Re: [ARSCLIST] CD-DA to .wav

[Rob Poretti <r.poretti@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Actually a third question might be:

Has the original tape masters deteriorated over the last decade?

I would also suggest that 16/44.1 is not a huge issue.  However, the quality of A/D
converters has dramatically improved in the past decade and if you had to concern yourself
with one item that would affect the overall audio quality of a digital master, it is the
A/D.

As Richard points out, the playback device is very important as well...

Cheers!

Rob Poretti
Sascom - Toronto
vox.905.825.5373    fax.905.469.1129     cel.905.580.2467
www.sascom.com    www.cube-tec.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List 
> [mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Richard L. Hess
> Sent: April 27, 2007 9:55 AM
> To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] CD-DA to .wav
> 
> 
> Hello, Kevin,
> 
> There are two things to consider:
> (1) Does 44.1/16 represent any quality loss from the original? Since 
> you say they are spoken word recordings, I would suggest that if 
> there is any, it is slight.
> (2) Has your tape playback quality increased dramatically over ten 
> years (i.e., were these tapes played on a Wollensak and you 
> now have a Studer)?
> 
> If you don't think you'd get any meaningful quality improvement by 
> investing in 500 hours of re-transfer (while other material then 
> waits), I would go the EAC route. Give the discs to a good clerical 
> person, train them in the use of EAC, save the log files and you 
> review them (note that errors can be caused at track transitions for 
> some reason w/o ultimately affecting the quality of transfer). I 
> would suspect that in 100 hours of clerical time and less than 500 
> minutes of your time it would be done.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Richard
> 
> At 09:22 AM 2007-04-27, Ganesh.Irelan@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> >         Ten years ago, the organization I am with was reformatting
> > to 1/4" analog as preservation master and CD-DA for security backup 
> > and access.  Now, I have a question.  We need to either recopy the 
> > stuff already done to 1/4" while the originals are still 
> > viable  (about 500 hours of material).  Or, we can extract to .wav 
> > from the discs.  Since the discs were done as security backups 
> > their quality was checked with a Clover Systems analyzer which 
> > means we have documentation demonstrating their superior 
> > quality.  Aside from their being 16 / 44.1k what does everyone 
> > think of such a scenario? Obviously the reason we want to do this 
> > is cost.  I would use Exact Audio Copy to assure error-free 
> > extractions.  These are spoken word recordings.
> >
> >         Thank you.
> >         Kevin Irelan
> 
> Richard L. Hess                   email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Aurora, Ontario, Canada       (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
> Detailed contact information: 
> http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
> Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes. 
> 
>