rate.

The original recording, although showing a slight bit of wear since it was from the 70's, still had plenty of life and punch to it. Very full and live. It sounded amazing. But the transfer to digital sounded entirely different. Technically all the information was there. But it seemed as if the "soul" had been ripped out of it.

If someone heard the digital transfer they would think it sounded great (once the clicks were removed). But stacked against the original LP and it would be apparent that something was missing. It may be also that the direct-to-disc process makes the shortcomings of digital all the more obvious. It really brought home to me that there is more to hearing a great recording than just the absence of noise.

It's not for nothing that, for a third straight year, sales of vinyl records has actually increased (by 33%). True, the sales are negligible compared to overall music sales but no one is reporting that CD sales are on an uptick. And if some of the younger ones on this board have never heard a direct-to-disk recording, try to find one on eBay or specialty store. It will blow you away. c5

Keeping the "soul" in a recording is tricky.
I have done quite a few transfers of music from vinyl to digital and have noticed exactly what you describe.
It seems counter-intuitive that you might not want to use alll the headroom available in digital, but I think that what's going on.
If a recording has already been "squashed" with limiting and compression, it can safely use the whole volume range available for best
S/N ratio, but if a recording has really wide dynamic range, it seems that the only way to get a decent representation of the recording
is to leave a good deal of headroom, and NOT let the peaks max out (as viewed in an audio editor).
I suspect this is an issue with the 2nd derivative, where the No. 1 is the actual amplitude, and No. 2 is the "acceleration" of the waveform.
Even if the level never reaches maximum, sonically "stunning" recordings have very sharp transients, that "take off" as though they are going to
overshoot the max level, even though they don't. It requires leaving extra "room" for "overshoot" of the the D/A conversion or something.
That's my best guess. If you still have the record, try re-dubbing it at about 2-3 db lower and see if the "punch" and clarity come through better.

 

[Carmine5]

I encountered a very eye-opening experience a couple of weeks ago. I was transferring a friend's Sheffield Labs direct-to-disk recording to digital. I have Stanton's best turntable and cartridge and was using a ProTools 002 rack system which has very good D/As and using a 24-bit sample rate.

The original recording, although showing a slight bit of wear since it was from the 70's, still had plenty of life and punch to it. Very full and live. It sounded amazing. But the transfer to digital sounded entirely different. Technically all the information was there. But it seemed as if the "soul" had been ripped out of it.

If someone heard the digital transfer they would think it sounded great (once the clicks were removed). But stacked against the original LP and it would be apparent that something was missing. It may be also that the direct-to-disc process makes the shortcomings of digital all the more obvious. It really brought home to me that there is more to hearing a great recording than just the absence of noise.

It's not for nothing that, for a third straight year, sales of vinyl records has actually increased (by 33%). True, the sales are negligible compared to overall music sales but no one is reporting that CD sales are on an uptick. And if some of the younger ones on this board have never heard a direct-to-disk recording, try to find one on eBay or specialty store. It will blow you away. c5

Keeping the "soul" in a recording is tricky.
I have done quite a few transfers of music from vinyl to digital and have noticed exactly what you describe.
It seems counter-intuitive that you might not want to use alll the headroom available in digital, but I think that what's going on.
If a recording has already been "squashed" with limiting and compression, it can safely use the whole volume range available for best
S/N ratio, but if a recording has really wide dynamic range, it seems that the only way to get a decent representation of the recording
is to leave a good deal of headroom, and NOT let the peaks max out (as viewed in an audio editor).
I suspect this is an issue with the 2nd derivative, where the No. 1 is the actual amplitude, and No. 2 is the "acceleration" of the waveform.
Even if the level never reaches maximum, sonically "stunning" recordings have very sharp transients, that "take off" as though they are going to
overshoot the max level, even though they don't. It requires leaving extra "room" for "overshoot" of the the D/A conversion or something.
That's my best guess. If you still have the record, try re-dubbing it at about 2-3 db lower and see if the "punch" and clarity come through better.

Tom, thanks for the suggestion. I actually recorded the LP slightly under my usual levels just for the reason you mentioned. This direct-to-disk recording has so much presence and dynamic range that, if it wasn't for the occasional clicks, you'd think the musicians were in the room with you.

I still have the LP and was thinking of borrowing an ADL 1000 tube compressor from a studio I know of and trying that. Funny, here I am developing a strategy to overcome the limitations of digital. It seems I've come full circle.

 

[tomservo]

I've got a direct-to-disc demo album from my father and even on the old worn turntable I'm stuck with, it has a certain 'presence' above and beyond other albums in my collection. I'd love to hear it on a real high end setup.

