Sterling Sound's PCM to DSD mastering

This topic has been mentioned on the forum before, but I thought it deserved a separate discussion. Recently I was surprised by the discovery that several SACD's I own from Analogue Productions are actually derived from PCM masters. It appears that the late George Marino at Sterling Sound used a 20 bit/48 kHz PCM converter and then transferred the files to DSD for disc authoring. For example, "Tea for the Tillerman" and "Getz/Gilberto" were mastered using this process. This leaves me scratching my head, I'm wondering why anybody would prefer such a method. Any thoughts?

 

I don't see any reason to do this unless the PCM mastering was converted to DSD years after the fact for an SACD release.

 

I bought three of the Verve SACDs mastered by Marino, and this Tillerman SACD. And that was enough for me. The problem has nothing to do with wrong tonal balance or things like that….the problem is that when listening to these releases I'm totally cold as we speak emotions and good feelings. This is very opposite as when listening to these SHM-SACDs, jazz or pop/rock that I want to play again and again.
And what is music without good feelings?

 

Does anyone know which titles were done using this process? I could only find 3 (Getz/Gilberto, Jazz Samba, Tea for the Tillerman) on the Acoustic Sounds webpage that described the DSD as being sourced from PCM, but a number of the Sterling Sound titles don't say much about the process. I wasn't wowed by TFTT. There was a hard edge to some of the vocals. I haven't had a chance to give a thorough critical listen to G/G or JS. Are there any others? Also, why would anyone think this was a good idea?

 

I think this happens more often than people realize. For example, the Elvis SACDs, mastered by George Marino, are 20-bit transfers. Norah Jones' "Little Broken Hearts" SACD was sourced from 24/44.1 PCM and "The Fall" was sourced from 24/88.2. But what I can't understand is how SuperHiRez.com can then sell the DSD file or the 24/176.4 PCM at a premium price, since both are just upconverts.

 

If I knew that any DSD or SACD was sourced, the master tapes, from anything less than 24/96 I would not buy it. This is especially true for 24/48. I will buy SACDs sourced from the original analog tapes. You could take the tracking analog tapes and remix it down to stereo at 24/192 or 24/384 and then have it mastered to SACD and that would work for me.

If it is 24/96 then just release it on DVD-r as wav files and be over it. Give the project to Barry Diament and let him do it for you. Norah Jones' handlers got caught doing this Redbook transfer on her SACD and we don't need more of that.

 

There are a fair number of discs sourced from redbook, or at least thought to be sourced from redbook. Archimago's blog has a list here - http://archimago.blogspot.com/2013/07/list-suspected-44-or-48khz-pcm.html. I have a number of these and some of them sound quite good. Others don't. How it sounds is the bottom line for me, but I wish more companies were a bit more forthcoming about sources so that buyers could make an informed decision. I probably would not have purchased some of the titles I own if I thought they were upconverts.

 

Acoustic Sounds said:

"Mastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound from the original master tapes to vinyl and PCM. The DSD was sourced from the PCM. George listened to all of the different A/D converters he had before he chose which to use, and he felt the George Massenburg GML 20 bit A/D produced the best and most synergistic sound for the project."

 

If that is true of the SACD version, then it's a safe bet that it applies to the vinyl, as well. Which means those expensive 45RPM Elvis titles are cut from 20/48 files.

 

No. If I read that Acoustic Sounds quote right, he took the master tapes to vinyl and PCM, then used the PCM to source the DSD. I've read that A/D converter used was the Massenburg 9300 which has a max sampling rate of 44.1kHz/48kHz. If that's true, aren't the SACDs that were done this way upconverted redbooks?

 

One other tidbit, the DSD download of TFTT is different. Acoustic Sounds says:

Mastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound. Download files authored direct to native DSD from analog tape by Gus Skinas.

So, it seems like this title went from master tape to vinyl, and master tape to DSD download, but not SACD.

 

Which title are you referring to?

 

I think you're right with regards to the Elvis titles I mentioned. It's likely that those 45RPM titles were sourced from the original analog tapes, but the SACDs were sourced from the 20/48 PCM files. However, the vinyl listing for the two Norah Jones titles I cited only mention "the original source recordings"; the SACD listings specify 24/44 and 24/88 sources.

 

TFTT = Tea for the Tillerman

 

20bit /48kHz is not Redbook standard.

 

Yes, redbook is 16-bit linear PCM sampled at 44,100 Hz. I'm just making the point that the equipment George used isn't ideal for authoring SACDs, and I was wondering why someone would choose to do this. I didn't like TFTT, but G/G sounded pretty good on first listen. So, I can't necessarily argue with the results, but the process made me wonder.

 

Why!?!?? This is so wrong.

 

Huh? I don't see any reason to conclude that the vinyl was mastered going through a digital chain. The vinyl was not a digital product... it's an analog product...

 

It was just an assumption, but it is likely true for the Norah Jones LPs that I mentioned.

 

I know this thread is a little old, but has anyone yet done a comparison of any of the HiRes PCM Marino Verve titles to the DSD downloads? I'd been scratching my head about these as well, not really getting why it would be worth buying the DSDs if they were sourced from 48KHz PCM.

 

If the DSD is the only way to get the Hi-Res, why not?

 

It is not. The analog masters were captured to digital using a 20bit / 48KHz PCM device. The PCM was used not only to create 24/96 and 24/192 PCM versions but also as the source for the DSD. Seems to me at 48KHz it almost makes no sense to create a DSD version, but I'm still interested in the opinions of anyone who's heard it against either of the high res PCMs.

 

Technically, some would say DSD is comparable to 20bit/88.2kHz. However, they don't translate exactly.