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Is there any music that actually requires 24 bits for replay?

Agreed, but in mastering you would never be in integer,
Which is irrelevant to the (sub) conversation that you were replying to. Where it was alleged that 24 bit is not needed even for DSP. It is that statement that was being refuted.

(My bold)
Yes but you said we need 24bits to avoid quantization errors becoming audible, and yeah sure it's inaudible at 24 bits since the errors is at -144dB below full scale which no human could ever hear, but then the recording will also most likely have some inherent noise which acts just like dither so the errors won't even be there.
And if you truncate down to 16bit or even lower you ofcourse eliminate the dither making it completely inaudible. But tbh the audibility of quantization errors at 16bit without dither is also probably way below of what humans can hear anyways.

So no you don't need 24bits or even 1 bit to avoid quantization errors, you just need dither :)
 
On the contrary I think most classical music listeners were generally pleased by CD, I certainly was, the complaints came from, admittedly the majority of, people who listen to pop music.

My theory was that most fashionable record player systems were pretty rolled off at the high end and the CD players were not, also maybe, contemporary preamps had input sensitivities suited to the 200mV output of line level kit like tuners but CD players had 2V output which maybe clipped the input of some of them.

CD was a good step forward from day 1 for classical music IME.
That's what I was saying, perhaps I worded it clumsily with the double negative 'would seem most were not unimpressed by the quality of the catalogue'?

Some of the speakers favoured by the 'Flat Earth' crowd at the time were not suitable at all for a format with flat FR out to 20Khz - Linn Kan, Epos ES14, and numerous other similar designs
 
Revisionist history is a b*tch.

Some of the very first CDs were digital sources. Heck they were making LPs from digital prior to CD. My very first purchased CDs, three of them, two were DDD.
 
Revisionist history is a b*tch.

Some of the very first CDs were digital sources. Heck they were making LPs from digital prior to CD. My very first purchased CDs, three of them, two were DDD.

Human memory is a bitch too: SPARS didn't come up with the codes until 1984. Maybe you were late to the party.

Were your first CDs from Ry Cooder, ABBA, Dire Straits, and/or Donald Fagen?

Those "DDD" recordings had analog conversions along the way, which made "DDD" kind of misleading. This is one reason why SPARS withdrew endorsement of the codes just seven years later in 1991. The fact that they were bribed/pushed back into endorsing them in 1995 by the mendacious labels only reinforces the point.

If by "Some of the very first CDs ..." you mean a nonzero number, then sure. But go look at a list of the first 50 CDs issued and you'll be hard pressed to find more than a few.
 
Which is irrelevant to the (sub) conversation that you were replying to. Where it was alleged that 24 bit is not needed even for DSP. It is that statement that was being refuted.
Bolding is mine and this what I was responding to:
If you are doing DSP room correction, or applying a bunch of effects during mastering, that could be hundreds of individual calculations.

If you are doing that processing in 16 bits those repeated quantisation errors (which are essentailly truncations) absolutely can build up to something audible.
Like I said, all good as I get what you were trying to say. The above is accidentally misleading because it reads like you could be in 16 int while mastering because of the or statement you used.
 
On the contrary I think most classical music listeners were generally pleased by CD, I certainly was, the complaints came from, admittedly the majority of, people who listen to pop music.

My theory was that most fashionable record player systems were pretty rolled off at the high end and the CD players were not, also maybe, contemporary preamps had input sensitivities suited to the 200mV output of line level kit like tuners but CD players had 2V output which maybe clipped the input of some of them.

CD was a good step forward from day 1 for classical music IME.
The complaints came from people who were committed to the LP format. Most people fully embraced the new medium, whether the contents were popular or classical. Those who were still committed to LPs were in the "audiophile" sector, mostly in publications like Stereophile (Gordon Holt notwithstanding) and the Absolute Sound. But down on the ground, that is to say at the retail level, the conversion of the music buying public was very rapid. I was working in music retail at the time, at Tower Records Berkeley CA from 1984 -1986 and then at The Musical Offering, also in Berkeley, from 1988 to 1996.

