When you read it you will find out that this is dependent on a number of variables but it is there. It is a very good paper, not overly technical.
"How can we ever truly know if we are hearing exactly what is on the recording?"
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When you read it you will find out that this is dependent on a number of variables but it is there. It is a very good paper, not overly technical.
Tape certainly has become a sound effect in its own right. So people use it to that way. Sometimes with subtlety and sometimes with a heavy hand (think 10" Burial Mix w/ Paul St. Hilaire for an example).
Other engineers use tape to allow an analog capture, and work hard to minimize distortions and deviations.
In both situations there is not a perfect capture.
Is anyone surprised?
The question imho is what does the analog capture allow aside from the inevitible (small or greater) deviation? Is it worth it in the face of much cheaper and easier digital?
Other engineers use tape to allow an analog capture, and work hard to minimize distortions and deviations.
In both situations there is not a perfect capture.
Is anyone surprised?
The question imho is what does the analog capture allow aside from the inevitible (small or greater) deviation? Is it worth it in the face of much cheaper and easier digital?
What about direct to disk analog recordings? Any knowledge on those? They sound more realistic to me than anything I have heard cut from a tape.
Those direct to disk recordings sound quite good to me also. There is nothing wrong with magnetic tape, in fact just the opposite.
I think that we tend to be argumentative and some on here have taken the positive attributes of magnetic tape and want to cast them in a negative light.
I will repeat what I said earlier, I enjoy the sound of tape, tubes and analog records very much but I’m not fooling myself into believing that they are a more accurate reproduction method than digital capture, storage and DAC playback through solid state amplification. I own both and enjoy both spectrums at different times. Currently I’m enjoying playing around with my horn based system driven by SET DHT low power amplifiers. To get back on topic and to the original question posed:There is no right answer. To please yourself with your audio reproduction system is the best that one can do.
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Can you nominate the five more realistic direct do disk recordings you are addressing? It would be great to refer directly to specific recordings.
I'm pretty sure you didn't actually 'educate' me. That is obvious to both of us I am sure
But at the same time promoting myths really isn't informative; to that end I'm pointing very specifically at your use of the word 'compression'.I've been aware of head bump for decades; I've been servicing tape machines professionally since 1974. Many machines have it, but don't have to. Head bump can be equalized and a good number of machines have compensation for it. When I do calibration I use the usual MRL tapes but then take a look at 50Hz response to see what sort of trouble I have- and whether its worth it to fix. One thing that is abundantly clear is that many tape machine designers went to the same school that many phono preamp designers did- and thus ignore the fact that an inductance and a capacitance in parallel tends to create a resonance
One thing to keep in mind is that professional tape machines usually favor reduced distortion over actual flat frequency response. Consumer decks by contrast are usually set up the other way 'round.
So while I think the excellent article Microstrip linked above is informative, it just makes you aware of the issue without suggesting a cure other than digital, but I'm sure he didn't want to get into the specifics of the cure! So it is true that many mixing engineer/producers use tape machines as they sit as a coloration, but that's the same thing as using an equalizer or phase shifter. One of the most common issues in the analog world is confusing the media itself as being exactly the same as an individual experience! Eno used to have his old Synthi A synthesizers serviced, unless he discovered a malfunction that he liked. This is no different.
I can suggest a number of simple mods to reduce head bump. But they are machine specific and really there isn't the time or space for such a derail. Now I did point out that any properly functioning machine has a 3rd harmonic as the primary distortion component, and many engineers use that character (which is well-known) to add sweetness, not head bump. But that also requires running the tape pretty close to saturation as I mentioned earlier. Of course they could do nearly the same thing with a simple tube circuit biased at an operating point to make a good 2nd harmonic and save a lot of space (and some do).
I like analog tape and digital recording as well. I have done live recordings of both but my voice never sounded as realistic (to me) as it did when I recorded my voice direct to disk. A friend of mine is into Nakamichi cassette decks (he has like five of the upper end models...with the ZX-9 being the best sounding one...and the one that sounds closests to the digital original) and the best one adds/subtracts very little but other models do add/subtract their own signatures. He also has a nice mid-80s Teac R2R that is in some ways more accurate and in some ways less (bass is not really as the orignal)...
