The Ultimate Source Component?
Well, now, looky here what Jonny's got!
Yup. The very item I (and a lot of other folks) called the best source component at RMAF (and would've named the best source component at CES, if we'd given an award for best source component at CES)--United Home Audio's cherry-red UHA-HQ Tascam 15 ips, two-track, analog tape deck--is now sitting right next to the best source component I've (yet) heard in my system, the Walker Proscenium Black Diamond Mk II record player.
It's been a long, long, long time since TAS reviewed a reel-to-reel tape deck, and I'm not sure we've ever reviewed 15 ips, two-track, first-generation dubs of gen-u-ine mastertapes. But thanks to Greg Beron of United Home Audio, Carl Marchisotta of Nola Speakers, and Paul Stubblebine of The Tape Project that is about to change.
You can read about UHA's fabulous tape machines at www.unitedhomeproducts.com/reel_to_reel_hq_tape_decks.htm. (The one I've got is a "Level 5" deck, I think.) And you can read all about The Tape Project's fabulous catalog of 15 ips. two-track, reel-to-reel first-generation dubs of mastertapes--which includes little numbers like Bill Evans' Waltz for Debby, Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus, Thelonius Monk's Brilliant Corners, Linda Rondstadt's Heart Like a Wheel, The Band's Stage Fright, David Oistrakh (with Horenstein and the LSO) performing the Hindemith Violin Concerto, and Reference Recordings' Nojima Plays Lizst, among other heavyweights--at www.tapeproject.com/catalog/catalog.htm.
It's almost too much for a poor boy to handle!
Greg will be arriving this Friday to give me a refresher course on tape recorders and tape recordings. Several of The Tape Project tapes should arrive on Thursday, with more slated for the coming months. As soon as I can I will post a picture of the Tascam lit up and in action. And as soon as I am able I'll begin to blog in detail about the Tascam, how to use it, and how it sounds. Until then, I'll just be sitting in front of it, drooling.
We all like talking about the sound of mastertapes--and guessing about how closer our systems take us via records and CDs and SACDs to their sound. Now, finally, after forty years of guessing, I will be in a position to actually tell you (and tell myself) if Turntable A or CD Player B is, indeed, coming closer to the sound of the mastertape! What an extraordinary treat!
Comments
JV, after repeated play wouldn't this destroy master tapes over time? Isn't that's why CD's slogan was perfect sound forever? I mean even though early CD sound was not good but the disk itself could last years and years of play. This will be a good experiment for superhardcore audiophiles to argue about but doesn't have much practical application. The word hobby applies correctly with this experiment. I'm not criticizing you or what you may find out, but criticising the equipment which seems like it has no application in general TAS readers audio systems. I could be wrong. May be a M5 owner may get their hands on it and consume it.
You must be the life of the party, boy-o.
Yes, it is true that tapes need to be handled and stored with care. (To various extents, ALL media do.) OTOH, think of all the 50+-year-old Golden Age Mercurys, RCAs, Deccas, and EMIs that have been reissued, time and again, on LPs, CDs, and SACDs. Almost every one of them was originally recorded to analog tape (and many recordings, particularly pop recordings, still are). That's a pretty fair track record.
As for TAS readers, I would think that any medium which (presumably) carries them closer to the "absolute sound" (or, at least, to the sound laid down on tape at the recording session) would be of some interest. I would also think that being able to compare the sound of a virtual mastertape to the sound of the LPs, CDs, and SACDs made from it might be of interest, as would the sound of a tape player compared to record and CD players under review.
JV
Weren't some of the Mercurys recorded on film?
Yes, they were.
I don't know if questioning something that one is curious about makes them the life of the party or not. I was just wondering how this experiment would help anything if at all? Even if people find out that this tape sounds better than a CD or LP where is the material and how does that benifit anyone? will these tapes or players be even available for audio interested people? The so called self proclaimed audiohphiles/experts/hobbyists only "ARGUE" about these things and nothing else. Im sure dCS, Meridian, Wadia, SME, VPI and many more know a little about master tapes vs. CD Vs. LP's. What they are doing at the cutting edge of technology most people don't understand and weather the average joe from a review comparison of this tape vs. dcs CD Vs. Walker LP thinks how close or not the components get to the master tape it doesn't matter. I am sure the companies Ive mentioned as an example are pushing the envelope to make their best effort. Weather audiophiles argue whats better or not is not very usefull information when dealing with cutting edge component production. This information is only for top end companies competing for the best possible sound. I don't think it will be of much use to Audiophiles other than talking. But what do I know....im just a hobbyist.
<< I was just wondering how this experiment would help anything if at all? Even if people find out that this tape sounds better than a CD or LP where is the material and how does that benifit anyone?>>
Maybe I'm not making my point clearly. Even if the UHA tape player proves to be markedly superior to CD/SACD or vinyl playback, I don't expect most audiophiles will run out and buy a UHA tape machine or snap up The Tape Project's catalog of tapes, which, marvelous and appealing as it is, is after all ridiculously limited in its offerings (compared to what's available on CD or vinyl) and rather expensive. My point was broader.
Rightly or wrongly (or both), we at TAS have traditionally regarded the sound of mastertapes as one step away from the sound absolute. But few of us (HP excepted) have heard mastertapes in our home systems, and even a smaller few have heard 15 ips, two-channel dubs of things like "Waltz for Debby" or "Saxophone Colossus." I've heard mastertapes played back at recording sessions (Telarc, rest its soul, among others) and at shows, and there was a time when I made my own tapes, but let's face it: That is not the same thing as hearing professionally engineered and mastered dubs of mastertapes on your home stereo, more or less whenever you want.
