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Anti Meep
07-04-2013, 03:25
Hi all.
Right now I'm a listening to Honky Chatteau-Elton John. It's a seventies recording and pressing in fairly good shape. I have quite a few recordings and pressings from the seventies. Most of them sound really alive! Tone,rhythm,timing,detail it's all there by the bucket load.
I also have plenty of more recent pressings that are post digital era, many of which sound fantastic too. For the most part though, I do hear clear differences in the rhythmic feel of the music. A difference in tonal colourations maybe? Hard to pin down but certainly differences.
I don't want this to turn into a "what's better" type of thing, I'd just like to hear if others hear things in a similar manner to me and what are your conclusions.
I have recordings both digi and pre digi that press all the right buttons but sometimes I find myself wanting to listen to that all analogue sound.
Anyone else noticed these differences?
Craig.
PS N ext up will be a Honey of a pressing of Black and Blue-Stones.

WOStantonCS100
07-04-2013, 05:45
Do you mean digital as part of the lacquer cutting process or do you mean digital as part of the recording process?

Personally, I think digital as part of the recording process plays the greater role, although, there is definitely a difference between my 50s and 60s pressings and the pressings that came after the introduction of digital delay for the cutter. And, still we've come full circle because now preview heads are getting the nod, thus removing digital from the cutting process. (Yea!) I would venture to say the companies that are spitting out the low quality resissues couldn't care less about that issue.

Early digital recordings (80s) are often very hard for my ears to take whether it is on vinyl or CD. It seems there was that window of time when it was "the new thing" and many folks, who didn't know what the heck they were doing with it, started using it anyway with disastrous results. Analog tape when nailed compresses. Nail digital and :spew: wind up with unrecoverable harsh distortion. Record dig too low and the resolution, the fullness, goes out the window. Of course, now it's easy to look back and see that they didn't really have a grip on it yet. (I speak in generalizations.) I can think of an album each from Michael Franks, Carlos Santana and Racer X:hairmetal: that just peels the paint off the walls. "The Camera Never Lies" (ca. 1987) from Michael Franks had me running to read the liner notes because it sounded like a CD. The liner notes read "Digitally Mixed & Mastered". The later, which I believe was "Racer X: Second Heat, (ironically, also ca. 1987), especially has no bass, no mids, just earsplitting shrill highs. I'm not sure how that one was recorded, mixed or mastered. I'll have to go look... ...or maybe I won't. :lol:

Anti Meep
07-04-2013, 09:03
Thanks Biff.
I am of course generalizing as I have no real idea when digital technology of any type entered the recording process. But then I don't know anything at all about the lacquer cutting process. So hopefully more may be revealed. The digital and analogue thing even with vinyl generally seems to end up a bit messy so I feel it would be cool to try and get some practical understanding of the various processes involved
It just seems to me that the seventies surely were too early.
Anyhoo, I tend to just follow my wing-nuts and wonder if others have similar or opposing preferences and if they put it down to the digi/analogue influences.
Craig.

Audioman
07-04-2013, 09:56
There was certainly a change in the sound of vinyl in the 80's. I think in retrospect digital delay lines may have played a part but it is likely to have been largely due to the way recordings were mixed. A lot of 80's analogue recordings sound 'digital' due to recording style.

Certainly later 70's and 80's reissues sound inferior. Again digital delay lines may be involved in the recuts but just as likely to be low generation tapes and inferior cutting. Also factor in very thin / inferior quality vinyl. There are on the other hand some great sounding original releases from the 80's some of which are digital recordings.

The trend with reissued vinyl is to go back to AAA cutting. Now we have premium Audiophile reissues that are AAA but in house vinyl cutting at Record Industry (Music On vinyl) and GZ (most Universal incl Back to Black) normally involves digital and they usually work from hi-res files provided by the labels.

Some of the digitally sourced reissue vinyl sounds very close to an original analogue cut and some more obviously digital. SQ depends on source quality, mastering chain and the engineers skill. You can have a bad AAA pressing or a good digitally sourced one. Most new 'analogue' recordings are dumped to a good pro tools setup for mixing and then bounced back to analogue anyway.

Today true analogue Lps are pretty much restricted to audiophile reissues mastered at Grundman, Cohearant (KG), Sterling as well as some from Air (Ray Staff), Abbey Road, Berliner and few others.

Of course a 70's Honky Chateau will be all analogue but the later pressings with yellow writing or all yellow labels are inferior sounding. Check also if your vinyl has a semi-transparent red tinge when held up to the light.

Macca
07-04-2013, 10:02
I agree there is a difference in tone between digital and analogue recordings, I think this shows up on any half competent set up. There is no doubt digital recording has improved with time, some modern efforts are very good indeed but as Biff says they can sound like a CD even though it is vinyl. Some early digital is good too, check out Robert Plant's 'Principle of Moments' from (I think) 1980. Then compare that recording to an early pressing of Led Zep II - both are brilliant recordings but very different in tone.