I made several recordings on analog tape with violin, violin with cello, violin with piano and string quartet. Some were made with my mid-70s refurbished TEAC A-6300 R2R, some on my Casio battery powered portable DAT recorder and some recent recordings made on my TASCAM DR-100MkIII handheld recorder. The analog tape transfers to digital did indeed keep the character intact, which is somewhat warmer than the digital...neither is exactly like what I heard live but that is a whole chain as well.
I'm pretty sure you didn't actually 'educate' me. That is obvious to both of us I am sure
I've been aware of head bump for decades; I've been servicing tape machines professionally since 1974. Many machines have it, but don't have to. Head bump can be equalized and a good number of machines have compensation for it. When I do calibration I use the usual MRL tapes but then take a look at 50Hz response to see what sort of trouble I have- and whether its worth it to fix. One thing that is abundantly clear is that many tape machine designers went to the same school that many phono preamp designers did- and thus ignore the fact that an inductance and a capacitance in parallel tends to create a resonance
One thing to keep in mind is that professional tape machines usually favor reduced distortion over actual flat frequency response. Consumer decks by contrast are usually set up the other way 'round.
So while I think the excellent article Microstrip linked above is informative, it just makes you aware of the issue without suggesting a cure other than digital, but I'm sure he didn't want to get into the specifics of the cure! So it is true that many mixing engineer/producers use tape machines as they sit as a coloration, but that's the same thing as using an equalizer or phase shifter. One of the most common issues in the analog world is confusing the media itself as being exactly the same as an individual experience! Eno used to have his old Synthi A synthesizers serviced, unless he discovered a malfunction that he liked. This is no different.
I can suggest a number of simple mods to reduce head bump. But they are machine specific and really there isn't the time or space for such a derail. Now I did point out that any properly functioning machine has a 3rd harmonic as the primary distortion component, and many engineers use that character (which is well-known) to add sweetness, not head bump. But that also requires running the tape pretty close to saturation as I mentioned earlier. Of course they could do nearly the same thing with a simple tube circuit biased at an operating point to make a good 2nd harmonic and save a lot of space (and some do).
Ralph, you are correct about the context of our discussion 10 years ago and I have revised the wording on my original post to reflect this.
Can you please elaborate on how “to add sweetness, not head bump. But that also requires running the tape pretty close to saturation” relates to “compression”
Tape is known for a 3rd harmonic, and typically a fair amount of it at or near saturation. The ear treats the 3rd harmonic the way it does the 2nd: its interpreted by the ear/brain system as 'warmth', 'body', 'bloom', etc., -all terms audiophiles use to describe that kind of distortion. In case there's any misunderstanding, the ear converts all forms of distortion into a tonality of some sort. So by using a tape machine you can sweeten up a recording- it won't sound as dry. Now as the tape saturates, the distortion takes off, and not just the 3rd. The higher orders are interpreted by the ear as loudness since it uses them to sense sound pressure. But the ear also converts the higher orders to brightness and harshness. So not much compression effect due to the presence of the higher orders since they will cause the sound to appear louder than it really is.
Your original quote that I used also mentioned the 'compression' of the LP; IME that simply isn't a thing. The LP has considerably greater dynamic range than tape and in this regard easily rivals Redbook, although in practice is far more limited if care is not taken during mastering, plating and pressing. It is for the latter reasons that LP usually has some compression or limiting involved in the signal chain but its certainly not inherent in the media itself. Like many things audio, the compression is there simply to make a better profit.
I disagree with the conclusion that tape has limited dynamic range .
That s one thing by which tape is able distinguish itself from Lp and digi by a large margin
Micro and macro dynamics.
All Judged by hearing.
On real good recordings tape resembles the real thing more then any medium i have heard .
That s one thing by which tape is able distinguish itself from Lp and digi by a large margin
Micro and macro dynamics.
All Judged by hearing.
On real good recordings tape resembles the real thing more then any medium i have heard .