What access to this hardware and this material will give me (and I hope readers) is a kind of reference that may--repeat, may--come as close as recorded media can take you to the only record of the absolute sound that exists. Rather than working from distant memories or educated guesses or amateur efforts of my own and using these "iffy" things to make judgments about how a CD or LP "should" sound on playback, I ought now to be able to judge more clearly (and repeatably) how packaged media compares to the one record of the sound of the real thing we have, and how the playback devices that I review compare to the sound of mastertapes--how they may be similar, how they may be different, how and in what ways any or all of them may be superior.
For a reviewer and for readers who are interested in the absolute sound, this, I think, may bring us a step closer to being able to make a more objective (or certainly a better grounded) assessment about things like fidelity. All other things being equal (and, alas, they won't be), if CD Player A comes closer to the sound of the mastertapes (on the same music) than CD Player B, one might reasonably conclude that CD Player A is higher in transparency to sources than CD Player B. (One might also conclude that CD Player A sounds more like a 15 ips, two-channel, highly modified TASCAM tape machine than CD Player B, which is not the same thing.) This DOES NOT mean that CD Player A will necessarily sound more like "the real thing" than CD Player B, though it might. That last question is one of the chief reasons why I'm so curious about this experiment.
I'm not assuming that UHA's machine will have no sonic signature of its own, BTW. That is a question I will wrestle with in the future. But I am assuming that the source material it plays back may bring me as close as I can come to being present at the original musical event. Whether that makes that event sound more like actual instruments in an actual space or more beautiful (or both or neither), we will see. For me, at least, it is all very exciting.
JV
A word of caution----
Hi JV,
For two years now I have been embarking on this R2R journey of which you are just getting started on. I bought several high-end r2r machines, subscribed to the Tape Project, bought modern external tube tape head amps for the electronics side, the whole shootin' match! Yes, it IS all very exciting!!!!
One of my goals was similar to yours. I was curious to find out if r2r was truly the best playback device possible, when fed the right material. I wanted to compare how the TP tapes would stack up to the readily available same cd's, sacd's, lp's, etc. versus the good old fashioned r2r version that the TP released!
One thing to remember is that the ORIGINAL SOURCE of any given medium's release of a particular title, may not be what you THINK it is! I learned this the hard way. For example, the LP version could have been sourced from a safety copy of the original reel in Japan, or the sacd version could have been sourced from a digital version lying around for decades instead of the original analog master. So sometimes apples were not being compared to apples when I was making my comparisons between the Tape Project releases and the given cd, sacd, HRx, LP counterparts of the same title!
I will leave you with a (long) story. One specific example of this is (IMHO one of the best if not THE best Tape Project tape) TP-007 Exotic Dances of the Opera. I owned the HDCD version and the TP version initially. Soon thereafter the HRx version of Exotic Dances came out. HRx has been lauded in your pages and others as some of the finest (if not THE finest) computer based audio sound out there. So, I thought it would be interesting to compare "the best of digital" (HRx) to "the best of analog" (TP tape). On the cover of the HRx Exotic Dances it proclaimed proudly, "contains an EXACT digit-for-digit copy of the original 176.4/24 bit digital master." Nothing like a good old fashioned analog versus digital shootout, eh?
So I was giddy as a schoolgirl as I fired up the HRx version first and had a listen. Sounded FANTASTIC! But wait, what was this? On the last few tracks the entire top end (maybe 4kHz up) was AWOL from the left channel!! At first I thought I blew a tweeter or something, but upon further investigation it was actually the HRx disc itself!
So I emailed RR, and asked if they had noticed what I had heard, that the last few tracks were essentially "missing the treble" from the left channel! They replied back, that yes they had just noticed this, and that they were working on re-issue of the disc to correct the problem. They further stated that "the heads were perhaps dirty when we transferred it from our reel to reel master to HRx". HUH????????????? Reel to reel master? HRx was supposed to use the 24/176.4 DIGITAL master! Or so I thought........
When I queried back to find out what was what (again, the cover proclaimed the HRx version was a "EXACT digit-for-digit copy of the original 176.4/24 bit digital master.)" I was told by RR that, "we listened to BOTH the 24/176.4 digital master and the analog reel to reel master for Exotic Dances. In this case, we preferred the sound of the analog reel to reel. Therefore we made a 24/176.4 recording from the reel to reel and that is what you are playing now". WHAT???????????
Needless to say, I recommended to RR that they MIGHT want to change the wording on the cover of their HRx releases! They replied back that they surely would, and my replacement copy arrived with NEW wording on the cover: "this disc contains a 176.4/24-bit digital transfer from the original Reference Recordings analog master tapes".
Now this is just one example I bring up. There currently is ANOTHER example being hotly discussed on the Tape Project forum. Apparently, the Heart Like a Wheel TP tape had a "dubious master" EQ'd from flat for the LP release which they were going to use for the transfer. Luckily, they caught it, and had to use a different master version of the release for Heart Like a Wheel that they dug up.
So I only point all this out so as to make you aware (which I'm sure you already were as a reviewer) to be CAREFUL what EXACTLY it is you are comparing!! It's difficult to make these comparisons!!!!!!!
