Re: 1980's cds: analog to digital conversion

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On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 5:09 AM, Brent Busby <brent@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, 15 Feb 2010, Peder Hedlund wrote:

> Quoting Ricardus Vincente <wizardofgosz@xxxxxxxxx>:
>
>> On Sat, 2010-02-13 at 20:28 +0100, Peder Hedlund wrote:
>>> and do an A-B comparison.
>>
>>  Comparing what, to what?
>
> To compare the cassette mix that he remembered so fondly to the CD mix
> he found lacking. I have a hunch it might be entirely possible that
> the sound he remembers from tape is just nostalgia and that the CD in
> fact sounds more or less the same as the cassette.

Not necessarily...  I've got a few tapes that sounded way better than
the CD that was supposed to "replace" them, and that's pretty bad
considering how bad cassette sounds.  There's something about the way we
hear that can way more easily deal with background hiss, rumble, pitch
instability, and a multitude of other evils than deal with grainy
metallic thin sound that has all the body removed from it.

Granted, some of that may have been the way the original recording
really sounded, and the cassette may have been flattering it with its
pleasant mid-bass saturation.  I can't imagine that's always it though.
People always say that when we hear that sort of effect from CD's, the
CD is just telling the truth (kind of like the same excuse I hear about
certain Mackie monitor speakers), when we all know that almost all
recordings made before the 90's were done on an original recording
medium of multitrack tape itself.  Surely the studio master tape didn't
sound like a grainy metallic CD!

Here's a good example.  Listen to any of the songs from "Out of the Blue" that also appear on this cd:  http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Magic-Electric-Light-Orchestra/dp/B000002A2V

They sound no where near as good as the originals on vinyl.  It's actually pretty impressive in how much crappier they sound.  Like someone would have had to go out of their way (or be neglecting something obvious) to make them sound that way.

The very essence of 'crap-tacular'.

 

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