Quick Lp vs. CD comparison

[wolff]

I do not do many LP vs CD comparisons for various reasons.

This one was convenient, so I did it.

Blakey: A Night At Birdland Vol. 1

Blue label LP from 70's.

RVG CD Vol 1.

This one is easy as the cymbols on the CD are way out of whack and incredibly splashy. Pretty much ruins the listening experience for me.

Not so on the LP. An enjoyable listen in comparison.

I told you it would be quick.

Why he does not hear/fix this is a mystery to me. Is the tweater not connected on his monitors?

[Chuck Nessa]

Wolfie, I think it must be really hard to breath with your head there.

This is coming from someone listening to this stuff for 45+ years. I've been listening to an unmentionable number of pressings/formats.

How old are you?

I'm editing to mention how poor many of the '70s pressiings were.

Edited November 21, 2004 by Chuck Nessa

[wolff]

Hey Chuckie,

Another of your posts that makes zero sense. Please translate. Maybe, you should worry about your own age. B-) I suppose my dis of RVG ruffled your feathers. That man needs a new pair of monitors.

Yes, many of the 70's pressings are iffy. That just tells you how bad the RVG is. My middle aged ears have not stopped bleading.

Oh, and I'm sure you have done the same comparison.

Now, bug off and go pick on some newbie in the O/LF forum.

Edited November 21, 2004 by wolff

[Chuck Nessa]

I have/had 25+ years experience pressing lps and making master discs that "could be played". I've done work for both classical ("audiophile") and jazz labels.

You don't have a clue about this stuff.

You have previously said you could not take any of my comments about Rudy seriously since I'd worked with him. I guess it is always best to reject information from "first hand experience".

If you wanna remain "stupid", it's not my problem.

I do not believe RVG is faultless and have plenty of "quibbles" but you look silly to anyone with real experience.

Once again, I ask your age (and please add experience).

[wolff]

Whatever, Chuckie.

Stick to the topic.

The LP sounds better than the RGV CD, period. Why he can't hear it or fix it is a mystery to me. Man, the CD sucks in comparison to my iffy 70's pressing.

I have no idea how your experience has anything to do with this unless you've made the same comparison.

You do not have a clue what I'm talking about. Re-read the first post or bug off.

[Chuck Nessa]

Whatever, Chuckie.

Stick to the topic.

...........bug off.

OK.

[wolff]

Thank you!!

I do not understand why the HF distortion is present on this RVG. He either does not hear it, or hears it but likes it. It's really too bad, as it ruins the music for me.

[RDK]

I won't say that the RVG CDs are "unlistenable" to me, but it's pretty clear in my limited comparisons that the CDs are brighter (often far brighter) than the LPs. Whether one prefers one tonality over the other is subjective; that the CDs are brighter, though, is a matter of fact. One may prefer the enhanced higher end (and resultant "clarity") of the CD - or conversely, perhaps it's the LPs that may be rolled off on top - but they do often sound different.

[Claude]

In this case, the comparision is really about the remastering, and not the format. The first CD release of these recordings, remastered by Ron McMaster, sounded less bright too. Rudy tries to boost the cymbals sound on all of his RVG remasterings, for whatever reason.

[wolff]

I agree with what you said, but it's not brightness that is wrong with the above mentioned CD. It's very bad distortion. And it adds zero clarity to this one.

There is bright and then there is distorted.

I add that I am only talking about this one specific title.

[wolff]

It can get down to a title by title basis. I have some Japanese BN LP's that are rolled off, but to my listening benefit in some cases. They lack the bad HF distortion which is fine by me.

Edited November 21, 2004 by wolff

[DrJ]

While I can't comment on the whole issue of LP versus RVG CD for this particular title, I can say that I do not understand anyone saying the RVGs have treble boosted. Compared with, say, most McMasters, they are way less splashy on the top end, sounding far more natural. In fact some have mentioned Rudy using compression (which I'm not convinced of), and if that's true it should in fact take out some of the high end and push everything toward the midrange.

All I can say for sure is what my ears tell me - the RVGs (US at least) tend to sound far more natural than McMaster jobs on the high end (although I will say his more recent ones sound a lot better than his older CD remasterings).

To my ears, the distortion issue with the RVGs is merely a byproduct of having really high resolution, well-done transfers. You hear greater sonic detail but you have to take with that some of the warts in the now aging master tapes that come with it, AND you also hear that Rudy tended to record everything "hot" (purposely) and so of COURSE there is going to be a little distortion once you have a modern transfer that's getting closer to vinyl in terms of resolution. It's akin to having a really good DVD/high res TV set-up and watching movies, you get incredible detail but of course you're also going to see the film grain.

