Linn's CEO's view of DSD

It is worth pointing out that Linn used to manufacture SACD-capable players at one point.

It is a bit like the great video tape war, WHO cares really. Of course it is interesting to follow but obvious if you record in dsd you like dsd, if you record in wav you like wav.

Let us hope that we get more music in high quality not new formats with about 100 tititles available for high prices and has to be used with special equipment.

This isn't a "vinyl is the best" comment, but this reminds me that it really is amazing that the 33 1/3 RPM vinyl record has persisted for so long, 50+ years, maybe the longest run of a media format since the printed book.

The recent comments about the new Beck album - the hi res version is in part based on sub CD resolution MP3s - point out to me again, that production quality - recording, mastering, everything involved - will always trump format and bit rate.

The longest lived format for recorded music is the 78 disc, 120 plus years and counting.

ATB from George

It's not going to happen Claus there will be little high quality releases in the future just crappy MP3 - keep and but CDs while they are still the 'physical' product released.

ATB Pete

'...and counting'? Do tell us: when was the last commercially available 78rpm disc released?

Mark

According to Wikipedia, Capitol re-released Good Vibrations in 2011 as a 78 rpm 10 inch record.  Of course that's just great if you have a table that can play 78's and that's the only song you like.

Yeah, I'm thinking as a limited edition of 100 it's probably still not sold out.

Maybe they were trying to create a rare modern record. Maybe it was intended as a wall decoration.

No doubt the BBC will have a copy [and the original] and will play it when the time comes. 

The 78 is not dead even after 60 years of the pathetic LP trying to replace it ...

ATB from George

It is a bit surprising to me that Gilad's provocative comments did not spur any DSD versus PCM discussion. There certainly are a lot of new DSD-capable products, and the hi-fi mags all seem to think it is a hot topic...

But apparently Naim forum members think otherwise!    As a result, I'm betting the odds of Naim ever supporting the format are extremely low.

Personally, while I continue to use a Korg recorder for making 2xDSD needledrops, I don't feel like I am missing much by converting them to 24/88.2 FLAC files for purposes of streaming via UPnP.  I would welcome DSD support, but I don't consider it a must have.

ATB.

Hook

A 78 at 2.3 times the speed of your normal LP must produce a very enjoyable listening experience, particularly for those of us who love the Beach Boys.

That leap in SQ would be laying down the gauntlet for the 96/24 digital brigade, I'm thinking.

I'm sure I've got a 78 capable deck somewhere in the loft 

The music will not be any different–simply the conversion process.  The bigger issue is content availability, which no one really wants to address without a significant amount of hairshirt efforts on the end user's part (SACD ripping via hacked PlayStation 3, tagging, etc.), unless, of course, you are creating your own content.

Vinyl is not all that good. It is nothing like as good as it is made out to be.

The amount of very poor vinyl is a far larger proportion of the whole than it is given credit for being. The actual amount of very poor recording and pressing on vinyl is a shockingly large.

The system is flawed in that it is cut in one way as a linear track and then replayed as from a single point of mounting for the tracking tone arm [except in the very rare cases of a linear tracking tone arm]. 

Analogue discs all have a variable frequency response, possible absolute dynamic, and noise ratio during the course of the spiral groove, and so when cutting a side it is crucial to avoid very loud [heavy tracking] at the end the the duration to avoid significant additional tracking issues.

I could go on, but most people don't seem to appreciate quite how flawed the vinyl LP is at a fundamental level.

I was delighted that in one fell swoop the CD brought playback that did not deteriorate with every playing and eliminated the basic tracking geometry issues, had a constant SN ratio, a constant frequency response, and a constant dynamic potential that was wide enough to allow any musical audible dynamic swing to be presented without the manipulation of the level through compression.

I would not call the CD perfect, unlike the marketing men, but it came as a relief after LPs. 

When LP and analogue tape recordings came into commercial production in the early 1950s, the engineers themselves were very disappointed that the quality they had achieved with direct cut 78s was largely lost, and indeed re-issues of 78s on LPs was considered the worst of all possibilities as the the LP further damaged the old 78s recordings qualities so that the re-issues were always worse than the originals.

It took the introduction of CDs for these same engineers to finally be able to show just howe much better the direct cut 78 recording was than the LP ever would be.

Of course there are poor examples of recording in every medium, but the one with the worst proportion by a big distance is the LP. Modern LP pressing is all too often not as good as it potentially could be, which is not claiming much, but the fragility of the process introduces potential problems in production at every stage, and all too often modern pressings are not even as good as the workaday issues of forty years before.

The LP was the dark age that descended on recording and replay from 1948, and I find the reverence with which such a flawed medium is held is very strange.

ATB from George

The nostalgia effect George?

The LP is so much better than the 78 in every way. The marketing viability and popularity of the medium does however continue to defy logic. Particularly as currently produced vinyl is nowhere near as good as it was forty or fifty years ago. And I mean in terms of SQ and pressing quality.

