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In Reply to: I am comparing against personal experience. are you? posted by Christine Tham on May 29, 2004 at 16:11:09:
I was just surprized that you confuse the, very distinct, noise for hall ambiance.The difference in this case is ***very*** obvious.
***What I've heard (the beginning of the track, as well as during the opening bars) sounded no different than what's coming out of the console from a typical live session in a real hall ***So they allowed you to turn up the gain to hear low level noises?
Don't think so.
Follow Ups:
why don't you post an MP3 of the noise you are hearing, because i am obviously not hearing it. it may be due to your equipment.of course i have turned up the gain on many occasions. why wouldn't we not be allowed to??? it's standard practice to check for microphone hum.
I can tell you both from experience that "hall" noise, be it HVAC, road intrusion, organ blowers, etc, do not mask the kind of low level detail that I was referring to. I have not ruled out the mic pre's, the mic's themselves (this has a HUGE impact on the captured sound), the mixing desk, and/or A/D converters. The effect I'm describing is not a white noise masking; that would be audible. The recordings were dead quiet. It just seemed like the hall and the orchestra became very indistinct below a certain dB level. In the future I will attempt to measure this and post the recordings used so others can decide for themselves.
I don't know what levels you refer to (as per my questions below), but I personally noticed a lot of details in some live SACDs when they are played at high volumes or on headphones.For example Waltz for Debby, is mastered higher than Sunday Night at the Village Vanguard, and on that album you can distinctly hear some background noises, without getting painful high frequencies in the foreground. This is very obvious in the first tracks, and in the alternate takes there's some long parts that are pure ambience.
f you pay attention and increase the volume, on the CD version, the sounds are also there, but the instruments sound very harsh, unpleasant. For my un-technical mind, the SACD has a similar effect to some tube amplification I have heard.
Then, you are right, at low volumes most of the details in the background disappear (on my system at least).
So, to turn the argument around: I think SACD sounds better at high levels :)
Best
can you post a list of the discs and the equipment you are using?i must admit i have not heard the effect you have described (and i have listened on a variety of systems), but you may have better ears than me.
are you sure you are not redigitising the outputs? the dsd ultrasonic noise may impair the accuracy of the a/d converters.
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