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Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it. |
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Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it. |
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In Reply to: Japanese Reissues posted by cmathes on July 15, 2003 at 12:56:27:
A few reasons. The most important being -Corrected absolute polarity.
Maybe close to 99% of all US pressings of Columbia recordings have been mastered with inverted absolute polarity. On the otherhand, the respective Japanese pressings were/are released with the correct absolute polarity. When you have a chance to compare the same recording on US and Japanese pressings side by side, the Japanese Columbia always sound better.
Beware: If you were never bothered by this problem read no further, to spare yourself a lifetime of sonic torment!
Sometime ago, the late Lars Fredell, Sr. Editor of the now defunked Ultimate Audio magazine reported the problem of inverted absolute polarity with a lot of music recordings and its detrimental effect on audio quality that then created a lot of discussion at the hi-rez board. While Prof. Clark Johnsen had mentioned about this problem much earlier, the article by Fredell gained a lot more attention as it was published at the time just when Sony US started to release many of its music catalogue on SACD, which subsequently, many early adopters of SACD had found to be re-mastered with inverted absolute polarity.In that article, Fredell explained that inverting absolute polarity electrically, during the mastering stage, causes some alteration to the onset, or leading edge of musical instruments' waveform, which are critical to how we perceive timbre and dynamics of the instruments. In the simplest term, it changes the the compression/rarefaction patterns of the instruments or voices recorded. Imagine if you will a big bass drum being struck by a mallet. As the mallet hits the drumhead, its skin expands in the direction the mallet travels, and the air on the other side of the skin is suddenly compressed. This sudden compression is the leading edge of the bass note, its absolute polarity. Eventually the skin willl reverse its direction and try to return to its original position. As the skin reverses direction it causes a rarefaction on the opposite side of where the mallet has struck. A compression followed by a rarefaction is a waveform.
When you want to replay this bass waveform through a speaker, you want it to be reproduced in the same manner in your room. You would want the cone of the bass driver to start out by flexing forward into the room, towards you, and not backwards towards the innards of the speaker. The loss of impact is the first thing you would notice, followed by some changes in the timbre and character of the bass note. We know that percussive instruments produce subsequent harmonics that contain more higher-freq. elements, which is true even for bass drums. It is these elements that give it the crisp, leading edge that helps define the bass drum's timbre together with the subsequent sustain and decay. Altering the leading edge, you'll would also change the character of the bass note. That probably explain for the sloppy bass sound people often notice on recordings with inverted polarity.
On the whole, inverted polarity will also leads to a reduction in soundstage, blurs imaging and sometime cause people to perceive a recording as being harsh and unmusical.
As the late Lars had reported, the problem with absolute polarity is often record-label specific. Some record labels' are found to more prone to releasing recordings with inverted absolute polarity. But then the same recording released on another continent can be found to be corrected. This is no doubt due to the differing standards of balanced terminal wirings in the production chain.
US manufacturers use pin 2 hot on balanced terminals on studio equipments. Japanese and European use pin 3 as positive. Lately the Europeans are changing to pin 2 hot as well. In the signal chain between mastering and pressing stages a number of equipment with differring balanced connections may be used. One or odd numbers of these differring connections will cause absolute polarity inversions. Even number will correct the problem. Mainstream recording labels may not be awared of this problem. That's why you'll find this problem fairly consistent with a few particular labels like Columbia and GRP in the US.
Another problem is when recordings are made in studios or/and in different continents. Then you'll get polarity inversion on different tracks. That's even more annoying. If you ever get hold of Carol Kings' Tapestry stereo SACD and LP from US and Japan, you will know exactly what I mean. The inverting happens on alternate tracks, and the same order is reversed when comparing between the 2 countries' pressings.
Quite a few of compilation hits album are like this as the tracks have been taken from different albums that were recorded at different places at different eras in an artiste's career. Having said that, I have found also some compilation hits albums that are correctly mastered throughout the entire disc, - like the 2-disc "The Essential Leonard Cohen" from Columbia (a company notorious for polarity-reversal), that was mastered by Bog Ludwig. In comparison, both the LP and CD of "I'm Your Man" (from which several tracks were taken from to the Essential album), are found to be polarity-reversed.
Most fortunately your Wadia has a polarity switch built-in, does it not? With a polarity switch handy, you'll have a less frustrating time listening to Carol Kings' "Tapestry". I have the US and Japanese pressing on the earlier stereo SACD, US pressing of the original LP release, and US pressing of the later multi-channel SACD (am I nuts or what?). And guess what, both US and Japanese pressings of stereo versions are opposites in polarity in exactly the same track order. The first 2 tracks are inverted, 3rd and 4th are not and then the 5th inverts again and so on.. The Japanese pressing are exactly the reverse on the same track order. The M-CH SACD are corrected throughout the entire disc. I heard that the Sonoma SACD mastering system does have a polarity switch on board, and it is quitely likely that our earlier complaints on the hi-rez board have been looked into and action taken with new releases.
Hope that answer your questions why Japanese pressings of Columbia recordings sound better than their respective US releases.
Check this article for more details about absolute polarity
http://www.rickermaster.com/polarity.htmThere's also an interview on enjoythemusic.com
The Columbia recordings that I own which I use for comparison:
Toto IV LP - US, Dutch and Japanese Pressings (Jap corrected)
Toto IV SACD - Stereo: US and Jap (Jap corrected)
Toto IV SACD - M-ch: US (this later release was not corrected)
Carlos Santana Abraxas LP - US and Jap (Jap corrected)
Carlos Santana Abraxas SACD - Stereo: US and Jap (Jap corrected)
Carol Kings Tapestry LP - US and Jap (random tracks inverted on both. exact mirror of each other)
Carol Kings Tapestry SACD - Stereo: US and Jap (Jap corrected)
Carol Kings Tapestry SACD - M-ch: US (this later release was corrected)
Wham! Make it Big LP - US, UK and Jap (Jap and UK corrected)
Wham! Make it Big SACD - Jap (Jap corrected)
Billy Joel The Stranger LP - US and Jap (Jap corrected)
Billy Joel The Stranger SACD - Stereo: US and Jap (Jap corrected)
Al Di Meola Electric Rendevous LP - US
Al Di Meola Elegant Gypsies LP - Jap (Jap corrected)
Bruce Springsteen Tunnel of Love LP & CD - US
Bruce Springsteen Born in the USA LP & CD - US
George Michael Faith LP - US, UK (UK pressing was corrected)
George Michael Faith CD - Australian (AUS pressing inverted)
Michael Jackson Bad CD and LP - US
Michael Jackson Dangerous CD and LP - US
A Chorus Line (Broadway) LP, CD and SACD - US (Mch SACD was corrected)
The Gadd Gang Here and Now LP - US
J.D. Souther You're Only Lonely LP - Jap (2 copies, both corrected)
Miles Davis Kind of Blue SACD - Stereo: Jap, Mch: US (Jap corrected, later m-ch US release also corrected )
Wynton Marsalis London Concert SACD - US and Jap (Jap corrected)
Leonard Bernstein Rhapshody in Blue SACD - US and Jap (Jap corrected)
and many more other Japanese pressed SACDs...
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Follow Ups
- Why Japanese pressings of Columbia recordings sound better - jeromelang 07/17/0309:05:22 07/17/03 (2)
- Thank you! Please consider posting this on Propeller Head Plaza - Leisure7 12:11:47 07/17/03 (0)
- an excellent post [nt] - TBone 11:26:37 07/17/03 (0)
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