That Analog Sound

[Slosh]

Here is a very nice reel-to-reel>24-bit/96kHz FLAC transfer.

[Davey]

Haven't listened to it yet, but that's cool. There's a lot of R2R tape transfers hitting the internet lately, including the whole David Bowie prime period. They've been posting some of them over at Mojave Productions. The pedigree is supposedly old production 15ips R2R tapes, transferred to 24/96 PCM, and then they have been converting to DSD and creating SACD-R images. I play the ISO in foobar and usually convert back to 24-bit @ 88.2K sample rate. I've got a couple samples up at song of the day. Unfortunately, it looks like the sample rate wasn't maintained at 96K for all of the transfers as the spectrum looks closer to CD bandwidth, but they still sound very good. Got some T. Rex too, and a couple others. They indicated at one point they would make the original 24/96 transfers available, but haven't seen it yet. The Ziggy Stardust is the best I've heard. A touch bright like all of the Bowie remasters, but without the ill effects they all have.

[nobody]

Nice, I'm playing Bowie's Low right now. Fingers crossed for Electric Warrior.

[Slosh]

I looked at the Mojave Productions site. I don't really get why they're converting PCM to DSD. I figure if you have a SACD player you probably also have to the hardware to play hi-res PCM.

I do use DVD-Audiofile to create DVD-A discs sometimes, but only so I have a non-HDD back up. I almost never use optical discs anymore for playback.

[Slosh]

Dave,

Are you able to save the transcoded DSD files at 24-bit/88.2kHz with foobar? I am able to play them back that way, but when I try to save them it's 24-bit/44.1kHz.

[Davey]

Dave,

Are you able to save the transcoded DSD files at 24-bit/88.2kHz with foobar? I am able to play them back that way, but when I try to save them it's 24-bit/44.1kHz.

Yes, they save in whatever sample rate I have selected in the SACD output tab. You probably have a processor selected to change the sample rate in the convert page.

[unleasHell]

And to think I sold my Dokorder R2R 20 years ago...

[Slosh]

Yes, they save in whatever sample rate I have selected in the SACD output tab. You probably have a processor selected to change the sample rate in the convert page.

Thanks, I got it fixed now. I don't suppose there's any reason to use 176.4 for 24/96-sourced files so I'll stick with 88.2.

[nobody]

So... beyond the technical mumbo jumbo, what do y'all think of how these sound? So far, I've played Ziggy a couple times along with Low and Hunky Dory and they all seem to share a couple qualities that I really like. They are a bit to the bright side, but that is true of basically every version of these and I blame that on the original tapes and too much cocaine so I won't fault these for that. But a couple things stand out to me on the plus side for these and that's both the midrange detail and the dynamics. Probably the dynamics are the most noticeable thing that hit me initially. That and the piano sounds fantastic on Hunky Dory. What's anyone else's take on the sound of these?


Also...I think it is funny that this is still captured in the digital transfers. All this kinda stuff to me points out how good digital can be, but just generally isn't. The difference in dynamics is telling. Since the dawn of the CD, one of it's main selling points has been it's potential for huge dynamic shifts compared to analog media of the time with its giant signal to noise ratio. Yet, time and again digital's greatest weakness in practice ends up being a compressed, ****ty dynamic range that so many digital releases suffer from. Totally not the fault of the media, but just an annoying curiosity.

And in a little bit of bringing this thing full circle, I actually played these files in high res to the analog inputs on my preamp and then fed them to my tape deck to make cassettes of 'em. One tape is Ziggy and Hunky Dory and the other is Low and Station to Station. I may have to slap Young Americans on another one with Lodger.

[Davey]

So... beyond the technical mumbo jumbo, what do y'all think of how these sound? So far, I've played Ziggy a couple times along with Low and Hunky Dory and they all seem to share a couple qualities that I really like. They are a bit to the bright side, but that is true of basically every version of these and I blame that on the original tapes and too much cocaine so I won't fault these for that. But a couple things stand out to me on the plus side for these and that's both the midrange detail and the dynamics. Probably the dynamics are the most noticeable thing that hit me initially. That and the piano sounds fantastic on Hunky Dory. What's anyone else's take on the sound of these?


Also...I think it is funny that this is still captured in the digital transfers. All this kinda stuff to me points out how good digital can be, but just generally isn't. The difference in dynamics is telling. Since the dawn of the CD, one of it's main selling points has been it's potential for huge dynamic shifts compared to analog media of the time with its giant signal to noise ratio. Yet, time and again digital's greatest weakness in practice ends up being a compressed, ****ty dynamic range that so many digital releases suffer from. Totally not the fault of the media, but just an annoying curiosity.

And in a little bit of bringing this thing full circle, I actually played these files in high res to the analog inputs on my preamp and then fed them to my tape deck to make cassettes of 'em. One tape is Ziggy and Hunky Dory and the other is Low and Station to Station. I may have to slap Young Americans on another one with Lodger.

I'm mostly with you, I think they sound great. As we both say, they are a touch bright, but the balance and dynamics is much like the original RCA CDs, which is mostly very good. But the original RCAs are generally a little congested and lifeless, whereas these transfers really seem to come alive. The reverb trails and dimensionality are really nice. The piano on Hunky Dory does sound fantastic, it's got a more ballsy sound than I've heard, and has more room sound. That was one of the reasons I uploaded "Oh! You Pretty Things". Besides being one of my favorite Bowie songs, it does come alive on these transfers, and part of it is that piano sound since it's such a big part of the song. But also the way it holds together so well when the much louder chorus comes in, with bass and handclaps and all the layered voices, almost a cacophony, but sounds great.

I've only grabbed 5 of them so far, The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, Ziggy, Low and Scary Monsters, and so far I think Hunky and Ziggy are outstanding. Low sounds just a bit off to me, not sure exactly what the problem is, but maybe my expectations were way too high for that one since it is such a huge favorite. Maybe it's just too bright on my system. That said, still sounds pretty cool. When I listen to "Always Crashing in the Same Car" it's like some kind of weird carnival ride. Hard to go back to the other versions after that... this one really takes off. And when it segues into "Be My Wife", the tension and urgency really come out strong. Scary Monsters sounds really good, with some of the same properties I mentioned above, but I haven't listened to it as much. Sold the World is quite a bit different from the early CD and LP release, which are too bass heavy. This transfer is much more listenable, vocals and guitars and drums come out better, but not sure how accurate it is. It's much quieter than the original (may need to raise the DSD to PCM volume) so you have to crank it, but it does really come alive on the title track, very expansive, even on phones. And the drums sound great as "The Superman" starts. Wish I knew a little more about the source. BTW, the Aladdin Sane post has the most information about where these supposedly came from, though contrary to what he says, it does seem some bandwidth limiting was used in the chain.

Ziggy is just outstanding though.

Station to Station got a fantastic sounding release a couple years ago in the big box set by way of the original RCA 24-96 transfer, so I was already set there. Still need to grab Diamond Dogs and Aladdin Sane, both essential to me, but have RCA Japan CDs for both and they sound very good.

[Slosh]

I grabbed the first 5 Led Zep albums now up at mojave. Not that Zeppelin was ever particularly well-recorded, but these 15 IPS reel-to-reel transfers make my original 80s CDs sound like mp3.