DSJR
07-04-2013, 10:34
Just to say that all the big studios HAD to keep up with latest technology and I think that quite often, a really good analogue studio desk (and all the add-ons) was often ditched in favour of a technically (and audibly) inferior early digital jobbie "just" to keep up with trends elsewhere - and retain business. Maybe Mr Lodgesound could comment please?

I remember an engineer writing in HFN once that the pros that cared, heard all the things we audiophools did and were working on it. I think that modern big studios (the few that survive) probably have the potential to make some of the best recordings ever, but whether the skill and care still survives or lives on is possibly another matter? Mind you, most commercial stuff is made on small digital workstations now I understand and with tiny squeakers to monitor on. Most effects are nasty? digial plug-ins, so we're possibly back to the dire way many 1960's singles were made, only with over compression and band-limited noise to work with instead of crude recording techniques, in and out in a couple of hours ready for the next one....

Macca
07-04-2013, 10:55
Just to say that all the big studios HAD to keep up with latest technology and I think that quite often, a really good analogue studio desk (and all the add-ons) was often ditched in favour of a technically (and audibly) inferior early digital jobbie "just" to keep up with trends elsewhere - and retain business. Maybe Mr Lodgesound could comment please?

....

I'm not sure the digital desk would be inferior but when the analogue kit is binned the engineer who has spent all his career on analogue now has to learn to do it digitally. And they are unlikely to close the studio for a few months whilst he mucks about with it and gets proficient. So I am guessing that a lot of those early digital recordings are bad because they were the first efforts of otherwise skilled and experienced engineers using new techniques.

Haselsh1
07-04-2013, 11:26
May I recommend Rebecca Pigeon's 'The Raven' for a totally analogue experience. This recording is relatively recent but makes the most of a totally analogue experience and it certainly shows...! This is one of the finest sounding albums I have ever heard and I also have it on CD so can make immediate comparisons. For that ultimate 70's sound I'd also like to recommend Brand X's 'Morrocan Roll' albeit musically rather complex but the dynamic range of this recording is stunning. Just listen to the sound of those drums, they are so damn percussive...! Of course this is from the days when Phil Collins was just a drummer, what did you say...? He should've stayed one. LOL

DSJR
07-04-2013, 12:29
As I remember it, some early digital desks weren't very good sounding, but I agree about engineers having to re-think the way they used them too.

My gripe is that good modern digital recording allows a fantastic sound potential, even on a simple system as many "bedroom DJ's" use,but somehow it can all too easily be fugged up. So many SA-CD classical recordings are good, not because of SA-CD IMO, but because the recordings are done right to start with!

sq225917
07-04-2013, 16:32
Digital delay lines, introduced 1973 by Masterfonics and Ampex a few years later.

nat8808
07-04-2013, 17:52
When people say "sounds like CD" havent they got the wrong end of the stick?

If CD came out during a time that studios were making harsh recordings then it would be easy to mistakenly correlate that sound with CD itself, especially if over a sustained period of time.

I think in general, studios went a bit wrong in the 80s - new and exciting stuff was going on and unfortunately you get a bit confirmation bias with enthusiasm for the new (with the much better working techniques that came with digital) and so everything probably sounded good at the time.. Confirmation bias kind of reveals itself over time, just like listening to new gear over time, but by then every studio has had a refit and a herd (NOT heard) mentality has grown in the studio business saying how it all was much better, probably with the real listening engineers pulling their hair out all the while..

nat8808
07-04-2013, 17:55
Digital delay lines, introduced 1973 by Masterfonics and Ampex a few years later.

14 bit before the cutting lathe?

WOStantonCS100
07-04-2013, 18:46
When people say "sounds like CD" havent they got the wrong end of the stick?

If CD came out during a time that studios were making harsh recordings then it would be easy to mistakenly correlate that sound with CD itself, especially if over a sustained period of time.

I think in general, studios went a bit wrong in the 80s - new and exciting stuff was going on and unfortunately you get a bit confirmation bias with enthusiasm for the new (with the much better working techniques that came with digital) and so everything probably sounded good at the time.. Confirmation bias kind of reveals itself over time, just like listening to new gear over time, but by then every studio has had a refit and a herd (NOT heard) mentality has grown in the studio business saying how it all was much better, probably with the real listening engineers pulling their hair out all the while..

Funny. Sad. And, true all at the same time. Several studio engineers I've worked with make no bones that their initial switch to digital was not a choice; but, a mandate by the studio owner and/or his bean counters. I was in a studio Friday and the engineer talked about how he thought the A/Ds he's using (recording at 24/48) are really good. But, when we reminisced about tape, his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. Thankfully, my preferred studio never got rid of their 24 track; though, for a while just getting fresh tape was equivalent to a covert op. RMGI and ATR make new tape; but, a 2" roll is expensive compared to a hard drive.