Abbey Road SACD mastering tricks

Bruce B

WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
Apr 25, 2010
7,002
508
1,740
Snohomish, WA
www.pugetsoundstudios.com
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.....
 
Last edited:

Andre Marc

Member Sponsor
Mar 14, 2012
3,970
7
0
San Diego
www.avrev.com
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

WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
Apr 25, 2010
7,002
508
1,740
Snohomish, WA
www.pugetsoundstudios.com
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

Member Sponsor
Mar 14, 2012
3,970
7
0
San Diego
www.avrev.com
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

Member Sponsor
Aug 31, 2010
2,915
36
435
Mexico City
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!
 

hvbias

Well-Known Member
Jun 22, 2012
578
38
940
New England area
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.
 

Bruce B

WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
Apr 25, 2010
7,002
508
1,740
Snohomish, WA
www.pugetsoundstudios.com
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.

They just don't want to buy the tools to work in DSD. It might be easier for them to work in PCM and upconvert to DSD, but it impacts sonority. I know several ME's that advertise they do DSD work when in fact, all they have is a Korg unit for playback into their PCM software.
 

hvbias

Well-Known Member
Jun 22, 2012
578
38
940
New England area
They just don't want to buy the tools to work in DSD. It might be easier for them to work in PCM and upconvert to DSD, but it impacts sonority. I know several ME's that advertise they do DSD work when in fact, all they have is a Korg unit for playback into their PCM software.

I'm not condoning the act. I'd much rather have SACDs that are pure DSD as well. The very expensive Esoteric Japanese classical SACDs are all 24/96 to DSD because EMI archived their master tapes at 24/96. And those discs sell for $60-70, which makes it even more inexcusable.
 

Light Dependant Resistor

Well-Known Member
May 10, 2014
34
2
238
I'm not condoning the act. I'd much rather have SACDs that are pure DSD as well. The very expensive Esoteric Japanese classical SACDs are all 24/96 to DSD because EMI archived their master tapes at 24/96. And those discs sell for $60-70, which makes it even more inexcusable.

Interesting video on transfer done at Abbey Rd. The things I liked were their catalog was able to find a secondary source
of material. What I didn't like was the coming out of digital format to analog for EQ. A DBX Quantum is capable of doing
EQ in the digital domain, as are many other products.
 

Fiddle Faddle

Member
Aug 7, 2015
548
2
16
Australia
Interesting video on transfer done at Abbey Rd. The things I liked were their catalog was able to find a secondary source
of material. What I didn't like was the coming out of digital format to analog for EQ. A DBX Quantum is capable of doing
EQ in the digital domain, as are many other products.

I'm not sure I really like the EQ process they use at all, let alone that it involves an extra conversion to analogue then back to digital. If you listen to the EQ'd master, apart from the obvious, the PRaT and microdynamics are effected. Listen carefully, for example, the first violins and the attack on the notes is no longer as crisp and firm in the remastered version. The bow changes are smeared and this isn't the case with the "flat" master.
 

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu

Steve Williams
Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator
Ron Resnick
Site Co-Owner | Administrator
Julian (The Fixer)
Website Build | Marketing Managersing