Paul McGowan Prefers Digital

[Ron Resnick]

would you use a tube phono pre and SS tape pre? I probably wouldn't.

aren't you using a Herzan under your IO, but not your tape pre? I forget, so apologies if this is incorrect.

That is correct. But there is some technical logic to it: the Io is handling signals of lower voltage than is the tape pre.

 

[ack]

The fact is Paul has a highly-regarded and well-respected vinyl playback set-up. And I agree with your comment which I excerpted above.

I'm wondering if Paul has a typical Japanese cartridge, like a Dynavector or some Koetsu, which may sound colored? I gave up on the typical Japanese sound years ago.

 

[KeithR]

I'm wondering if Paul has a typical Japanese cartridge, like a Dynavector or some Koetsu, which may sound colored? I gave up on the typical Japanese sound years ago.

Sounds like he uses Clearaudio/Lyra - ironically a more resolute, dare i say digital sound? heheh.

 

[NorthStar]

I believe he's been asked to take his opinions elsewhere. Preposterous.

If that were true, this would be preposterous indeed.

I had no clue, but his absence is felt.

We can conclude that you are equally sensitive to both your analog and digital

if your digital friend is thinking of death, tell him to get an analog set up.

It was a way of speech to say that this world is for everyone who love music, analog and digital.
...In life as in death, like all the famous musicians, painters, artists, writers, audiophiles.

 

[bonzo75]

One more story. Chris Connaker runs the Audiophile Style Forum (formerly Computer Audiophile). He is an absolute digitalphile. He was visiting a couple of years ago and was looking over my tape collection, particularly my safety masters. He saw the Miles Davis Cookin' album (one of a series of mono albums that Davis did with his Quintet in 1956 for Prestige) which I have on a 1/2" safety master. He asked to hear it. He said it was his favorite album and that he had it in every digital format available and intimately knew every nuance in the album. We started playing it and he immediately started hearing subtleties that he had never heard before, even with the fanciest DAC's that he has reviewed and the latest hirez remasters by RvG. He said it made him think seriously about going into tape!

My conclusion is that if companies spent the time and care (and money) in remastering their conversions of analogue masters to digital (at whatever sampling rate - my experience is hirez is better than CD rez) we could have much better sounding digital (from analogue) albums. Of course, it comes with a price that most companies and consumers are not willing to spend.

Larry

Hi Larry, while software is extremely important and a key part of why I want to spend money on an analog set up, and why I want to direct more money to software over the system, the electronics are extremely important for the subtleties/nuances of course. The most nuanced systems I have heard are the General's and Pietro's Yamamura, but the General's loses nuance, despite the excellent software, as you move from the 46 valve 1w amps to 211s to NAT Magmas. So what part of it is that linear tracker with the Red Sparrow, and what part of it is a 1w liquid amp driving 120 db full range driver, I cannot say. I have taken some of the recordings to other places and lost nuance.

Recently we compared Silvercore 833c 20w to Kronzilla integrated on the Tannoys, the former was more nuanced, the latter had more drive and bass and dynamics. The latter would have been preferred by someone into less nuanced music (it was still good on classical if not compared directly). I have seen the silvercore lose out on nuance to NAF 2a3. With cartridge compares, loss of nuance happens all the time. Software was always the same.

In your case, the Lampi 45s you are using are less nuanced. Putting on a violin concerto and comparing, they cannot do the inflections of violin well and gloss over, also have a higher noise floor. They are very musical in decay and on vocals. If you really want to hear the nuance on your digital you need to optimise it for 242, especially if you want to listen to the violin virtuoso pieces like Bach partitas, Paganini caprices, and Saint-Saens Rondo and Capriccio. You will also hear more concert hall ambience in digital recordings that the 45s mask. I still like those valves though.

 

[bonzo75]

I'm wondering if Paul has a typical Japanese cartridge, like a Dynavector or some Koetsu, which may sound colored? I gave up on the typical Japanese sound years ago.

