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Re: [ARSCLIST] early CD bashing
Hi Phillip:
All of what you said is true, but many if not most very early CD's were mastered poorly, often not
from the original master tapes. Remember that the very first generation of CD's came from Japan and
Germany, because that was where manufacturing plants were. Many masters were made from whatever
master tape existed in-country, which was often not the original. I've been told numerous stories
about what was used, and also how sloppy the mastering was in a rush to get as much product on the
market as quickly as possible.
When the Mercury Living Presence reissue project started, it was definitely NOT the norm to track
down original master tapes, play them back on restored original equipment (or an excellent,
well-adjusted and skillfully-maintained modern substitute), and use a very direct chain from the
tape to the digital master. And, requesting quality-control samples from every manufacturing line at
the plant was unheard of. The rock and jazz guys felt much more free to turn knobs and adjust
everything from EQ to dynamics between the tape and the digital master. Furthermore, they were
content to master right into Sonic Solutions, which was not the practice for the MLP CD's (in all
cases except where Sonic was absolutely necessary to fix various problems, they were mastered Tape
[Ampex 300-3] >> 3-2 mixdown console [Westrex custom board] >> A-D converter [brand escapes me but
it's British and I believe is 3 letters] >> Sony 3/4" digital mastering system). When this careful
method of remastering paid big dividends from healthy returns on investment, other companies took
notice and this became more the norm.
Yes, for sure, a few careful people had been doing this or something akin all along, but most of the
big label folks were just sloppily rushing product to market. I'm not into conspiracy theories, but
one could argue this was a calculated strategy to get a double-dip out of the CD medium -- do it
really quick and dirty the first time and then go back 10 years later and do a "deluxe remaster" at
a higher price point. I could rattle off a long list of albums for which this was done! In fact, I
was just today comparing an original issue (1984) Led Zep CD with a recent reissue done right by
Jimmy Page himself. The difference is amazing. The original CD sounded much worse to my ears than
the original-era LP (dead-sounding, noisy, not enough bass, bad dynamics). All of that was fixed in
the recent reissue and Page was still hearing-OK enough not to "toothpaste" the remaster with
over-compression.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "phillip holmes" <insuranceman@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 5:48 PM
Subject: [ARSCLIST] early CD bashing
I've had recent experiences where 20 year old CDs, that originally sounded like glass being ground
up in a blender, sound just fine. I'm talking about CDs mastered in the mid '80s. Many early CD
players had resolution closer to 14 bits than 16. That was coupled with brick wall filters that
introduced phase shift in the audible spectrum (brick wall filters are dumb) and they had lots of
jitter. Also, most were built with the same awful op-amps and tantalum/electrolytic coupling caps
that the cheapest consumer receivers used. It's no wonder that folks damned the CD as an awful
medium. It was at the time. They were auditioned against four figure vinyl front ends through
ultra-fi preamps and amps that will show any shortcomings. Many used ribbon tweeters (I have
Magnapans that use a 3' long true ribbon tweeter and it reveals mistracking and
distortio--ruthlessly). But even cheap modern players can get decent sound out of those old CDs.
I have a friend who still has a modified Magnavox player from the late '80s. The op-amp output
was replaced with discrete FETs and the power supply was modded with lower ESR caps and bypassed
with polypropylene caps. It still plays fine and sounds nearly as good as my cheap combi-player.
Phillip