On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 10:15:04 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):
"George Graves" wrote in message
No, I'm not. But in my experience (and that of many
others), SACD and DVD-A (at 196 KHz sampling rate) sounds
significantly better than does the same program in
standard CD.
Not necessarily a comparison of apples and apples. The issue of multiple
distinct remasterings of the same basic recording remains.
Furthermore, how do you know that the difference is "Purported hi-rez is
better" and not "Purported hi-rez is merely differernt"?
It sounds more like real, live music to me.
Whatever the reason (mastering, signal
processing, etc. The fact that SACD is better is enough
reason top say that Mr. Kruger's assertion is incorrect.
Not at all. I can make so-called hi-rez recordings of live musical events
whenever I want to, and I can transcribe purported hi-rex recordings to
16/44 PCM whenever I'm so inclined. Since I do all the work, all possible
questions about differences in remastering are known to me.
IMHO, 16/44 PCM is really inadequate for music.
This theory has been refuted every time it has been properly tested. Here's
an early example of an carefully-done experiment that should have supported
the claim that 16/44 PCM causes audible difficulties with music:
http://www.provide.net/~djcarlst/abx_digi.htm
This carefully-performed experiment failed to confirm the the hypothesis, as
has every experiement of a similar nature done since.
With a tape made from a 24-track master, I'd say that everybody agreed that
they sounded the same simply because they didn't want to listen any more! :-
But seriously, I've been party to experiments like and some had similar
results and some didn't. I was also party once to a blind ABX test where all
of the participants statistically chose CDs painted with the infamous "Green
Pen" over a second copy of the same CD without the green paint on its edge.
And you know as well as I do, that the green pen does nothing and, indeed,
CAN do nothing! It's one reason why I don't trust ABX for audio.
It was
chosen because in the mid 1970's, when this system was
developed, a 16-bit linear DAC and 44.1KHz sampling were
barely doable, not because these standards were
considered optimum.
That's the urban myth. Regrettiblty for people who believe that myth, the
audio mythbusters busted it back in the late 1970s or very early 1980s, even
before the CD format became commercialized.
Hmmm. That must be why many early CD players were 14-bit. If 20-bit DACs were
so easy to do, why wasn't CD designed to be 20-bit. If CD is so good, why did
Sony and others feel the need to come up with higher-rez formats? Also, if
16/44.1 are so perfect, how come my DATs mastered at 16/48 have a smoother,
more life-like top end than the same live source mastered at 16/44.1?
Note that the comparison cited above was done in a highly-regarded
commercial recording studio, and compared a straight-wire analog connection
to digitization and reconstruction using very early digital technology. By
all accounts digital technology has improved greatly since then, so the
basic experiment has only gotten more difficult for positive results.
There is no doubt that 16/41 has improved considerably since its inception.
The early Sony U-matic based A/D processors used in almost all early CD
mastering had lousy analog front ends filled with 741- type operational
amplifiers (I think the processor model number was Sony 1610/1620/1630 but I
can't find any references to that in Google, so I may be disremembering).
To my ears, SACD still sounds more like live music, IOW, very analog-like.
I have a Classics records pressing of Stravinsky's "FireBird" pressed on 200
gram vinyl, single sided, mastered at 45 RPM. It's probably the most
realistic sounding commercial recording I've ever heard. I also have the same
performance on both 16/44 CD and on SACD. In descending order of sound
quality, It's the phonograph record which sounds the best, the SACD is a very
close second, and the CD (one of the ones that the original record's
producer, Wilma Cozert Fine mastered from her husband's master tapes) was a
distant third.
If you can tell them apart 'every time' in a blind test,
I would bet that one of those two things are the reason.
Because there's
no other reports of anyone being able to do what you're
claiming to do, based on formats alone.e
Well, my description is an oversimplification as bad
recording do not benefit much from the higher resolution
of SACD.
Neither do good recordings, mediocre recordings or whatever. If you
understand the natural limitations of the recording process and how the
human ears work, you would already know the reason why.
I do and I also understand the reason why SACD and 196 KHz DVD-A sound better
than Redbook CD.