With classical productions the conversion was sped up because the recording gear was much more practical - many classical music productions were not in studios but in churches or concert halls, so portable equipment was the norm. And a DAT recorder (commonly in use for classical productions) was a lot more portable than a reel-to-reel deck. Once DAWs came into play, with the greater ease of editing they offered, there was little reason to use analog tape. All of this resulted in an explosion of the "early music"/original instruments sector of the market, where the ensembles tended to be small as were the profits. The end result of all of this is a glut of classical recordings on CDs, which turned out to be quite durable, and becoming harder to re-sell used as so many of the titles are now available on streaming services.
 
Revisionist history is a b*tch.

Some of the very first CDs were digital sources. Heck they were making LPs from digital prior to CD. My very first purchased CDs, three of them, two were DDD.

It wasn’t always the case though.

Donald Fagen - The Nightfly is a good example, explained by Roger Nichols:

”The first project I worked on that became a Compact Disc was Donald Fagen's Nightfly album. I couldn't wait to get the CD in my hot little hands and compare it with the original mixes. When the CD arrived, I ran to my audio system and threw the CD into my player. After about 30 seconds I was ready to throw in the towel. The CD didn't sound anything like the final mixes. Was I wrong about digital audio? Was the Compact Disc truly inferior to the vinyl disc that it was to replace?

I started doing some checking with the mastering facility where we mastered the album. Bob Ludwig at Masterdisk in New York told me that the record company never asked for the 1610 digital master that we'd made. Instead, they had requested a 30 ips half-inch analog tape copy of our digital mixes. They then made the CD master from this analog copy. No wonder my CD didn't sound like the original mixes.

After we raised enough hell, new CD masters were prepared and new CDs were pressed. I compared the new one to the original mixes. It matched perfectly. Whew!”

 
Human memory is a bitch too: SPARS didn't come up with the codes until 1984. Maybe you were late to the party.

Were your first CDs from Ry Cooder, ABBA, Dire Straits, and/or Donald Fagen?

Those "DDD" recordings had analog conversions along the way, which made "DDD" kind of misleading. This is one reason why SPARS withdrew endorsement of the codes just seven years later in 1991. The fact that they were bribed/pushed back into endorsing them in 1995 by the mendacious labels only reinforces the point.

If by "Some of the very first CDs ..." you mean a nonzero number, then sure. But go look at a list of the first 50 CDs issued and you'll be hard pressed to find more than a few.
Well gee, I didn't buy the first 3 CDs available. And yes it was 1984 as that is when a big price break happened with the players. Also, a big difference in playing a digitally recorded tape, running it thru analog processing and then back to digital vs having an analog sourced tape. Those early warnings included saying tape hiss might be heard. The two recordings I had presented no tape hiss, and definitely weren't originally recorded to analog tape. I don't think we were discussing only the very first batch of CDs, but those early years. Where to draw the line, I don't know, but I would probably included anything prior to 1990 as a first guess.
 
the record company never asked for the 1610 digital master that we'd made. Instead, they had requested a 30 ips half-inch analog tape copy of our digital mixes. They then made the CD master from this analog copy. No wonder my CD didn't sound like the original mixes.
:facepalm: Things you can't make up.
And after some time has passed it is blamed on the digital technology.
 
Well gee, I didn't buy the first 3 CDs available.

You said "Some of the very first CDs ...". By '85/86 CDs were commonplace.

And yes it was 1984 as that is when a big price break happened with the players.

SPARS codes were first used by Polygram in late 1984, so it seems you either had very specific record label tastes or this was later than you think.

Also, a big difference in playing a digitally recorded tape, running it thru analog processing and then back to digital vs having an analog sourced tape. Those early warnings included saying tape hiss might be heard. The two recordings I had presented no tape hiss, and definitely weren't originally recorded to analog tape.

Which recordings? Professional tape formats didn't necessarily hiss that much with Dolby A or dbx, and with popular music in particular it would be masked by the program material.