I'll take a little bit of distortion (or film grain) anytime to gain that level of detail.

[wolff]

I wish he would get rid of the HF distortion, better detail or not.

Grundman at Classic Records has done a pretty good job of getting rid of it, while still having more detail. They are a bit bright, but without excessive distortion.

I'll throw in what Hoffman has said.

Remember folks,

Rudy Van Gelder recorded stuff to sound good THEN, not now. THEN is what counted! People had cheap phonographs or Hi-Fi's, nothing like what we have now.

Rudy did all his "tricking" right on the master tape so he didn't have to redub and lose a generation.. In other words, he didn't record something and re-dub it adding compression, echo, EQ, etc., he did it all live in real time while the music was being recorded.

Roy DuNann and Howard Holzer at Contemporary recorded everything flat and dry and the "tricks" were added during LP disk mastering.

So, a Contemporary master tape today sounds amazing while a Prestige or Blue Note master tape needs a little "reverse trickery" to get it to sound better.

At the time though, the RVG recording technique made those Prestige and Blue Note LP's sing!

When I work with a Rudy Van Gelder master I have to spend a lot of time coaxing the breath of life out of there. It's lost in a maze of echo plate and high-end limiter distortion that drives me bonkers.

If a mastering engineer just ignores that stuff the end result is less than wonderful in my opinion

Well, it's like a constant high-pitched grating sound. Ever stick your head around the back of your TV? That 15k carrier sound can drive one to drink. Something in RVG's system was dumping a lot of high-frequency overload distortion on everything, especially when the cymbals were hit. Kevin Gray and I figured that it was RVG's limiter that was causing the overload since it was better when the drums were not being aggressively played.

Do you have an LP that was engineered by Rudy Van Gelder? Turn up the volume and lightly run your finger over the vinyl, so you slow it down a bit (making the ultra high end distortion come down to a more audible range). Hear it now? YEOW!!!!!!!!

I worked up a "system" for combating this in my mastering, naming it my "Van Gelder Anti-matter Generator" (a play on Van De Graff Generator) and if you hear any DCC Gold Rudy Van Gelder CD ( Coltrane LUSH LIFE, Rollins SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS, Miles Davis COOKIN', RELAXIN', STEAMIN', POOPIN', etc.) that I've remastered, you'll notice the absence of any high end oscillation distortion. Just one of those little nifty bits of musical history that a mastering engineer MUST deal with for the sake of your ears.

[Claude]

I agree that McMaster's remasters don't sound great either. They are lacking dynamics. The most natural sounding Blue Note CDs I have are the TOCJs and MFSL remasterings. Their RVG counterparts (I had Blue Train and Somethin' Else for direct comparison) have boosted treble, without this adding more clarity. It could also be that this is how the tapes sound, and that the other remastering engineers compensated the overemphasized treble, but that's not very likely.

The same is also true for the only non-Blue Note RVG remastering I know, the SACD version of A Love Supreme. I recently had a discussion with our friend GregM on that subject on the Steve Hoffman forum.

[Claude]

wolff, these comments by Steve Hoffman are interesting, but they are about Van Gelders recordings made for Prestige, not Blue Note. So they may not be that relevant, because RVG made the recordings for both labels sound different. AFAIK Hoffman only remastered mono tapes recorded by RVG for Prestige (Miles, Trane, Rollins), and no Blue Note session.

[marcello]

I must say that I bought the new Miles Blackhawk cd and the cymbal sound is very distracting to me and ruins the recording. It's very high and over powers the rest of the music. The vinyl is a groove!

[wolff]

wolff, these comments by Steve Hoffman are interesting, but they are about Van Gelders recordings made for Prestige, not Blue Note. So they may not be that relevant, because RVG made the recordings for both labels sound different. AFAIK Hoffman only remastered mono tapes recorded by RVG for Prestige (Miles, Trane, Rollins), and no Blue Note session.

Yes, I know. His only BN title may have been Blue Train, I think.

It may apply, in that I've heard the same HF distortion on Sax Collosus and maybe a few other Prestige/Moodsville/Swingville originals LP's I have. And in some it's every bit as distorted as some BN's I have.

