Michael Fremer on Audio

[Mike Lavigne]

Is this the one done over 10yr. ago?

If it is, technology has come a long way... even in the past 2yr. For me, master tape and dubs win hands down, though I have heard vinyl come extremely close.
We did recordings at RMAF of master tapes into DSD128fs. They too were close, but definitely a different sound and only distinguishable by doing an A/B comparison. Listening on its own you couldn't tell if it was tape or digital. Well at least I couldn't under those circumstances.

betcha could in your own room. i think i could tell the difference easily at RMAF between the tape and DSD128fs by themselves, but i suppose i might not have been able to. i know i could in my own room where everything is optimized.....assuming i had previously been familiar with the tape.

 

[NorthStar]

---I presume that money is no object here? ...On the reproducing source itself.

...And on the recording side as well.

 

[mep]

I was in Jonathan's room when he played the DSD version of Shelby Lynne and the tape dub. In the few minutes I heard both playing under show conditions, I couldn't tell the difference. Maybe at home it would be totally different because now it is with your own gear and your own room.

 

[Andre Marc]

betcha could in your own room. i think i could tell the difference easily at RMAF between the tape and DSD128fs by themselves, but i suppose i might not have been able to. i know i could in my own room where everything is optimized.....assuming i had previously been familiar with the tape.

Maybe.

 

[Andre Marc]

Is this the one done over 10yr. ago?

If it is, technology has come a long way... even in the past 2yr. For me, master tape and dubs win hands down, though I have heard vinyl come extremely close.
We did recordings at RMAF of master tapes into DSD128fs. They too were close, but definitely a different sound and only distinguishable by doing an A/B comparison. Listening on its own you couldn't tell if it was tape or digital. Well at least I couldn't under those circumstances.

The interview was done after the Stones SACDs hit the market.

I believe much of what he says still applies.

The cost and time required to get an LP right is staggering. Chad Kassem had to invest literally millions. To recoup
his costs, he has to charge all those one percenter audiophiles $50 a pop for his vinyl.

 

[Soundminded]

I don't agree. I think there is some people including me who realized some of the statements you made were factually flawed. And again, I understand you don't like vinyl and you want to pan it. What I don't understand is the statement you made about hearing the same recording via CD and a turntable and hearing no difference between the two. How could that be? How do you explain that?

First of all you're putting words in my mouth I didn't say. If you've read all of my postings somewhere back I said I have about 3000 vinyls and about 3000 CDs, I don't even know anymore. As I am not an audiophile at least in the sense the word is commonly used, I have no emotional attachment to one side or the other of which is better, CD or vinyl. My opinion is based strictly on my experience bearing out what the theory says. For the purpose of storing and retrieving analog electrical signals in the audio passband, the digital electro-optical system based on Redbook CD standards can do anything the analog electro-mechanical system and the analog electromagnetic system can do, the reverse isn't remotely close to true.

This is why the CD and phonograph record sounded the same. They were made from the same tape recording and the phono cartridge/phono preamp combination had the same spectral balance the cd player had. Whatever limitations were inherent in the recording used to make the vinyl appeared in the CD version. You can get a Ferrari to creep along at the same speed as a horse drawn carriage but step on the accelerator of even a Volkswagon Beetle and it will leave the horse cart in the dust.

I've heard a lot of live music in my life, in fact with all the students coming here to take lessons and the string quartet rehearsals nearly every weekend I hear live music practically every day of my life. I've also gone to more live concerts at public venues than I can recall. I know what music sounds like. My hearing is also still very good. The most recent test shows it's still good to at least 16 khz. I've spent the last 23 years trying to become a more attentive and perceptive listener. My current goal is to be able to determine by listening alone the distinction between a Steinway and a Baldwin piano. (I consider recordings of music merely facsimiles of music, not music itself.) And it is my conclusion that in general, the sound from CDs is closer to what I hear from musical instruments than the sounds from vinyl phonograph records. You can argue that my phonograph isn't good enough. If I came to the opposite conclusion others would say my CD player isn't good enough. I don't think either is true. I'm satisfied both do exactly what their designers intended.

 

[MylesBAstor]

I am only communicating what Ludwig found through his own devices.

I always say that the best medium is the original medium..so if it is originally an analog recording the correctly produced
LP might be best, and if it is a DSD recording, SACD will be best, and if it is a higher resolution PCM recording, the download
will probably be best. Those who pay big money for LPs mastered off of digital masters really puzzle me.

The problem in saying DSD is it really DSD or DSD converted to PCM?

'Course if DSD is the cat's meow, how come everyone is crowing about 2XDSD being much better?

 

[MylesBAstor]

---Mmmm... And some of my CDs I can hear the clicks and pops from the turntable (older and bad ones of course); like Led Zeppelin for example.

Myles; how much ($) is all of that that cannot be embarrassed with the Master tapes?
And did you yourself compared with pure DSD, high-res PCM, and dubs (tapes)?

And Mykey, what does he have to say 'bout that?

Bruce?

I would say a sizable investment. I can think of a few combos including the one Mikey and MikeL use. Then again to get really good R2R requires an investment of $5000-10,000.

 

[NorthStar]

---Abbey Road Studios, in London, why are they redoing the EMI classical catalog on SACDs (using PCM processing though) instead of LPs? ...Sony?

 

[MylesBAstor]

I saw him describing the listening panel in a video..which is no longer online..they were listening IN THE STUDIO to the master, then the other formats.

Here is a link to another interview where he says something almost identical.

http://www.musictap.net/Interviews/LudwigBobInterview.html


The whole interview is excellent.

