Originally Posted by
DSJR
In the 70's, we had many BBC engineers dropping odds and ends in for us to listen to and it was also fortuitous in that we had employees from studios and mastering facilities in the west end of London as clients, also bringing in the odd track or three - that's how I got the tapes I had...
Analogue masters from this era often have this "mutli-mono" effect, as that's basically what they were, but in the 80's, I think that overall reverb was added to make the sound of newer albums "blend" better.
The thing is, what kind of reference do you use when re-mastering? Some of the important albums have had the original artist supervise the release on CD and often this has worked well. Marco and I have had a sort of disagreement regarding Thomas Dolby's "The Flat Earth," where my smaller speakers reproduce the increased bass over the vinyl with no problem, but Marco's Tannoys, with vastly increased clarity and extension reproduce it too much (and with overall gain reduced IIRC). This may be because teensy-weensy nearfield monitors were used in the mastering, or, the gain was reduced to maintain dynamics and the increased bass level perhaps.
I was going to make a thread about it, but the 2003 Hybrid album - Morning Sci-Fi - is a perfect way to show the generic differences between valve and solid state I reckon. It is, I suspect, a full digital recording and mix, yet via the Quad II's, there's a genuine sense of 3-D with things happening in front and behind other strands in the mix. Switch to the Crowns, which admittedly, haven't been used in months, the treble sharpens, the bass gets a tad more powerful, yet the mid seems curiously "flat" and almost grainy in perspective by comparison, which disturbed me as I hadn't noticed this before. Maybe I should turn the D-60's on and leave them connected to the BC2's for a couple of hours before listening to them again.
Something else for discussion in another thread perhaps, but as most of us have half-decent turntables, I think we're all being spoiled by just how good vinyl can be. I got the Pro-Ject Debut II going today, without the lid attached, and found everything rather shrunken by comparison to the Thorens/Decca - less bass power, smaller and flattened mid and one-note treble (well, it is the bottom model OM3e cartridge that's fitted) and there's also more surface noise and drive-harmonics in the mid, the TD125 offering almost silent backgrounds with no motor vibration coming through at all, even compared to my Dual 701, which is a fine direct drive model. The Debut pees all over a later Dual 505, by the way, I found it much cleaner and purer in quality.
I'm rambling - apologies. I think it's more to do with the production of 80's albums rather than pre "DDD vs ADD/ADD or even DAD. One mastering engineer I've read up has a valve buffer for some masters he digitises, as the deliberately added warmth can improve the finished digital result. I believe Doug Sax (Mastering Lab) has done similar and of course the Beatles' catalogue has had all sorts done to them in a DAD remastering (from what I've read)