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