In closing I would just like to state something that is often overlooked with reel to reel and striving for the "absolute sound". There were some TREMENDOUS SOUNDING commercial 2 and 4 track, 7.5 ips tapes released over reel to reel's commercial history. These commercial tapes, in my testing and others, FAR surpass any LP, CD, SACD versions that were ever released of the same title. I have some of those old MLP's, LS's, Blue Notes, Barclay-Crockers, etc. you mention on 7.5 ips 2 and 4 track commercial reel to reel. When the stars align, the R2R version will blow the doors off of any other version available. I only state this so that others (and maybe yourself) don't feel as "limited" in what they can use as source material. It is CERTAINLY NOT a "Tape Project or bust" reel to reel world out there in getting "the absolute sound" from your R2R machine!
Enjoy your R2R adventure JV. I for one am certainly looking forward to reading about it in the pages of TAS when you are done!!! I think you will find that there is something very special about the reels; a quality that is unmatched by any other source out there when fed the right material.
I get your point exactly Jon and can't wait to hear the results?
The only criterion will have to be obtaining the SACDs, CDs and vinyl of those titles available on the Tape Project, but I'm guessing you've already covered that?
Hey, Halcro!
Yes, I have LPs and CDs of the tapes I'll be getting, often multiple issues. It should be very interesting.
Jon
Jonathan
nice to read that you're dealing with tape recorders. Yes mostly we forgot that this is / was the first storage medium before you make the records. I wish you nice listening sessions!
My very best regards
Hans-Juergen Dorn
Althea Musica
Jon: I think this is a wonderful experiment! Years ago I was a member of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. When we recorded the Beethoven Ninth Symphony in Urbana, IL, I got to stand in the control room right behind Georg Solti and the Decca recording team while they listened to the master tape made minutes earlier. As an audiophile, I've never heard anything quite like it.
So what I'm interested to hear from your upcoming experience is not whether I can go out and buy one of these tape recorder beasts, but about just exactly what the differences are between the original master tapes and the variously produced copies--records, CDs, SACDs--on a real-world system (well, your "real world" system, anyhow.) I think that knowledge would help all of us to better understand what happens to the sound between its original capture and the subsequent processing links. And the more we understand about that chain, the more able we will be to improve it. I think it's an incredibly valuable oddysey.
Enjoy, and let us know what you discover.
JV,
Sounds like an interesting project, particularly since this is a medium that many of us haven't heard in many years (in my case, since I played in an orchestra and we recorded sessions on Crown 15 ips reel-to-reel.) Please tell me that you'll also be obtaining 24/196 hi-rez digital (or as hi-rez as possible) for A/B. THAT will produce some results that I would find VERY interesting to mull over as I continue ruminating over my hi-rez digital system additions. I'm also interested in knowing what, if any, sonic differences there are between the mastertape and the first gen tape dup (in fact, it would be great for you to muse on the distictions between mass v. virgin pressings, CD-R, etc. in general - what? another project in the making...)
Jonathan, I believe this will be a great reviewing tool.
To level the field, I suggest that you use identical PCs and interconnects for the Tascam player and the device under comparison.
Happy listening!
I guess the question mark is quite appropriate in this instance.
I spend over a decade as a maintenance technician in top end studios in and around London at a point when mixing down to tape was the norm. Studer, Ampex, and Otari were the respected standards, Tascam, Fostex etc were relegated the project studios. Their sonics did not even come close to that of the pro machines, and mechanically their insides resembled giant cassette decks.
Ok maybe that's a bit unfair, but they were shoddily made and a pain to work on.
There's no mention as to whether this deck in 1/4in or 1/2in. No serious mixdown or mastering would have been done on a 1/4in machine. These were the preserve of radio stations and theatre productions. On repeated play, high frequencies didsappeared far faster on a 1/4in machine than on a 1/2in machine. Maintaning good high frequency response was a constant struggle, and constanty maintenance of the tape machines was paramount. This involved daily checking of pape path tension, head alignement, degaussing any metal parts as well as careful tape handling wearing cotton gloves etc. Despite all these efforts it was a struggle to make 2 machines sound identical, or tapes recorded on one machine sound the same played back on another. Open reel tape 1/2in at 30ips, with or without Dolby Sr could sound pretty close to the source, but when switching between the input and the repro head during record, it was always somewhat different. sometimes hard do define which one was "better" but nevertheless different. That "difference" has become a standard treatment for non classical music. I call it sonic mono sodium glutamate. If the mix is a bit thin run it though tape at a hot level and 15ips and hey presto, a lovely "fat" veneer added to the mix. In about '86 the first digital mastering machines started appearing. The Mitsubishi X80 was quite popular, and quite a sonic revelation, and razor blade editable to boot. A hundred passes later it would sound as fresh as the first. And so began the slow demise of analog tape as a mastering medium. Yeah sure there are loads of people that still work with the medium, but it is mainly for artistic reasons than technical. Given an option of having a 1/4 reel recorded at 15ips vs a vinyl cut, i'd take the tape any day. Cutting a record involves a huge set of compromises and tradeoffs. Stereo separation, dynamic range, frequency response etc all take a knock.
Not bashing vinyl, it did a great job considering all it's limitations, but i never heard a test pressing come back to the studio that sounded just like the master. They all sounded different, sometimes worse sometimes subjectively better, but never identical.