I agree that the medium is technologically deeply flawed. The fact that it can, to so many devotees, still deliver a music replay experience more enjoyable than any digital based source is quite astonishing.

John.

George - I hold little appreciation or knowledge of PSM/DSD or any digital medium but like you I am in fact an enthusiast of the CD. True it took me quite a little while to find a player that matched the performance of my then TT - an Ariston RD80/LVX/K9 - and that player wasn't a Naim but an Arcam Alpha which lasted for 15 years - it owed me nothing when it went with a failed PSU to the land fill.

However, whilst what you say about vinyl in the strictest technical sense is true in practice it was the first high-fidelity music medium - I'll put reel to reel to one side - and is proving 60 years on to be remarkably sustaining.  Further, the range of ever improving TTs/arms/cartridges even at modest price levels makes it even more attractive for those of us that have vinyl music collections dating back and care for over some 40+ years.  I don't doubt your point over the quality of pressings and for that reason tend to buy my music on the silver disc these days but just about every visitor who comes in this house

after a sustained listening session says that my vinyl replay is more enjoyable everything else considered.  And I'm lucky to be pretty well served in both formats.

Regards,

Lindsay

I find it fascinating the debate of Vinyl v CD.

Take for example two grand listeners of classical music, George and Kuma. While George professes the superiority of the digital source, Kuma is always posting original pictures of his beloved vinyl

pressings.

Go figure!

Tony

Dear John,

Oddly I am going to agree with you on every point except about the relative qualities of direct cut 78s versus LPs made with the slightly less flawed medium of analogue tape. [Many of the best LPs were made with direct cutting techniques, which tells its own story about how not fine the analogue tape recording system is]

On this I'll cite the expert opinions of AC Griffith and Keith Hardwick, both engineers at EMI during a period that covered direct cut 78s, analogue tape [including the vinyl record] and the digital era. 

They have written extensively on the subject the desperate measures they forced to take to make LPs sound acceptable. The 78 as a medium was beset by surface noise because the shellac was mixed with slate dust to sharpen the steel needle to the groove profile, but when restoration and digital re-issue is done the master is used, and frequently the master metal has a better SN ratio than analogue tape! It also does not deteriorate as tape does, so there are superb 78 masters right back to 1926 when modern recording really started.

It also has lower distortions, though there are examples where the microphone pre-amp does distort through over modulations. This was where the considerable art of the engineers of the day came into play, and they became very proficient at getting a good recording into the groove.

Irt is hardly an act of nostalgia to listen to a CD of an artistically significant 78 recording. Listening to an acoustic gramophone with an original pressing might be!

I particularly like you last line. I am astonished that anyone would persist with LPs in the digital era as well!

ATB from George

Hi George,

I certainly appreciate the speed advantage of the 78 because well produced 45 rpm 12" singles produce the best and most dynamic sound quality I've ever heard from any source.

John.

Dear John,

The other day I was playing some 78 recordings on CD to a friend on his superb Naim set and he could not believe the articulacy and precision of pitch on the bass-lines.  As clear as everything else, and dynamic too!

Having been reared on LPs he was very surprised by the  recording being as grand as what the CD revealed the 78s as!

I never thought much of LPs as a musically involving source of music. It was all I had access to at the time and it was better than nothing.

The best I can say for LPs is "Better than nothing, but inferior to all other media except the Compact Cassette and highly compressed MP3s."

I expect we still manage a smile for each other next time we meet!

ATB from George

Wow, this is great!  My first time probably in the Streaming Audio section and what a welcome surprise.  I didn't realize you guys talk about music here as well?

Dear George,

As you might know already, I am always pleased and thrilled any time someone in this world is an ambassador for music or shares their love of music with others.  This is motivational and infectious while also humbling.  This is not only for the narrow range of music I enjoy but across all genres as I can relate to a similar joy in others, I hope, in a way that I too experience it.  It also matters not to me whether I agree or not initially with a fellow music lover.  At the end of the day we are all fighting for the same thing, I believe, after all - a love of music.  Talking about it even if it becomes uncomfortable is a good thing in my view.  Therefore, I come with an open mind in the hopes to always learn something and become richer for it than I was the day before 

Please, please, please share the names of these 78 recordings on CD's so that the rest of us can enjoy some music to a similar degree in which you are lucky enough to.  If these ones are not available to the public, then please recommend some 78 transfers that are available for just any examples.  It sounds like since the format was not flawed in the first place that virtually any 78 transfer to CD would fit the bill but I truly don't know where to start looking and wouldn't mind to know some of the ones you especially enjoy, suggest and play for friends so I can understand what I am missing and not incorrectly make assumptions about anything.

My concern is that since I have very limited exposure to any 78's or recordings of the same and now I fear I have missed the boat in my life and wasting my time in the direction I have gone although I have never felt the lack of musical involvement?  I've always thought this part was up to me (whether I succeed or not in understanding)?

