Good points Doc. Sometimes my enthusiasm gets the best of me (there's a newsflash, eh?) so calling this a "showdown" was probably not the best terminology to use.
1 test like this on 1 release does NOT settle any sort of debate of digital versus analog. But I do think it will be interesting to compare them anyway----It's all just for fun. I don't think a consumer has actually ever gotten THIS close to the pure digital/analog masters to even attempt such a thing before!
I have a feeling the TP tape will "win" purely based off my experience with "Arnold's Overtures" which is the same deal---pure digital for the cd release and pure analog for the TP release. The TP tape DESTROYS the cd, but the cd is basic 16/44.1. 24/176 should level the playing field some with the HRx release "Exotic".
We'll try to make the comparison as fair as possible between the formats with regards to the equipment we use. It will be monitored over 185k Genesis 1.1's for starters, so some decent stuff.
Now I just need my Exotic tape. ;)
Joel
Maybe it's for the few.
But I have been doing some master recordings myself since late 70's starting out as a "tape operator" or "recording engineer" at live and studio events for broadcasting stations here i DK.
I never planned to make a living on it and maybe that's why I always just spent the time needed for set-up as I was always alone on this.
Later on I made recordings completely for my own enjoyments in agreements with musicians and arrangers not to distribute or share my recordings in any way.
I have been experimenting with what to use as main recording equipment and what to use as back up.
The choise was between 1/4'' R2R ? track 15 ips up against 32/192 digital encoding.
I was never in any doubt.
I choose the R2R as main recorder and the digital encoding as back-up.
I now downsized the digital side to 24/96 as I find that the "damage" or drawback of the encoding is not as much the difference between 24/96 and 32/192 as it is the digital encoding itself.
These differences are very hard to explain but one thing as an example of understanding what makes me choose the way I do is that of the level of background noise or the noise floor. This is, in most peoples ears, to the advantage of the digital encoded music. But not to me. The background noise/noise floor is basicaly not existing in the digital encoding. I find that we in all situations experience a natural noise around us in the enviroment. It's there in the concert hall, in the outdoor live event, it's there in your living room and even in the studio there's a little. This is kind of eliminated in the encoding. And eliminating that is also eliminating those small changes in the lowest level of the music. I call it microdynamics. Microdynamics are, not gone, but depressed in the digital encoding.
This was an example showing to me that favouring one parameter compromises another or more other parameters on behalf of the one.
This is the compromise all music reproduction is subject to and what always is the PITA of the recording engineer/tape operator.
I find those parameters supported by the best analog recording gear carrying more of the quality I want than the parameters in weight on the best digital encoding equipment.
Within the micodynamics, within the information hidden in the noise floor/background noise is naturality, sound stage and room perspective in the holographic form, the hollism is there and without these "dimensions, so difficult to define and impossible to meassure, is the nerve of the music.
So much for shortly describing my motives for choosing the analog device for my master recordings.
"dolph"
