How much did ADCs in the 80s affect the sound quality of CDs?

[krabapple]

Nah, everyone is susceptible to confirmation bias. He suspects its going to degrade audibly because he knows it does degrade, so he imagines a difference. perfectly possible and isn't going to get him fired.

This is absolutely a possibility, and I don't get why anyone on ASR would dismiss it. Even when there is a true audible difference, preference is still susceptible to bias.

This doesn't mean Nichols was 'wrong'. But it's surely something to factor in to the anecdote.

 

[krabapple]

But an artifact that is still after years exactly the same on a DAT tapen an practicly gone on a analog mastertape has nothing to do with imagination or psychoacoustics. It's plain laws of physics. The detoriation of analog tapes is comonly known.

And if so it can be measured, and that would be the more compelling scientific evidence. That's simply the case, whether you like it or not.

And apart from that, bias plays a role in preference.

 

[krabapple]

Yes if he can get hold of the original multitrack tape he will use that.

Steven Wilson never, ever is given a tape of any sort. He is given digital copies of whatever tapes the record company could unearth. Those copies (transfers) are made by others, not Wilson.

 

[Cbdb2]

It might be worth noting that the analog master tapes they were ADCing from had an SNR of 60-70dB, so..

Noise reduction steadily increased that to 90db.

 

[Cbdb2]

Yes but his line of work did not require him identifying if a high quality analogue tape degraded noticeably after a few hours.

His line of work is all about noticing changes in sound.

 

[Cbdb2]

That, again, is testimony, but not objective proof, which we'll likely never get.


ALL Steven Wilson work for classic bands is remixes. He doesn't do remastering; if that is ever involved, someone else does it.

And of course a remix typically is different enough in multiple ways that DBT for difference is superfluous.

That's not what we are talking about with vinyl production source vs original master source. There, the differences would be confined essentially to different EQ of the same two-track recording.

Yes and compression/limiting to make it louder.

 

[Snarfie]

Steven Wilson never, ever is given a tape of any sort. He is given digital copies of whatever tapes the record company could unearth. Those copies (transfers) are made by others, not Wilson.

Realy i give up

 

[VientoB]

His line of work is all about noticing changes in sound.

Yeah, but not the change he's talking about there. More noticeable changes. If the tape degradation he says he can hear was noticeable I'd expect more people to be talking about it. I'm not saying he couldn't hear a difference, only that I'm sceptical.

 

[krabapple]

His line of work is all about noticing changes in sound.

Well, was. Roger Nichols has been deceased since 2011.

Again, not to disparage Nichols at all (I quite prefer his digital mastering of the SD catalog to others..in a blind ABX too!) but across my decades I have heard/read enough famous mastering engineers make various dubious claims about difference (e.g. FLAC vs WAV, digital vs analog, nonsense like Shakti stones, etc) that you simply can't just take everything they assert about it, as gospel. There are definitely some in the woo/antiscience/DBTs don't work camp, regardless of how good their ears or their work are.


One of the upsides is that if the thing the ME claims makes a difference, really doesn't make any difference, it doesn't matter. The final sound does.

 

[krabapple]

Yes and compression/limiting to make it louder.

Yes, and I am subsuming that under the general 'EQ difference' rubric. Noise reduction too. These are all things that will impact a comparative FR plot

 

[krabapple]

Realy i give up

Perhaps take time to review the title of this forum, and you will appreciate the persnickety caveats being posted.

 

[DWPress]

I still use an early 90's vintage ADC and was curious enough to do some measurements that I shared in this post: MSB PAD-1 ADC

 

[sigbergaudio]

Noise reduction steadily increased that to 90db.

That is theoretically true, but with tape re-use etc, I'm not sure that's a realistic number for the tapes in question here. But no one can know for sure of course.

 

[Blumlein 88]

His job demands uncontrolled listening and hes done it all day everyday at work for years. So not like any other human except other engineers. Ild bet real money if you played him the same thing but one is 2db hotter he would tell you the only difference is one is a little louder.

