Lampizator DSD DAC

[bmoura]

On the contrary, it's a very good analogy. Because recording engineers have much more power than mastering engineers, who have to work with the original recording, and no mastering process will make a stellar product out of the recording sabotaged by incompetent recording engineers. Ask a mastering engineer. And yet it's no reason to not use the best possible mastering any time.

If you start with the original Analog Master Tapes, it can be surprising how much better a remastered edition can be vs. the original. There are certainly a number of examples of that on the market today.
So the source of a new edition of an album and the remastering and transfer engineer can play a key role as well.

 

[bmoura]

Poor analogies though guys. At the mastering level there is much more power...indeed the release format and resolution is decided there as well. The point is that if FORMAT is relatively marginal, then why is all the focus there when the butchering is upstream? At least MQN purports to UNDO the ill-effects of the ADC filter done at the upstream studio level. That intuitively seems to be a more productive avenue to pursue.

Chain of custody seems to be where its at. When all that is assured, THEN I want the best resolution feasible in the format that correspondes to the recording equipment used, ie PCM origin or DSD/Tape origin.

As this is a DSD Dac thread...let me plunk for DSD everytime. LoL

The remastering engineer is not the one who determines the release format. But once that decision is made by the artist, record label, reissue record label, etc. the remastering and transfer engineer can have an impact if the engineer has access to the original album tapes and has the equipment to do so.

 

[Andre Marc]

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=131665.0

Discussion here.

Thanks for link.

 

[Andre Marc]

It was disappointing to see Lukasz Fikus defending low-res/CD digital audio, but then again, he was always a big fan of redbook cd, wasn't he? Old habits die hard I guess...

They how on earth can you be hocking supposedly the best sounding hi rez dac around if you do not even believe in it.

 

[Andre Marc]

Why does it always have to be about what is more important? Why not have both? It's such a waste of great mastering to have it truncated to 16bit/44k resolution.

But you do realize that most new rock and pop projects are recorded at (24 bit) 44.1 or 48 Khz?

Some artists are using 88.2 and 96, but not the majority. So there is really not much truncation going on in most cases.

 

[Hiro]

If you start with the original Analog Master Tapes, it can be surprising how much better a remastered edition can be vs. the original.

While it's of course true that good mastering of an original recording can make the recording to sound better, re-mastering will only get you so far. There many things that can't be corrected after the recording was made, during re/mastering.

 

[Hiro]

But you do realize that most new rock and pop projects are recorded at (24 bit) 44.1 or 48 Khz?

Some artists are using 88.2 and 96, but not the majority. So there is really not much truncation going on in most cases.

True. And if you record in 16bit/44.1kHz there's no truncation at all. But it's not an argument for using such recorders/ADCs

 

[bmoura]

While it's of course true that good mastering of an original recording can make the recording to sound better, re-mastering will only get you so far. There many things that can't be corrected after the recording was made, during re/mastering.

Some of the recent Analog to DSD transfers do get you pretty far. Glad to see more companies waking up to that and providing them!

 

[Andre Marc]

True. And if you record in 16bit/44.1kHz there's no truncation at all. But it's not an argument for using such recorders/ADCs

ABSOLUTELY! No reason to use 44.1 Khz for ANYTHING anymore. The fact is this is done sometimes because of all the stupid Pro Tools plugins they use and they want speed of processing. I can't see any reason for a project to recorded at anything less than 96 khz.

 

[wisnon]

On the contrary, it's a very good analogy. Because recording engineers have much more power than mastering engineers, who have to work with the original recording, and no mastering process will make a stellar product out of the recording sabotaged by incompetent recording engineers. Ask a mastering engineer. And yet it's no reason to not use the best possible mastering any time.



MQA will save us all haha. Yeah right. Do you believe it?

From what I know it only tries to compress the size of a hi-rez PCM file, but its use is not really necessary, as disk space isn't really a problem.

No, I dont buy all that MQN is selling, BUT, its more than just compression...at least according to their official line.. They have researched the small universe of ADCs used in recording the signal to digital and have noted the damage done by the relatively primitive filters used back in the day. They now claim they can REVERSE this damage with processing and apply newer, more competent filter tech to the music before compressing to MQN standard. This means they can also theoretically combat the loudness war and give us back full dynamics to boot.

