Reel-to-Reel Addiction can be expensive!

[amirm]

The sampler reel I have blows away all the digital recordings of the same releases. They are entirely different mixes and free of grungy/loudness compression/remastering or whatever it is they have done for CD releases.

 

[RayDunzl]

The sampler reel I have blows away all the digital recordings of the same releases. They are entirely different mixes and free of grungy/loudness compression/remastering or whatever it is they have done for CD releases.

How do you "level match" those?

 

[TBone]

How do you "level match" those?

IMO, "level matching" is near impossible (and totally meaningless) when comparing a dynamically crunched signal to one that is dynamically capable.

 

[cjfrbw]

Most vinyl noise doesn't bother me. When the music swells above it, bliss. I think it is an acquired perversion of taste, although I can understand fully why most audiophiles would not like it.

I was playing my beat up, gritty "Shades of Deep Purple" album the other day, pops & clicks & surface noise and all, full blast, and it was great to me.

I guess the "mono only" guys are a cult that I don't entirely understand, but I gather on the right systems, it can sound pretty involving.

 

[TBone]

Huge Purple fan, just found an original In Rock LP to add to my collection, hopefully it cleans well. IMO, Machine Head is perhaps the greatest rock & roll album ever created. The saga of how it was made/mastered, rented houses, hotels, burning hotels (inspiring Smoke On The Water), abandoned hotels with old mattresses used for walls, police knocking on doors, the borrowed Rolling Stones mobile van ... legendary.

 

[Frank Dernie]

The sampler reel I have blows away all the digital recordings of the same releases. They are entirely different mixes and free of grungy/loudness compression/remastering or whatever it is they have done for CD releases.

It is incredibly annoying how the medium with the widest dynamic range is being deliberately squandered in order to make it suitable for portable use, on pop music at least.
It really is arse-backwards to have either reel-to-reel or LP recordings of the same piece of music being distributed with a wider dynamic range than CD nowadays.
Grrrrr.

 

[TBone]

Incredibly annoying ... it took so many audiophiles (myself included), so long, to comprehend reality.

CD started with excellent DR values/content, but that went belly-up quickly because CD was pronounced "sterile" by audiophiles. Then the labels realized that adding a "re-mastered" tag, w/hot compression, sold the same old music - like hot cakes. Add a high-rez format (and yet another, and yet another...) to the mix, further confusing the issue of dynamic content. MANY if not most reviewers (Positive Feedback & 6 Balloons especially) consistently preached higher-fidelity as being format driven ...

Audiophiles mostly have themselves to blame.

 

[hvbias]

I do think that price is way too high for presumably the company owning the licenses to the music. I think that Tape Project is actually reasonably priced considering the majors want between $10k-30k per album to license master tapes for famous albums for vinyl reissues (in limited quantities, license would be even more for higher numbers), this is from Universal Music Group that now owns a large portion of jazz and classical back catalogs (ie Decca, Deutsche Gramophon, Blue Note, etc).

And from what I have heard from people that were reissuing music that have since left the business big conglomerates like UMG are becoming increasingly difficult to work with for small quantity reissues. They keep wanting more money, more control over the product and so on.

 

[Sal1950]

It is incredibly annoying how the medium with the widest dynamic range is being deliberately squandered in order to make it suitable for portable use, on pop music at least.
It really is arse-backwards to have either reel-to-reel or LP recordings of the same piece of music being distributed with a wider dynamic range than CD nowadays.
Grrrrr.

GET A ROPE!!!

 

[TBone]

AFAIC, the kicker here, is in order to preserve these expensive tapes (and the music within) from degrading over time, which they certainly will, you'd have to archive 'em to digital (the sooner the better).

 

[hvbias]

AFAIC, the kicker here, is in order to preserve these expensive tapes (and the music within) from degrading over time, which they certainly will, you'd have to archive 'em to digital (the sooner the better).

They are doing this. Decca has been archiving to 24/96 for a long time and those are the files you'll get if you want to release a reissue (ie the Esoteric Japan SACDs are all sourced from these 24/96 backups) and Blue Note is archiving to some very high PCM bitrate/sample rate. The good labels know that these analog tapes are not an archival format.

Here is the back of Coltrane's Blue Train you can see they placed a sticker on the back of the tape box saying it was archived to digital

 

[Sal1950]

Ain't this a KOOL little guy!

 

[Sal1950]

Here is the back of Coltrane's Blue Train you can see they placed a sticker on the back of the tape box saying it was archived to digital

I'd love to have that in Osbourne's Crazy Train.

 

[c1ferrari]

Still into tape, here

 

[JS Hoover]

This is a "tape album" of an Arthur Fiedler/Boston Pops recording from 1971, called "SUPERSTAR". Aside from how kitschy the notion of a then-76 y.o. guy plugging Flower Power might have seemed (based on the cover art alone!): I would, seriously, put this (particular) 7 1/2ips quarter-track Ampex reel in the class of "demo quality". It was well-engineered by DGG (the then-parent co. of Fiedler's/B.P.'s new label Polydor; after having been with RCA since 1930) and, it was produced by one of the co-inventors of Synthesized Quad: a (then-young), future Grammy-winning Classical producer named Tom Mowrey.
The record level peaks at +2 VU on nearly every track without the slightest strain. If you heard this through an entirely vintage system (consisting of: re-capped A.R. 3a speakers, overhauled Dynaco power amp, and a rebuilt 1965 broadcast-grade Magnecord deck), YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE ALL OF IT WAS OVER 50 Y.O.(!). It really can deliver the impact of the '80s Maxell/JBL guy in the chair!

 

[watchnerd]

This is a "tape album" of an Arthur Fiedler/Boston Pops recording from 1971, called "SUPERSTAR". Aside from how kitschy the notion of a then-76 y.o. guy plugging Flower Power might have seemed (based on the cover art alone!): I would, seriously, put this (particular) 7 1/2ips quarter-track Ampex reel in the class of "demo quality". It was well-engineered by DGG (the then-parent co. of Fiedler's/B.P.'s new label Polydor; after having been with RCA since 1930) and, it was produced by one of the co-inventors of Synthesized Quad: a (then-young), future Grammy-winning Classical producer named Tom Mowrey.
The record level peaks at +2 VU on nearly every track without the slightest strain. If you heard this through an entirely vintage system (consisting of: re-capped A.R. 3a speakers, overhauled Dynaco power amp, and a rebuilt 1965 broadcast-grade Magnecord deck), YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE ALL OF IT WAS OVER 50 Y.O.(!). It really can deliver the impact of the '80s Maxell/JBL guy in the chair!View attachment 39381View attachment 39382

What deck are you using to play it back?

I have only 2 track decks.