Bernie Grundman tells it like it is----great video---lots to unpack

[tima]

I know nothing about classical recordings.

Regarding re-issue of classical music, what’s the impediment for getting them to sound as good, or almost as good, as the originals? It is all about the mastering engineer? I assume many of the master tapes are still available?

I cannot pinpoint where in the reproduction chain the limitation exists. As in this thread people point to differences that enter with the use of digital tools. I suspect the knowledge base is one limiting factor. Are engineers trained to work entirely in the analog domain? Probably not if they want a job.

Most likely it's money. In the 50's thru 60's classical music was huge with expenditures as recording companies signed conductors, artists and orchestras to recording contracts. Stereo was new and captured listeners imaginations. Coming out of the radio age there was an interest in growing home music reproduction. Sound engineers like Wilma Cozart were interested in achieving high quality recordings and it was a time of innovation. As technology changed and with the rise of mass market media a fair amount of that early talent died off and artistry and trade secrets were lost.

 

[ddk]

Unfortunately the very few who have a preference for "Natural Sound TM" never were able to address it using a language that could be understood by audiophiles. What do you expect?

You're the professor, you came up with "Natural Sound TM", educate them!

Well, there are many known audio scholars who have contributed to understanding of stereo, writing great articles and books. As well as tens of designers with known work and known preferences.

We weren't talking about those scholars and designers, you posed a very specific question and I asked specifically who, because I never heard it mentioned in this way and I'm pretty sure I never had a conversation with any of your preferred scholars about natural sound.

In fact I think that what you call "natural sound" is just what many people, including audio scholars, call a "preference".

The point is that Lamm is known current gear and many people have access or experience with it. Much more interesting to address than your approved vintage electronics, that very few know about.

Which vintage electronics Francisco, I never recommended any.

Yes, the SMEs and turntables are easy to find and cheap. But I was considering electronics.

Ok.

david

 

[microstrip]

You're the professor, you came up with "Natural Sound TM", educate them!

I came up with the "Natural Sound TM" to avoid confusion with the use of "natural" as used, for example by Harry Pearson and 99% of the high-end manufacturers, long before WBF debates.

We weren't talking about those scholars and designers, you posed a very specific question and I asked specifically who, because I never heard it mentioned in this way and I'm pretty sure I never had a conversation with any of your preferred scholars about natural sound.

Just used them as reference to make clear to you what I was meaning by preference.

Which vintage electronics Francisco, I never recommended any.

Ok, let us stay just with Lamm. What makes them sound natural TM?

 

[microstrip]

I know nothing about classical recordings.

Regarding re-issue of classical music, what’s the impediment for getting them to sound as good, or almost as good, as the originals? It is all about the mastering engineer? I assume many of the master tapes are still available?

Reading reviews we find that many people prefer the re-issues to originals - just read the reviews, many are freely available on the net, authors often compare them. Surely it is a personnel preference.

A real problem with the re-issues can be the condition on the master tapes. Some times a good safety copy of the master tape offers better quality than the original master.

 

[ddk]

I came up with the "Natural Sound TM" to avoid confusion with the use of "natural" as used, for example by Harry Pearson and 99% of the high-end manufacturers, long before WBF debates.

That's fine but what does it mean and how's it different from actual natural sound? I never heard of such a thing as Natural Sound TM some here refer to it as some sort of a cult, did you create for them?

Just used them as reference to make clear to you what I was meaning by preference.

You and I are having a conversation I still don't know who "them" are or what relevance "them" have to this conversation.

Ok, let us stay just with Lamm. What makes them sound natural TM?

You have to take the lead here Francisco because I still don't know what your natural TM is, Vladimir would ask what is it?
You own plenty of Lamm gear should be easy to explain your natural TM phenomenon. Please be precise and clear about your distinction with natural sound used in Harry Pearson's TAS for this Lamm review to avoid confusion as you put it.

Here are a couple of references to natural sound from the review as examples so you don't get confused discussing your Natural TM.

