A certain John Phillips, of uk.rec.audio "fame", writes :
However, I have CDs of analogue recordings from the 1960s onwards
with modern (1990s onward) digital mastering. Most sound marvellous.
Full of life and full of the ambience of the recording venue. For example
Boehm's 1967 Wagner Ring which just drips with the Bayreuth Festspielhaus
accoustic (even through the audible tape hiss).

Indeed. The analogue tape decks at the time, if properly aligned and set
up, were very good, and things improved a bit on the hiss front whenever
Dolby came along. I agree that many earlier CDs were indeed crap due to
dodgy mastering and dodgy equipment - amazing how an old recording can
really shine through in the hands of a good engineer.

In my own experience, generalizations about CDs being better than vinyl
are as just as false as generalizations that vinyl is better than CD.
I dare to suggest the same today about the generalization of SACD
versus CD. I am fairly sure digital production has a long way to go yet.

Leaving aside the X vs Y business, I'd say stereo digital reproduction
is pretty much as good as it needs to be right now; the signal recorded
is essentially identical to the input signal. There's not much room for
improvement at the moment.

--

"Jokes mentioning ducks were considered particularly funny." - cnn.com

In article , Chesney Christ wrote:
Leaving aside the X vs Y business, I'd say stereo digital reproduction
is pretty much as good as it needs to be right now; the signal recorded
is essentially identical to the input signal. There's not much room for
improvement at the moment.

If you had said that modern stereo digital reproduction is _capable of
being_ pretty much as good as it needs to be then I could possibly agree.

I still buy modern CDs (1990s or later) where I think the sound could
have been much better. Maybe with SACDs (to return to a topic in the
thread title) in their marketing-led infancy still, more attention is
being paid to getting it right in practice.

With sales of the modern classical music CD sufficiently low on a
per-release basis, I suspect it's entirely possible to be unable to
spend enough time on basic good prodction these days, let alone time to
correct any errors.

--
John Phillips

A certain John Phillips, of uk.rec.audio "fame", writes :
In article , Chesney Christ wrote:
Leaving aside the X vs Y business, I'd say stereo digital reproduction
is pretty much as good as it needs to be right now; the signal recorded
is essentially identical to the input signal. There's not much room for
improvement at the moment.

If you had said that modern stereo digital reproduction is _capable of
being_ pretty much as good as it needs to be then I could possibly agree.

Yes, my paragraph above assumed "in the hands of an engineer who knows
what he is doing" and "properly set up kit".

I still buy modern CDs (1990s or later) where I think the sound could
have been much better.

Oh, I definitely agree there, and it's a travesty as good digital
recording is not hard to do with modern equipment. I have modern albums
where they've driven over the 0db level quite badly. There's no excuse
for that.

Maybe with SACDs (to return to a topic in the
thread title) in their marketing-led infancy still, more attention is
being paid to getting it right in practice.

I would not feel safe making that assumption. We hoped that might be the
case with DVD video, but frequently it has not been - shamefully
terrible jobs done on some films.

--

"Jokes mentioning ducks were considered particularly funny." - cnn.com