Can hiss on older recordings be eliminated without major sonic trade-offs?

caesar · Jul 21, 2016

Some of the greatest musical recordings from the 50s and 60s is hissy - check out Kind of Blue, Sound of Music Soundtrack, etc. Many audiophiles, of course, poo poo this great "hissy" music in favor of Diana Krall in Paris or some xrcd. Others "adjust" to the hiss...

Is modern technology good enough to remove the hiss without destroying the musical substance?

microstrip · Jul 21, 2016

caesar said:
Some of the greatest musical recordings from the 50s and 60s is hissy - check out Kind of Blue, Sound of Music Soundtrack, etc. Many audiophiles, of course, poo poo this great "hissy" music in favor of Diana Krall in Paris or some xrcd. Others "adjust" to the hiss...

Is modern technology good enough to remove the hiss without destroying the musical substance?

The best hiss remover is your brain if your system creates the conditions needed to carry this work with minimal load.

If the sound reproduction is high quality and "natural" sometimes the hiss behaves like the invisible gorilla ...

Bruce B · Jul 21, 2016

caesar said:
Is modern technology good enough to remove the hiss without destroying the musical substance?

In short...No

The long answer is how much can you live with. Modern Technology has come a long way and can diminish it greatly. It's when you start asking for it to be gone completely is where you'll run into problems. The same thing can be said about ticks/pops in LP transfers. I've tried everything from Cedar, Algorithmix and iZotope. They all do a great job up to a certain point, but when you start pushing it to get rid of something completely, that's when it leaves a big footprint. Now, I also have tried to run it though a multiple of times, doing a little bit each time. That's when I get my best results.

TBone · Jul 21, 2016

microstrip said:
The best hiss remover is your brain if your system creates the conditions needed to carry this work with minimal load.

If the sound reproduction is high quality and "natural" sometimes the hiss behaves like the invisible gorilla ...

Absolutely; all too often the quieter re-masters w/NR add limiting/compression to the mix. Much rather deal with the monkey ...

caesar · Jul 21, 2016

Bruce B said:
In short...No

The long answer is how much can you live with. Modern Technology has come a long way and can diminish it greatly. It's when you start asking for it to be gone completely is where you'll run into problems. The same thing can be said about ticks/pops in LP transfers. I've tried everything from Cedar, Algorithmix and iZotope. They all do a great job up to a certain point, but when you start pushing it to get rid of something completely, that's when it leaves a big footprint. Now, I also have tried to run it though a multiple of times, doing a little bit each time. That's when I get my best results.

Thank you, Bruce. Dumb question: what is this hiss? and what is the cause of it being there?

caesar · Jul 21, 2016

microstrip said:
The best hiss remover is your brain if your system creates the conditions needed to carry this work with minimal load.

If the sound reproduction is high quality and "natural" sometimes the hiss behaves like the invisible gorilla ...

yep, I agree. but it's just a work around

Mike Lavigne · Jul 21, 2016

I love tape hiss. lot's of reality found in it.

playing tape (or cueing an Lp) when the hiss starts, the room pressurizes, my shoulders relax, and the music comes alive.

where does ambience end and hiss begin?

certainly less hiss and more ambience is desired when it works out that way. but less hiss and less ambience is not any solution.

Asamel · Jul 21, 2016

Bruce B said:
In short...No

The long answer is how much can you live with. Modern Technology has come a long way and can diminish it greatly. It's when you start asking for it to be gone completely is where you'll run into problems. The same thing can be said about ticks/pops in LP transfers. I've tried everything from Cedar, Algorithmix and iZotope. They all do a great job up to a certain point, but when you start pushing it to get rid of something completely, that's when it leaves a big footprint. Now, I also have tried to run it though a multiple of times, doing a little bit each time. That's when I get my best results.

Did your doctor say you are allowed to post?

Bruce B · Jul 21, 2016

Asamel said:
Did your doctor say you are allowed to post?

As long as I don't laugh, cough, hiccup or ROTFL.... I'm good sitting in my AC, taking my pills and just enjoying being alive!!

