[net.audio] CD's of analogue recordings

greg@olivee.UUCP (Greg Paley) (04/06/85)

A recent article mentioning harshness and stridency on certain
CD's compared to the vinyl LP equivalent confirmed what I've
been hearing on some CD's made from analogue sources.  I can't
seriously consider this as an indication of the superiority of
either system, since what sounds "better" and what is actually
a more accurate representation of the contents of the master
tape can be two different things.

My understanding (and I'd be happy to be corrected by someone
out there who knows more about it if I'm wrong) is that there
was a definite boost in the upper middle frequencies of many
analogue recordings which was to compensate for corresponding
losses in that region which occurred in the cutting of the master
disks and pressing.  A CD made from the same master tape might,
therefore, actually contain the boost without having provided
the expected cutback in this area.  If this is true, though, I
don't understand why open-reel tapes made from many of these
same recordings (such as the Barclay-Crocker editions of a
number of Philps and DGG recordings) don't display the same
stridency and edginess.  Were the same losses occuring in the
course of their duplication procedures also?

Recordings which I've found particularly bad in this regard
are DGG CD's made from 70's vintage analogue recordings, such
as Karl Boehm's Beethoven 6th Symphony with the Vienna
Philharmonic.  DGG used, up until very recently, a multi-miking
technique which placed the individual microphones very close
to the actual instruments.  In addition to the unpleasant
stridency on CD's made from these recordings, there is also
the peculiar shift of perspective that accompanies dynamic
level shifts - soft passages recede into the distance while
loud passages are right on top of you.  This perspective shift
can be clearly heard on the analogue pressings as well, on
my far below the current state-of-the-art Sony 2251 turntable.

	- Greg Paley