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By the way i dont understand how lp could have a larger dynamic range then tape if its taken from a tape recording.
I assume you mean greater when
Lp s have been made from a digi recording .
It cant have a greater range then tape off course when its taken from a tape recording .
I assume you mean greater when
Lp s have been made from a digi recording .
It cant have a greater range then tape off course when its taken from a tape recording .
The LP has greater range than tape. This is why an LP can contain a recording made on tape. It is wider bandwidth, lower noise and lower distortion as well.
Fair enough , but the music on the record cant be with less distortion and more dynamic range then the tape recording it came from in the first place.
(...) One thing that is abundantly clear is that many tape machine designers went to the same school that many phono preamp designers did- and thus ignore the fact that an inductance and a capacitance in parallel tends to create a resonance
And perhaps people should know that most studios have had the heads of the machines re-lapped at some time and that the inductance changes significantly, affecting this resonance and the bass bumps ... I think (I am guessing ... ) that one of the reasons Fred Thal does not sell his great Studer A80 headblock preamplifier is because it includes compensation for specific heads - we could see the components there - and he does not want consumers to use it with inappropriate heads.
Anyway IMHO the most relevant point is that some tape intrinsic technical problems sometimes seem to add pleasantness to sound reproduction and we should be happy with such aspect.
It this true all over the 20-30 kHz band?
BTW, one specific point where LP show less good performance than tape is channel separation.
Everything in the music business is about pleasing the ear.
Tape reproduction has some absolute qualities that make it superiour imo and thats not a colouration thing but just the opposite .
Some other so called distortion free mediums are much less pleasing to the ear lol
You cant measure everything either .
Tape Freq response deviations are by the way far less then your average speaker.
20 hz - 20 khz is the official audible band any body who can hear a 18 khz tone gets a medal afaic , because nobody does
Tape reproduction has some absolute qualities that make it superiour imo and thats not a colouration thing but just the opposite .
Some other so called distortion free mediums are much less pleasing to the ear lol
You cant measure everything either .
Tape Freq response deviations are by the way far less then your average speaker.
20 hz - 20 khz is the official audible band any body who can hear a 18 khz tone gets a medal afaic , because nobody does
Yes, I am just addressing measurements, nothing else in the comparisons. In reviews I own carried in the late 70's and early 80's by Martin Colloms the Revox B77 measured 0.2 to .1% THD while for example an EMT cartridge showed between 1% and .4% THD. It is why I would like to see other measurements challenging these ones, levels in tape and vinyl are not easy to compare.
Carlos I ve read your piece , interesting .
But it merely says magnetic tape recording / playback isn t perfect , the same can be said about digi .
Here are several playback responses of various recorders .
Studer A 80 ( my B62 has identical cards ) is flat from 100 hZ - 10 khz , it rolls of 2 db at 15 khz , the bassbump is max 1,8 db at 40 hz . 15 ips .
http://www.endino.com/graphs/
On average most speakers likely have already 3- 4 db roll off at 40 hz , so playing back via a studer A 80 gives in real life a more neutral response then without the bass bump
Anyone complaining about the 2 db roll off at 15 khz , toe in your speakers slightly that will likely compensate already for the roll off , further there aint much happening musically at 15 khz , let alone if people can hear a 15 khz tone in the first place.
Brg HJ
But it merely says magnetic tape recording / playback isn t perfect , the same can be said about digi .
Here are several playback responses of various recorders .
Studer A 80 ( my B62 has identical cards ) is flat from 100 hZ - 10 khz , it rolls of 2 db at 15 khz , the bassbump is max 1,8 db at 40 hz . 15 ips .
http://www.endino.com/graphs/
On average most speakers likely have already 3- 4 db roll off at 40 hz , so playing back via a studer A 80 gives in real life a more neutral response then without the bass bump
Anyone complaining about the 2 db roll off at 15 khz , toe in your speakers slightly that will likely compensate already for the roll off , further there aint much happening musically at 15 khz , let alone if people can hear a 15 khz tone in the first place.
Brg HJ
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