The record label has identified and secured the “best available” analog master tape of a wonderful album and are looking to transfer it to digital for release through one of the high-resolution digital music retailers. What should be a simple step of playing back the original master and digitizing the analog output at a high-resolution spec is often an unnecessarily convoluted process. I’m hearing more and more about the production paths used in creating the new digital “masters” and I’m dismayed. For example, here is a description of the conversion process associated with the recordings done by my friend Peter McGrath, who works for the high-end speaker manufacturer Wilson Audio.<\/p>\n
The first step is to evaluate the condition of the analog master tapes. The tapes are slowly rewound and each tape splice checked and redone if necessary. Many older tapes suffer from terrible scrape flutter when played back due to the evaporation of the original tape lubricant. This lubricant allows the tape for smoothly glide over the heads and through the tape path. If none of the lubricant is left, the tape will shutter and squeal uncontrollably. The solution for this situation is to bake the tapes in a convection oven for several hours, which draws the last little bit of lubricant from the Mylar backing. Once baked the original tapes can be transferred to the digital domain for about 24 hours.<\/p>\n
I read that one prominent engineer applies additional lubricant to any problematic tapes prior to the transfer. This is a very bad idea. The output level of high frequencies demands that the oxide layer of the tape be in intimate contact with the playback head. Any dust or substance that gets in between the tape and the head will cause significant loss of high-frequency information. So it’s ludicrous to deliberately pollute that gap with any foreign substance.<\/p>\n
A very high quality analog tape machine is then used to playback the tape. A Studer A-80 two-channel deck equipped with state-of-the-art heads (Flux Magnetics Extended Response Repro head or a Wolke DIN Butterfly Repro head) is usually used. The tape handling characteristics of the Studer machines is near perfect. Although, I did meet a guy at the recent AES convention that is doing them one better. I’ll get back to him in another post.<\/p>\n
Then a custom EMM Labs ADC-8 MK IV ADC modified by Andreas Koch converts the analog signals to DSD 64 for capture on a Sonoma System (at 2.8224 MHz). At this point, if there’s any work to be done such as gain changes, reverb, panning, or equalization, the DSD bitstreams are transferred back to analog and sent through a Neve analog mastering console (because remember you can’t do anything to a DSD 1-bit stream). The output of the mastering desk is then captured back to DSD using a Merging Technologies Pyramix DSD\/DXD Masscore workstation before the systems’ Apodizing filters are applied during a final conversion to PCM…the ultimate sales format.<\/p>\n
Holy cow! What are these people thinking? Do they really believe that multiple conversion stages and routing the signals through additional analog stages is going to result in a better master?<\/p>\n
I don’t know any competent audio engineer that would choose a signal path that includes so many conversions and transformations. I count four conversion steps in the process described above and each time you convert from one form to another you lose fidelity. But it’s being done and we’re the ones suffering from this conversion nightmare.<\/p>\n
Wouldn’t it better to simply transfer the analog master tapes to PCM using 192 kHz\/24-bits using a really spectacular AD convertor? If any additional remastering needs to be done…do it in the digital domain using the widely available tools available to those studios working with PCM (which is virtually all of them). Following this procedure, the original analog tapes will only be subjected to one conversion. Keep it simple.<\/p>\n
The guys at Wilson Audio got some very bad advice and the delivered files will be less than they could be as a result. The obsession with all things DSD is ensuring that future generations of listeners will be hearing diminished versions of the masters. <\/p>\n
If you must use DSD because you prefer the sound, then do it at the final stage in your personal playback system. Don’t make me suffer from compromises that you accept because some designer or magazine reviewer told you DSD is a great thing. It’s not. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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