wjm@whuxk.UUCP (06/15/83)
H
There is an excellent article in the July, 1983 issue of "High Fidelity" as to
why some CD's don't sound as good as their analog LP counterparts. Briefly,
the problem lies with the close-in miking used by most major record companies.
You don't (given a choice) generally like to sit in the first few rows at a
concert (classical), do you? The lack of noise on the CD makes the flaws in
this miking technique stand out. As HF concludes .. "we'll have to wait until
companies like Telarc with their minimal miking techniques start makk
making CD's to achieve the full potential of the medium.
Bill Mitchell
Bell Labs - Whippany NJ
(whuxk!wjm)gregr@tekid.UUCP (06/16/83)
The Telarc CD disks are expected any day now. I have seen a list of about 15 titles that are available. Yes, these should be much better. I will do a small review as soon as the ones I have ordered arrive.
jeff@tesla.UUCP (06/17/83)
Does anybody remember the old Mercury single-mike records? Pre-stereo, mid to late fifties, Mercury was proud of their single-mike technique which used one microphone some meters above the conductor`s head, with no fancy local miking or mixing. I have at least one terrific record using that technique--a Petrouchka with (I think) the Detroit Symphony conducted by Antal Dorati. Alas, like most of us, that record isn`t what it was. However, it did have a very smooth sound with a very pleasing reverberation characteristic; an example of what was best in the mono days. I think RCA may have used similar technique with their latest mono recordings (1954): Toscanini`s Carnegie Hall recordings (Dvorak; 9th Symphony; Pictures at an Exhibition) and the last Fritz Reiner recordings (Ein Heldenleben, Also Sprach Zarathustra). Some of these have been remastered and reissued on Victrola, etc. labels in the US and the UK. If you can hear any CD`s at all, try for the Debussy Pelleas and Melisande, and one of a Dvorak string serenade. If you need further info I can supply by followup. Of all the CD`s I`ve heard these have the "purest" sound -- no tape hiss, beautiful string tone; great dynamics with the chorus on the Debussy. It`s a pity most of the stuff that`s being issued on CD is musically very uninteresting, though. Phillips (?) did a digital recording of some recent Bayreuth performances but with CD`s ability to make extraneous sounds annoyingly evident, one wonders whether this recording would make a viable commercial release. The CD of Bernstein conducting the Shostakovich Fifth IS a recording of a live performance, however, and the audience noise is NOT obtrusive. As a final note, Glenn Gould`s singing in his CD performance of the Goldberg Variations is no more (or less) noticeable than it is on his 1959 LP of that work. As a final final note, why haven`t the US magazines done record reviews of the CD`s that they could obtain as easily as they obtain the players they have tested? Of course they`re not officially available in this country yet, but it WOULD be interesting. Jeff
wjm@whuxk.UUCP (06/17/83)
This month's issue (July, '83) of "High Fidelity" contains several CD reviews
as well as the article about multi-miking that I referred to on the net
earlier this week. The Mercury recordings were classics (not only classical
music but also classics in sound quality) and some of the smaller record
companies (notably Telarc) learned from their example. Why the big boys didn't
may be due to the economic pressures to fix bugs in the mix - but the close
multi-miking sounds bad enough on conventional LP's and CD's will just make
things worse.
Bill Mitchell
Bell Labs - Whippany, NJ
(whuxk!wjm)newman@utcsrgv.UUCP (Ken Newman) (06/17/83)
Just as a point of interest, if you pick up most any British hi-fi rag nowadays you will probably see some article putting down cd's as obscuring fine detail compared (a-b) with their pompous Linn-Naim-Ittok etc megabuck analog setup. There seems to be a large underground consensus that cd's come out distinctly second best, for what that's worth. They especially seem to shoot holes in the available disk quality, often saying the disks are unlistenable. Any comments?
mjs@mhb5b.UUCP (06/19/83)
My only comment on the quality of CD sound is that it is exactly what
comes off the *ANALOG* master tape. This may be recorded digitally on
a PCM tape deck, or directly to the CD master. In either case, the
best sound you can get is simply an accurate reproduction of the analog
master! If the master tape has wow or flutter or rumble or any other
defect, it will nonetheless be recorded accurately onto the CD! I have
several **LOUSY** CDs. Among them is the 1812 (with Marche Slave and
Wellington's Victory) conducted by Maazel with the Vienna
Philharmonic. There is a gross amount of *NOISE* on the master tape!