So where does that leave us? If the tape sounded closer to the the music that came off the "board" and that these are commercially available then probably worth pursuing. However dont dismiss digital sources, which in my experience are by far the closest transcription to the original. blah blah... stop worrying and enjoy the music.
JV - I think this is a great idea, and I expect you'll find (as we did many years ago) that tape is sonically superior to vinyl. It will be good for all the vinyl enthusiasts out there to be reminded that it never was the 'supreme ultimate' of sound reproduction.
While I certainly have nothing against vinyl or tape, I think that both analog media are impractical in the long run - both too fragile! That is why I'm personally dedicated to finding the best sound that can be obtained from digital media. It's not that I prefer digital, just that I know it IS the future.
Digital sound has improved HUGELY over the years, and will continue to do so as we learn more about it. It has inherent advantages over any analog medium in terms of frequency-range, noise-floor, and dynamics. Some of the best recent recordings I've heard were done in DSD, rather than analog. And I expect that in the not-too-distant future the best digital media will far exceed the capability - and realism - of both tape and LP.
But for now... Yeah, let's remind everyone how great tape can sound!
well now - after all these years and all the hot air, now (and only now) will the indefatigable Mr. V. actually visit the question of what cd's and vinyl sound like compared to the master tapes which are presumably the source? Is that the deal? "Great reviewing tool"? Of course, people who have actually mastered records and cd's have known the answer to this question all along - it's hardly any great mystery, it's an everyday matter of fact for people who actually do this sort of thing for a living. Not sure where V. thinks he is going to get master tapes to listen to - and of course comparing the discs and vinyl to tape copies of the masters is meaningless - no professional would use a copy if the original was available, and for good sonic reason. Also, the master tapes themselves have deteriorated in sound quality over the years and they no longer sound the way they did when they were newly recorded and were used as sources for first - generation commercial releases. Nor were Tascam 2-tracks used for mastering purposes, and in any case no two 2-tracks of different brands sound exactly the same - and in fact particular machines of the same brand vary considerably for all sorts of reasons. V. no doubt would tell us that he knows all this - but I'm thinking that, for someone who wants to understand how commercial releases compare to their analog (or digital) masters, they would easily find someone else than V. who knows infinitely more about these questions. Maybe there is someone in the industry who would volunteer to bring Mr. Valin up to speed on matters relating to audio recording and mastering. He could learn more in one afternoon with a good mastering engineer than he is likely to ever figure out with his Tascam "semi-pro" tape deck. As it stands now I'm not sure why anyone would be interested in the uninformed ruminations of a tyro in these matters, if if that tyro happens also to be a major "golden-eared" audiophile piss ant who writes for Stereophile.
" Of course, people who have actually mastered records and cd's have known the answer to this question all along - it's hardly any great mystery, it's an everyday matter of fact for people who actually do this sort of thing for a living."
Not true.
Although I disagree, one of the greatest "high-end" audio engineers of our time believes that the LP as sourced from the master-tape sounds better then the master tape itself. It was written about in the very pages of TAS. The engineer's name is Doug Sax; perhaps you have heard of him:
http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/general/messages/50/506972.html
...hope I'm not out of line...
Fellas,
I appreciate these posts and these cautions. I do not claim to be a recording engineer or a mastering engineer. I'm a music lover and an audiophile. Any tape recording I've done (with Revox A's and B's and very good condenser mikes) has been purely amateur. While I've been present at professional recording sessions and heard mastertapes (DSD digital in these cases) played back for artists and engineers, I'd have to say that what I heard--at least through the electronics and speakers I heard them--were far from perfect replicas of the sound of the orchestra as I heard it in the hall while it was being recorded, and I am not assuming that mastertapes will be perfect replicas of the absolute sound. What I am assuming is that they are the sole records we have of what the orchestra or performers sounded like through the microphones and electronics that recorded them, and that this record is the Ur-text for any subsequent copies that were made on vinyl or CD.
Let me also point out that I am not primarily interested in how mastertapes compare to CD/SACD/high-res digital and vinyl copies per se (although I am interested). I am more interested in how each medium sounds vis-a-vis the others when the same source material on the mastertapes is PLAYED BACK through DIFFERENT CD players and record players, I am NOT assuming that either CDs or vinyl copies will sound the same (or as good) as the mastertapes, although I am sure they will bear a family resemblance. It is the nature, quality, and extent of that family resemblance THROUGH DIFFERENT MACHINES that fascinates me--and may I think provide one kind of useful information about the performance of those machines.
The real question for me, here, is whether greater "transparency to sources" also means, ipso facto, greater sonic realism, as some folks in this magazine and others have argued. Doug Sax and other mastering engineers are on record in our pages saying that isn't the case. Indeed, Sax (and others) have said that they prefer the "distortions" of vinyl, which they think sound more like the "real thing" than tapes (or digital) do. OTOH, my great friend Jack Pfeiffer, once head of RCA production, once told me, vis-a-vis the very first issue of Golden Age RCAs on CD, that if I didn't like the sound of these discs, I didn't like the sound of RCAs mastertapes. I DIDN'T like the sound of the discs (or at least I had reservations about it), but within a few scant years all these same "perfect forever" titles were reissued in improved digital sound, which I liked somewhat better. And so on, through the years. What I mean here is that I'm not particularly impressed when someone tells me that digital copies represent a more faithful copy of a mastertape. Transparency to sources is great--and very appealing to a certain type of listener. But transparency to sources does not necessarily make a record (or a playback device) sound more like real instruments in a real space.
