The topic from one week can spill over into a other post. I don't always get the science first time round. Hearing it again from a slightly different angle does help me further understand. I get a .....AHH THATS WHAT IT MEANS MOMENT ! Thank you from Great Britain 🇬🇧
Remember the labels on the back of CDs in the 80s? AAD or ADD or DDD? My buddies and I were always looking for the DDD discs, assuming they were better 'cause they were "pure" digital. Perhaps remasters to DSD of those older recordings, the AADs, would sound better than the DDD recordings?
0:51 Ok, before we start. Analog circuitry can and does impart distortion. In the case of audio, you should expect an increase in low end. Since he mentions recording, recording to tape is usually done hot to impart further pleasing harmonic distortion and tape compression. Most analog distortions are a two fold benefit. First is that compression factor and secondly is the softening and smoothing of the midrange and low end increase. If you record to analog, you preserve that distortion. If you record to digital, that tape compression and analog warmth are lost. Even the warmth from running through the board circuitry is lost depending on your monitoring setup. There are recording systems out there that manipulate the tape machine to record to tape then automatically transfer the tape to a digital format so you get the best of both worlds. Digital distortion doesn't have that headroom or leeway and doesn't impart pleasing harmonics to the signal. If it did, we would be pushing digital distortion the same way we push tape. Digital simply samples the signal, give you an accurate representation of what you put in. The the requirement to record to digital and have it sound like analog is pretty much required by the system I mentioned earlier....and yes, it's expensive. The beauty of digital is that the threshold of recording, mixing, and mastering has been greatly reduced. It's easy to do, anybody can do it, and with proper technique, anybody can do it well. Ok let's see what Paul says.
After watching...I'm curious how DSD is supposedly more "analog-sounding" than PCM. That would imply that it too imparts distortion onto the signal, and I highly doubt that's the case. DSD is a digital recording format, bent on precision, just like PCM. If you have a studio that records in DSD, it's going to have to be converted to PCM for editing, mixing, and mastering if any of that is done on computer. If analog equipment is used for the mixing and mastering process, you're going to end up with a warmed up, analog summed signal regardless. Sounds like you're just running in circles to get to the same spot.
This is what Paul should have said. I like film photography because of the film noise, but to say that digital photography is "cold" is just stupid. Digital has more precision and resolution and has no signal loss in the process.
I think this is largely correct, but a huge part of tape sound is that it greatly rounds and softens high frequency transients, and machines often have a built in EQ boost to correct for this. What you get then is a sound that isn't necessarily lacking high frequencies, but where all the stabby and ear slicing treble spikes are smoothed out.
I get what you are saying, but two points here: 1. Blanket compression (like a VCA/FET/Optical or digital compressor performs) doesn't necessarily smooth out high frequencies. What tape does (bellow 0db Vu) is generally better described as similar to soft-clipping. 2. The softening of transients happens before the record level crosses 0db Vu, which is where the tape saturation and compression mainly begin (where the tape is pushed into overdrive, essentially).
I just hope those CDs you make are hybrid SACDs. Hope the music is good, too. How are you going to choose the artists you record? Channel Classics and Pentatone are still recording in DSD and doing a spectacular job of it. Just this past week I have bought three new hybrid SACDs which sound great, even the CD layer, but especially the SACD layer.
Analog sounds warmer because the high end usually lacks, even if a little, making it sound warmer. LoFi (the genre) is based around that principle as well as adding reverb which can be experienced on some older recordings. In example, if you listen really closely to the beginning of School by Supertramp (Crime of the Century Album), you can hear the performer a second or so playing the harmonica in the background extremely quietly before the actual chord. Technically that’s like reverse reverb but same idea.
That's funny that in multiple blind tests experts couldn't tell the difference between PCM and DSD. I love both but I don't pretend that one is black and the other is white.
Back in the 90s it was pretty common practice with digital recordings to first record to tape before transferring to digital, and often times even bouncing tracks back to tape, and ultimately mixed down to 1/2" tape. For example, the first two Garbage albums were first tracked to tape, dumped to a Pro Tools session as a gazillion different tracks, then stems were recorded back onto the the 24 track machines, and mixed down to another two channel tape machine. For whatever reason, the sound of the tape preemptively softened the hard edges of the digital conversion, added a little warmth and cohesion to the tracks. Since AD conversion has improved this doesn't really happen anymore, although many engineers still use plugins or hardware emulators like the Empirical Labs Fatso to get that smoother sound. Paul is telling the truth, on a really good system a DSD recording is close to identical reproduction of a tape source (though PCM below 24/192 not so much), and with DSD you don't get any of the qualitatively harsh or cold sounds that engineers used tape or processors to soften and warm up. It's like true analog, without any of the tape noise or artifacts.