Whether they do all that in reality, I dunno, but at least the idea is there to do it.

 

[wisnon]

But you do realize that most new rock and pop projects are recorded at (24 bit) 44.1 or 48 Khz?

Some artists are using 88.2 and 96, but not the majority. So there is really not much truncation going on in most cases.

Given that MOST material out there is RBCD, we cant ignore this segment. MOST of our music collection resides in the RBCD space, unless we are vinyl heads, just a fact of life. Putting focus on quality here will have the BIGGEST impact. The time wasted, even here, debating hires is really wasted when we cant stop the loudness war still afflicting Redbook!


Many will agree that Whitney Houston had an outrageous gift, correct? Well the BEST we have of her legacy so far is RBCD. I totally agree that hires Whitney would be a great thing, but the best we can hope for is someone going back to the digital master and remastering in the best possible format and resolution and alas, that may never happen.

 

[wisnon]

ABSOLUTELY! No reason to use 44.1 Khz for ANYTHING anymore. The fact is this is done sometimes because of all the stupid Pro Tools plugins they use and they want speed of processing. I can't see any reason for a project to recorded at anything less than 96 khz.

I agree to a point, but the CD infrastructure exists and its 16/44 so there is good commercial reason to release material at 16/44. However, in digital form we can and should do better.

 

[Hiro]

No, I dont buy all that MQN is selling, BUT, its more than just compression...at least according to their official line.. They have reserached the small universe of ADCs used in recording the signal and have noted the damage done by the relatively primitive filters used back in the day. they now claim they can REVERSE this damage with processing and apply newer, more competentent foilter tech to the music before compressing to MQN standard. This means they can also theorretically combat the loudness war and give us back full dynamics to boot.

Whetehr they do all that in reality, I dunno, but at least the idea is there to do it.

I'm skeptical about this yet another proprietary audio format....

 

[bmoura]

No, I dont buy all that MQN is selling, BUT, its more than just compression...at least according to their official line.. They have reserached the small universe of ADCs used in recording the signal and have noted the damage done by the relatively primitive filters used back in the day. they now claim they can REVERSE this damage with processing and apply newer, more competentent foilter tech to the music before compressing to MQN standard. This means they can also theorretically combat the loudness war and give us back full dynamics to boot.

Whetehr they do all that in reality, I dunno, but at least the idea is there to do it.

I've heard from some people that attended the Meridian "MQA" demos at CES. They say there was not an opportunity to hear MQA vs. non-MQA on the same track. Tough to draw conclusions on the process in such a demo.

 

[bmoura]

I'm skeptical about this yet another proprietary audio format....

I'm curious how MQA compares to Meridian's earlier Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP) technology. Sounds like it's the next step in their PCM packing technology.

 

[Hiro]

I'm curious how MQA compares to Meridian's earlier Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP) technology. Sounds like it's the next step in their PCM packing technology.

Yes, sounds like another proprietary format from Meridian.

Didn't Neil Young contemplate using it for his Pono service at one point? Apparently, he concluded that the last thing consumers need right now is yet another proprietary format their audio players don't support.

 

[Andre Marc]

I agree to a point, but the CD infrastructure exists and its 16/44 so there is good commercial reason to release material at 16/44. However, in digital form we can and should do better.

Those are two different observations. I do believe the CD is still a valid format worldwide, but I was talking about the tracking, mixing, and mastering end.

 

[bmoura]

I agree to a point, but the CD infrastructure exists and its 16/44 so there is good commercial reason to release material at 16/44. However, in digital form we can and should do better.

That leads you to downloads, since CDs are limited to 16/44.

 

[Andre Marc]

That leads you to downloads, since CDs are limited to 16/44.

see my post above.

 

[wisnon]

Yes, sounds like another proprietary format from Meridian.

Didn't Neil Young contemplate using it for his Pono service at one point? Apparently, he concluded that the last thing consumers need right now is yet another proprietary format their audio players don't support.

Dont worry, if not widely licensed out for cheap like "Dolby" it will die a quick death, no matter how good it is. There is no commercial room for a new, exclusive format!