Dynavector is very different from Koetsu. In fact it is more towards the neutral transparent side like Lyra, though with less dynamics and impact

 

[Ron Resnick]

I'm wondering if Paul has a typical Japanese cartridge, like a Dynavector or some Koetsu, which may sound colored? I gave up on the typical Japanese sound years ago.

Paul posted that he uses a Lyra cartridge, which I consider to be definitely not colored.

Based on my auditions of those two brands I would not equate the house sound of Dynavector with the house sound of Koetsu. I consider them to sound very different.

 

[ack]

Dynavector is very different from Koetsu. In fact it is more towards the neutral transparent side like Lyra, though with less dynamics and impact

You can count at least the XX2 that I had before the A90 as one of those that are far removed from transparency and far into the colored zone. In fact, it could not hold a candle to the A90 in any respect that I can think of.

 

[bonzo75]

You can count at least the XX2 that I had before the A90 as one of those that are far removed from transparency and far into the colored zone. In fact, it could not hold a candle to the A90 in any respect that I can think of.

I have heard the XV-1s and XV-1T in direct compares to various Lyras all properly set up on the same arm (multiple same arms, all set up with the cart, so no change). I preferred the Lyra, but the Dyna did not sound colored at all like a Koetsu. The A90 is very neutral and detailed too, and I would say more energetic than the Dyna, though I have never compared the two. @perart1 has Dyna and Lyra, (and Allaerts), he can comment what he thinks

 

[Bruce B]

EDIT for clarity: I'm not suggesting that Mike's system is not optimized for both. I'm suggesting that perhaps Paul would conclude that because Mike prefers analog in his system it must therefore be optimized for vinyl. I do not think that is the case from what I have read from Mike about his system.

A well optimized system is agnostic to the signal. The system could care less if it was coming from one source or the other... A good optimized system can play both analog and digital to its fullest.

 

[Bruce B]

I don't think there has been much discussion (maybe I missed it) of the actual source, the materials used to play analogue or digital. In particular I want to comment on digital. Just because I tend to comment on tape and vinyl, it doesn't mean I am not a digital person also. I have more digital files than most people (60TB), and many of you know I ripped over 10,000 vinyl and tape albums to hirez (192/24) digital over a period of 6 years using what I think is still the state of the art or very close to equipment (you can see it in my signature). I also may be one of the biggest customers of Native DSD, having purchased over 200 albums (both stereo and mch versions) of Channel Classics albums from them.

Here are my observations on digital albums. These are the ones that end up as downloads and physical media (hirez and CD level). I am specifically talking about ones for which the original masters are analogue (generally between the mid-50's and the early '80's). My collection is very highly classical, so they are not affected by the horrible compression of the loudness wars.

Here is what I observe. First, the vast majority of CD and many (most) of the hirez digital versions were converted for to maximize profit and not sound quality. Mastering engineers who do the conversion are not paid to do extensive (and expensive) editing of the master tapes, tweaking EQ and other tricks of the trade. Also they are normally not using the highest level pro digital equipment in the conversions.

For example, back in the mid 2000's one of the few companies which emphasized sound quality in their digital conversions was First Impression Music (FIM) owned and run by Winston Ma. Winston hired some of the very best mastering engineers for these conversions. For example, he released about 17 Decca recordings from the golden era, getting the master tapes from Decca, to produce his CD versions. Grammy winning engineer Paul Stubblebine did the mastering. Rather than just taking the master tape and converting it to 44/16 and producing a CD, Paul first converted the master tape to 192/24, using the famed Pacific Microsonics Model Two designed by Keith Johnson. He then edited the file, applying corrections to the sound quality and Winston, as the ultimate arbiter of the sound quality would listen and make his comments. They would go back and forth until they were happy with the sound quality. The Model Two then played the 192/24 file in analogue which was captured by a second Model Two recording in 44/16 for the CD master. The production of the CD's was done in a plant that specialized in very low error rate CD's. The result was the FIM CD, more costly than a regular CD.