I have no firm opinion on these topics at this point. I will form an opinion over time listening to Tape Project tapes and making cross-comparisons as carefully as I can.
Let me also note, in re Hywell's post, that the tapes are indeed 15 ips, dual-track, first-generation dubs made from the actual mastertapes (not dubs of same) by Paul Stubblebine using Ampex machines and his own customized deck. Though Stubblebine recommends Ampex and/or Studer studio-quality decks for the ne plus utlra in tape playback, these things are big and as expensive as hell. (The Tape project also offer Otaris and Pioneers as more reasonable alternatives.)
As I understand it, the TASCAM I will be using has been COMPLETELY modified by UHA. There isn't a part on it (including the heads) that hasn't been upgraded to the audiophile-consensus-best available. I think it should do the trick for my purposes.
Just as a side note on one of Hywell's points...while RCA recorded 30 ips dual-track at the very start of the stereo era, this QUICKLY changed to a 15 ips standard. Only a small handful of the very first RCA stereo mastertapes from '54 and early '55 were 30 ips. I do not know what tape speed Decca used, but RCA settled on 15 ips for most of its Golden Age recordings. Later on, during the Dynagroove era, they went back to 30 ips, which just goes to show that crappy mastering can ruin a high-quality tape recording, no matter what speed it was recorded at.
Jon
JV,
I understand that your review work is "hardware" centric, as is TAS in general. However, for (at least) many of us, our listening systems and environments are in primarily in place. The changes we are most frequently making are incremental in nature - not the wholesale "box" changes that you, as a reviewer with "access", make relatively frequently. I've often pined for more software centric articles/discussions in TAS (considering the relatively few total published pages devoted to such - even including the staccato references incorporated into the hardware reviews).
So, here you have a "unique" source component, ripe for comparisons with both digital and vinyl source components and the related "reference" software releases (of which you, maybe more than any other person, can gain access to). As you said, "It is the nature, quality, and extent of that family resemblance THROUGH DIFFERENT MACHINES that fascinates me--and may I think provide one kind of useful information about the performance of those machines." I agree - and I'd like for you to include now emerging hi-rez digital sources (beyond the fading SACD media) and playback in your evals (as you are able to gain access to both the reference source material and playback equipment for such).
Believe me, I realize that's quite an undertaking - to find a source selection and link its mastertape first gen dup with a corresponding vinyl pressing with a hi-rez digital download with an SACD and CD, along with the reference source components for the playback. As we all know, a significant part of the battle in obtaining high quality playback resides in the source quality (miking, recording and subsequent audio engineering and production - all software centric from a playback perspective). Then, to mate the source format with an appropriate reference source playback device - a load of fun; but a lot of effort to both assemble and evaluate, granted. As you stated, "The real question for me, here, is whether greater "transparency to sources" also means, ipso facto, greater sonic realism, as some folks in this magazine and others have argued." This is a unique opportunity to go "upstream" with the source about as high as one can go - if you can, in fact, find sources that allow you to go up the chain, allowing you to evaluate the sonic realism of those sources as best possible. And, this "project" could potentially set some very useful benchmarks going forward as we move headlong into hi-rez digital formats over the next 2-5 years. (Now, all said, are you really glad you obtained this source component after all? :-))
I respect the group at TAS and I hope that you, as a group, can make the most of this opportunity (from a longer-focused perspective), particularly w/r/t setting some benchmark comparisons to utilize with hi-rez digital going forward. After all, it is the future of our hobby; and, I believe it can lay useful groundwork for those of us who will be making substantial investments in new "boxes" going forward - to gain access to emerging hi-rez playback.
If this is beyond the scope of what you are willing to try, que sera, sera. But I wish you all the best with the effort and look forward to your results.
Happy listening!
Many reputable audio gurus in both TAS and stereophile have stated that hard disk based music sounds better then even the most expensive cd/sacd transports (disk on the fly read by lazer) from the likes of esoteric, dCS etc. So may be this tape can be compared to music played back from state of art hard disk + DAC. And like the previous poster said to hi-rez music. In fact I read one of your guys reviews that said hi-Rez sounds better than the best vinyl. Ex. Reference recordings. Ignoring this upcoming sector of audio playback would not be fair in the evaluation of "the ultimate source components". Any thoughts JV and others?
Fellas,
I will do my best to compare the sound of analog mastertapes to ALL other sources, including hard-disc-drive/DAC-based playback systems with high-rez files of the same music that is on the mastertape. I'm just as curious as you are about what each form of playback--and the specific products that do the playing back--brings to the table (about what gets added, what gets left out, what stays the same, and what gets changed).
Once again, I am going into this with an open mind--and a good deal of honest enthusiasm. Just having the opportunity to hear these tapes is going to be a unique treat.