I personally don't mind. I record my DDD CD into cassette tapes and I'm happy enough about it. For me, analog is a way to make me appreciate music more.
I think when many people complain about digital, or cold, or non-musical presentation they are bringing back the history of their listening, or at least the history of many CDs. Paul mentions how bad the early CD players were (some of us old guys went through a quick succession of Sony, Phillips, and Phase Linear CD players in just a few years. We progressed from really bad, to bad, to less bad. 4x oversampling solved the brick wall filtering...right.) But the digital recorders that where contemporaneous with the players were also pretty bad. All the engineers would tell you the jitter, wow and flutter were left on the LPs. I have lots of 1980s CDs that are badly recorded. The recording engineers were learning their craft all over again. So I can point to many CDs that prove that digital is inferior to LPs. But 95% of the CDs I have that were recorded in the 1990s and later don't suffer from these problems. I've had the PS Audio DS DAC in my house for two days and am listening to old Peter Paul and Mary CDs and LP ripped to 96/24 files that both are as good as listening to the LPs. I'd say there isn't a technical or musical metric you can come up with that would make me want to play my LPs except to rip them to digital files.
I remember trying 2 DAT machines and they both distorted the highs of my Supertramp crime MoFi LP making the highs sound swishy and it didn't matter how high the sample rate was.
Analog tape recording is like a signal processor that we happen to like the sound of. It does change the sound: the frequency response, the dynamics, and the transients. It depends on the music and the application as to whether we like the effect or not, but it's an artistic choice. Good digital recording has no sound of its own. It's utterly transparent. If you are 100% happy with your source, then stay digital. But sometimes you want that bit of color & saturation that analog tape can give you, just like your favorite EQ, compressor, or other audio processor.
Have to disagree with dynamic range on audio recording it's down to technology and is it really that important..! I don't think so. A record can go up to I think about 82 maximum DB and with a dbx decoder can reach 100 DB dynamic range. Not sure what it is for tape about the same, But with modern electronics and techniques I think you can get it up to 120 Db quite easily just depends on the median with double layered tape this is quite possible. And it's not that important. Think what you're trying to describe Paul is that digital recording doesn't have white and pink Noise to fill the empty void it's just empty
I've recorded lots of dbx compander tapes in the 1970s (Crown cx744 tap at 15ips) that sound very good, but like Dolby you can hear the tapes breath. The noise floor modulates with the loudness of the music and is a little delayed (noise vs music). I think the guys at Chord talk about modulated noise floor even now. I'd suggest this changing noise floor is far more distracting then the static noise floor say -120 db down.
@@kennetheis3588 yes I hear what you're saying but what I'm saying is with modern electronics these noises could be got rid of or dramatically inaudible, in analogue tape and vinyl, You really going back to 80s technology when it comes to analogue tape that's where it stopped. With better electronics and play heads and different types of play heads that don't touch the tape at all these things are achievable quite easily now as they are in digital recording, is what I'm saying. With the resources like Paul if he put his mind to it and made a tape machine to the modern standards information you could get off a studio tape would be outstanding and as good as digital or better I believe. I was thinking maybe playing the tape through a bunch of coils it will not touch the tape but will pick up the information from the tape if you made the coil very sensitive enough and with plenty of amplification and filtering. Adopting the same principle as a hard drive does
Is it possible that the harmonic distortions we know and love from our analogue vinyl can and is being captured by the digital conversions. Whereas a recording straight to digital misses out on those distortions and they are gone forever?
Sure; probably it's the main reason. Recording straight to digital captures the sound much more pure and clean, while people tend to love the distortions that come from recording to analog (tape, vinyl, trafo's in tube amps etc).