"The ML2.2 is so natural, organic, and musically right-"

"The ML2.2 is utterly natural, organic, and free from any hint of electronic haze."

Lamm ML2.2 Single-Ended Triode Amplifier - The Absolute Sound

Lamm ML2.2 Single-Ended Triode Amplifier -

www.theabsolutesound.com

david

 

[bonzo75]

Reading reviews we find that many people prefer the re-issues to originals - just read the reviews, many are freely available on the net, authors often compare them. Surely it is a personnel preference.

No they don’t. Those who have such preferences mention originals without actually showing which LPs they mean. The problem here is they are sourcing the wrong LP. For example there is documented evidence on this forum that you do not know how to use discogs to look up a version. How will you know what original to source?

anyway. Listen to the video Mike posted. It will explain you why you, and the random reviews you referred to above will be wrong

 

[adrianywu]

I cannot pinpoint where in the reproduction chain the limitation exists. As in this thread people point to differences that enter with the use of digital tools. I suspect the knowledge base is one limiting factor. Are engineers trained to work entirely in the analog domain? Probably not if they want a job.

Most likely it's money. In the 50's thru 60's classical music was huge with expenditures as recording companies signed conductors, artists and orchestras to recording contracts. Stereo was new and captured listeners imaginations. Coming out of the radio age there was an interest in growing home music reproduction. Sound engineers like Wilma Cozart were interested in achieving high quality recordings and it was a time of innovation. As technology changed and with the rise of mass market media a fair amount of that early talent died off and artistry and trade secrets were lost.

The way classical music is now recorded and marketed is very different from the old days when there were powerful producers such as Walter Legg signing on leading artists and managing the whole process from contract negotiations to selecting the music to doing the recording to producing the LPs and finally distribution and sales. I know a number of young musicians and several freelance recording engineers. The major labels often do not have their own recording team and outsource the work to the lowest bidder. Orchestral time is expensive and there is therefore limited time for rehearsals. The recording sessions are kept as short as possible. Unless the engineer is extremely familiar with the venue and the orchestra, it is impossible to do it the way Decca, Mercury etc. used to do. In other words, using a few microphones and spending a lot of time adjusting the microphone positions, the seating of the players etc. to optimise the balance. I have been involved with a few of these sessions and they basically place the microphones seemingly at random, sometimes one microphone per player, and then record multitrack. I asked one of the engineers the reason for placing the microphones the way they were placed and he could not give an explanation. The tracks are then mixed post-production. WIth this approach, it is impossible to avoid phase cancellations and to preserve the natural ambience of the venue. Many young artists have to pay for the recording expenses themselves, and the record label gets a cut of the revenue. The poor artists are responsible for most of the financial risk. My friends and I have done recordings pro-bono for some young artists, and they only had to pay for the hall rental. Contrast this with the amount of expenses and care Decca put into their Solti Wagner Ring cycle, for example, and one can see why it is now rare to find new recordings up to the standard of the old Deccas, RCAs, Mercurys and EMIs.

 

[tima]

Contrast this with the amount of expenses and care Decca put into their Solti Wagner Ring cycle, for example, and one can see why it is now rare to find new recordings up to the standard of the old Deccas, RCAs, Mercurys and EMIs.

So... money.

Have you read


Good post!

 

[astrotoy]

Yes, but a lot of recordings were made in RBCD standard. Those can be completely written off. And at least for classical, the major labels are no longer putting in anywhere near the resources they have put in during the analogue era. I asked my son why he is listening to Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin etc., and he said that nothing produced nowadays is anywhere close to the quality of the music from the 60s and 70s (for rock anyway). And are there any recording engineers today with the same skill level as Kenneth Wilkinson, Roy Wallace, Gordon Parry, Bob Fine, Lewis Layton or Christopher Parker ? The best we can hope for are well remastered high rez digitalised versions of the analogue classics from the golden era.