Jon
FYI, the issue of tape speed for both multitrack and 2-track (live or mixdown) was often at the discretion of the individual artists engineers and producers; so was the use of noise reduction technology (Dolby or DBX), which was widely used over a period of many years. Is Mr. V planning on getting a Dolby rack to go with his super-duper Tascam? because, as is generally known, his 2nd generation copies will be considerably noisier than the source tapes. That's why safety masters are not used when masters are available. This is one of the big problems with analog tape as a recording medium - like vinyl, the system can't tell the signal from the noise. The result is that, when you're setting record levels on analog tape you are basically trading off between distortion on high level passages and noise (high frequency "hiss" and low frequency "rocks" and other anomalies) which is audible during soft passages. Similarly, the choice between 15 IPS and 30 IPS is often cast as a choice between better HF extension (30 IPS) versus better low end (15 IPS). Usually the program material will suggest one or the other tape speed. The dynamic character of the program material might also argue for or against noise reduction. These days we have tape that can hold very high level signals compared to older formulations; thus noise is less noticeable than in the past. Also, since computer recording has almost completely supplanted multitrack tape, tape hiss is not a problem at this point in the process. Compressors are generally used because of the limited useful dynamic range of tape and vinyl, so that there is enough signal versus noise in softer passages and yet the louder passages and in particular big peaks will not be distorted. Also, magnetic tape has its own built in compression characteristics, i.e. nonlnearity in dynamics especially at high record levels, and this characteristic of tape, along with harmonic distortion i.e. nonlinearity with regard to frequency response. accounts for the euphonic quality of tape as an audio storage medium.
Vinyl pressings which can be played on the existing range of different players can never, in my experience, actually capture what's on the master tape, at least not without substantial compromises. Another layer of compresssion and eq is usually added to make up for the discrepancy between the master and what's on the vinyl. The grooves at the outside of the vinyl disc have much better sound-capture characteristics than the grooves near the label. Distortion and noise are the biggest problems - frequency response anamolies matter less in the sense that all of the end users have different cartridges with frequency response characteristics that vary greatly.
One more thing: most less than satisfactory recordings are already flawed well before the signal hits the tape machine. Microphones are far from ideal and there has not been much in the way of improvement for a long time. Thus engineers often rely on old "vintage" Neumanns and others, even though the vast majority of these old mic's don't sound very good anymore for a variety of reasons. And the choices and particularly the placement of mic's can be a big problem as well. Then the signal from the mic's hits the mic pre's on the console or mic pre rack. In the case of consoles, there are all sorts of problems from a hi-fi perspective. EQ and compression? people use these things to make up for the difference between the way music sounds in the room to your ears versus the sound that the mic's pick up.
Incidentally, Mr. V. may be interested to know that he could obtain a real professional-grade tape machine (Studer, Ampex ATR) at bargain prices these days. He would be better off in every way than with the modified Tascam.
I could go on and on like this but I won't. One question: why do all these manufacturers give these guys free equipment to use when I gotta pay for my stuff? I'm smart...I know what's going on with this recording stuff...and, goddammit, people seem to like me...tell me the truth: is it because I have a foreign sounding name?
One last thing: if you don't think that SOME of these audio pontiffs are in the bag, go down and listen to some of those big Wilson speakers some time. Then go home and read the reviews.
Frank,
FYI, tape speed was not left to the discretion of individual artists, engineers, and producers on RCA Red Seal recordings made during the so-called Golden Age (roughly the mid-to-late fifties and very early sixties)--at least according to Jack Pfeiffer it wasn't. In '54 RCA started off using RCA RT-11, dual-track, 30 ips 1/4" decks, although some '55 dual-tracks were recorded on RCA RT-21 dual-track, 15 ips, 1/4" decks. Perhaps as early as the summer of '55, RCA began experimenting with three-track, 15 ips, half-inch Ampex 300-3 tape machines, and by 1956 the switch to three-track Ampexes (and three-track mixing consoles) was official. Sometime after Dynagroove came along around '64, RCA went back to 30 ips machines.
During this period, as I'm certain you already know, Dolby and DBX noise reduction weren't around. (I believe the first LP to use Dolby Type A noise reduction was a Decca recording of Ashkenazy playing Mozart piano concertos made in 1966.) Throughout the Golden Age, EQ was also quite primitive, which (along with the minim of superb Neumann mikes) may help account for the superior sound of some of these early Golden Age recordings.
I'm aware that vintage Studers and Ampex studio machines are available; in fact I heard a full-bore Studer in Muri, Switzerland, at the Da Vinci Corner, playing back Peter Brem's mastertapes via Da Vinci electronics and the Da Vinci Virtu loudspeaker. The sound was marvelous. However, unlike Peter, who is a recording and an electrical engineer, I'm unable to repair such machines or do the kind of maintenance necessary to keep them in proper running order. Moreover, even if I were capable of tape-deck repair and maintenance, where the hell would I put a studio-sized deck? Those things are large! The Tascam deck, which was still available new through 2003 and for which parts are still readily available, is just fine for my purposes, especially the souped-up version from United Home Audio.
Jon
Jon,
I believe between this latest blog and your past ("Technical Brain") you are contradicting yourself. You are trying to make us believe that the Mastertapes might bring us to where you tell us the "technical Brain" specifically takes us AWAY from - the "Mastertape" sound. A response you wrote in that last blog goes as follows:
"I call them the "absolute sound" type. Second, those who, first and foremost, want their recordings to sound exactly as good or as bad as the engineering and mastering allow them to sound (and want to hear the engineering and mastering, to boot)--I call them the "faithful to mastertapes/mike feed" type. And third those who are, primarily, less concerned with the absolute sound or the sound of mastertapes and more interested in hearing their recordings sound as beautiful and moving as possible--I call them the "as you like it" type.
