![]() ![]() Then Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs later did their digital magic by carefully transferring the music directly to DSD from these original master tapes (once again, no digital mixing). And thank goodness they couldn’t afford a professional sound engineer using Pro Tools digital mixing and editing software that would have PCMed all over their original analogue goodness. This is far harder for the band to perform, sort of like the Direct to Disc ( If one format is better than another, why doesn’t the music always sound better?…) titles offered by Sheffield Labs back in the 70s, This was one of the happy accidents where their low-budget recording method resulted in a raw and visceral quality that would have been lost in an expensive recording studio. But this left me wondering why the other two digital recordings were so good…Ī little research showed that, due to budget constraints, Whites Off Earth Now was originally recorded directly to analogue master tape in a garage using a single ambisonic microphone. The Blue Coast reference is an obvious candidate since they went to great lengths to go from purely acoustic sources in an ideal studio setting captured by some of the best microphones ever made (rare and hand-crafted by Didrik) directly to a native DSD master file. I also have a few digital reference recordings, and they offer the best sound quality I’ve yet heard from the medium, such as: Blade Runner Soundtrack from Vangelis (DSD), Whites Off Earth Now by The Cowboy Junkies (DSD), and a sample track from Blue Coast Recording called “Cali” (Direct to DSD). Which mean’s they are vinyl records (side note – some exceptional recordings were released from the original analogue master tapes directly to reel-to-reel analogue tapes, but these were the exception rather than the rule). With precious few exceptions, they are fully analog recordings. They are typically recorded by the most fastidious sound engineers in a fashion that provides reproduction as close to the source as possible, though there are also some “happy accidents”. My reference recordings have a few things in common, such as phenomenal dynamic range and a large variety of instruments and nuances of musicality. ![]() These are go-to recordings I use to compare and contrast sound quality when evaluating new gear and/or tweaks I’m making to an existing system, room, speaker placement, etc. You will hear me speak of “reference recordings” a great deal in this blog. ![]()
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