Interesting roundtable discussion in The Absolute Sound on SACD, CD, DVD-A, LP.

I finally got around to reading the August-September 2004 issue of The Absolute Sound. There is an interesting roundtable discussion starting on page 74 called "The Sound of Analog Tape, LP, CD, SACD, and DVD-Audio." The participants in the roundtable discussion were Mark Levinson, Harry Pearson, Doug Sax, and Jonathan Valin. Robert Harley moderated the discussion. It's a very interesting read. Here is a particular exchange that caught my attention:

Mark Levinson's comments particularly struck a chord with me. I absolutely agree with him that SACDs having PCM in their mastering history should be labeled accordingly. It probably will never happen, but it should.

I have a problem, however, with Levinson's statement that "most SACDs are really just CDs because they've been processed by Pro Tools or some other PCM-based system, and once that's done, all is lost." Most? I'm not sure about that. Is a PCM mastering step that pervasive in the making of SACDs? Also, if there is PCM in the chain, is all lost? I have to question that. What if an analog master tape is converted to a hi-rez PCM master, such as 24/192 or 24/384, and then converted to DSD. I would think that it would sound better, perhaps markedly better, than a corresponding CD that was downconverted from the hi-rez PCM master to 16/44.1. I doubt the resulting SACD would be just a CD. In the end, I would rather see the analog master tape get converted to DSD directly, but I don't subscribe to the notion that an initial conversion to PCM must taint the process to the extent that Levinson asserts.

Anyway, I found the above exchange and the roundtable discussion on the whole to be a good read. I'd be interested to read your comments on this discussion.

 

In addition to Mark Levinson's sloppy language, lumping all PCM processing under the label "cd," the comments of Jonathan Valin confuse "analog" and "lp."

 

Just another blind statement from a self-appointed expert. The only ones who know for sure are the engineers who did the SACD mastering...not the audiophile press, not equipment manufacturers, and certainly not the consumers (which of course is to our disadvantage). It's writing like this that made me drop Stereophile all those years ago. I'd rather come here and see what my fellow forum members say about music and recorded sound quality, or ask among friends or fellow collectors.

And yes, PCM is NOT CD. Do they think DVD-Audio has vanished? Do they not know what digital gear actual studios use? Let's face it--there is so much PCM digital gear out there (including Pro Tools), it would not surprise me, or even bother me, if my SACD came from a PCM source. If a recording is done in pure DSD, fine. If not, well, at least I have a nice SACD version of a recording from a PCM source. No amount of mastering in DSD is going to avoid the fact that my Harry Connick Jr. SACD was originally recorded on PCM equipment. It sounds plenty good as it is, certainly better than my CD version of the same recording IMHO.

 

Confusion is right. Nobody I know claims that SACDs sound like LPs, nor is that the goal--the comparison is between the analog source and the different media (LP, SACD, CD, DVD-A, etc.) that carries it. And it's up to us individual users, with our equipment, to decide if in this case, LP or SACD gets us closer the original source.

 

That's a little unfair. As you know, Levinson has made SACDs.

 

So are, one could argue, a few of his assertions.

And being able to make babies doesn't instantly make you a good or fitting parent...

Too bad we don't have Mr. Levinson here to clarify some of those comments he made. Good read, though...

 

Levinson's SACDs are uniformly excellent. I think he's demonstrated his skill in the area of making SACDs. I have no idea what he's like as a parent.

 

It´s an excellent discussion from guys that seems to know a lot about this, IMO.
What would Steve may think about all the thing about PCM<DSD or pure DSD, leaving all the things about music and mastering beside. I mean just speaking about the technology here.

 

Steve, I figured you would say that, and I fully understand it. My issue with Levinson is that he's heavy handed with regards to PCM being in the chain. There shouldn't be a PCM step, but if there is, I'm not sure that the resulting SACD would be just a CD.