You really can't argue if DSD is better or not against PCM. You need to also specify the format of DSD and PCM. Both DSD and PCM have quantization and linearity errors that depends on the quality of the format. DSD itself is absolutely no guarantee. A DSD64 SACD is with better resolution than a 16-bit 44.1KHz standard CD or about the same resolution as a 24-bit 96KHz PCM recording, but not as much resolution as a 24-bit 192KHz PCM recording. In either way DSD or PCM, more data yield better quality. Paul's talk about "loneliness" is a bit nonsense unless he specifically limit PCM to the old CD standard only. A music studio running the audio at 24-bit 192KHz PCM would be a better compromise than DSD64...
I’ve been in a recording studio, sitting next to the engineer behind the console (was an Otari w/ 2” 24-track deck & Meyer monitors, btw) and the live sound had more of what we ascribe to modern high-quality digital recordings than the playback from tape did... going thru that bandwidth and dynamic range limited storage really does change the sound. (Note that I’m specifically excluding the early direct-digital recordings; because the early ADC chips had known, substantial flaws) 🤔 Personally, I like the modern digital sound better than the analog tape/vinyl sound, but individual tastes vary... 🙂
I liken pulse density to FM. Both are equally capable when done right in equally ideal conditions. If you want to read something about DSD: www.mojo-audio.com/blog/dsd-vs-pcm-myth-vs-truth/
Then again, if the tape was better why not return to tape and then convert to digital. If digital leave its mark and obviously does then the best thing would be one step back. It ia the same as stellar series - icepower does not sound good because of the restraints but I saw that PS audio put something to correct the sound. The same could be applies in creation process
"Preserving the 'Qualities' of Analog through Digital is a ..... Snap ?????? Now There's a loaded question for the fact that not everyone hears Analog the same way ! Are we talking about Digital recordings of Analog that have the same Musical transients response of the Analog or the Digital version of these transients ? ( I don't listen to Electronic based instrument recordings , so transients response makes or breaks my interest in the recording)
Regarding new studio: Artists are generally sensitive people and the aesthetic of the room is important to get the best performance, it needs soul as much as it needs top quality gear.
Digital recordings can have much more information than analogue. So if you make a digital recording and transfer to analogue it will be less detailed. You lose information.
Ah, I should have clarified: digital comes up short because it fails to recognize noise (in its natural, abundant variety) as information. It's getting better but that's one of the flaws.
@@StephaneVorstellung but noise in the digital realm is what is called jitter, which comes as high pitched hiss, and unprecise treble which is often unpleasant to hear. And analogue noise is more like tape hiss and record scratches etc. If you have low end digital gear this jitter is very much present because of inprecise clock. If you want to add noise on a recording many use an analogue tube pre-amp for recording. Which makes the sound more rounded and full because of the harmonic distortions of the tubes.
That is an Analog Radio mixing board when Radio sounded GOOD . We don't hear of treble extension anymore like we did before do we . only Bass extension .
You brits cant compare because you have what 3 stations? So you can send out a wide range signal with wide bandwidth. Here in the US were restricted to 10 mHz. Nah, just kidding.
Soooo you can record to a cd from a turntable or vinyl and it sounds perfect cause it does not add “coldness” but if you record humans and instruments straight to cd then it does sound cold ?????????????????
I don't get what he's saying. I think he said if you digitally record a vinyl record or tape it sounds almost indistinguishable from the analog but if you record to digital, skipping any vinyl or tape, then it sounds 'digital' and anything but analog? How does that make sense to him? If you record a Cello and then cut that to vinyl, it sounds analog. If you record that vinyl recording on digital, it sounds analog but, if you record that Cello straight to digital it wont sound analog???? Bizarre. A Cello IS analog. It shouldn't matter what the destination media is if you're recoding an analog insturment. How does the source being analog media such as vinyl or a stringed instrument change how the digital recording sounds? Explain that with science. You can't say digitally recording a vinyl record sounds analog but digitally recording a Cello sounds digital unless you make a digital copy from a vinyl recording of that Cello. That's nuts.
Yeah, that's where I stand too. Doesn't make sense. Vinyl plays with wow, flutter, poor dynamic range, RIAA conversion back & forth, clicks, pops, rumble, noise, hiss, poorer frequency response etc which all distract me from actual recording. No so with a digital recording.
@@r44heliflyer Yeah that's one thing but what he's saying is, if you digitally record an analog source, it sounds analog if that source was vinyl or a tape but not if the source was the actual analog instrument. That doesn't make sense.