These direct-to-disc cuts and the aforementioned Aja by Steely Dan are definite standouts in the world of sound engineering. It's sad to think how far away from clarity and dynamic range we've gone despite the possibilities of the compact disc. Nothing can really be done to make up for the lack of warmth in the digital domain, but with care the rest of the recording can be done right, it just isn't anymore.

I thought as technology and society progressed, that the march towards sonic purity would continue and that personal audio would always benefit. That has not happened since probably the mid 80's.

CDs are constantly being mastered hotter and hotter, to the point where any song from a modern rock or pop album, viewed in an editing program, comes out as a solid block of audio that's 95% clipped, with no dynamic range at all.

The big leap forward then comes in mp3 format, where the over wrought and sonically crap sounding audio is then digitally compressed to remove the parts some algorithm thinks we humans can't hear, resulting in even more sonic destruction. Then it's played on the lowest common denominator (iPod) with cheap Chinese amplifiers and limited response earbuds.

Now we have satellite and "HD" radio, neither of which does the music they play justice. Even at their highest quality (HD with no subchannels, XM before they signed up the MLB) they were no match for a good quality mp3, itself no match for a typical CD, itself no match for a random K-Tel album from the 80's.

This is progress?

 

[Savage]

Pardon me for bringing up ancient history again, but I invite anyone to check out V-Discs.

V-Discs were recorded during the AFM strike from about 1943-49 to provide entertainment for overseas troops hungry to hear the latest hits. The union shut down all commercial recording in the US for almost two years at the height of the war. The War Department got the AFM honcho James Petrillo to agree to new recordings so long as they weren't sold or broadcast and the records were destroyed when hostilities ceased. The Feds made good on their promise with a vengeance, actually prosecuting veterans who smuggled V-Discs home after the war - most V-Discs were confiscated and destroyed, making them extreme rarities today.

V-Discs were the first mass-produced pressings in vinylite, since most shellac records would have broken in transport and the lac-producing regions were in the hands of the Japanese. Vinyl made much higher frequency response and dynamic range possible with the quieter surfaces, so engineers started processing the discs with response up to 10 kHz (shellac commercial pressings of the era generally cut off at a noisy 5 kHz.) Many historians point to V-Discs as the beginning of the modern push towards high fidelity sound for the home, as servicemen brought home knowledge from the V-Discs and advanced electronics in communications and sound.

V-Discs were 78 rpm - I had thought they were vertical-cut, but some quick research reveals they were conventional lateral-cut. Some of the releases were recycled commercial records, but the original performances - when you get clean, unworn examples - produced recordings unexcelled until the advent of CDs. The presence and naturalness are eerie in the absence of the usual 78 rpm surface noise, with the V-Discs' extended range and high recording speed. Some observers claim V-Discs inspired English Decca (London) to launch their commercial "ffRR" (Full Frequency Range Reproduction) 78 rpm records which, even though pressed in conventional shellac, produced high frequency response to about 8 khz.

There was no tape recording in the mid-1940s, so the original-performance V-Discs were 78 rpm direct-to-disc, as was all recording of the period. Of course they were mono. But I think clean original versions beat the sound of many LPs. They are amazing to hear (and be careful about the CD compilations commercially available today. The digitization and noise reduction used in mastering often removes the "soul" as discussed by Carmine.) Some of today's modern CDs of V-Discs just sound like bland, kinda nice clean old records - nothing like the originals.

 

[R.F. Burns]

Pardon me for bringing up ancient history again, but I invite anyone to check out V-Discs.

V-Discs were recorded during the AFM strike from about 1943-49 to provide entertainment for overseas troops hungry to hear the latest hits. The union shut down all commercial recording in the US for almost two years at the height of the war. The War Department got the AFM honcho James Petrillo to agree to new recordings so long as they weren't sold or broadcast and the records were destroyed when hostilities ceased. The Feds made good on their promise with a vengeance, actually prosecuting veterans who smuggled V-Discs home after the war - most V-Discs were confiscated and destroyed, making them extreme rarities today.

V-Discs were the first mass-produced pressings in vinylite, since most shellac records would have broken in transport and the lac-producing regions were in the hands of the Japanese. Vinyl made much higher frequency response and dynamic range possible with the quieter surfaces, so engineers started processing the discs with response up to 10 kHz (shellac commercial pressings of the era generally cut off at a noisy 5 kHz.) Many historians point to V-Discs as the beginning of the modern push towards high fidelity sound for the home, as servicemen brought home knowledge from the V-Discs and advanced electronics in communications and sound.