I can do that. You guys are making a common mistake. He can't hear what humans can't. His experience can help to a point. No one can overcome the foibles inherent in the human brain.

 

[Emlin]

His job demands uncontrolled listening and hes done it all day everyday at work for years. So not like any other human except other engineers. Ild bet real money if you played him the same thing but one is 2db hotter he would tell you the only difference is one is a little louder.

How are we going to organise this bet? Because I want your real money.

 

[restorer-john]

A lot of people like to purchase older CDs of their favourite albums since they tend to have better dynamic range and are perceived to sound better than newer masterings.

It took quite few years into Compact Disc before people started to realise all CDs of a given album weren't the same and many sounded quite different to one another. It depended on where and who made/pressed the disc, the provenance of the source etc.

My advice is to hunt down original CDs pressed in the mid to late 1980s analogue recorded albums released at that time- if that's where you interest lies. The 1990s were fine for new releases as most were fully digital by then. Engineers had learnt to produce dynamic, well recorded digital recordings and we also had a lot of excellent music being made by seasoned artists who knew how to make the most of the format.

By the 2000s, compression hit in mainstream music and forget buying classic "remasters" of anything. They are usually a sh#tshow as the analogue master tapes had deteriorated, every man and his dog had a go at improving the sound and essentially wrecking it. The sad thing is, these abominations were released and you'll spot them everywhere. Don't be tempted.

 

[DonH56]

Noise reduction steadily increased that to 90db.

Interesting. Back in the day I never saw more than 80, maybe 85 dB, max from 2" tape masters.

 

[manisandher]

I supposed you'd need to do a comparison using one of those old ADCs and a modern one on the same master tape.

I've done some null testing (using DeltaWave) with a bunch of ADCs now. The oldest is a Prism from the late '90s, which performs almost as well as my RME ADI-2 Pro in the null tests. I've got all the data somewhere which I'll try to fish out once I'm back home (travelling for work right now).

Mani.

 

[GXAlan]

I cannot speak for the 50 kHz SoundStream tech, but if you look at how JVC Victor Flair uses the Sony 1630

K2HD PRO MASTERING ｜ FLAIR

Highly-Advanced Mastering Technology Developed By FLAIR

victorstudio.jp

The Sony PCM-1630 For Master Recordings

The Sony PCM-1630 audio processors were widely used for the production and mastering of many of the first CDs in the early 1980s.

www.vintagedigital.com.au

Sony Corporation - Sony’s Professional Audio | Story | chapter 2

The birth of digital audio technology and its dramatic progress.

www.sony.net

https://reverb.com/item/82337077-fully-tested-record-and-playback-sony-pcm-1630-digital-audio-processor-recorder-local-pickup-la

 

[DonH56]

I cannot speak for the 50 kHz SoundStream tech, but if you look at how JVC Victor Flair uses the Sony 1630

K2HD PRO MASTERING ｜ FLAIR

Highly-Advanced Mastering Technology Developed By FLAIR

victorstudio.jp

The Sony PCM-1630 For Master Recordings

The Sony PCM-1630 audio processors were widely used for the production and mastering of many of the first CDs in the early 1980s.

www.vintagedigital.com.au

Sony Corporation - Sony’s Professional Audio | Story | chapter 2

The birth of digital audio technology and its dramatic progress.

www.sony.net

https://reverb.com/item/82337077-fully-tested-record-and-playback-sony-pcm-1630-digital-audio-processor-recorder-local-pickup-la

The PCM-1600 was widely used (the earlier PCM-1 was wicked expensive and few were made). They made a large (cabinet/console sized) multitrack (24-channel, IIRC) digital recorder that used tape reels that was in a lot of studios in the early 1980's. The 1630 cemented their rep in the mastering department of most studios in the 1980's. The competition was, among others, Soundstream's system used by such folk as Sheffield Lab (Doug Sax, Lincoln Mayorga).