Adrian, very true. Unfortunately, some of the greatest tapes from the golden era have seen their better days. Many of the Decca tapes were transferred to digital, but at lower resolution - many at 96/24 or lower. So the reissues come from those files. There are safety masters of many of these recordings (at 15ips 2 track, often Dolby A encoded), but they are typically not in the hands of Decca (Universal). Chad Kassam has access to many original RCA tapes which he has used for both his vinyl and tape reissues.

Starting in the late '70's Decca used their home built (based on JVC video recorder) 48/16 digital system. These were the source of most of the classical recordings that were released in the 1980's. No analogue tapes were made of these. However, Polygram, which bought Decca did release them as CD's at 44/16. I think the 48/16 vinyls are better sounding than the 44/16 CD's.

Larry

 

[adrianywu]

Adrian, very true. Unfortunately, some of the greatest tapes from the golden era have seen their better days. Many of the Decca tapes were transferred to digital, but at lower resolution - many at 96/24 or lower. So the reissues come from those files. There are safety masters of many of these recordings (at 15ips 2 track, often Dolby A encoded), but they are typically not in the hands of Decca (Universal). Chad Kassam has access to many original RCA tapes which he has used for both his vinyl and tape reissues.

Starting in the late '70's Decca used their home built (based on JVC video recorder) 48/16 digital system. These were the source of most of the classical recordings that were released in the 1980's. No analogue tapes were made of these. However, Polygram, which bought Decca did release them as CD's at 44/16. I think the 48/16 vinyls are better sounding than the 44/16 CD's.

Larry

Nothing can compare with the analogue non-Dolby master tapes from the 1950s and 60s. A bit more hiss, but much more transparent and "alive". The Dolby encoded tapes always sound a bit washed out and opaque to me.
The Russian GDRZ archive has a rich collection of master tapes from the major Western labels, since they were in charge of the issues at the Soviet bloc countries in those days.

 

[adrianywu]

So... money.

Have you read
View attachment 97385

Good post!

Thanks for the recommendation. A must read for me !

 

[bonzo75]

Some highlights that I have paraphrased below from the video:

When transferred to digital, subtle resonances and overtones and ambience information can get lost. Digital has a problem with lower volume and can lose information at lower volume. This gives the appearance of cleaner sound, but that is because information is lost.

The more conversions you do to digital, back to analog, etc, the more things begin to sound the same. This is because the processing sound is being added to the core sound and that processing artifact is making things sound the same.

Manipulations on digital can be heard. Ambiences and naturalness at the top end is what goes downhill first.

He doesn't trust many HD downloads claiming to be at 192, because the original was at 44.1

It is not easy to make a record. From after finishing the lacquer to the pressing, there are many things that can wrong. In the last 10 years as the industry boomed there are many pressing plants that can get it wrong. There is a lot of backlog due to demand, 4 - 5 months. Some plants to make things quiet might smear the top end or take it off. Some polish the record. Some pressing plants have a signature. The polish makes it look shiny all the time but affected sound.

Mastering and cutting is an art form, it is not taught, and depends on experience as the person has to solve problems and make decisions on how to fix issues to make things sound right without losing much information.

At the very start BG says we don't have a way of measuring a complex signal like music except your ears. Things like harmonic distortion or intermodulation distortion are very simple measures but you cannot use them to substitute your ears. The others agree. Also says you have to compare. Whether its wires, or amps.

-

 

[tima]

That's in sync with Iving's synopsis. Thanks Bonzo.

 

[bonzo75]

Some highlights that I have paraphrased below from the video:

When transferred to digital, subtle resonances and overtones and ambience information can get lost. Digital has a problem with lower volume and can lose information at lower volume. This gives the appearance of cleaner sound, but that is because information is lost.

The more conversions you do to digital, back to analog, etc, the more things begin to sound the same. This is because the processing sound is being added to the core sound and that processing artifact is making things sound the same.