@@captainwin6333 yes, I agree with what you are saying. If you digitally recorded a vinyl you would get the recording plus all the noise and limitations. But its just an audio signal even with the added noise so if that is a faithful recording of the vinyl then recording the music digitally in the first place also has to be just as good.
I'm sooo glad to hear from Paul that all my suspicions about original PCM recordings (inferior sounding to analog ones) were true, BUT WITHOUT that meaning that digital had been inferior to analog. I wish to add one opinion more: Having enjoyed quite a few analog records (and tapes) transfered to digital, from my fully digital system, AND experiencing (and aknowledging) all the well known and well praised by their afficionados qualities of analog (but heard through their digital copies, sometimes with different cartridges etc), I tend to believe that YET another reason why "analog sounds better" (in fact, it does) IS because, through its overall narrower "acoustic envelope", IT STRESSES OUR SYSTEMS MUCH LESS (requires less, that can easily be provided by our equipment and rooms). One such example is the bass, which, although quite compromised in analog, is also more satisfactory when played back through analog. I tend to consider analog as a magical compression recipe, yet to be decoded and, perhaps, copied. ( I'd like to know what Paul thinks about this).
I have believed for 50 years in the magic of second order harmonics and that analogue recordings enhanced that “distortion” in a way that is pleasing to humans. I don’t understand the science but believe in the magic. But I’m willing to suspend those beliefs and give DSD recordings a listen.
Pual learning lots from you bought my first cd player in 1984 marantz cd 103 ? Could we have some more on HQA .I know you are not than impressed with it but would like to hear more about this subject as say SACD PSM DSD H RESALUTION .CD DVD ADIO .AND HQA .MANY THANKS PS PAUL cant still get my emails to work . 🙄🙄🙄
Im sorry Paul i have to disagree with you here when comparing analog and digital. Why are so many caught up on dynamic range and bandwidth as a factor when comparing analog and digital. Specifications look impressive on digital but it is not able to capture the nuances of analog music. Digital in my opinion has its limitations and will never sound as real and musical as analog. You have to get past the numbers and let your ears be the final judge and most audiophiles still prefer analog over digital, Its not even close.
@Kevin LaTour: You have no clue what you are talking about. Please go and educate yourself about the basics of digital audio before you embarrass yourself.
there is a lot of error in this video that I'm not going to comment about, but one thing to be said is that analog media is lossy, meaning you are going to lose data not matter what you do, due to chemical/material changes over time, due to temperature, wear etc. there is no escaping it, there is nothing you can do about it, that's why you never ever ever ever record in analog, you lose what you record and it doesn't stick, master, copies or otherwise
@@FooBar89 No that's a fact. Lost is a function of some digital codecs, they throw away what is deemed "non essential " information in order to save space. The lower the bit rate the more info is thrown away. Not only is no information thrown away with analog , there is no way to do so. You might lose some info with damage but that is not "lossy", that's just not taking care of your stuff or maybe the occasional accident. With analog you get back what you put in.
The most interesting music nowadays are generally produced with a very basic stuff. A laptop and some affordable gadgets and sounds amazing! It’s all about the creativity an talent of the artist-producer-engineer. I think what this studio will be kind of a specialty thing, for hifi enthusiasts that spend time overthinking about analog vs digital. I hope I’m wrong.
I came for the typo.
The topic from one week can spill over into a other post. I don't always get the science first time round. Hearing it again from a slightly different angle does help me further understand.
I get a .....AHH THATS WHAT IT MEANS MOMENT !
Thank you from Great Britain 🇬🇧
Thank's Paul, I loved the way you explained and answered that question.
Remember the labels on the back of CDs in the 80s? AAD or ADD or DDD? My buddies and I were always looking for the DDD discs, assuming they were better 'cause they were "pure" digital. Perhaps remasters to DSD of those older recordings, the AADs, would sound better than the DDD recordings?
0:51 Ok, before we start. Analog circuitry can and does impart distortion. In the case of audio, you should expect an increase in low end. Since he mentions recording, recording to tape is usually done hot to impart further pleasing harmonic distortion and tape compression. Most analog distortions are a two fold benefit. First is that compression factor and secondly is the softening and smoothing of the midrange and low end increase. If you record to analog, you preserve that distortion. If you record to digital, that tape compression and analog warmth are lost. Even the warmth from running through the board circuitry is lost depending on your monitoring setup. There are recording systems out there that manipulate the tape machine to record to tape then automatically transfer the tape to a digital format so you get the best of both worlds.