 

I'm not Mr. Levinson, but if I were, I'd expect that my comments would be taken as generalizations intended to drive home a point, and not moral absolutes. And you need to look at it from his point of view: SACD (& DSD) is designed to reproduce analog sound sources. As a producer or engineer of high-res digital recordings, if you just want high-res PCM, DVD-Audio is probably the format for you. The tools are easier to use and probably more familiar. This is just conjecture, but it's how I read it.

That said, I don't doubt that some PCM-sourced SACDs sound better than the CDs they supercede. If you're recording direct to PCM, hopefully you're recording at much higher sample rates and/or bit depth than CD is capable of retaining (at least 96kHz/24-bit, one hopes, but probably 88.2kHz for ease of conversion down to 44.1 on CD). So if you have that extra depth and width when moving to SACD, of course it has the potential to sound better than the normal CD, and a good mastering engineer with the right tools might be able to deliver that superior sound. There are shades of gray, and I suspect that Mr. Levinson did not intend to address that issue at all with the comments quoted above.

 

...probably processing...

 

What a hoot.

So Levinson implies that 24-bit 192khz PCM is 'CD'. Yet with all of these PCM-sourced SACDs on the market, nobody here or on other forums can tell us exactly which ones are 'CD' unless they know which used PCM. The vast majority of SACDs get solid marks here. I guess none of the internet audiophile community has the golden ears of Mr. Levinson.

How many DSD workstations use 'DSD Wide' or some other form of PCM internally without explaining to the operator exactly what conversions are done when performing math for mixing, editing, effects, etc? I'm sure Mr. Levinson thinks those are just fine.

 

How's this for a general feeling about most SACDs?:

1. Most of the Sony SACDs, mastered by Wilder, Sapher, Anesini (hoping I got the spelling right)- these for the most part seem to have that really amazing "excitement" about them. Is it because they used a SADiE and went straight to DSD? Donno. 95% of all the Sony SACDs in Jazz, Pop and Classical genre I've heard are impressive.

2. Again, another general comment, but for the most part, the UMG SACDs don't really give me that fuzzy feeling. Is it because most of them were PCM? Diana Krall stuff always sounds freaking amazing to me, but Ella & Louis, most of the Police material... umm... It's alright, but I'm sure I could be h-winked into thinking it's PCM. Again, I'm not totally sure, but that's my immediate feeling.

3. There's been a few CDs out there that have either trounced previous attempts at mastering SACD, built on DSD mastering, that sound dynamic, alive and as beautiful as some really amazing SACDs. Some of them feel they've got the DSD mojo down to make Cds sound SACD-like.

In the meantime, I bet I would find myself hard-pressed to play the same music, the same mastering and point out the differences in SACD or PCM.

The mastering is the cake, HiRez is merely the icing. Hopefully with both, a label might see the reason to pull out the stops and do things right considering SACD is sold to audiophiles almost exclusively.

 

I always remember the DSotM 5.1 SACD mix. So many people raved over the fidelity. Of course we didn't know back then that it was from a 24/96 PCM remix.

Could it be because a good mastering engineer is more important than the technology used?

I have heard that her albums were all recorded in PCM. Can anyone confirm/dispel this?

 

I think Mark Levinson's, and Harry Pearson's point are being missed by people responding to this thread. neither of them are speaking about the tonality of a recording, which as we all know, Steve considers to be very important.

Mark is speaking about the "real sound in real space" of a recording, the "analog-ness" if you will. The recording and playback medium tremendously influence this, regardless of the tonality. Mark, Harry Pearson, and many others feel that PCM does not produce a sound that is "real." I don't necessarily agree with them, but I know what they are speaking about, and it isn't the mastering. It is the sound produced by the storage medium.

 

Not all of the responses are about Levinson et al. My comments on mastering were in response to Sckott's comments about Wilder, Sapher, Anesini...

We do go off on tangents.

As far as formats go, I'm only interested in which format is more transparent to the original source, not which one sounds most like this or that. But in my opinion the only way to accurately compare relative transparency is with a blind test, which is rejected by the entire audiophile community. So it's all just anecdote to me...they are entitled to their opinion...I'm sure they think anybody who disagrees is either deaf or an idiot.