Manipulations on digital can be heard. Ambiences and naturalness at the top end is what goes downhill first.

He doesn't trust many HD downloads claiming to be at 192, because the original was at 44.1

It is not easy to make a record. From after finishing the lacquer to the pressing, there are many things that can wrong. In the last 10 years as the industry boomed there are many pressing plants that can get it wrong. There is a lot of backlog due to demand, 4 - 5 months. Some plants to make things quiet might smear the top end or take it off. Some polish the record. Some pressing plants have a signature. The polish makes it look shiny all the time but affected sound.

Mastering and cutting is an art form, it is not taught, and depends on experience as the person has to solve problems and make decisions on how to fix issues to make things sound right without losing much information.

At the very start BG says we don't have a way of measuring a complex signal like music except your ears. Things like harmonic distortion or intermodulation distortion are very simple measures but you cannot use them to substitute your ears. The others agree. Also says you have to compare. Whether its wires, or amps.

-

Couple more points.

Loudness sounds less good but has commercial demand.

Jazz records are commercially more successful than classical or classic rock

 

[PeterA]

Reading reviews we find that many people prefer the re-issues to originals - just read the reviews, many are freely available on the net, authors often compare them. Surely it is a personnel preference.

A real problem with the re-issues can be the condition on the master tapes. Some times a good safety copy of the master tape offers better quality than the original master.

Preference or marketing. I prefer to listen for myself. Reviewers may want to satisfy their advertisers. And some reviews clearly state that the latest newest release is the next best available after the original. That’s convenient and sometimes true. Some of the reissues are dead quiet but the sound is dead too.

Few of my vinyl friends ever prefer a re-issue to an original based on direct comparisons. It’s not always the remastering, it’s often the quality of the final formulation and thickness.

 

[PeterA]

Ok, let us stay just with Lamm. What makes them sound natural TM?

I think for many it’s simply an observation that they do sound more natural. The why is less important. Perhaps the difficulty is coming to grips with the sound and trying to describe it. The more successful attempts are those that describe what they hear while referencing actual live music. Much can be learned from reading Tim’s reviews of LAMM products. So many other reviews refer to competing electronics and reference audio file attributes.

The TM designation is insulting and very distracting from the substance of the debate. Natural sound is simply an approach to system building and set up with a reference in mind. There is a target and a way to reach it.

 

[tima]

Ok, let us stay just with Lamm. What makes them sound natural TM?

The genius of Vladimir Lamm. You already know his story.

 

[bonzo75]

This was a nice thread started by Mike and we should be discussing the points made by the YT panel and offshoots not going back to making it a regular NS Lamm discussion with micro.

 

[ddk]

This was a nice thread started by Mike and we should be discussing the points made by the YT panel and offshoots not going back to making it a regular NS Lamm discussion with micro.

I agree that Francisco's Natural TM has no relevance here but Bernie's comments about natural sound and ambience are germane. You obviously have someone who's fully conscious about the importance of preserving ambience fro realism and natural sound so we can assume his masters are good and contain that information. Question is why and where does it all go to hell in production process that we end up with dead, flat sounding records, exactly what he wants to avoid. I'm pretty certain there are contributing issues with vinyl formulation and the ridiculous thickness of the pressings but I wonder if there's additional filtering and EQ happening post master.

david

 

[bonzo75]

I agree that Francisco's Natural TM has no relevance here but Bernie's comments about natural sound and ambience are germane. You obviously have someone who's fully conscious about the importance of preserving ambience fro realism and natural sound so we can assume his masters are good and contain that information. Question is why and where does it all go to hell in production process that we end up with dead, flat sounding records, exactly what he wants to avoid. I'm pretty certain there are contributing issues with vinyl formulation and the ridiculous thickness of the pressings but I wonder if there's additional filtering and EQ happening post master.

david

in the reissues I have heard classic records are still the better ones. Testament, speakers corner, analogphonic not so much

he also mentioned a lot in lost from the lacquer to the pressing