Digital distortion doesn't have that headroom or leeway and doesn't impart pleasing harmonics to the signal. If it did, we would be pushing digital distortion the same way we push tape. Digital simply samples the signal, give you an accurate representation of what you put in. The the requirement to record to digital and have it sound like analog is pretty much required by the system I mentioned earlier....and yes, it's expensive. The beauty of digital is that the threshold of recording, mixing, and mastering has been greatly reduced. It's easy to do, anybody can do it, and with proper technique, anybody can do it well.
Ok let's see what Paul says.
After watching...I'm curious how DSD is supposedly more "analog-sounding" than PCM. That would imply that it too imparts distortion onto the signal, and I highly doubt that's the case. DSD is a digital recording format, bent on precision, just like PCM. If you have a studio that records in DSD, it's going to have to be converted to PCM for editing, mixing, and mastering if any of that is done on computer. If analog equipment is used for the mixing and mastering process, you're going to end up with a warmed up, analog summed signal regardless. Sounds like you're just running in circles to get to the same spot.
This is what Paul should have said. I like film photography because of the film noise, but to say that digital photography is "cold" is just stupid. Digital has more precision and resolution and has no signal loss in the process.
I think this is largely correct, but a huge part of tape sound is that it greatly rounds and softens high frequency transients, and machines often have a built in EQ boost to correct for this. What you get then is a sound that isn't necessarily lacking high frequencies, but where all the stabby and ear slicing treble spikes are smoothed out.
@@chipsnmydip "all the stabby and ear slicing treble spikes are smoothed out." That's the aforementioned compression.
I get what you are saying, but two points here: 1. Blanket compression (like a VCA/FET/Optical or digital compressor performs) doesn't necessarily smooth out high frequencies. What tape does (bellow 0db Vu) is generally better described as similar to soft-clipping. 2. The softening of transients happens before the record level crosses 0db Vu, which is where the tape saturation and compression mainly begin (where the tape is pushed into overdrive, essentially).
I just hope those CDs you make are hybrid SACDs. Hope the music is good, too. How are you going to choose the artists you record?
Channel Classics and Pentatone are still recording in DSD and doing a spectacular job of it. Just this past week I have bought three new hybrid SACDs which sound great, even the CD layer, but especially the SACD layer.
Analog sounds warmer because the high end usually lacks, even if a little, making it sound warmer. LoFi (the genre) is based around that principle as well as adding reverb which can be experienced on some older recordings. In example, if you listen really closely to the beginning of School by Supertramp (Crime of the Century Album), you can hear the performer a second or so playing the harmonica in the background extremely quietly before the actual chord. Technically that’s like reverse reverb but same idea.
That's funny that in multiple blind tests experts couldn't tell the difference between PCM and DSD. I love both but I don't pretend that one is black and the other is white.
Honestly, to my ears the formats sound so different I think they must have done something wrong in the testing.
Can't wait to hear the first recordings from the new "DSD" studios!
Back in the 90s it was pretty common practice with digital recordings to first record to tape before transferring to digital, and often times even bouncing tracks back to tape, and ultimately mixed down to 1/2" tape. For example, the first two Garbage albums were first tracked to tape, dumped to a Pro Tools session as a gazillion different tracks, then stems were recorded back onto the the 24 track machines, and mixed down to another two channel tape machine. For whatever reason, the sound of the tape preemptively softened the hard edges of the digital conversion, added a little warmth and cohesion to the tracks. Since AD conversion has improved this doesn't really happen anymore, although many engineers still use plugins or hardware emulators like the Empirical Labs Fatso to get that smoother sound.
Paul is telling the truth, on a really good system a DSD recording is close to identical reproduction of a tape source (though PCM below 24/192 not so much), and with DSD you don't get any of the qualitatively harsh or cold sounds that engineers used tape or processors to soften and warm up. It's like true analog, without any of the tape noise or artifacts.
I personally don't mind. I record my DDD CD into cassette tapes and I'm happy enough about it. For me, analog is a way to make me appreciate music more.
I think when many people complain about digital, or cold, or non-musical presentation they are bringing back the history of their listening, or at least the history of many CDs. Paul mentions how bad the early CD players were (some of us old guys went through a quick succession of Sony, Phillips, and Phase Linear CD players in just a few years. We progressed from really bad, to bad, to less bad. 4x oversampling solved the brick wall filtering...right.) But the digital recorders that where contemporaneous with the players were also pretty bad. All the engineers would tell you the jitter, wow and flutter were left on the LPs.
