Oh, I knew you weren’t calling me stupid - it was ME calling myself that. And I think everyone is stupid in their own special way. Maybe the really stupid people are those who think they’re not stupid in some way. But in all seriousness, I appreciate your advice, and I’ll definitely be looking for a way to hear it, or maybe even borrow a player to plug into my stupid system (there I go again).
Curious what your brother has to say about DSD?
Oh boy, that’s an interesting idea. My brother started his audiophile journey when he was in high school back in the 70s, starting with 8-track tapes if you can believe. Of course he got into vinyl, upgrading, upgrading, upgrading, upgrading everything else - his pre-amp, amp, cables, speakers. I have no idea how much he spent, but I would guess well over the cost of my current home. But one thing he would NEVER do - and that is digital. Nope, no way was digital ever going to do what vinyl could. Not even when I had a discussion with him about Rudy Van Gelder - to my brother, he was a god - when I told him that Blue Note had rehired him in the 90s to experiment with digital and see if he could could remaster his original analog tapes to produce a sound better than vinyl. And Rudy says he did (the RVG series) (actually RVG HATED vinyl records). To my bro, that was all BS, or maybe RVG was suffering from dementia. Then two years ago, I couldn’t believe it - my brother sold all of his analog equipment and went to 100% digital streaming. And totally headphones. He shrugged and said vinyl had just gotten to be too much trouble and that digital had finally gotten to the point of resolution that vinyl had. He didn’t lose his interest in SOUND at all, however. His streamer, DAC, amp and phones are still probably more expensive than all the cars I’ve ever owned combined, but I’ve never heard what he might say about DSD. I’ll ask and report back. My guess: no better than streaming. Like analog was never better than digital, right?
That’s a great story! Thanks for sharing.
Funny how the most steadfast and set in their ways, can often change their tune, if they so choose!
And, somewhat similar to the @Rushton path to digital?
So, if he is of the mind that
… then, what resolution of digi files does he play - if not DSD?
Might he (also?) need further “enlightenment” to DSD?
And yes. We are all dumb, or, at least, blinded by our own rationalizations in one way or another.
From one victim of my rationalizations to another, and to all the rest that have chimed in here and in the others that I take part in, enjoying this conversation.
High Definition Tape Transfers is celebrating their 18th anniversary with a sale. Bob Witrak has brought us a lot of nice music over those years. And this year, he’s been going gang busters on great releases. Congratulations, HDTT!
Hi Rushton. i really respect your knowledge and reviews of the HDTT line. I just ran across a transfer they did of Bill Evans’ album Empathy with Shelly Manne and Monty Budwig. It was originally recorded at Van Gelder studios in 1962, released by Verve. I think I read somewhere that anything RVG from Blue Note would not be transferred from original master recordings, but do you think Verve gave HDTT access to the original masters? It’s OK if not, even when they transfer from pressings, they do a fantastic job, but I’m just curious as to how close I’m getting to Mr. Van Gelder’s fingerprints.
Hi JLawry, thanks for your kind comment about my HDTT reviews. HDTT’s release of Empathy is a very nice transfer from a 2-track 15ips tape (per the website), but I’m sure it is not from the master tape. Bob doesn’t share much information about his sources. At least he has returned to giving us the information he shares. For a time, he was getting so much blowback that he stopped talking about sources altogether.
The 15ips tapes he sources could be safety backup tapes, production tapes, copies of copies… No way for us to know. Sometimes he does get a direct clone of the master tape. I know he has a tranche of such tapes from the estate of a former RCA engineer. In the case of jazz tapes, the tape could even be a commercially released tape from the label as they did directly release tapes to collectors back in the day.
My consistent approach to all of this with HDTT is: if it sounds good, it is good.
Yeah, if it sounds good, it’s good - stop asking questions, I say to myself, but I guess there’s a little audiophile snobbery buried back there saying, “Well, if it’s NOT first generation, it’s not good enough for me .” And there’s also the truth that some mastering engineer could take the original and do a poor job with it vs. someone who is really good - as HDTT seems to be - taking a 3rd-generation tape and turning it into something fantastic.
There are a lot of myths out there about master tapes. What is a “master tape”? What generation tape is used to actually produce the product to which we listen? Ah, miles and miles of mystery here. Harold Tichenor, a tape archivist, has been unpacking some of this beginning in the following article published at Positive Feedback. It is a good starting point for understanding:
Also, keep in mind that an analog tape degrades each time it is played. Many of these vintage tapes are getting very old and very fragile. For those who care about our music heritage, many will say, as I do, that these tapes need to be archived to DSD256 and not played again and again until some even better archival media becomes available.
You’re sure striking a nerve - magnetic tape was a huge part of my life for many years. I still own a reel-to-reel deck. My first career was in radio in the 1970s/80s and I produced and edited miles of tape. I was intimately aware of generation loss, best ways to maximize original and transferred sound, bias, noise, and all that stuff. It gets in your bones I guess. When I got into professional recording, it was when digital was coming on the scene, so we were already aware of what it offered in terms of copying.
I will read the article you linked to. But I agree that old tapes need to be digitized to the best possible medium as soon as possible, then stored carefully.
Taking the tiered sales offered by HDTT, I purchased eight DSD256 files just now. I am ready to download them into the internal SSD of my network player later. Tonight, I am grilling lamp chops for dinner too. It will be fun to play them during dinner
Jonathan Horwich (the owner of International Phonograph, Inc. from which the master tapes were sourced) decided to retire. Regrettably, with retirement he withdrew from distribution all the digital copies of his master tapes. Accordingly, HDTT had to remove them from their online catalog. Bob announced this upcoming event multiple times before the files disappeared, but it was fairly quick.
The IPI website is still up and says that digital copies of the tapes may be available if you email Jonathan directly. Don’t know if this actually works or if Jonathan just has not taken down the site.
Thanks for the background info. Saddened to hear. Joe Policastro recorded at Pro Musica is a performance that I usually recommend to others looking for high quality dsd256.
I could probably create one, but a quick way to see what is now missing is to go the the IPI website link to see what is listed for master tape copies. That won’t be everything, but quite a few.
Perhaps in the last few days the website changed since I could find nothing regarding digital copies/downloads. There is reference to CDs but those are reissues from long ago that don’t seem connected to the list of his own recordings. Most of the links indicate they are no longer available on Amazon USA (excepting third party’s), a couple were available from Amazon Japan. Surprisingly, there were numerous RtR tapes seemingly still available at a fair price (for tape). There was only one LP listed and one copy still available on Amazon, but I couldn’t let it sit there all by its lonesome ….
I find it odd that if he retired that he continues with tape but the digital copies which should involve no effort on his part are no longer available. It’s likely I don’t understand the situation. I’ll add I’m not much of a jazz person so I don’t really fathom what is lost here.
