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Re: [ARSCLIST] early CD bashing
I don't think the incompetence was purposeful. I think the screwed
up/missing/wrong tape situation was just a continuation of LP era
practices. Most first pressings sound better than reissues because they
were usually mastered from a decent tape. There are more awful sounding
LPs than CDs.
On the other hand, fitting 40 minutes on a CD, then reissuing it a
couple years later with bonus tracks IS suspect.
Phillip
Tom Fine wrote:
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