Re: [ARSCLIST] IRENE article

["Milan P. Milovanovic" <mijel@xxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I've downloaded stylus and optical version of Chattanooga Blues - Ida Cox,
placed on the mentioned site, and have huge disappointment by the
method of doing some nasty things with mechanically reproduced material -
disturbing scratches that can be heard during loud passages are, in fact,
not inherent in analog reproduction, but they are awful DIGITAL CLIPS, 
probably
generated by someone not so well skilled in restoration/digitization
process! Despite that fact, analog/mechanical transfer to my ears is far 
more superior
than optical one - anyone heard muffled voice and high frequency whistling
and other disturbances in opticaly transfered record?

So, if we are in situation to decide what works better, still I will wrote
for mechanical process! None of the characteristic of optical process, or
overall sounds proves optical is superior than mechanical (OK, I know that
IRENE is in prime early stage of development, but someone must see the
advantage to push things further).

But, speaking of not-contact process, for transfer of valuable, rare and
hard to find another copy material, IRENE is priceless.

I'm in hope that things can be better, and they will sound better, when
additional researches will put some new light on geometry of the grooves
themselves, and facts that grooves are not damaged alongside theirs 
profile...

Best wishes,
Milan

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Aaron Levinson" <aaron.levinson@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 1:09 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] IRENE article


> I must wholeheartedly agree with Marcos. In many ways the IRENE version
> sounds inferior, the definition of her voice and the overall
> intelligibility of the vocal seems considerably worse and the piano sounds
> like there is a pillow over the instrument. However, the fact that the
> record was not played and further degraded by the process is obviously a
> breakthrough from a preservation perspective. I am sure that by tweaking
> the algorithm further that the clearly superior qualities of the stylus
> version will be incorporated as the technology matures. What I am most
> impressed with was the surprisingly excellent resolution of the original
> acoustical recording made in 1923...subtract the noise artifacts and it
> sounds a lot like an MP3 from iTunes carved in 2007.
>
> Aaron