Author's profile:

David Satz. B. Mus. degree, 1973, New England Conservatory (Boston);
teaching assistant to Rudolf Kolisch. Played in orchestras and chamber music
groups; recorded zillions of concerts and recitals. Moved to New York in
1981. Recording engineer, mainly remastering Red Seal LP recordings for CD,
at RCA Studios; Grammy award for "Best Historical Album", 1995. Programmer
and instructor of Windows programming (C, C++, C#). Translator (German to
English) and editorial nit-picker of technical and sales literature for
Schoeps GmbH.

Comment:

David Satz" wrote in message
ups.com
"

"
Chris Hornbeck wrote:
"

"
Within the last few years [ ... ] I've found that I can
make a transfer from vinyl to CDR that I can't really
tell from the original, other than the cleaning rituals
[ ... ]
"

"
Chris, I just would like to say that you've come up with
the most (perhaps only) meaningful, realistic, practical
comparison method between LP and CD that I've ever heard
of.
"

"
Back in the 1980s when people used to buy the LP and the
CD of the same album, play them both and compare the
results, they weren't really comparing the two media.
Instead, they were comparing the (generally quite
separate) mastering decisions--EQ, limiting, etc.--behind
the two products, plus the particular characteristics of
their LP and CD playback equipment.
"

"
Of course LP playback equipment varies far more in its
audible sound quality than CD playback equipment does.
But your method eliminates that variable completely, and
the mastering decisions of a commercial CD aren't a
factor, either.
"

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
. ..
Author's profile:

David Satz. B. Mus. degree, 1973, New England Conservatory (Boston);
teaching assistant to Rudolf Kolisch. Played in orchestras and chamber
music groups; recorded zillions of concerts and recitals. Moved to New
York in 1981. Recording engineer, mainly remastering Red Seal LP
recordings for CD, at RCA Studios; Grammy award for "Best Historical
Album", 1995. Programmer and instructor of Windows programming (C, C++,
C#). Translator (German to English) and editorial nit-picker of technical
and sales literature for Schoeps GmbH.

Comment:

David Satz" wrote in message
ups.com
"

"
Chris Hornbeck wrote:
"

"
Within the last few years [ ... ] I've found that I can
make a transfer from vinyl to CDR that I can't really
tell from the original, other than the cleaning rituals
[ ... ]
"

"
Chris, I just would like to say that you've come up with
the most (perhaps only) meaningful, realistic, practical
comparison method between LP and CD that I've ever heard
of.
"

"
Back in the 1980s when people used to buy the LP and the
CD of the same album, play them both and compare the
results, they weren't really comparing the two media.
Instead, they were comparing the (generally quite
separate) mastering decisions--EQ, limiting, etc.--behind
the two products, plus the particular characteristics of
their LP and CD playback equipment.
"

"
Of course LP playback equipment varies far more in its
audible sound quality than CD playback equipment does.
But your method eliminates that variable completely, and
the mastering decisions of a commercial CD aren't a
factor, either.
"

A guy I work with used to work at a CD plant and from what he understands
from working there, the type of media used to deliver the master to the CD
plant could make some difference. If the media was digital, then the CD's
pressed would be exact digital copies, but if the media was analog, that
meant that what the plant got was going to be an "AAD" CD with the
additional possibility that the CD plant's analog to digital conversion
might not be as good as what could be done by a recording/mixing studio.

SPARS Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARS_Code

Once the CD's were cut, they'd sample a few and play them in both a "low
end" and a "high end" CD player. The high end CD player would actually
report error detection/correction information and a certain amount of errors
were allowed in the final product, but I think they only allowed errors
which were able to be corrected by the CD player.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

"Jeff Findley" wrote


A guy I work with used to work at a CD plant and from what he understands
from working there, the type of media used to deliver the master to the CD
plant could make some difference. If the media was digital, then the CD's
pressed would be exact digital copies, but if the media was analog, that
meant that what the plant got was going to be an "AAD" CD with the
additional possibility that the CD plant's analog to digital conversion
might not be as good as what could be done by a recording/mixing studio.

SPARS Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARS_Code

Once the CD's were cut, they'd sample a few and play them in both a "low
end" and a "high end" CD player. The high end CD player would actually
report error detection/correction information and a certain amount of
errors were allowed in the final product, but I think they only allowed
errors which were able to be corrected by the CD player.



Interesting, but not entirely *news*, Jeff - this is why a few of us (with a
higher *anxiety threshold* than some here) don't trouble too much about what
processes (D or A) went into making various LPs and CDs and just get on with
getting the best out of them as an *end product* on our own kit....

(That said, I believe I can see why some of the 'pre digital/ss' stuff
commands the high prices it does from *discerning* collectors...)

"Keith G" wrote in message
...

Interesting, but not entirely *news*, Jeff - this is why a few of us (with
a higher *anxiety threshold* than some here) don't trouble too much about
what processes (D or A) went into making various LPs and CDs and just get
on with getting the best out of them as an *end product* on our own
kit....

(That said, I believe I can see why some of the 'pre digital/ss' stuff
commands the high prices it does from *discerning* collectors...)

Agreed.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

"Keith G" wrote in message


Interesting, but not entirely *news*, Jeff - this is why
a few of us (with a higher *anxiety threshold* than some
here) don't trouble too much about what processes (D or
A) went into making various LPs and CDs and just get on
with getting the best out of them as an *end product* on
our own kit....

Sometimes getting the most of of them as an end product is facilitated by
knowing about processes went into making various LPs and CDs.

