"Scott" wrote in message
On Jul 12, 3:54 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message
they were not current for sure. These tests were done in
service of the production of his 1994 remasters of the
Mercury classical catalog. This particular anomly was
discovered when he was testing the physical product from
various manufacturers. He discovered that with certain
CDPs the CDs from some manufaturers were quite less than
transparent compared to the masters. This observation
was later confirmed in a number of other tests
conducted by other parties.
There is an extant AES paper that was presented by
Dennis Drake in 1992 presented in its entirety at this
URL:
http://www.themusiclab.net/aespaper.pdf
It says:
"As Mrs. Cozart Fine and I began our evaluation sessions
in April 1989, it became
very clear to us that the A/D conversion process was a
very critical step in our production
work. As the producer once described it, the sounds from
different converters were
all different "bowls of soup". We began auditioning
every A/D converter that we could
obtain. Our test methodology was simple: while playing
an original master as source, we
would switch between the direct output of our console
and the output of the digital
chain. The digital chain consisted of the converter
under test feeding a Sony 1630 PCM
Processor. The final link in the chain was the Apogee
filter modified D/A section of the
Sony 1630. At times, we would substitute different D/A
converters for listening evaluations,
but we always returned to the Sony converters or the
D/A's of our Panasonic 3500
DAT machine for reference purposes.
"Our monitoring set-up consisted of a Cello Audio Suite
feeding balanced lines to
Cello Performance Amplifiers, which in turn were driving
B & W 808 Monitor Loudspeakers. As we compared the
various digital converters to the playback of the
actual analog source, we found that the soundstage of
the orchestra was always
reduced in width when listening to the digital chain. We
also found that many A/D converters
exhibited a strident string sound, unnatural sounding
midrange, and a loss of air
or ambience around the instruments"
This above formal presentation of the relevant so-called
Denni Drake tests includes many details that are
different from what we have seen presented on RAHE. For
one thing, the evaluation was not of CD players, and for
another, there is no evidence of level matching, time
synching, or bias controls.
You skipped the relevant part of the paper. Jeez.
I still see no such thing.
"Upon further investigation, it turned out that the plant
had three different laser
beam recorders and that one of them sounded different
than the other two. After making
a glass master of the “Balalaika Favorites” on all three
LBR’s and comparing the subsequent
CD test discs from each, we were definitely able to
identify the “thinner sounding”
lathe. From the information given to us by the plant
engineers, apparently this lathe was
configured with different front end electronics."
Is there a reason why any relevant references to double blind testing seem
to be missing from your quote, Scott?
I'm not talking about hearsay or anecdotes, I'm talking about a primary
source.