The Soulution is tailor-made for the "fidelity to mastertapes" type (who also have a strong interest in hearing things sound real, whenever the engineering/mastering allows). The BAlabo is tailor-made for the "as you like it type" who want recordings to sound beautiful, first and foremost, but who also have a strong interest in the sound of the real thing (albeit in a dulcet form). The Technical Brain is tailor-made for the absolute sound types, into which category I guess I fall most often (although I also like music to sound beautiful and transparent to sources). No one of these three amps is perfect for every type of listener.
However, I think you have a point about the words "the best," which weren't clear enough in context. So I've changed the sentence to read "the most lifelike," which is more precise and less, uh, bombastic.
JV
Hope this helps."
Jeremy,
You raise a critical point that I was planning to address once I'd done extended listening to my new toy. To wit, do dubs of mastertapes, played back on the UHA deck and a very high-quality home stereo system, appeal primarily to listeners who prefer their systems to sound like, uh, mastertapes (i.e., to sound precisely as good or bas as the recording allows or, put differently, who prefer a neutral and very-high-resolution presentation)? This, of course, would not rule out those listeners who are also primarily interested in hearing music sound like the real thing or who primarily want music to sound beautiful, assuming that the mastertapes were engineered and mastered in a way that made the music recorded on them sound like the real thing and/or beautiful.
Putting aside the fact that my categories of listeners overlap (as I've noted repeatedly), things get further complicated by the fact that, at home, we're listening on playback equipment that we've picked precisely because it flatters our listening biases. We're not listening to mastertapes onstudio monitors, chosen primarily because of their resolution at extremely high playback levels. We're listening on and through speakers, electronics, cables, and interconnects that we've chosen primarily because: a) they make things sound more lifelike to our ears; or b) they make things (including mastering and engineering) sound precisely the way they were recorded; or c) they tend to make things sound beautiful and highly listenable, regardless of engineering and mastering; or d) some individual combination of the above. AND they do this not in a studio but in a real-world listening room, on the music we prefer to listen to, at the levels we typically prefer to listen at. In other words, we're not just listening to dubs of mastertapes, we're listening to a specific tape player and a specific playback system in a specific room, all of which are adding their own signatures to the "sound of the mastertape."
I can already tell you this--and will blog about this at a later date. The Tape Project tapes I've listened to through MY system do not sound "analytical"; of course, they are highly detailed (and in a few places the tapes show their age), but they also sound extraordinarily lifelike and beautiful. Which is to say, I think they would appeal in equal measure to ALL three of my categories of listener PLAYED BACK ON THEIR SYSTEMS. This is undoubtedly because the tapes were so well recorded to begin with (certainly no company that reissues mastertapes would be likely to pick sonic duds), so interesting musically, and so well performed. "Waltz for Debby" hardly need The Tape Project reissues to be acclaimed a masterpiece. The fact, for instance, that you can hear more of Scott La Faro's extraordinary (and at the time, groundbreaking) bass--more of the guitar-like way he is actually playing the instrument--is, for listeners like me, a wonderful bonus. But on any medium, this is a GREAT record. The Tape Project version simply gives you more grounds--more reasons--for judging it to be great.
Jon
I believe that the concerns raised in the previous posts are mostly non-issues.
JV is not going to audition unknown quality/provenance master tapes.
The Tape Project tapes are dubbed from the original masters by a highly experienced professional mastering engineer. Of course he takes into consideration speed, proper maintenance, degaussing and cleaning of the master and dub decks, DBX, Dolby, EQ and other fine details of the trade.
Read more here: http://www.tapeproject.com/
I have listened to one tape on a modified tape deck (tube output/equalization) and it was an awesome experience.
I must confess that vinyl tracking/tracing distortions and digital artifacts are now much more clear to me, though both formats have a few advantages as compared to tape. In the end, it's all about trade-offs.
Keep on truckin', JV. I believe this experiment will allow you mainly to find out which components are transparent to the source and which are slightly "doctored" to compensate for digital or vinyl artifacts.
Jon,
Thanks for your comments. However I must admit I am still more than confused. I was under the impression that it was the NEVER before paired combination of the Magico M5's - which allow a level of detail and accuracy never before heard in a speaker, AND the "technical Brain" amp which took that as yet unheard of detail and kept it sharp and added a tube like- and beyond, realism to the instruments. And that indeed this combination ONLY is what brought you the music as real as it could be.
Based on the above it would seem unlikely that the master tape could do anything but highlight what the magico can do- give us the exactness of the mic feed.
I'm really confused.
Indeed your previous blog was clear its not about the tapes and the studio when it comes to getting real sound as it comes from real instruments in real space, its about utilizing the most accurate and detailed sound one can get from the tapes and then utilizing golden ear types like the "technical Brain " designer to hone this detail and give it the live and synergistic breath often never on the tapes to begin with; the breath only listenable as in living music played together so many instruments and voices together. Surely the tapes and studio monitors never gave anyone that. ????
Gee, Jeremy, you ARE confused. (Or maybe I'm not being clear enough.)
The mastertapes I'm now listening to are very "realistic." They DO sound like the absolute sound. There is no contradiction here. They just happen to be very well recorded, well mastered recordings of actual acoustic instruments in real spaces.
The distinction I was trying to draw between listeners who want music to sound like the "real thing," and listeners who want music to sound like the recorded thing (for better or worse), and listeners who could care less about the absolute sound or masterapes/mike feeds was not meant to apply to sources but to every part of a system and, indeed, to LISTENERS themselves. Any (good) source--tape, vinyl, CD, SACD, high-res download--can potentially be reproduced in all three ways, and which of these way YOU primarily prefer your music to sound dictates which equipment you'll like best.
