[manitou]

I realize this is not quite the right group for this question, however
I've been away from usenet for some time, so hope someone may be able
to answer, or direct me elsewhere.

There are still many past LP releases not yet released on CD or SACD.
I'm interested in two from RCA, one from the later 50s and another
from the mid-60s.

Is there anyone at BMG, or elsewhere I can email, write or otherwise
lobby to suggest these items be made available?

Thanks --- people can respond by email if preferred.

CPJ

[C. Leeds]

On 3/18/2011 8:02 AM, manitou wrote:

There are still many past LP releases not yet released on CD or SACD.
I'm interested in two from RCA, one from the later 50s and another
from the mid-60s.

Is there anyone at BMG, or elsewhere I can email, write or otherwise
lobby to suggest these items be made available?

CDs made from master tapes that old are often disappointing. The tapes
have aged, and the flaws are often audible. A good example is the
Mercury Living Presence series - the CD transfers are way inferior to a
well cared-for LP. You might consider transferring an original LP to
CD yourself. You'll likely get a much, much better result.

[Audio Empire]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2011 06:28:20 -0700, C. Leeds wrote
(in article ):

On 3/18/2011 8:02 AM, manitou wrote:

There are still many past LP releases not yet released on CD or SACD.
I'm interested in two from RCA, one from the later 50s and another
from the mid-60s.

Is there anyone at BMG, or elsewhere I can email, write or otherwise
lobby to suggest these items be made available?

CDs made from master tapes that old are often disappointing. The tapes
have aged, and the flaws are often audible. A good example is the
Mercury Living Presence series - the CD transfers are way inferior to a
well cared-for LP. You might consider transferring an original LP to
CD yourself. You'll likely get a much, much better result.


While I do not disagree with you with regard to the sound of many of the
Philips-released Mercury Living Presence CDs, I don't think it's the fault of
the master tapes. The reason that I say this is because I have several recent
(within the last 10 years) re-masterings of some of these titles on vinyl
from the "Classic" record company. One is the Stravinksy "Firebird" with
Dorati and the London Symphony on 4-single-side, 200 gram, 45 RPM LPs
(mastered by Wilma Cozert Fine) and the others are Ravel's "Rhapsody
Espagnole" with Paray and the Detroit Symphony (also on 4-single-side, 200
gram, 45 RPM LPs) and "Hi-Fi A La Espanola" with Frederick Fennell and the
Eastman-Rochester "Pops" Orchestra (single, two-sided 200 gram, 45 RPM).
All of these sound magnificent; in fact, they sound MUCH better, by at least
an order of magnitude, than the CDs of the same titles. I notice no
deterioration from master tape aging. The highs are there, there are no
(audible) drop-outs - even on headphones. Since the LPs sound so good, I have
to conclude that the CDs sound poor by comparison for some other reason.

Also, I have a some JVC XRCDs of a number of RCA Red Seals from the late 50's
and early-to-mid 60's. A few of these are duplicates of titles that I have on
BMG's SACD (I bought almost the entire series). Not only do the XRCDs sound
magnificent, exhibiting no detectable drop-outs or loss of "fi", but these
Red Book XRCDs sound MUCH better than the BMG SACDs!

I conclude (and have mentioned this here, before) that the signal processing
that the more commercial record companies (like Philips and BMG) must be
doing to the master digital transfers while "cutting" the CDs/SACDs for
production, undermines the work done by Wilma Fine and others when they
carefully transferred these old analog tapes and 35mm magnetic film masters
to digital (I understand that the Mercury Living Presence masters for the CD
releases were transferred to DAT tape using custom A to D converters made by
DCS).

[Rob Tweed]

I wonder if any record labels have considered using a laser turntable
(eg http://www.elpj.com/about/index.html) in situations where the
master tapes have deteriorated?

Has anyone out there in this group ever tried one of these machines?



On 18 Mar 2011 13:28:20 GMT, "C. Leeds" wrote:

On 3/18/2011 8:02 AM, manitou wrote:

There are still many past LP releases not yet released on CD or SACD.
I'm interested in two from RCA, one from the later 50s and another
from the mid-60s.

Is there anyone at BMG, or elsewhere I can email, write or otherwise
lobby to suggest these items be made available?

CDs made from master tapes that old are often disappointing. The tapes
have aged, and the flaws are often audible. A good example is the
Mercury Living Presence series - the CD transfers are way inferior to a
well cared-for LP. You might consider transferring an original LP to
CD yourself. You'll likely get a much, much better result.

---

Rob Tweed
Company: M/Gateway Developments Ltd
Registered in England: No 3220901
Registered Office: 58 Francis Road,Ashford, Kent TN23 7UR

Web-site: http://www.mgateway.com

[Audio Empire]

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 08:28:37 -0700, Rob Tweed wrote
(in article ):

I wonder if any record labels have considered using a laser turntable
(eg http://www.elpj.com/about/index.html) in situations where the
master tapes have deteriorated?

Has anyone out there in this group ever tried one of these machines?



On 18 Mar 2011 13:28:20 GMT, "C. Leeds" wrote:

On 3/18/2011 8:02 AM, manitou wrote:

There are still many past LP releases not yet released on CD or SACD.
I'm interested in two from RCA, one from the later 50s and another
from the mid-60s.

Is there anyone at BMG, or elsewhere I can email, write or otherwise
lobby to suggest these items be made available?

CDs made from master tapes that old are often disappointing. The tapes
have aged, and the flaws are often audible. A good example is the
Mercury Living Presence series - the CD transfers are way inferior to a
well cared-for LP. You might consider transferring an original LP to
CD yourself. You'll likely get a much, much better result.