I was able to compare many of the FIM Decca CDs with the same titles that Decca released as CD's in their bargain boxes in the earlier part of this decade. I also have the original vinyl versions of all of the CDs that I could compare. Pretty easy to tell the difference, with FIM clearly better than the Decca bargain CD. The bargain CD's were sold in boxes with 50 CD's at retail for a little more than $1 per disc, several times cheaper than Winston's cost of producing his version. I got to experience the FIM system in the process of writing my Decca book for FIM in 2013-4. Winston included 4 Decca compilation CD's with the book and I participated in some of the back and forth between Winston and multi-Grammy award winning mastering engineer Michael Bishop as they were going through the sound quality of each cut of each CD.

Even for albums that were originally done in digital, Winston had Michael and his colleagues at Five/Four productions remaster a large number of albums that Telarc originally released on CD (Five/Four was formed by former Telarc engineers). I have a couple of the original Telarc CD's and compared them with the FIM versions. There were subtle, but clear improvements with the remastered versions.

One more story. Chris Connaker runs the Audiophile Style Forum (formerly Computer Audiophile). He is an absolute digitalphile. He was visiting a couple of years ago and was looking over my tape collection, particularly my safety masters. He saw the Miles Davis Cookin' album (one of a series of mono albums that Davis did with his Quintet in 1956 for Prestige) which I have on a 1/2" safety master. He asked to hear it. He said it was his favorite album and that he had it in every digital format available and intimately knew every nuance in the album. We started playing it and he immediately started hearing subtleties that he had never heard before, even with the fanciest DAC's that he has reviewed and the latest hirez remasters by RvG. He said it made him think seriously about going into tape!

My conclusion is that if companies spent the time and care (and money) in remastering their conversions of analogue masters to digital (at whatever sampling rate - my experience is hirez is better than CD rez) we could have much better sounding digital (from analogue) albums. Of course, it comes with a price that most companies and consumers are not willing to spend.

Larry

We did over 23 titles for FIM and can say for a fact, if our systems favored one format over the other, we'd be out of business!!
What if I told a client, "Oh, we can't do vinyl mastering for you because our system is set up for digital"!! That would be a poor business decision!

 

[spiritofmusic]

Re Larry's pithy comments on the dubious nature of many analog transfers to digital, Ive always found it highly frustrating that in the movie world, the utmost care and attention is taken w 2K and 4K ground up restorations of movies to BR and UHD.

It's noticeable how good the vast majority of these catalog releases are, esp Criterion discs. The only caveats are debates on film grain and color grading.

Re releases of catalog music on digital in so many cases is sorely lacking in comparison.

 

[microstrip]

This so turns the logic of MikeL’s point upside down that I simply have to hope you are joking.

If I was joking I would have added a smile.

 

[microstrip]

This raises the question (not that I necessarily think this is a valid question) if one should optimize for a particular source even within a given medium? In other words does one optimize for tape replay versus vinyl replay?

I would say “no.” I would use the same line stage and the same cables and the same speakers and the same amplifiers for both vinyl playback and tape playback. The only thing that would be different would be the phono stage for LP versus the tape repro amplifier for tape.

I was expecting this question, you already answered. But I could even consider using the same phono/stage with different switchable equalization for cartridge and tape head.

 

[RogerD]

I write about how to improve digital all the time. Digital is fairly easy since I only have to deal with a cable,DAC and transport. I have 3 00 cables running to my Sony DVP 55N transport and 2 00 and a 6 gauge cable to my Monarchy NM24 tube DAC. I removed all or most of the signal interference from the system and the clarity,dynamics, and a multi dimensional sound stage improved tremendously to the point that analog is no longer a must have choice except for music that I have tapes for.
Btw I’m listening right now to Streisand’s third album This was recorded in Columbia’s old church in NYC. How should the recording sound? A glorious midrange, very expansive, and typical of a analog master recorded on a Ampex custom 350-351 setup maxed out for the time. I ask myself all the time...what am I missing? Answer...nothing.

