'AAD' vs. 'DDD' CD test

[Rothchild]

Has anyone read Bob Katz' 'Honor Roll' of uncompressed masters? It's a very useful resource, though by no means exhaustive.

Some good points, a good recording (of a great song) trumps the method used many times over (indeed a bad recording of a great song often trumps a good recording of a bad song!)

Just a point of pedantry here though, the honour roll doesn't present 'uncompressed' masters it presents 'appropriately' compressed masters and helps the listener to begin to understand the difference between dynamic range control and absolute volume. It's also a good way to begin to get your head around Mr Katz's 'K-Metering' system, which adapts the traditional cinema standard of linking certain meter ranges with particular SPLs (cinema's don't have a volume knob per se so films are made to a defined standard of volume so that they don't have to recallibrate the sound each time they put a new reel in, this is part of what 'Dolby certification' means).

K-20 is broadly equivilent to 'cinema' sound, in that the meters are set so that '0' on the meter is 20dB below the actual clipping point of the converter (0dBFs with 20dB of headroom) to do this the amps are callibrated so that a -20dBFS RMS pink noise signal will generate 83dB (Cweighted Slow) actual SPL in the room.

Once your room and your volume control are callibrated then you actually have a real world reference to be able judge exactly how loud something is. I found it a revelation for mixing but it's also an interesting exercise for listeners too.

[Alan]

That's a good point, and I stand corrected.

[Marco]

Some folks are still missing the point here... Yes, the quality of the mastering is crucial on any recording. No argument there.

However, the point I'm making is that, on early 'AAD' CD recordings, I can readily identify the sonic effect of the use of analogue equipment (the 'AA' part of the recording process), as opposed to digital, when listening to the end results produced!

For that reason only, for me, the difference between the sound of an 'AAD' and 'DDD' recording, mastering excluded, is as clear as a very clear thing, and I'd feel confident of being able to identify the difference blindfolded, in a suitably revealing system.

That's it in a nutshell!!

Marco.

[Rothchild]

Marco, could you hightlight a recording that's generally available for which there is an AAD and DDD version so we can compare the differences ourselves? I humbley suggest that there isn't one, people record with what they have (be that analogue or digital) and make the record they're making. (they are unlikely to have recorded it to both analogue and digital multitrack and made the same mixes)

Apart from a few exceptions (White Stripes (Toerag recordings), Dap Tone and, I believe, the latest Kate Bush stuff ) it's fairly easy to tell if it's recorded to analogue or digital. If it's before about 1984 it's probably analogue (probably the whole chain up to getting it on CD) if it's between 1984 and about 1990 then that where you need the listening skills, as it could be either and post 1990 (and not withstanding the non-exclusive list above) it's probably been tracked to digital (albeit through analogue microphones and pre-amps).

So yeah, I probably am missing the point, sorry! But I'm just trying to get my head around this definition.

[Mr Kipling]

When I was a young 'un I was forever playing a couple of Billy Fury singles on my mother's Ferguson valve radiogram. One of which was " I'd Never Find Another You". The other was "Give Me Your Word". The sound of them were burnt into my memory along with a number of others.

In the 'late 90s I got a Billy Fury cd which came out in the mid '80s which had on it "I'd Never Find Another You". When I played it it essentially sounded the same as my memory of it, more-so than the deck I was using at the time. A cd sounding pretty much the same as a 45 on an old valve radiogram with ceramic cartridge (or my memory of it) did seem a tad bizarre. About four years ago I got a new REMASTERED disc that was a collection of his hits and which also had the same track on it. This time it sounded bright, thin and gutless, as did the rest of the tracks. And both are Decca items. Then again, look at The Beatles cds. Compare the originals with the remastered versions. I wouldn't waste time listening to the originals.

Like so many things in life, cd sound quality is just a lottery. Modern pop can sound good and here's some. On earphones using my mobile the Stephanie Kirkham track is just a constuct of images.


P.S.
The thing that has always, always (always) puzzled me is why/how country music (American) always consistantly sounds good in terms of production and end sound quality, when compared to pop. Here's an example. Not that good here, but a whole lot better on cd.

[Marco]

Hi Marc,

Marco, could you hightlight a recording that's generally available for which there is an AAD and DDD version so we can compare the differences ourselves?

I know where you're coming from, but that's not the point.

I can dig out, say, 20 'AAD' CDs I bought in the late 80s, and 20 CDs I've bought, produced today, which of course will all be 'DDD', and the early ones, even though the albums concerned will have been mastered differently, have an intrinsic 'sonic signature', which I can instantly detect and discern as being attributable to the analogue equipment and processes used in the recording chain (based on my experience of analysing this effect).

I really don't find the difference difficult to detect at all, and could probably demonstrate it to others. Maybe that's a project for one of the workshops at the forthcoming AoS show?

Marco.

[Rothchild]

Do you mean 20 cds of the same album? If so then this is the effect of remastering and doesn't adjust the fact that they were originally tracked to analogue.

If so this is about mastering and re-mastering and that more often than not the 're-master' offers nothing of value over the original version (indeed often re-mastering is detrimental to the quality of the record)

If they're different records then I'm not sure that we can reliably know what was in the recording chain (it becomes much like playing 'guess the microphone') so the assertion that a contemporary recording is better or worse sounding because it's analogue / digitally tracked becomes a matter for pure speculation. Hell, even Trevor Horn says he can't reliably tell the difference these days! Unless the listener doesn't know but the 'tester' does know what was in the chain then there's not even the begining of a valid test.

Of course none of this gets in the way of being able to say 'I enjoy x more than y' but it doesn't provide any technical grounds for understanding why.

[Marco]

Do you mean 20 cds of the same album?

Nope, different albums. Anyway, I know what I can clearly hear and need no technical explanation to explain or prove it.

It's not a matter of just enjoying the 1980s 'AAD' CD recordings more - to my ears the sound quality is intrinsically different from that produced on CDs (or other digital recordings) today.

Those 'AAD' CDs sound just as different to me from today's offerings, as a TDA1541 DAC chip does compared with a Sabre or Burr-Brown - and the sonic variances are similar!

If you choose to disagree or disbelieve me, that's fine

Marco.

[Rothchild]

I'm neither disagreeing nor disbelieveing, just observing that the fact that one hears a difference is not reliably connected to knowing the reason that the difference is there. It could be the media that the multitrack was taken down to but it could also be whole plethora of other factors too.

[Marco]

Sure, but my experience tells me that what I'm hearing is right, for the reasons I've outlined, and I'm satisfied with that

YMMV.

Marco.