I don't think we were discussing only the very first batch of CDs, but those early years. Where to draw the line, I don't know, but I would probably included anything prior to 1990 as a first guess.

CD sales passed vinyl after 1987. We're getting old.
 
Which recordings? Professional tape formats didn't necessarily hiss that much with Dolby A or dbx, and with popular music in particular it would be masked by the program material.
I have a couple of early CDs that have 'warnings' about the tape hiss being audible.

I forget the exact wording but something along the lines of 'It's not our fault that this new format is too good for the ancient tech that made this recording.'
 
I have a couple of early CDs that have 'warnings' about the tape hiss being audible.

I forget the exact wording but something along the lines of 'It's not our fault that this new format is too good for the ancient tech that made this recording.'

Yes, I had some of those too. I was asking him for the specific albums he claimed were hiss-free so we can look into their history and not depend on memory.
 
You said "Some of the very first CDs ...". By '85/86 CDs were commonplace.

..

Not at all in Germany. It wasn't until '87 or so that most of the music I bought was published on CDs as well as on LPs. And the CD players were expensive.

One of the first CDs I remember buying was Kenny G's "Silhouette" in '88 (memory obviously a bit foggy). I recall thinking it sounded utterly sublime (it was DDD). :) I don't think I ever bought an LP after.

Then again, to this day, one of my favorite recordings (and one I have used when listening to new equipment) is Karl Munchinger's Kanon with the Stuttgart orchestra. It features very audible hiss (was recorded forever ago).

PS: I went through my library right now, and I think I bought my first CD in '86. But I remember not every new album was available, because several '87 albums I still bought as LPs. Maybe the cost of CDs also played a factor.
 
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Yes, I had some of those too. I was asking him for the specific albums he claimed were hiss-free so we can look into their history and not depend on memory.
Sorry - I misread.

'The Nightfly' is an early all-digital recording and should be hiss-free.

My understanding is that only a few of the analogue copies made it into the wild, there's a way to check if you have one which I don't recall now. Mine is from the digital master.

Next time I play it I will crank it up a bit and see if it is clean or not.
 
Other than the Pachelbel Cannon (the definitive 15" shore battery edition) or
Werner von Braun's Concerto for Nose Flute and Saturn V Booster...

I can't think of any. :cool:
 
I have a couple of early CDs that have 'warnings' about the tape hiss being audible.

I forget the exact wording but something along the lines of 'It's not our fault that this new format is too good for the ancient tech that made this recording.'
"WARNING: The music on this Compact Disc was originally recorded on analog equipment, prior to modern noise reduction techniques. This Compact Disc preserves, as closely as possible, the sound of the original recording but its high resolution also reveals the limitations in the master tape, including noise and other distortions."

Neil Young, After the Gold Rush. 1970. First CD issue in 1986.
 
Then again, to this day, one of my favorite recordings (and one I have used when listening to new equipment) is Karl Munchiner's Kanon with the Stuttgart orchestra. It features very audible hiss (was recorded forever ago).
Recorded around 1960, as I recall. And early Decca stereo recordings tended to have a lot of hiss. Modern reissues probably have some digital de-noising. I've noticed that with the early Epic/Columbia issues remastered to 24 bits.
 
Recorded around 1960, as I recall. And early Decca stereo recordings tended to have a lot of hiss. Modern reissues probably have some digital de-noising. I've noticed that with the early Epic/Columbia issues remastered to 24 bits.
The arrangement is utterly not baroque ensemble appropriate, but utterly amazing because Munchinger awesomely exploits the full power of the strings in full classical power. Turn the power up a little and you'll believe in biorythm sync... your breathing will adjust. So awesome. And your speakers will *work*. :)
 
The arrangement is utterly not baroque ensemble appropriate, but utterly amazing because Munchinger awesomely exploits the full power of the strings in full classical power. Turn the power up a little and you'll believe in biorythm sync... your breathing will adjust. So awesome. And your speakers will *work*. :)
My favorite version of Pachelbel's "Greatest Hit".

 
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