 

[microstrip]

(...) For example, back in the mid 2000's one of the few companies which emphasized sound quality in their digital conversions was First Impression Music (FIM) owned and run by Winston Ma. Winston hired some of the very best mastering engineers for these conversions. For example, he released about 17 Decca recordings from the golden era, getting the master tapes from Decca, to produce his CD versions. Grammy winning engineer Paul Stubblebine did the mastering. Rather than just taking the master tape and converting it to 44/16 and producing a CD, Paul first converted the master tape to 192/24, using the famed Pacific Microsonics Model Two designed by Keith Johnson. He then edited the file, applying corrections to the sound quality and Winston, as the ultimate arbiter of the sound quality would listen and make his comments. They would go back and forth until they were happy with the sound quality. The Model Two then played the 192/24 file in analogue which was captured by a second Model Two recording in 44/16 for the CD master. The production of the CD's was done in a plant that specialized in very low error rate CD's. The result was the FIM CD, more costly than a regular CD. (...)

What happened to these 192/24 files? Any hope that some day we will be able to buy such recordings? I have a few FIM CDs and they sound excellent, much better than the common releases - the HiRez should be fabulous.

In the early days of digital there was a lot of experiments introducing digital loops in tape playback, even comparing them with tape loops. A pity that now the converters and DACs are much better sounding , using higher rates and formats, no one is carrying such experiments anymore.

 

[astrotoy]

What happened to these 192/24 files? Any hope that some day we will be able to buy such recordings? I have a few FIM CDs and they sound excellent, much better than the common releases - the HiRez should be fabulous.

In the early days of digital there was a lot of experiments introducing digital loops in tape playback, even comparing them with tape loops. A pity that now the converters and DACs are much better sounding , using higher rates and formats, no one is carrying such experiments anymore.

They were never released - not sure, but I think it was part of the licensing agreement that it covered CD release. I know that when Paul Stubblebine worked through Winston to be able to release two of the albums on R2R tape on the Tape Project, he had to negotiate new licenses with Decca/Universal for the tape release.

Larry

 

[Lee]

Ron, you're surely aware plenty of people If not the majority prefer digital. It measures better, and a very good argument can be made to say it sounds better. And plenty are confounded by your attitude that analog is better.

You've heard MSB, yes?

This is not true. A CD cannot hold a 50khz signal but an LP can. That means, via Shannon/Nyquist that the LP has a 100khz sampling, putting the resolution on par with dvd-audio and 2.5x better than CD at 44.1. So the LP measures quite well versus digital and digital has other distortions like jitter, zero-crossing distortion, etc. It also suffers from an imperfect two-step of ADC and DAC.

 

[Al M.]

This is not true. A CD cannot hold a 50khz signal but an LP can. That means, via Shannon/Nyquist that the LP has a 100khz sampling, putting the resolution on par with dvd-audio and 2.5x better than CD at 44.1. So the LP measures quite well versus digital and digital has other distortions like jitter, zero-crossing distortion, etc. It also suffers from an imperfect two-step of ADC and DAC.

The "2.5 x" better resolution is irrelevant according to Shannon/Niquist. What matters is that the CD sampling rate covers 20 kHz, the upper limit of human hearing (of children, at best). More relevant for resolution is bit depth, related to dynamic range. The bit depth of CD is 16, the one of analog tape and LP is about 13. Of course you can claim the resolution of CD is not as great as its nominal bit range because of quantization noise, and to some extent you might have a point. But then there is dither in order to randomize quantization noise.

But LP measuring better? Have you ever seen the crooked graph of a 1 kHz sine wave from LP? It's an embarrassing sight, frankly. You can argue that it doesn't matter, and perhaps that is true. You can also argue that LP sounds better. But LP measuring better? That's a joke.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I was expecting this question, you already answered. But I could even consider using the same phono/stage with different switchable equalization for cartridge and tape head.

I understand. But wouldn’t you also need adjustable gain?

(I believe the de Havilland tape preamplifier is a slightly modified version of her phono preamplifier.)