---

Rob Tweed
Company: M/Gateway Developments Ltd
Registered in England: No 3220901
Registered Office: 58 Francis Road,Ashford, Kent TN23 7UR

Web-site: http://www.mgateway.com


I was loaned a Finial Laser LP player once. It never worked for long. When
it did, it sounded mediocre. That's the reason the technology never REALLY
made it to market. I suspect that the real problem was that, like the optical
laser disc format, the tracking system was analog and incredibly complex. It
wouldn't stay aligned, and when it wandered off-track, the sound became badly
distorted. The concept might have been worth pursuing had the thing sounded
even half-way decent. But since it didn't, it died a merciful death (after
being "developed" by several different companies). It's a shame, though. The
concept had merit and it certainly had appeal.

[Arny Krueger]

"Rob Tweed" wrote in message


I wonder if any record labels have considered using a
laser turntable (eg http://www.elpj.com/about/index.html)
in situations where the master tapes have deteriorated?

Has anyone out there in this group ever tried one of
these machines?

At one time ELP had a web site with downloadable transcriptions of LPs that
were made using their equipment. The ones I've heard did not sound
particularly bad.

I've also personally listened to their equipment at a high end audio show.

The well-known problem with laser pickups is that they do not deform the
groove in a way that is complementary with the way the groove was deformed
when the LP was cut. There is also no "plowing action" that pushes fine
particulates out of the way. Therefore ,nonlinear distortion can be higher
and groove noise can be oppressive. At one point ELP turntables were
packaged with some kind of digital noise reduction hardware or software.

The usual reference equipment for vinyl and lacquer playback for reasons of
QC during production is a fairly standard high quality turntable with a
basically conventional design.

[Andrew Barss]

Arny Krueger wrote:

: The well-known problem with laser pickups is that they do not deform the
: groove in a way that is complementary with the way the groove was deformed
: when the LP was cut. There is also no "plowing action" that pushes fine
: particulates out of the way. Therefore ,nonlinear distortion can be higher
: and groove noise can be oppressive.


Interesting point. A couple of years ago I heard an NPR interview with a
couple ofphysicists who were using wither lasers or scanning electron microscopes to
pick up the sound in wax cylinders deemed too fragile to play conventionally.
I was excited to hear this, then not impressed -- the new tech played slightly
better, but it was still pretty awful. I wonder if the same deforming and
cleaning effect occurs with whatever was used to play wax cylinders as designed
(and if they would sound better if played that way than with the new-tech
system).

-- Andy Barss

[Arny Krueger]

"Andrew Barss" wrote in message

Arny Krueger wrote:

The well-known problem with laser pickups is that they
do not deform the groove in a way that is complementary
with the way the groove was deformed when the LP was
cut. There is also no "plowing action" that pushes fine
particulates out of the way. Therefore ,nonlinear
distortion can be higher and groove noise can be
oppressive.


Interesting point. A couple of years ago I heard an NPR
interview with a couple ofphysicists who were using wither lasers or
scanning electron microscopes to pick up the sound in wax
cylinders deemed too fragile to play conventionally.
I was excited to hear this, then not impressed -- the new
tech played slightly better, but it was still pretty
awful.

I am aware of this. I applaud means for recovering sound that minimize the
impact on rare source material.

I suspect that the recovered recordings were technically deficient due to
the many serious problems with the recording and production environment of
the day.

I wonder if the same deforming and
cleaning effect occurs with whatever was used to play wax
cylinders as designed (and if they would sound better if
played that way than with the new-tech
system).

I suspect that it may be possible to model the deformation process from the
recovered wave and apply appropriate corrections in the digital domain.

[Audio Empire]

On Tue, 29 Mar 2011 06:50:05 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Andrew Barss" wrote in message

Arny Krueger wrote:

The well-known problem with laser pickups is that they
do not deform the groove in a way that is complementary
with the way the groove was deformed when the LP was
cut. There is also no "plowing action" that pushes fine
particulates out of the way. Therefore ,nonlinear
distortion can be higher and groove noise can be
oppressive.


Interesting point. A couple of years ago I heard an NPR
interview with a couple ofphysicists who were using wither lasers or
scanning electron microscopes to pick up the sound in wax
cylinders deemed too fragile to play conventionally.
I was excited to hear this, then not impressed -- the new
tech played slightly better, but it was still pretty
awful.

I am aware of this. I applaud means for recovering sound that minimize the
impact on rare source material.

I suspect that the recovered recordings were technically deficient due to
the many serious problems with the recording and production environment of
the day.

I wonder if the same deforming and
cleaning effect occurs with whatever was used to play wax
cylinders as designed (and if they would sound better if
played that way than with the new-tech
system).

I suspect that it may be possible to model the deformation process from the
recovered wave and apply appropriate corrections in the digital domain.



Yeah, that could work, as long as somebody could figure a way to model it
accurately. The same with the sound. The acoustic recording process was
fraught with compromise. The diaphragms that moved the cutting needle were
grossly inefficient, it took a lot of acoustical power to cut a groove. The
system had worse than contemporary telephone quality (believe me that was
bad) and the recording medium was inherently extremely noisy. Algorithms have
been developed for the Library of Congress to correct some of these problems,
but not all of them. I've heard some Caruso transcriptions that actually
sound halfway decent. It turns out that much wider frequency range than one
can actually hear when playing back these recordings is actually THERE, but
it's so attenuated that you can't hear it. These can be boosted back to
audibility while digitally reducing out-of-band noise. They'll never be
Hi-Fi, I suspect, but as the technology improves, I'm sure that many of these
old recordings will yield more and more of the sound that's actually there.