[LAU] digital voodoo: master fader should be set at 0db

[Paul Davis]

2010/4/12 Jörn Nettingsmeier <nettings at folkwang-hochschule.de>:
> if all those cable and bit transparency fetishists knew how reference
> classical recordings are produced, the whole discussion (and large parts
> of the high-end market) would go down in flames.

from 1981-1983 i worked in the largest record store in europe (HMV on
Oxford St. in London).  we used to crack up reading audiophile
magazines that would rave about pressings on virgin, extra-thick vinyl
and all the other things that audiophiles were supposed to look for to
get the very best reproducable sound. why? because between the record
company (no matter who they were) and the consumer who bought the
record from HMV was a 400F oven that we passed every single record
through in order to shrink the shrinkwrap around it. now, it was true
that there were retailers who didn't do this sort of thing, but we
noticed that nobody in the audiophile world ever seemed to be aware of
the existence of this step in their precious signal handling chain.
Even 4mm of virgin vinyl gets pretty, uhm, soft after 15-20 seconds in
that oven, and what that does to the frequency response of the groove
walls would (once) have been an interesting little master's project
perhaps.

--p