Jon
"The mastertapes I'm now listening to are very "realistic." They DO sound like the absolute sound. There is no contradiction here. They just happen to be very well recorded, well mastered recordings of actual acoustic instruments in real spaces."
All I am saying is that my understanding from reading your reviews of your favorite components: namely the matching of the M5's and the Technical brain, amps, is that they get most of the absolute sound correct on good recordings- for the most part. And these components were tested and lauded WITHOUT any mastertapes.
So its seems as if the Magico-technical brain combination is more apart- from what you have wrote in your reviews/blogs of them- absolutly glowing reports mind- of getting more of the absolute sound more of the time, than would your reel-reel with mastertapes and indeed something less than of the absolute sound than the Magico and technical brain can do.
Maybe the answer is not yet known. But thats how it sounds to a reader who is trying to tie all the reviews and bests together. J
Jeremy,
I think I get your point. Yes, the Magico/TB combo does sound, overall, more like the "real thing" than any other I've had in my room, as do the Magico/Soulution and Magico/BAlabo combos, albeit with slightly different emphases and appeals (so, BTW, does the ML CLX with these same amps, albeit with certain plusses and minuses that the M5s don't have). And, yes, the M5s sound this way with (high-quality) digital and analog sources alike. But my point was and is that the immediacy and continuousness of the mastertape dubs may make what was already the sound that came closest to the absolute (in my experience) come that much closer.
Jon
Jon,
Thanks for hearing me out. And thanks for the continued insight- especially as the variables seem to multiply by the day in the world of audio.
Of course as you have well indicated there inevitably will not be nor will there be a large selection of mastertapes (at least I have not heard this), plus it would seem that not all are of the sound quality as those you have. As such I look forward to the discussion more in the direction of how to recreate the mastertape sound without the mastertape! Unless there is some way to re-master old ones? J
Jon,
It's pretty amazing some of your readers can spout such negative comments about RTR as a source (i.e.Tape Project tapes) and about the UHA-HQ deck (a Tascam BR20) without any first-hand experience with either. The Tascam BR20 bashing, especially, was totally baseless: I've been repairing and restoring RTRs professionally for 37 years and can say that the BR20 is a superb machine, even when compared to a Studer or Ampex deck. Based on your observations so far it sounds like you are quite pleased with both the TP tapes and the playback deck. My question for you....have you tried to make any recordings with the RTR ?
Tim,
Yes, I have made some recordings with the UHA Tascam, and though I want to reserve final judgment until I get United's Phase 6 machine (which comes with a considerably larger and more expensive after-market dedicated record head, rather than the "synchro" record head that is on the Phase 5 machine), I'm very pleased with the results.
In general, I'd say that the tapes made from LPs, via the Tascam's stock synchro head, sound a bit richer in tone color and darker in balance (i.e., a bit more weighted toward the bass) and slightly less explosively dynamic than the LPs do via the Walker 'table, as if one had switched from Soulution electronics to BAlabo electronics. It is a ravishing and realistic sound, and I'm quite sure many, if not most listeners would be delighted by it. RTR is certainly a great way to "archive" those valuable discs you own (like my RCA Red Seal 1s/1s "Pines of Rome" or my original Soria "Royal Ballet Gala" box set), though the cost of reel-to-reel tape makes RTR archiving a pricey alternative.
Jon
We can look forward to the Ultimate 8-Track Tape Deck and Triaxial speakers!
Any decent brand RTR from 70's to mid 80s (TEAC, AKAI, Pioneer, ASC, Braun, UHER, Tandberg, Crown...), running 7.5ips or higher will make a fabulous recording, which makes one wonder why the format died off so completely when so many try to make the distortion/wear/scratch-prone "vinyl" limp along!
People worry about head wear in RTRs but, as a current owner of some 15+ top end machines, I can attest that mismatched record and playback equalization and bias matter far more. Ironically when I got into this hobbty some 12 years ago, I started adjusting machines to 20-20kHz +/-1dB accuracy on Radio Shack tapes, thinking they would always be around! My lack of prescience aside, it goes to show even cheap tape of recent vintage works extremely well.
While RTRs do not really require NR ("Noise Reduction," for the benefit of those who no longer recognize the abbreviation), when they do have it, tape mismatch becomes an even bigger issue: a tape that has a higher or lower output on playback than what the NR system expects, completely messes up the sound.
If all these matters are properly addressed though (0 dB on recording plays back as 0 dB, flat frequency response, etc., none of which is trivial to achieve) an RTR is a pleasure, especially as source of music during a party. Invitees are blown away...they start mentioning how their fathers had a similar (read, some combo head Wollensak or Grundig) machine. But the music (really your party tape) plays on...1:30h per side. An auto-reverse is even nicer, like an AKAI GX-77 or Pioneer 707 or 909...or a 60s Ampex 1300 series (not for the weak of heart). Here again, lack of standardization is a downer: some tapes reverse with a prerecorded 20Hz tone, some with a conducting tape on the front of the tape, some on the back.
No wonder people dumped RTRs as soon as the much inferior cassette came about!
Any update on the open reel review yet. It has been a few months. How did it do compared to the higher res recordings and vinyl in listening and recording.
Earl inAZ,
I will be reviewing The Tape Project tapes and the UHA-HQ tape deck in Issue 205 of TAS.
Jon