[LAU] 1980's cds: analog to digital conversion

[Aaron L.]

On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 5:09 AM, Brent Busby <brent at keycorner.org> wrote:

> On Mon, 15 Feb 2010, Peder Hedlund wrote:
>
> > Quoting Ricardus Vincente <wizardofgosz at gmail.com>:
> >
> >> On Sat, 2010-02-13 at 20:28 +0100, Peder Hedlund wrote:
> >>> and do an A-B comparison.
> >>
> >>  Comparing what, to what?
> >
> > To compare the cassette mix that he remembered so fondly to the CD mix
> > he found lacking. I have a hunch it might be entirely possible that
> > the sound he remembers from tape is just nostalgia and that the CD in
> > fact sounds more or less the same as the cassette.
>
> Not necessarily...  I've got a few tapes that sounded way better than
>> the CD that was supposed to "replace" them, and that's pretty bad
>> considering how bad cassette sounds.  There's something about the way we
>> hear that can way more easily deal with background hiss, rumble, pitch
>> instability, and a multitude of other evils than deal with grainy
>> metallic thin sound that has all the body removed from it.
>>
>> Granted, some of that may have been the way the original recording
>> really sounded, and the cassette may have been flattering it with its
>> pleasant mid-bass saturation.  I can't imagine that's always it though.
>> People always say that when we hear that sort of effect from CD's, the
>> CD is just telling the truth (kind of like the same excuse I hear about
>> certain Mackie monitor speakers), when we all know that almost all
>> recordings made before the 90's were done on an original recording
>> medium of multitrack tape itself.  Surely the studio master tape didn't
>> sound like a grainy metallic CD!
>>
>
Here's a good example.  Listen to any of the songs from "Out of the Blue"
that also appear on this cd:
http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Magic-Electric-Light-Orchestra/dp/B000002A2V

They sound no where near as good as the originals on vinyl.  It's actually
pretty impressive in how much crappier they sound.  Like someone would have
had to go out of their way (or be neglecting something obvious) to make them
sound that way.

The very essence of 'crap-tacular'.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/linux-audio-user/attachments/20100215/f4ac3681/attachment.htm