In fact my love of music continues to grow without bounds, it seems.  But I really want to hear and experience once and for all what true articulacy, precision, dynamics and let's not forget lucidity, sound like among other mandatory musical attributes and requirements.  I'm hoping for a revelation?

"I never thought much of LPs as a musically involving source of music."

I do recall elsewhere when people questioned the changes or the ups and downs in their equipment day to day (and which I too experience) and you strongly believed that the equipment is always stable but it is the listener and the mood they are in that changes resulting in ones displeasure.

I'm sorry for being somewhat suspicious of this but it seems very odd that you might have been in a bad mood then continuously throughout those middle years between the end of 78's and the beginning of the CD format?

I personally have never found that a format effects my musical involvement or enjoyment with the music itself (and I have lived with the absolute bottom level to maybe a mid-level currently.  This is just a tool of delivery and I get very frustrated when my tools do not work as expected.  Granted, some tools do the job better than others but often this means some investment into capital to experience adequate results.  If I buy a cheap tool, I can only expect some dissatisfaction with it over time.  You can't blame a tool for this.  No great musician would still be using the same $100 instrument (a tool) they started on when they started as a four year old.

What does effect my musical involvement is of course firstly the choice of music and my connection to it, secondly, my mood and environmental conditions (**to some degree initially), thirdly, a sense that what I am hearing does or does not reflect what a true musical instrument would sound like in real life or lastly, equipment that does not work (spending more time troubleshooting than listening etc.). 

**Music is my medicine.  In my life this is mostly true.  I know generally that if I have a bad headache or feel rotten all I have to do is force myself to the piano (this isn't always possible). Every ounce of logic in me tells me this is not possible according to how I feel.  If I am lucky enough to manage this though and force myself to start to practice I can be guaranteed that by 30 minutes and beyond my body recovers and I start to feel elated again.  This is not true of just listening on its own 100% as it is a mind trick.  It is very difficult for me to just sit and turn a button to stop thinking about some pain I am experiencing.  Playing is a physical and mental exercise and soon the pleasure received overcomes the pain.  This is not only true of music (but the best for me) but I think this would happen if you cook, garden, go for a jog, or do any physical thing you like to do which can distract.

My feeling though is that regardless of my mood, I am confident I know what sounds good and what raises the hairs on the back of my neck and what does not.  Just as my piano has no choice but to change with the humidity day by day so too a stereo must change and react to its environment and certainly the quality of electricity is the main variable.

I feel a headache coming on and so you know where I'll be heading in several moments....

Regards,

Doug

Dear Doug,

We were listening to performances of Schubert's Great C Major Symphony, from Klemperer and Erich Kleiber [Koln Orchestra on Anadeo, live concert from 1954], Faure's Requiem, Nadia Boulanger. Paris recording for French HMV in 1948 [from 78s on CD], and the live Fairfield Hall concert from 1968 on BBC Legends. And also performances of the Third Pomp and Circumstance March from Boult in 1947, 1955, and 1977, as well Elgar's own from1927. It was instructive to find that easily the best recording was the 1947 78 recording [on Testament CD] even compared to the late LP recording from 1977, while elgar's own early 78 effort was the second best from 85 years ago [on EMI CD].

I think my friend came away from the experience of the Schubert somewhat taken aback by the energy and joy and also the tragic element in the slow movement. Over-whelmed by it really. Naturally we played the Symphony through to the end in the Klemperer performance, having dropped the Kleiber at the end of the first movement. And the Faure was listened right through in the old Paris set, and then we listened to the In Paradisum from 1968 ....

Then the Faure was so beautiful after that. And really the Elgar March shows a Schubertian grace, much like the Marches Militaire in their deftness in Numbers Two and Tree for certain, though these are hardly known today, beside the First or Fourth.

I learned my way round the classics from the age of nine from 78s and LPs in the school music library. I would almost always choose the 78 where there was a choice. Where there was no choice, the LP had to suffice. Even then I adored the radio for live relays. As Ia child till the age of thirteen bed time was seven o'clock which served me well as each might I would listen to Radio Three for the seven thirty concert relay!

In those days I listened to everything. Schubert, to Schoenberg! There were many things in my childhood that might have caused me to be unhappy, but the truth is that having discovered music, I found an escape to something beautiful fascinating, and a transport to a happy world without the usual human dissonances.

I don't think that I was always in a bad mood till CDs came along, in fact the opposite where music was concerned!

ATB from George

PS: I don;t often post in this part, but it so happens that I cannot relate to any replay without the music I love, and so it is through that music that I can try to understand the mechanism of replay as far I want to analyse it. When something really special in replay is discovered, then I do like to consider why this should be special and better than other methods.

Thank you George!  This was very kind of you to take the time to explain this and I shall look for some of this music in the weeks ahead.  Again, I appreciate it.

Thanks,

Doug