"Jeff Findley" wrote in
message
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
. ..
Author's profile:

David Satz. B. Mus. degree, 1973, New England
Conservatory (Boston); teaching assistant to Rudolf
Kolisch. Played in orchestras and chamber music groups;
recorded zillions of concerts and recitals. Moved to New
York in 1981. Recording engineer, mainly remastering Red
Seal LP recordings for CD, at RCA Studios; Grammy award
for "Best Historical Album", 1995. Programmer and
instructor of Windows programming (C, C++, C#).
Translator (German to English) and editorial nit-picker
of technical and sales literature for Schoeps GmbH. Comment:

David Satz" wrote in message
ups.com
"

"
Chris Hornbeck wrote:
"

"
Within the last few years [ ... ] I've found that I can
make a transfer from vinyl to CDR that I can't really
tell from the original, other than the cleaning rituals
[ ... ]
"

"
Chris, I just would like to say that you've come up with
the most (perhaps only) meaningful, realistic, practical
comparison method between LP and CD that I've ever heard
of.
"

"
Back in the 1980s when people used to buy the LP and the
CD of the same album, play them both and compare the
results, they weren't really comparing the two media.
Instead, they were comparing the (generally quite
separate) mastering decisions--EQ, limiting,
etc.--behind the two products, plus the particular
characteristics of their LP and CD playback equipment.
"

"
Of course LP playback equipment varies far more in its
audible sound quality than CD playback equipment does.
But your method eliminates that variable completely, and
the mastering decisions of a commercial CD aren't a
factor, either.
"

A guy I work with used to work at a CD plant and from
what he understands from working there, the type of media
used to deliver the master to the CD plant could make
some difference. If the media was digital, then the CD's
pressed would be exact digital copies, but if the media
was analog, that meant that what the plant got was going
to be an "AAD" CD with the additional possibility that
the CD plant's analog to digital conversion might not be
as good as what could be done by a recording/mixing
studio.
SPARS Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARS_Code

Once the CD's were cut, they'd sample a few and play them
in both a "low end" and a "high end" CD player. The high
end CD player would actually report error
detection/correction information and a certain amount of
errors were allowed in the final product, but I think
they only allowed errors which were able to be corrected
by the CD player.

That sounds similar to what I've heard from people who worked at CD plants.
The idea of people in CD plants mastering CD intended for wide-scale
distribution is a bit scary.

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...
A guy I work with used to work at a CD plant and from what he understands
from working there, the type of media used to deliver the master to the CD
plant could make some difference. If the media was digital, then the CD's
pressed would be exact digital copies, but if the media was analog, that
meant that what the plant got was going to be an "AAD" CD with the
additional possibility that the CD plant's analog to digital conversion
might not be as good as what could be done by a recording/mixing studio.

In fact many CD plants would not touch an analog tape these days. Any who do
would probably perform as good a job as the tape allows for. The only
difference being the quality of the tape machine.


Once the CD's were cut, they'd sample a few and play them in both a "low
end" and a "high end" CD player. The high end CD player would actually
report error detection/correction information and a certain amount of
errors
were allowed in the final product, but I think they only allowed errors
which were able to be corrected by the CD player.

Unfortunately they even ADD C1 errors these days and call it copy
protection!

MrT.

In rec.audio.tech Jeff Findley wrote:

A guy I work with used to work at a CD plant and from what he understands
from working there, the type of media used to deliver the master to the CD
plant could make some difference. If the media was digital, then the CD's
pressed would be exact digital copies, but if the media was analog, that
meant that what the plant got was going to be an "AAD" CD with the
additional possibility that the CD plant's analog to digital conversion
might not be as good as what could be done by a recording/mixing studio.

SPARS Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARS_Code


When was the last time anyone delivered analog media to a CD pressing
plant? Was this something done in the early 80s?

I always took 'AAD' to mean that the CD was mastered digitally --
redundant, really, since by definition all CDs involve digital
mastering.


___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason

"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
...
In rec.audio.tech Jeff Findley wrote:

A guy I work with used to work at a CD plant and from what he understands
from working there, the type of media used to deliver the master to the
CD
plant could make some difference. If the media was digital, then the
CD's
pressed would be exact digital copies, but if the media was analog, that
meant that what the plant got was going to be an "AAD" CD with the
additional possibility that the CD plant's analog to digital conversion
might not be as good as what could be done by a recording/mixing studio.

SPARS Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARS_Code


When was the last time anyone delivered analog media to a CD pressing
plant? Was this something done in the early 80s?

I always took 'AAD' to mean that the CD was mastered digitally --
redundant, really, since by definition all CDs involve digital
mastering.

I believe this was actually the early 90's, but he did say by then delivery
of analog audio to them was becoming less and less common. Still, he still
tends to avoid buying AAD CD's based on what he saw going on at the plant
since you can't tell from the AAD code who did the mastering from the analog
tapes.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
...
In rec.audio.tech Jeff Findley wrote:

A guy I work with used to work at a CD plant and from what he
understands
from working there, the type of media used to deliver the master to the
CD
plant could make some difference. If the media was digital, then the
CD's
pressed would be exact digital copies, but if the media was analog, that
meant that what the plant got was going to be an "AAD" CD with the
additional possibility that the CD plant's analog to digital conversion
might not be as good as what could be done by a recording/mixing studio.

SPARS Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARS_Code


When was the last time anyone delivered analog media to a CD pressing
plant? Was this something done in the early 80s?

I always took 'AAD' to mean that the CD was mastered digitally --
redundant, really, since by definition all CDs involve digital
mastering.

I believe this was actually the early 90's, but he did say by then
delivery of analog audio to them was becoming less and less common.
Still, he still tends to avoid buying AAD CD's based on what he saw going
on at the plant since you can't tell from the AAD code who did the
mastering from the analog tapes.

Jeff

I always purchased CDs based on the quality of the music. The SPARS code was
irrelevant to me, but I always took comfort that if it said AAD, it meant
that the master tape ensured adequate dithering for the CD. :-)