V-Discs were 78 rpm - I had thought they were vertical-cut, but some quick research reveals they were conventional lateral-cut. Some of the releases were recycled commercial records, but the original performances - when you get clean, unworn examples - produced recordings unexcelled until the advent of CDs. The presence and naturalness are eerie in the absence of the usual 78 rpm surface noise, with the V-Discs' extended range and high recording speed. Some observers claim V-Discs inspired English Decca (London) to launch their commercial "ffRR" (Full Frequency Range Reproduction) 78 rpm records which, even though pressed in conventional shellac, produced high frequency response to about 8 khz.

There was no tape recording in the mid-1940s, so the original-performance V-Discs were 78 rpm direct-to-disc, as was all recording of the period. Of course they were mono. But I think clean original versions beat the sound of many LPs. They are amazing to hear (and be careful about the CD compilations commercially available today. The digitization and noise reduction used in mastering often removes the "soul" as discussed by Carmine.) Some of today's modern CDs of V-Discs just sound like bland, kinda nice clean old records - nothing like the originals.

I have quite a few original V-Discs and while they are no longer in mint or near mint condition (I've had them for over 40 years now and remember when they were in better condition), they never sounded as good as was described above. The discs were manufactured to be drop shipped to war locations around the world along with a wind up phonograph & a bunch of those old steel needles. Some of the early V-Discs (There were both army and navy versions. The one's being released on CD now used the navy discs as their source) were manufactured using shellac. I have a Sinatra V-Disc on shellac. One of the issues with using shellac, outside of supply, was that they didn't hold up well in the field due to their brittle nature. I will not continue the analog/digital debate here which I would have hoped ended in the 1980's. I own High End audio equipment, including a Mac amp, moving coil cartridge, high end interconnects and on and on. I also have equally good digital equipment and I have to say that while the LP's and 45's do sound good, even though pops and clicks are inevitable (even though I do use a vacuum record cleaner), most CD's sound quieter and cleaner. A good CD has been transferred from the original master tape and not a third or fourth generation 2 track tape. LP's require RIAA equalization and sometimes the use of such encoding causes problems because the encoder and decoder aren't perfectly aligned. That's one of the problems with the use of Dolby encoding. Dolby S can sound fabulous but try making a tape on one machine and playing it back on another. With that said I've drifted away from the discussion. the source for many of the V-Discs was nothing more than a clean 78 and those 78's rarely exceeded 5 KHz at best with horrible s/n by today's standards. Like it or not digital is hear to stay. Yes, some vinyl is still being produced but only for niche audiences. The vinyl LP has gone the way of the horse and buggy and technology marches ahead.

 

[Savage]

In the third paragraph of my post, I made it clear that my observations concerning V-Discs pertained to (a) original recordings, not dubs of shellac 78s; and (b) vinyl pressings which (c) were in good condition. Your explanation about the CD compilations coming from shellac source material makes sense, since none of the CDs reissues I've heard compare with clean vinyl originals.

 

[TheRover]

God Forbid..... but.... in the case of an EMP attack, would the information on your CDs be lost or corrupted ? ?

Then there's those analog records collecting dust on the mantle . . .

 

[LynnW]

Good lord, now you've done it. You just told the record industry how to preserve their antiquated business model; EMP everyone's hard drives, mp3 players, etc. They'll be back to selling shellac to play on wind up Victrolas.

 

[Savage]

Yeah!! Hey, have you got any spare steel needles? I wanna listen to the new J-LO....

 

[Tom Wells]

Yeah!! Hey, have you got any spare steel needles? I wanna listen to the new J-LO....

Those steel needles are harsh...what you want is the "mellow" sound of real Cactus needles.
Won't EVER wear out your records, and don't need changing each play..
They also diminish surface noise, and they're totally "green" technology.

Perhaps Dr. Akbar in Phx can ship some.

 

[Savage]

Yeah, I'll need to source those. I can't remember the last time I saw a cactus growing up here in Rochester. It's been a while.

Maybe I should head up to the north side or shuffle off to Buffalo and scoop up a few handfuls of used heroin needles. Just snip off the last inch or so with cutters. Toxic hits!!!

 

[Chuck]

Yeah!! Hey, have you got any spare steel needles? I wanna listen to the new J-LO....

I own a steel needle sharpener. It will also work on cactus. Really. They were a popular accessory for the Victrola enthusiast. Unlike some newer technology, it actually works.

You can call me old fashioned, if you like.... ;D

 

[Ai4i]

Was it during the Hitler administration in Deutchland that wire recorders, the predecessor (sp?) of tape recorders came out?

 

[Chuck]

Was it during the Hitler administration in Deutchland that wire recorders, the predecessor (sp?) of tape recorders came out?