I have lots of 1980s CDs that are badly recorded. The recording engineers were learning their craft all over again.
So I can point to many CDs that prove that digital is inferior to LPs. But 95% of the CDs I have that were recorded in the 1990s and later don't suffer from these problems. I've had the PS Audio DS DAC in my house for two days and am listening to old Peter Paul and Mary CDs and LP ripped to 96/24 files that both are as good as listening to the LPs. I'd say there isn't a technical or musical metric you can come up with that would make me want to play my LPs except to rip them to digital files.
I remember trying 2 DAT machines and they both distorted the highs of my Supertramp crime MoFi LP making the highs sound swishy and it didn't matter how high the sample rate was.
Analog tape recording is like a signal processor that we happen to like the sound of. It does change the sound: the frequency response, the dynamics, and the transients. It depends on the music and the application as to whether we like the effect or not, but it's an artistic choice. Good digital recording has no sound of its own. It's utterly transparent. If you are 100% happy with your source, then stay digital. But sometimes you want that bit of color & saturation that analog tape can give you, just like your favorite EQ, compressor, or other audio processor.
Have to disagree with dynamic range on audio recording it's down to technology and is it really that important..! I don't think so. A record can go up to I think about 82 maximum DB and with a dbx decoder can reach 100 DB dynamic range. Not sure what it is for tape about the same, But with modern electronics and techniques I think you can get it up to 120 Db quite easily just depends on the median with double layered tape this is quite possible. And it's not that important.
Think what you're trying to describe Paul is that digital recording doesn't have white and pink Noise to fill the empty void it's just empty
I've recorded lots of dbx compander tapes in the 1970s (Crown cx744 tap at 15ips) that sound very good, but like Dolby you can hear the tapes breath. The noise floor modulates with the loudness of the music and is a little delayed (noise vs music). I think the guys at Chord talk about modulated noise floor even now. I'd suggest this changing noise floor is far more distracting then the static noise floor say -120 db down.
@@kennetheis3588 yes I hear what you're saying but what I'm saying is with modern electronics these noises could be got rid of or dramatically inaudible, in analogue tape and vinyl, You really going back to 80s technology when it comes to analogue tape that's where it stopped. With better electronics and play heads and different types of play heads that don't touch the tape at all these things are achievable quite easily now as they are in digital recording, is what I'm saying.
With the resources like Paul if he put his mind to it and made a tape machine to the modern standards information you could get off a studio tape would be outstanding and as good as digital or better I believe. I was thinking maybe playing the tape through a bunch of coils it will not touch the tape but will pick up the information from the tape if you made the coil very sensitive enough and with plenty of amplification and filtering. Adopting the same principle as a hard drive does
Is it possible that the harmonic distortions we know and love from our analogue vinyl can and is being captured by the digital conversions. Whereas a recording straight to digital misses out on those distortions and they are gone forever?
Sure; probably it's the main reason. Recording straight to digital captures the sound much more pure and clean, while people tend to love the distortions that come from recording to analog (tape, vinyl, trafo's in tube amps etc).
That's essentially correct.
You really can't argue if DSD is better or not against PCM. You need to also specify the format of DSD and PCM. Both DSD and PCM have quantization and linearity errors that depends on the quality of the format. DSD itself is absolutely no guarantee. A DSD64 SACD is with better resolution than a 16-bit 44.1KHz standard CD or about the same resolution as a 24-bit 96KHz PCM recording, but not as much resolution as a 24-bit 192KHz PCM recording. In either way DSD or PCM, more data yield better quality. Paul's talk about "loneliness" is a bit nonsense unless he specifically limit PCM to the old CD standard only. A music studio running the audio at 24-bit 192KHz PCM would be a better compromise than DSD64...
Very interesting.
I’ve been in a recording studio, sitting next to the engineer behind the console (was an Otari w/ 2” 24-track deck & Meyer monitors, btw) and the live sound had more of what we ascribe to modern high-quality digital recordings than the playback from tape did... going thru that bandwidth and dynamic range limited storage really does change the sound. (Note that I’m specifically excluding the early direct-digital recordings; because the early ADC chips had known, substantial flaws) 🤔 Personally, I like the modern digital sound better than the analog tape/vinyl sound, but individual tastes vary... 🙂
I liken pulse density to FM. Both are equally capable when done right in equally ideal conditions.
