TERESA FAQâ€™s because I am tired of defending Analog on an Analog forum!

Posted by Teresa on October 24, 2006 at 06:42:17

I am getting tired of repeating the same thing over and over so I will be saving this link in my favorites and referencing it instead.

First off I only listen to music I like, plus it has to be well engineered and not destroyed by the format it rests upon. With literally dozens of formats I feel no need to actually listen to a format that causes painful headaches, namely redbook CD. Nor do I feel the need to listen to PCM master tapes of less the 24 Bit 96kHz resolution. I have divided the formats into Classes and gave examples of each for recommendation and deeper listening.

Class A: What sounds best to me, most like real live music, most warm, lively and very ambient, of course depending on the engineering:

1) 2 Track 15 IPS either Master copies or Pre-recorded Analog Reel to Reel tapes.
2) 4 Track 7 Â½ IPS Pre-recorded Reel to Reel tapes duplicated in Real Time (1:1) on excellent mastering tape.
3) 45 RPM LPs especially those from Reference Recordings, Crystal Clear, Analogue Productions and Classic Records.
4) Direct to Disc LPs especially Sheffield Lab and Crystal Clear.
5) Original Super Analog LPs especially those by Reference Recordings
6) 4 Track 7 Â½ IPS Pre-recorded Reel to Reel using medium speed duplication such as Ampex, Stereotape and Barclay-Crocker.
7) Audiophile re-mastered LPs especially those from Classic Records, Analogue Productions and Speakers Corner.
8) SACDs from PURE DSD or Super Analog masters especially those from Telarc, AudioQuest and Vanguard.

Class B: Sonically very close to live with just a few shortcomings that keep them obtaining this lofty goal.

1) The better regular major label commercial analog LPs.
2) Audiophile cassettes duplicated in Real Time (1:1) on either Chrome or Metal tape from Analog masters such as MFSL, Nakamichi Reference Series, In Sync Labs, Audible Images and Aesthetic Audio.
3) The better regular major label commercial analog cassettes.
4) DVD-Audios from Analog masters transferred to 192kHz PCM, especially Classic Records.
5) SACDs and DVD-Audios from 24 Bit 96kHz PCM masters especially Chesky Records and AIX.

Class C: These are recordings that sound very good to excellent but donâ€™t sound real due to lower resolution coupled with a colder sound texture.

1) HDCDs from Reference Recordings, FIM and Linn. All other HDCDs Iâ€™ve tried actually sound as bad as Redbook CDs. The Reference Recordings HDCDs can sound superb and donâ€™t have the â€œbleeding earâ€ sound of CDs but they do still sound Digital and a little cold.
2) Cassettes that have been Digitally remastered from Analog master tapes, or use the harddisc digital bin master. For some reason while not sounding great these are not offensive.
3) LPs from DSD Master tapes while not offensive have duller high frequencies than analog masters and percussion does not have the impact of analog.
4) Telarc LPs from 50kHz Soundstream Masters, they have great deep bass but the high frequencies are rolled off and there is a distinct lack of ambiance and a digital flavor to the sound, but it can be very exciting. The Soundstream Masters from others such as Delos and Philips sound really bad.

Class F: These are recordings that I am unable to listen and some cause outright pain:

1) LPs from 24 Bit 96kHz Digital Masters.
2) DVD-Audioâ€™s and SACDs from 24 Bit 48kHz master tapes.
3) DVD-Audioâ€™s and SACDs from 16 Bit 44.1kHz master tapes.
4) LPs from 16 Bit 44.1kHz master tapes.
5) 16 Bit 44.1kHz CDs from any master tapes.

Now that we here are some other FAQâ€™s:

Question: Humans cannot hear above 20kHz so 44.1kHz is all we need?

Wrong here is all the proof you need! The coldness of Digital increases as you lower the sampling frequency and bit rate. I find 192kHz PCM to have almost as much resolution and warmth of the best LPs but it is still not there. Thanks to Classic Records new HDADs with CD and 200 Gram LP version it is now possible to compare the same release in 192kHz PCM, 96kHz PCM, 44.1kHz and 200 Gram-LP. The 200-Gram LP will always win in both resolution and realism every single time.

Supersonic frequencies are not heard as SOUND, but processed by our brains including overtones, location and ambient cues.

Everyone responds to music signals up to 80kHz. The silica "the small hairs in your ears" each vibrate at different frequencies, hearing loss is due to damage to one or more of these hairs. However we have silica that vibrate up to 80kHz sending that information to our brains. So you can have damaged hearing and still process these supersonic musical signals.

This is why live music sounds more well "live" because our ears process this supersonic information.

This is the reason SACDs frequency response goes to 100kHz. Not everything in music is "Heard" as sound, subsonic frequencies cannot be "heard" either but felt in the bones.

Question: Do you not like CDs because you donâ€™t like high frequencies.

Incorrect, CDs have rolled off high frequencies, it is the upper midrange that is shrill making violins and other bowed strings instruments sound strident and very painful. The high frequency percussion instruments such as cymbals and triangles are very subdued and sound muffled on CD. All you have to do is put on an excellent LP after listening to CD and you will hear the highs open up as if someone took a blanket off of your tweeters. That is because the LP format has not only cleaner sounding high frequencies but at the higher level and with more intensity. On LP when someone strikes a cymbal itâ€™s impact is huge and you can even feel it in your bones, this is impossible for CD to do as itâ€™s high frequency response is so poor. That is because on CD everything above 20kHz is sawed off and sharply sawed off at that.

Question: Are you just being picky because SACD and DVD-Audio spoiled you, surely CD doesnâ€™t really make you ill.

