Just before CES, Doc attempted to have a preview of gear and tapes at Paul Stubblebine Mastering. As things often go, with all the stuff that had to happen to make it to CES, the preview never happened. I was understanding but made sure that he knew that I was
very interested in checking out the studio. Last week Dan sent me an email saying that he would be here getting the "dup" system ready to roll and invited me to come and hang out. Excited? You bet!
When I got there, I was greeted by Dan, Paul and Michael who were all genuinely nice guys. Dan gave me a tour which included the historic Coast Studios. We all certainly have records with that acoustic on them. Next, Michael's room. It has a Meyer Sound 5.1 monitoring system and it sounded fantastic. Michael was very cool and played some cool tunes and even did a little reconfiguring so we could watch a Pink Floyd DVD. Meanwhile Paul was wiring something up ( I think it must have been and analog fader ).
Everywhere, and I mean, every nook and cranny of the place is filled with top notch gear that would make any regular at
www.gearslutz.com swoon.
Then we went in Pauls mastering room. I'd almost forgotten about the Magicos. But there they were. WAY bigger than they look in the pictures. Paul said they're about 800 lbs each! And the amps that Dan built to drive them, pp 300b's. Quad amped no less. Custom everything! Very Impressive. But then, Paul started rolling the 2" tape. Now, I wouldn't say that I'm the worlds most jaded audiophile ( I know him )but I'm not that far behind. I go to the Stereophile show every couple of years, CES less often, and listen to some very high dollar rigs pretty regularly. But this was a shock! It took a little while to really sink into my tiny brain but after a few minutes, I knew that this wasn't the sound of a live performance,.. this was significantly better! It was the Jacqui Naylor tape and Paul was trying to figure out the best sounding spot to patch in the fader. When hearing this genre in a live venue, your also hearing the board, the amps and the PA. At least that's what I'm guessing. I could go on and on about what I think I was hearing and why it sounded so damn great but, no way could I get it across in words.
As I was leaving and letting them know how great I thought it sounded, I'm not positive, but I get a feeling that my hosts were getting some sort of evil enjoyment over having blown my mind!
For you guys that are in the least bit worried about the sound quality of these tape,.. these guys have some seriously educated ears. And they know how to use them too!