If you want to read something about DSD: www.mojo-audio.com/blog/dsd-vs-pcm-myth-vs-truth/
Then again, if the tape was better why not return to tape and then convert to digital. If digital leave its mark and obviously does then the best thing would be one step back. It ia the same as stellar series - icepower does not sound good because of the restraints but I saw that PS audio put something to correct the sound. The same could be applies in creation process
reserve or preserve?
Reverse. :D
Reserve! Reserve for the future.
"Preserving the 'Qualities' of Analog through Digital is a ..... Snap ?????? Now There's a loaded question for the fact that not everyone hears Analog the same way ! Are we talking about Digital recordings of Analog that have the same Musical transients response of the Analog or the Digital version of these transients ? ( I don't listen to Electronic based instrument recordings , so transients response makes or breaks my interest in the recording)
What's a reserve ?
Regarding new studio: Artists are generally sensitive people and the aesthetic of the room is important to get the best performance, it needs soul as much as it needs top quality gear.
Have the Artists take a tour into music room one! Play something and say ... you too can sound this good!!!
True Tone studios 😂 tape speed = sample rate sort of 🤘🏽bit rate 1 billion
all sound is Analogue which is continuous not chopped up into bits and then tried to be put back together again well said Poo
Musicians like Jean jarre use both analog and digital keyboards when recording. I think the result is better.
Nonsense.
Total nonsense indeed. Especially the dynamic range argument. "Analogue sounds better because there's more saturation (read distortion)"
There are third order harmonics in analog that cannot be captured in digital. It's why analog sounds more like a live performance.
Digital recordings can have much more information than analogue. So if you make a digital recording and transfer to analogue it will be less detailed. You lose information.
They don't have noise, however. The information is all signal, which is where they come up short.
@@StephaneVorstellung what comes short? analogue or digital?
@@StephaneVorstellung if you want noise, apply a digital filter
Ah, I should have clarified: digital comes up short because it fails to recognize noise (in its natural, abundant variety) as information. It's getting better but that's one of the flaws.
@@StephaneVorstellung but noise in the digital realm is what is called jitter, which comes as high pitched hiss, and unprecise treble which is often unpleasant to hear. And analogue noise is more like tape hiss and record scratches etc. If you have low end digital gear this jitter is very much present because of inprecise clock. If you want to add noise on a recording many use an analogue tube pre-amp for recording. Which makes the sound more rounded and full because of the harmonic distortions of the tubes.
That is an Analog Radio mixing board when Radio sounded GOOD .
We don't hear of treble extension anymore like we did before do we .
only Bass extension .
BBC Radio 3 on FM radio still sounds very good.
You brits cant compare because you have what 3 stations? So you can send out a wide range signal with wide bandwidth. Here in the US were restricted to 10 mHz. Nah, just kidding.
@@gabevee3 There's hundreds of stations in the UK.
@@captainwin6333 I was joking...
Soooo you can record to a cd from a turntable or vinyl and it sounds perfect cause it does not add “coldness” but if you record humans and instruments straight to cd then it does sound cold ?????????????????
Exactly, that sounds complete and utter bollocks and counter intuative. It makes no sense whatsoever.
lol, no
@@captainwin6333 it doesn't make any sense because it's not true :)
I don't get what he's saying.
I think he said if you digitally record a vinyl record or tape it sounds almost indistinguishable from the analog but if you record to digital, skipping any vinyl or tape, then it sounds 'digital' and anything but analog?
How does that make sense to him? If you record a Cello and then cut that to vinyl, it sounds analog. If you record that vinyl recording on digital, it sounds analog but, if you record that Cello straight to digital it wont sound analog????
Bizarre. A Cello IS analog. It shouldn't matter what the destination media is if you're recoding an analog insturment. How does the source being analog media such as vinyl or a stringed instrument change how the digital recording sounds? Explain that with science.
You can't say digitally recording a vinyl record sounds analog but digitally recording a Cello sounds digital unless you make a digital copy from a vinyl recording of that Cello. That's nuts.
