Abbey Road SACD mastering tricks

**flez007** · 08-03-2012, 07:55 AM

I just got this piece (quite large at 25min), but first 10 minutes are revealing (at least for me)

I hope this is the right section to post it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfA61_noOQQ

**Bruce B** · 08-03-2012, 08:56 AM

Thanks... I'll have to look at this later.

**Bruce B** · 08-03-2012, 09:16 PM

O'kay.... I've just watched the video. Very informative and here are my observations....

1. WHY THE HELL DO YOU CAPTURE IN 24/96 PCM AND UPSAMPLE TO DSD?? What the hell were they thinking? If you capture in PCM... stay in PCM and release it on CD or Blu-ray. If you capture in DSD, release it on SACD or download. Why these companies want to make PCM to DSD and DSD to PCM conversions is beyond me. I'm certainly not going to buy any of these discs.

2. They were transferring from a Studer A80vu. If you look closely at the pinch roller and such, you can tell they are not maintaing the machine.

3. They use Cedar for restoration. It's the best there is and what we use as well.

4. They just seem to use EQ for mastering. If that is all they are doing, then whyl didn't they put it in the signal chain when they transfered in the first place instead of doing 2 more conversions?

5. Their signal chain was Studer A80 -> 24/96 PCM -> back to analog through old EMI EQ's -> 24/96 PCM, then -> DSD for authoring...

6. He also said something about taking the mono files and doubling them up to make stero files. WTF?? You're just making a 3dB louder mono file...

Abbey Road, in this situation, is not using good sound practices.... IMHO.....

**Andre Marc** · 08-03-2012, 09:48 PM

Originally Posted by Bruce B

O'kay.... I've just watched the video. Very informative and here are my observations....

1. WHY THE HELL DO YOU CAPTURE IN 24/96 PCM AND UPSAMPLE TO DSD?? What the hell were they thinking? If you capture in PCM... stay in PCM and release it on CD or Blu-ray. If you capture in DSD, release it on SACD or download. Why these companies want to make PCM to DSD and DSD to PCM conversions is beyond me. I'm certainly not going to buy any of these discs.

2. They were transferring from a Studer A80vu. If you look closely at the pinch roller and such, you can tell they are not maintaing the machine.

3. They use Cedar for restoration. It's the best there is and what we use as well.

4. They just seem to use EQ for mastering. If that is all they are doing, then why the hell didn't they put it in the signal chain when they transfered in the first place.

5. Their signal chain was Studer A80 -> 24/96 PCM -> back to analog through old EMI EQ's -> 24/96 PCM, then -> DSD for authoring...

6. He also said something about taking the mono files and doubling them up to make stero files. WTF?? You're just making a 3dB louder mono file...

Abbey Road, in this situation, is not using good sound practices.... IMHO.....

Bruce, for no.1, are they not doing this because it is not possible to do restoration and surgical editing in DSD, to best of my knowledge.

Esoteric recently put out a series of SACD discs where they fully admitted they sampled historic analog tapes in 96/24 and then up sampled to DSD for the reason I stated above. They said they need to do a fair amount of noise reduction and restoration. They are charging 50 a pop for these discs!

**Bruce B** · 08-04-2012, 10:57 AM

Originally Posted by Andre Marc

Bruce, for no.1, are they not doing this because it is not possible to do restoration and surgical editing in DSD, to best of my knowledge.

I do precision editing in Sonoma every single day. For DSD restoration, I use Algorithmix Renovator in Pyramix. Works flawlessly and it's transparent.

**Andre Marc** · 08-04-2012, 08:46 PM

Originally Posted by Bruce B

I do precision editing in Sonoma every single day. For DSD restoration, I use Algorithmix Renovator in Pyramix. Works flawlessly and it's transparent.

Interesting. I wonder why Esoteric would make those claims.

I need to dig up that link.

**flez007** · 08-08-2012, 03:23 PM

Originally Posted by Bruce B

O'kay.... I've just watched the video. Very informative and here are my observations....

1. WHY THE HELL DO YOU CAPTURE IN 24/96 PCM AND UPSAMPLE TO DSD?? .... I'm certainly not going to buy any of these discs.
.....

that says it all!

**NorthStar** · 08-08-2012, 03:38 PM

---So, what's the real reason behind that?

**hvbias** · 08-08-2012, 03:42 PM

From speaking to mastering engineers at hifi shows, very few studios do native DSD transfers to SACD. The reasoning being it much easier to edit and work with PCM than DSD.