[cannonball-addict]

I won't say that the RVG CDs are "unlistenable" to me, but it's pretty clear in my limited comparisons that the CDs are brighter (often far brighter) than the LPs. Whether one prefers one tonality over the other is subjective; that the CDs are brighter, though, is a matter of fact. One may prefer the enhanced higher end (and resultant "clarity") of the CD - or conversely, perhaps it's the LPs that may be rolled off on top - but they do often sound different.

I don't have the album in question. But I disagree with the idea of liking one format more than another.

What I mean is that we are bickering over what the goddamn thing actually sounded like - not whether you like one or the other. Which format gets closer to the actual sound the instrument made that day?

What was the balance like? Often times things get recorded poorly and its hard to salvage a recording that was recorded poorly to begin with. You can mess with levels all you want but sometimes you're simply starting with an unbalancable bunch of sound.

I am only a youngster (yet an avid LP/78 collector) and I very much prefer CDs to vinyl for sound quality. Neither CD or LP is ever gonna be as good as live for a whole number of sensory reasons, too many to list here. But I think it's pretty fair to say generally that CD's get closer. Why do I buy vinyl? It makes me feel badass.

P.S. A good/interesting exercise is to buy something on CD recorded by Mapleshade Records (a current small record company based in Maryland) which doesn't record digitally, mix or master as a matter of principle. Go to their website for a better explanation.

Mapleshade Records

[wolff]

As Claude pointed out this is a mastering issue, not format.

It just happened that I compared an LP to a CD of this title.

It was quite a shock to hear and not enjoy one mastering's music/sound compared to the other mastering.

Edited November 21, 2004 by wolff

[Jim R]

Miles Davis COOKIN', RELAXIN', STEAMIN', POOPIN', etc.

Could he have meant WORKIN'?

[Chuck Nessa]

I know I said I'd go away but...........

Wolffie mentions in his first post a "'70s pressing". If I remember correctly, the various owners of BN (3 during the decade in question) pressed records at 7+ pressing plants in the '70s. Adding in the sources of metal parts/masterings, the variables are endless - and far from "audiophile". What mastering is he referencing?

It is really hard for me to accept as valid criticism, comparisons with no context. He also ignores the sound beyond the cymbals. This is not a solo cymbal date.

[hockman]

Chuck:

I often feel your comments are a bit harsh or confrontational, but in this case you are right on the mark!

I have a high end cd player and record deck. Most of the time I find cd and lp comparisons to be pointless (variations in pressings, condition, remastering, etc.). I don't believe one can make definitive statements about which is better.

IT ALL DEPENDS.

Hockman

[wolff]

Due to the fact that no one has mentioned listening to this RVG CD or any other pressing of this title, be it CD or LP, this is pretty much a one sided discussion.

My original post was intended more as a warning or recommendation to stay away from the atrocious sounding CD of this title(Ignore at your your own peril. ) , than it was a comprehensive comparison. Too bad there was not a need to go beyond the horribly distorted sound of the cymbals. Judging by the all to present sound(or should I say distortion) of the cymbals, RVG thought it was a solo cymbal date.

Since I listened to both it was easy for me to come up with a definite opinion on which I prefer and why, of this particular title and these two editions of it.

Edited November 22, 2004 by wolff

[Chuck Nessa]

Over the years I've had this material on 10" lps, 45s (my first exposure), 12" lps, Liberty reissue, '80s BN cd, 1995 BN Brownie set and now the US RVGs. Overall, I find the current US RVGs the best representation of the material.

[wolff]

I know I said I'd go away but...........

Wolffie mentions in his first post a "'70s pressing". If I remember correctly, the various owners of BN (3 during the decade in question) pressed records at 7+ pressing plants in the '70s. Adding in the sources of metal parts/masterings, the variables are endless - and far from "audiophile". What mastering is he referencing?

It is really hard for me to accept as valid criticism, comparisons with no context. He also ignores the sound beyond the cymbals. This is not a solo cymbal date.

Nicer post Chuck. Not too many insults or condescending cracks. Keep up the good work!!!

As I mentioned earlier I was shocked and disappointed at the sound of the RVG CD compared to a 'non-audiophile', fairly poor sounding 70's pressing of this one particular title. Simple as that.

If you think is not valid, that's fine with me. Like I said, as no one as mentioned listening to this RVG Cd or any other editions of this title, this is a totally one sided discussion. I'd love to hear your comments after doing the same comparison. Would you like me to send you the CD and LP?