Yeah, that's where I stand too. Doesn't make sense. Vinyl plays with wow, flutter, poor dynamic range, RIAA conversion back & forth, clicks, pops, rumble, noise, hiss, poorer frequency response etc which all distract me from actual recording. No so with a digital recording.
@@r44heliflyer Yeah that's one thing but what he's saying is, if you digitally record an analog source, it sounds analog if that source was vinyl or a tape but not if the source was the actual analog instrument. That doesn't make sense.
@@captainwin6333 yes, I agree with what you are saying. If you digitally recorded a vinyl you would get the recording plus all the noise and limitations. But its just an audio signal even with the added noise so if that is a faithful recording of the vinyl then recording the music digitally in the first place also has to be just as good.
Good try Paul. Even u struggle to tell the difference and why?
I'm sooo glad to hear from Paul that all my suspicions about original PCM recordings (inferior sounding to analog ones) were true, BUT WITHOUT that meaning that digital had been inferior to analog. I wish to add one opinion more: Having enjoyed quite a few analog records (and tapes) transfered to digital, from my fully digital system, AND experiencing (and aknowledging) all the well known and well praised by their afficionados qualities of analog (but heard through their digital copies, sometimes with different cartridges etc), I tend to believe that YET another reason why "analog sounds better" (in fact, it does) IS because, through its overall narrower "acoustic envelope", IT STRESSES OUR SYSTEMS MUCH LESS (requires less, that can easily be provided by our equipment and rooms). One such example is the bass, which, although quite compromised in analog, is also more satisfactory when played back through analog. I tend to consider analog as a magical compression recipe, yet to be decoded and, perhaps, copied. ( I'd like to know what Paul thinks about this).
Analog kid becomes a digital man
Paul I got the name for your recording studio, The Cavern.
I have believed for 50 years in the magic of second order harmonics and that analogue recordings enhanced that “distortion” in a way that is pleasing to humans. I don’t understand the science but believe in the magic. But I’m willing to suspend those beliefs and give DSD recordings a listen.
Pual learning lots from you bought my first cd player in 1984 marantz cd 103 ? Could we have some more on HQA .I know you are not than impressed with it but would like to hear more about this subject as say SACD PSM DSD H RESALUTION .CD DVD ADIO .AND HQA .MANY THANKS
PS PAUL cant still get my emails to work . 🙄🙄🙄
Im sorry Paul i have to disagree with you here when comparing analog and digital. Why are so many caught up on dynamic range and bandwidth as a factor when comparing analog and digital. Specifications look impressive on digital but it is not able to capture the nuances of analog music. Digital in my opinion has its limitations and will never sound as real and musical as analog. You have to get past the numbers and let your ears be the final judge and most audiophiles still prefer analog over digital, Its not even close.
@Kevin LaTour: You have no clue what you are talking about. Please go and educate yourself about the basics of digital audio before you embarrass yourself.
I really like the expression Lonely PCM. And I will be glad to be a peasant if I could be a part of the "Big recording empire" (4:30)
Lonely or maybe lowly?
So....DSD is a way to record digitally but sound like analogue, which beggs the question.....
there is a lot of error in this video that I'm not going to comment about, but one thing to be said is that analog media is lossy, meaning you are going to lose data not matter what you do, due to chemical/material changes over time, due to temperature, wear etc. there is no escaping it, there is nothing you can do about it, that's why you never ever ever ever record in analog, you lose what you record and it doesn't stick, master, copies or otherwise
I have 38 year old record albums that say you're wrong.
Oh, and analog is NOT "lossy", does not throw away information.
Billy Grinstead is that what it feels like when you listen to it, or did you measure with test equipment?
@@FooBar89 No that's a fact. Lost is a function of some digital codecs, they throw away what is deemed "non essential " information in order to save space. The lower the bit rate the more info is thrown away.
Not only is no information thrown away with analog , there is no way to do so. You might lose some info with damage but that is not "lossy", that's just not taking care of your stuff or maybe the occasional accident.
With analog you get back what you put in.
@Billy Grinstead: You have no clue what you are talking about. Please go and educate yourself before you embarrass yourself.
The most interesting music nowadays are generally produced with a very basic stuff. A laptop and some affordable gadgets and sounds amazing! It’s all about the creativity an talent of the artist-producer-engineer.
I think what this studio will be kind of a specialty thing, for hifi enthusiasts that spend time overthinking about analog vs digital. I hope I’m wrong.