In one form or another, wire recorders have been around for a long time. As I recall, a Dane invented it in the late 1800's. AT&T as well as several others found a use for it in the 1920's and 30's.

It was the Germans who came up with the magnetic tape recorder, but that is an entirely different story.

As far as I know, wire recorders were more or less an industrial item until after WW II. After the war, people would buy anything, and they were marketed to consumers by companies like Webster (later called Webcor), RCA, Magnecord and others until 1/4" tape really took off. These machines sounded about as good as the best 78 RPM records, so when tape became available in the USA, wire recording became a non issue by the mid 1950's.

Tape made its commercial US debut courtesy of Ampex and its big investor, Bing Crosby

 

[Tom Wells]

Was it during the Hitler administration in Deutchland that wire recorders, the predecessor (sp?) of tape recorders came out?

In one form or another, wire recorders have been around for a long time. As I recall, a Dane invented it in the late 1800's. AT&T as well as several others found a use for it in the 1920's and 30's.

It was the Germans who came up with the magnetic tape recorder, but that is an entirely different story.

As far as I know, wire recorders were more or less an industrial item until after WW II. After the war, people would buy anything, and they were marketed to consumers by companies like Webster (later called Webcor), RCA, Magnecord and others until 1/4" tape really took off. These machines sounded about as good as the best 78 RPM records, so when tape became available in the USA, wire recording became a non issue by the mid 1950's.

Tape made its commercial US debut courtesy of Ampex and its big investor, Bing Crosby

The Germans invented tape recording, IIRC it was on paper tape. Iron oxide, literally,a very high grade of red barn paint was used
as the magnetic medium. It worked but not really all that well. It was not until after hostilities ended that the advancemenrs in
recording oxides took off. Somewhere I have new spool of wire for a rcorder, but no wire recorder, I wonder why I never ended up with one....

 

[TheRover]

Maybe I should head up to the north side or shuffle off to Buffalo and scoop up a few handfuls of used heroin needles. Just snip off the last inch or so with cutters.

"I've seen the Needle, and the Damage done . . ." :'(

 

[Savage]

The Germans developed the first practical tape recording system called the Magnetophon. It figured tactically in the closing months of WW2, when German high command officers were heard by the Allies in what sounded like live broadcasts. This produced some tactical errors when SHAEF commanders mistakenly assumed the Germans were at the radio studios when in fact they were elsewhere (the absence of disc noise misled the Allies.) Upon postwar occupation the Allies found the Magnetophon equipment, solving the "how could they be in two places at once?" mystery whereupon the technology was sent back to the states to be rapidly redeveloped and refined in the US.

Tape recording was immediately embraced by none other than Bing Crosby, who preferred to record his broadcasts so the best performances could be selected and edited. He ran into a brick wall at CBS and NBC which had policies at the time against pre-recording shows, largely because of quality issues with disc recording. ABC was more lenient, and then Bing discovered tape. He invested heavily in what would become Ampex in Redwood City, Calif.

Wire recorders produced high-quality noise-free recording but rapidly fell out of favor, since the machines and the medium were more complex and troublesome than tape. Stainless steel recording wire was edited by tying the ends in a tiny square-knot (I'm not kidding) plus escape of the medium from its little spools produced a tangled mess that frequently had to be discarded. Plus the high transport speed of 24 ips and the necessity of having a level-winding bobbin mechanism proved problematical for casual users. RCA and others tried to make wire recorders more user-friendly with "magazine loading" design, the forerunner of cassettes, but this further complicated editing. Tape was far simpler to handle and edit and it was easier to produce relatively low-cost machines for consumer use.

 

[TheRover]

Sometimes you gotta dust off an old record and play it to remember what all-analog sounds like. Then stuff like FM HD or satellite radio or Pandora, they suddenly sound pretty ratty!

Yes the LP record which has been surpassed by so many technological "improvements" is by far the best sounding recording medium in my experience.

I can just see it now.... sometime in the next 10-20 years, some grand-kid, some great grand-kid, is going to visit their elderly grand-parent, that grew up on great sounding LP's from the 60's and 70's, and gramps will put on an LP, on that "funny looking contraption", and fire up the Marantz Receiver, and that young tween/teen will hear some "real" music for the very first time in their lives, and realize that they have the coolest grand-pa in the World ! ! !

And I think the first LP gramps should play for their teen, who's never heard anyhting but MP3s, is "Who's Next".

 

[KB1OKL]

When I want to impress someone with the sound of an LP I'll usually either play the aforementioned Aja LP or Sonny Rollin's The bridge. That LP sounds so good even non jazz fans are impressed.