Yes it does, CD causes me tremendous migraine-like pain on my forehead in-between my eyes, intense pain that takes 3-4 hours to relieve with strong pain-killers after just 5 or 10 minutes exposure to CD or a DVD-Audios and SACDs from low resolution PCM master tapes. By contrast Analog, DSD or PCM at 24 Bit 96kHz or higher does not cause pain. It is only PCM at low resolution that hurts so much. And it is mostly the aggressive biting sound of the violin and other bowed string instruments, which PCM was able to remove by going to high resolution and bit rates.

Question: You havenâ€™t tried enough equipment or wasted enough to pronounce LP as superior to CD:

Turntables owned:
1) AR-XB with Shure M91ED cartridge
2) Luxman PD-277 with Sonus Blue-Gold cartridge
3) Ariston RD-40 with the Linn Basik arm and the Blue Point Special Cartridge
4) SOTA Comet turntable with the LMTII arm and the Monster Cable Alpha Genesis 1000II moving coil cartridge.
5) Music Hall MMF-1 with LP Gear upgrade.
6) Music Hall MMF-5 turntable with Project arm and Goldring 1012GX cartridge

All players owned that can play CDs:
1) Sony CDP-101 â€“ Before buying my first CD player I collected only Audiophile Cassettes and I sold my Nakamichi 480 and all 150 of my Audiophile Cassettes to afford the $900.00 for Sonyâ€™s perfect sound forever. I fell for Sonyâ€™s ad hook, line and sinker it had the picture of a beautiful concert hall and the caption â€œPerfect Sound Foreverâ€ and even though I didnâ€™t like digitally mastered Cassettes. The magazines were saying the reason that digitally mastered LPs and Cassettes sounded so bad was because they were not pure digital and CD would fix that. Big, big lies from both Sony and the press. I sold the CDP-101 within 6 months as the sound was killing me; the only thing that didnâ€™t sound absolutely terrible was Telarc CDs. But it was so bad I totally quit listening and collecting music for over a year!
2) Yamaha (donâ€™t recall model number) â€“ better than the CDP-101 but not by much.
3) Sony LD-210 LaserDisc/CD player â€“ some LaserDiscs were fantastic especially using the Stereo Analog tracks. When CD came out LaserDiscs added Digital tracks as well. Older LaserDiscs were Stereo Analog Sound; newer LaserDiscs had a choice of Stereo Analog or Stereo Digital 44.1kHz Sound. The Stereo could also be Dolby Surround. Later Dolby Digital come out and they didnâ€™t have a place to put the Dolby Digital tracks so the used the right channel of the Analog Stereo tracks. So any LaserDisc with Dolby Digital only had MONO for the Analog tracks. That is when I sold my LaserDisc player as Dolby Digital ruined the format! And as usual CDs sounded terrible on this player as well.
4) Audio Alchemy Digital Drive Engine transport connected with co-axial cable to the Adcom GDA-700 HDCD D/A converter . Reference Recordings SACDs sounded great on this combo but alas, as usual regular CD didnâ€™t.
5) Sony DVP-S330 DVD Player replaced the Audio Alchemy when it died prematurely due I believe due to the CD Blacklight mat. This was my first DVD player I bought it so I could get the new Classic and Chesky 24 Bit 96kHz DADs. I still didnâ€™t have a TV so I had to borrow a neighbors to set it up. For the DADs I had to use the internal 24/86 D/A as the HDCD decoder only decoded 44.1kHz and 48kHz, I continued to use the HDCD for the Reference Recordings HDCDs.
6) Sony DVP-S9000ES SACD/DVD player , I sold a bunch of LPs to raise the $1,500.00 to pay for it Christmas of 1999. This is the most I ever spent on a single component and I still feel guilty about it today. SACDs sounded excellent, CDs of course sounded bad.
7) Toshiba SD-9100 DVD-Audio / HDCD player . $2,000.00 retail I paid $599.95 on clearance when it was discontinued. This is always the best time to buy and they replace a model and there are still a lot of the old models floating around. DVD-Audios sounded excellent, HDCDs sounded very good but there was a loud audible click between tracks and this annoyed the hell out of me. I sold it, as it also didnâ€™t sound as good as my Sony SACD player.
8) Xindak SCD-1 tubed SACD player which upsamples CD to 24/96 actually makes CDs almost acceptable with almost no pain but they are still boring. Also with this machine SACDs from Analog or DSD masters sound almost as good as LPs. It quit reading hybrid SACDs for the third time and was out of warranty so I sold it as a tubed CD player that could play CDs and single layer SACDs but not hybrids.
9) Toshiba SD-5700 â€“ DVD-Audio / HDCD player. $550.00 retail I paid $109.00 used. DVD-Audios sounded even better than on the SD-9100 but they had slightly less bass but the highs were much smoother. Also HDCDs did not click between tracks. CDs still sounded terrible. I still have this deck for my few remaining DVD-Audios I play when I am lazy. So you can see I do have the ability to play CDs, I just do not wish to torture myself.

I hope all of this helps everyone avoid these super-long time consuming threads, as I am not going to get suckered in to them anymore, I will just link this statement as it says it all.

No one can talk me into liking something I do not. (CD)
No one will be able to alter my views based on decades of experience.
Also I do not need to have any CD player models recommended to me as I own NO CDs! And I will never own or allow a CD in my home for the rest of my life.

So there is no need to rehash this stuff every week or two.

This is why I so wished that the Vinyl Asylum had stayed TOTALLY ANTI-CD like it was in the old days. Oh, I guess things change.

"Analog is Music, Digital is mathematics"
Happy listening,
Teresa

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Topic - TERESA FAQâ€™s because I am tired of defending Analog on an Analog forum! - Teresa 06:42:17 10/24/06 (1)

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