There is no excuse for actually recording this trash on a CD! Hell, I
wouldn't buy a vinyl record that sounded this bad! By the way, just so
you all know just who the perpetrator is, it's (claimed to be) a CBS
Masterworks Digital recording.
--
Martin Shannon, Jr.
Phone: (201) 582-3199
Internet: mjs@mhb5b.uucp
UUCP: {allegra,rabbit,alice,mhb5b,mhb5c}!mjslipp@ccvaxa.UUCP (06/22/83)
#R:whuxk:-22500:ccvaxa:4800002:000:198 ccvaxa!lipp Jun 21 10:59:00 1983 "It is so characteristic, that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved, there are fewer and fewer people who know how the music should be played." ---Wittgenstein
joe@cvl.UUCP (06/22/83)
I thought that CBS Masterworks Digitals are digital masters. If a digital master is used to master a CD, then there should be no analog noise in the chain at all, and certainly no wow or flutter. Either you've got a bad master recording (i.e., you're hearing REAL noise picked up by the microphones, or noise in the original analog amplification chain) or a bad CD.
jeff@tesla.UUCP (06/24/83)
Shannon shames his namesake by misunderstanding digital recording and playback. True, garbage on an analogue master will be reproduced as garbage on a CD. But a true PCM master will not have wow/flutter, although some noise (hiss, mostly) might creep in due to bad electronics somewhere. I doubt that all CBS CD`s will be digital at first. Unfortunately, CBS/Sony don`t specify on the disc or in the notes whether the MASTER was digital; on some records Polygram does, and on some they don`t. At least in Polygram`s case this probably isn`t a marketing ploy because some clearly digital masters (the evidence is the CD sound) are not labeled specifically as such. On analogue masters the tape hiss is in fact clearly audible; strangely, on one digital master there is hiss for about 20 minutes of the whole program, which might be attributable to an electronics problem on an alternate recorder or mastering machine. In the 21 CD`s I`ve got so far I`d say about three are overall superb (dynamic range, frequency response from very low to very high, noise level); a couple have egregious flaws like the 20-minute-hiss; a couple would make good LPs or even cassettes; and the rest are, by and large, noticeably superior to anything that could be got from an LP, but inferior to what the CD medium can apparently do. At roughly $20/shot one should be pretty careful about what one is buying, and from now on I`ll wait for interesting music (less Strauss and Tchaikovsky) well performed, and clearly identified as digitally mastered. Let`s all hope that the record companies will soon see that [at least some of us] we are serious about things and will start issuing stuff that`s worth the money, after the novelty value`s worn off. Jeff
ucbmonet.arnold@ucbcad.UUCP (06/26/83)
#R:mhb5b:-45100:ucbmonet:15900001:000:349 ucbmonet!arnold Jun 23 14:41:00 1983 Now, now. No matter how bad the CD is when you buy it, you have the joy of knowing that it won't get substantially worse as your roomate sneezes on it, your dog relieves itself on it, or you just play it repeatedly. This is an advantage. Now, can anyone figure out a way to hear a CD before you buy it so you know if the master tape sucks? Ken
jeff@tesla.UUCP (06/30/83)
The title should be CD.sound and the British. Better yet, pick up any British hi-fi magazine of *1950* (when LP was introduced there) and read what they said about THAT. I did that, and found that there was (particularly among the editors of *Gramophone*) considerable resistance to LP; even a published belief that 78s were intrinsically better "for some kinds of music". In fact what the reviewers were responding to were the transference to LP of the recording techniques of the time, which had been optimized for 78s; or the use of 78 disc masters for mastering LPs. Now, no-one wants to believe that his multi-hundred-pound table-and-arm system is to be obsoleted overnight, especially by a EUROPEAN/JAPANESE invention, in Britain, also. They`ll come around. So, we hope, will the recording engineers. JF
tomk@orca.UUCP (07/06/83)
>From the liner notes of the CBS/SONY Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture:
Producer: Roy Emerson, Engineer: Wolfgang Gulich /
Recorded at Musikvereinsaal, Vienna / Digitally recorded <----- !!
using the Sony PCM 1600 recorder and the Sony
DAE 1100 editor. AKG & Neumann microphones.
I agree, there are some noisy spots (and some VERY quiet ones, too!).
The crud is probably due to a bad amp. Too bad someone with ears didn't
review the master before they committed it to a disc! However, as a
previous submission suggested, it would be difficult to say that it's
worse than a slightly aged vinyl disc.
CD's in the Portland area are going for 15 to 17 dollars. What are
people in other areas paying for them?
- Tom Kloos, Tektronix, Inc. ECS, Wilsonville, Oregon
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