Bruce B · Jul 21, 2016

caesar said:
Thank you, Bruce. Dumb question: what is this hiss? and what is the cause of it being there?

It's usually tape noise dragging across the heads, added with the electronic hash that was recorded during the process.

fas42 · Jul 21, 2016

caesar said:
yep, I agree. but it's just a work around

I'm with the other replies here - if the system works correctly then the hiss is consigned to another, non-intrusive space in the listening - every time. If the hiss is objectionable then, to me, that's a marker that the system is not working as well as it should - something like 1912 recordings by Melba being replayed at realistic volumes, for the voice, is a good test for this sort of capability ...

still-one · Jul 21, 2016

Mike Lavigne said:
I love tape hiss. lot's of reality found in it.

playing tape (or cueing an Lp) when the hiss starts, the room pressurizes, my shoulders relax, and the music comes alive.

where does ambience end and hiss begin?

certainly less hiss and more ambience is desired when it works out that way. but less hiss and less ambience is not any solution.

Different response for me. I excuse myself from the room.

rockitman · Jul 21, 2016

What amazes me most is how little hiss is added generation after generation with 1/4" 15 ips RTR recorded music. Obviously there is a limit. Cassette tape generations were the kings of hiss from what I rember in the 1980's.

Don Hills · Jul 21, 2016

still-one said:
Different response for me. I excuse myself from the room.

How diplomatic of you.

I can see how hiss and noise could be considered normal, if you grew up with it. But it isn't part of the original music, however much you feel it contributes to the listening experience. Personally, I no longer miss it. I think of it as having outgrown my security blanket.

I find it (audible noise) tends to obscure the lowest-level detail in the music. At its best, it provides a romantic haze, leaving tantalizing hints of more to be discovered. It's similar to the effect noted in early video, where the resolution and noise tended to obscure defects in the set construction and characters' makeup. We didn't notice unless it was particularly bad, because we had a mental picture of what it should look like. Modern video quality exposes more, so requires more attention to detail. Assuming that care and attention was paid to the original audio production, higher resolution and lower noise (within the audible range) in the record / reproduce chain exposes more of the original music. Whether that is preferable to leaving something to the imagination is for the individual to decide.

Anubis · Jul 24, 2016

Might be banned from this page but have a friend that tried the kables from his RIIA to an DSPeaker antimode dualcore 2.0.

Analoge inn and out ( yes there is an ad/da) and all the tyoical static and pops is gone.
The funny thing is we prefer the sound with the antimode in the chain by far.

jeromelang · Jul 24, 2016

What frequency is analogue tape hiss?

Don Hills · Jul 25, 2016

jeromelang said:
What frequency is analogue tape hiss?

No one frequency. It's (relatively) wideband random noise.
It's often louder in some frequency ranges than in others. It depends on the tape speed, tape medium, playback EQ etc.
For a given case, the easiest way to answer your question is to do a spectrum analysis of a few seconds of the noise.

jeromelang · Jul 25, 2016

If even older men in their 50s can hear tape hiss, their spectrum range must be pretty lowish.

Bruce B · Jul 25, 2016

Don Hills said:
No one frequency. It's (relatively) wideband random noise.
It's often louder in some frequency ranges than in others. It depends on the tape speed, tape medium, playback EQ etc.
For a given case, the easiest way to answer your question is to do a spectrum analysis of a few seconds of the noise.

+1... it's not like a 60Hz hum that can be eliminated easily. Hiss is very wide band and when you start taking away hiss, you start mucking with the musical information. A non-starter for me. But just like vinyl rigs, hiss (like surface noise), starts to diminish as you move up the chain. What would be offensive on a less expensive deck can be negligible on one costing $$$.

rbbert · Jul 25, 2016

As you say, some of the hiss is irrevocably recorded onto the tape, but some is generated by the playback head and electronics; that can be minimized by equipment design and component (passive parts) quality

Can hiss on older recordings be eliminated without major sonic trade-offs?

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