Someday I'll look out my interview with Bob that I wrote for Ultimate Audio

 

[NorthStar]

I would say a sizable investment. I can think of a few combos including the one Mikey and MikeL use. Then again to get really good R2R requires an investment of $5000-10,000.

Ok; turntable, tonearm, cartridge, etc., quite expensive to be truly up there, in auditory nirvana sky high. Plus all the rituals and calibrations, measurements, speed, angle, washing, cleaning,
blah-blah-forever-and-ever ...

R2R; ok, but you know the song, how much (content) is available out there for the common audiophile mortals? ...And the machines too! ...Are they still making R2R tape decks? And are they selling? ...Last time I went to the music store there was no R2R tapes, just USB sticks, few LPs and CDs ... used ones.

SACD; some excellent players around a grand, and the content suits many people like me: Classical music. ...And other genres too; Jazz.
PLUS: Multichannel, not just Stereo.

Myles, you are one-of-a-kind; a niche category of people, an almost extinct one, just like Mikey!

_________________

In life, always find your sources first.
...Be it analog or digital, and go to your limits (without limits) with it. ------ :b

 

[Soundminded]

---Abbey Road Studios, in London, why are they redoing the EMI classical catalog on SACDs (using PCM processing though) instead of LPs? ...Sony?

Now there is one awful recording studio. They invented a trick (or did they copy it from Dick Burwen) where they apply reverberation to only the sibilant parts of speech, the highest frequencies of the human voice. You can hear it on Phantom of the Opera and on many of the pop recordings they made with Kiri Tekanawa. I call it the Abbey Road disease. Absolutely the worst recording idea I can recall.

 

[terryj]

He clearly suggests that he was demonstrating a vinyl rig to a neophyte. How could that possibly be considered his faithful. I raely see any reviewer subject to the attacks Fremer gets. That includes your attcks above.

??

He has an audience, there are people there, in the room, with him, as he records his rant. As such, he is playing to his (willing and no doubt agreeing) audience.

For that reason I do cut him some slack, I can get that a lot of it is tongue in cheek and designed to raise a knowing laugh.

How then, is it an attack?

Now, what term would you use (who agrees with him) to characterise his rant to start the video? Would you call it a fair and reasoned precis of the 'objectivist opinion'? Or perchance an attack, using deliberate exageration and misrepresentation.

So who then, attacked?

 

[NorthStar]

---Just like Mikey said before; it is an humoristic video, a la 'Mikey', that's all. :b
There is nothing to fret about here.

* I'm talkin' to no one in particular; not Terry, and neither Greg.

 

[microstrip]

(...) We did recordings at RMAF of master tapes into DSD128fs. They too were close, but definitely a different sound and only distinguishable by doing an A/B comparison. Listening on its own you couldn't tell if it was tape or digital. Well at least I couldn't under those circumstances.

Bruce,

For the good of science, people from the TapeProject could ask you to record a 5 minute sample in DSD128fs of each of their master tapes and distribute the files to all their subscribers. Then we could write about our comparisons made with their tapes and exchange ours findings at WBF. As I said, just for scientific purposes ...

 

[NorthStar]

---I read few articles before where professional recording engineers were listening and comparing sound quality from the Master tape and LP and CD and SACD reproduction; and most if not all prefer the DSD recording (not converted to PCM), next to the Master tape.

They were not told which one and which one were playing; they simply pick the best according to their own set of ears.

And these type of tests happened several times and from several studios.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Ok; turntable, tonearm, cartridge, etc., quite expensive to be truly up there, in auditory nirvana sky high. Plus all the rituals and calibrations, measurements, speed, angle, washing, cleaning,
blah-blah-forever-and-ever ...

R2R; ok, but you know the song, how much (content) is available out there for the common audiophile mortals? ...And the machines too! ...Are they still making R2R tape decks? And are they selling? ...Last time I went to the music store there was no R2R tapes, just USB sticks, few LPs and CDs ... used ones.

SACD; some excellent players around a grand, and the content suits many people like me: Classical music. ...And other genres too; Jazz.
PLUS: Multichannel, not just Stereo.

Myles, you are one-of-a-kind; a niche category of people, an almost extinct one, just like Mikey!

_________________

In life, always find your sources first.
...Be it analog or digital, and go to your limits (without limits) with it. ------ :b

I think this has recently been covered already in another thread.

But you know what? I would be the first to adopt digital if I felt it was better. It's a hell of a lot easier to use and store CDs/downloads than LPs/tapes. I'm still hopeful that the 2X DSD may eventually be an real audiophile medium.

 

[NorthStar]

---Yeah, in millions of threads all over the Internet; dats fo sur. :b

What else is new and that we can bring? ...Not to only few, but to the majority of the Audiophile community.

 

[Bruce B]

Bruce,
For the good of science, people from the TapeProject could ask you to record a 5 minute sample in DSD128fs of each of their master tapes

Yeah... like that will ever happen!!

 

[Soundminded]

---I read few articles before where professional recording engineers were listening and comparing sound quality from the Master tape and LP and CD and SACD reproduction; and most if not all prefer the DSD recording (not converted to PCM), next to the Master tape.

They were not told which one and which one were playing; they simply pick the best according to their own set of ears.

And these type of tests happened several times and from several studios.

This is the typical audiophile view of things. As I posted earlier, today recording engineers seem to me to often come from the ranks of audiophiles. It was the wrong question. The right question was not which one they liked best but which sounded closest to the original master tape. The answer to that question was the answer to which one makes the best signal storage and retrieval system. The storage medium should not be used as a signal control element. There's much more suitable equipment for that. Using it and other devices such as wires that should not be intended as control elements that way is IMO bad engineering.