Adding extra quality to regular cds

Over the years we've had features around audio on this blog and this week we return to the topic of cd reproduction

After replacing the Rotel unit I had for a Marantz super audio cd player that does regular discs I thought I had pretty much got this sorted as after all its reproduction of super audio cds was amazing and the regular discs sounded less muddy and frankly boring than the NAD C541i I had until it blew up.

One annoyance is the classical world Chandos have been issuing less super audio cds and with little rhyme or reason to what was a regular cd with a HD download being available from sites like Presto, the Warwickshire classical music store and what in it's physical form is a sacd.

Popular music remains mainly regular cd too outside of specialty re-issues as much as they are welcome.

The though arose, "is it possible to improve on what the internal regular digital to analogue converter offers on regular cds?"

These convertors that turn the naughts and ones into sound have come on a lot since the early nineteen eighties and even in the last fifteen years better sound can be had often for a good third or more of the price before we even consider inflation.

Enter the SMSL SU9 which comes from China, which personal political issues with their government apart has been producing in the last eight or so years some really good value for money hifi products

It is a fairly small unit, unlike many American offerings plain but attractively presented with a variety of inputs such as Toslink optical, Coaxial, USB which is common for computer based music replay (for which you'll need an up to date driver) and Bluetooth which tends not to be as good but does work without wires which some do feel matters.

The inputs are selected using a input button in conjunction with an up/down key, conformed by pressing the knob in which when configured also acts as a volume control.

This means in the context of a wholly digital system you could use this as a preamp sending an analogue output to a power amplifier.

The outputs are balanced XLR used in professional applications for lower noise and interference and traditional RCA or Cinch unbalanced used on nearly all hifi equipment these days with a now standard 2.3 volt peak output.

The mains input is a IEC Kettle type three pin connector that automatically adjusts from 100 through 240 volts.
 

Playing Sibelius's The Tempest on a 1992 Bis recording on regular cd, a pioneering recording it did bring out more depth and improved midrange  coupled with more detailed sound which l thought was more akin to great analogue source. 

While a dsd sourced super audio cd would of been better, this was more believable on fine regular discs although there are some "filters" that allow you alter the sound slightly if you prefer things warmer or more contrasty which generally I don't.

Overall I feel this has been an upgrade for the bigger proportion of my 5 cm disc collection.

Revisions to the blog 2022

This blog goes back a very long time like 2006 which is some sixteen and a half years and a few rebrandings along the way.

One thing has been blogger itself has changed in that time adding facilities and often altering the code that can make updating older entries trickier but sometimes it is necessary.

For one thing It is a lot of ways it is easier to find better quality illustrations than what were used back then, the layout options today allow for a more professional feel as monitors have got bigger with higher resolutions.

The other is the internet has improved making it less of dash against time to make a post before as was the case before I had a fibre connection before post and any image sources were replaced by "Your internet connection is no longer available".

While it has been quite warm this week, I have been revisiting a number of old entries, updating the contents where appropriate as may done other things or added to collections and adding a few images although obviously there will be some differences as images now tend to be centred rather than left aligned  and usually of better quality.

Yours Smol,

CJR

Buddy Holly in Stereo: 30 Classics cd review

 Over the years, the decades even on this blog we have looked at "Golden Oldies", the stuff the ill in bed with bucket me would with just the radio on low for company would hear new to me music and how that shaped some of my musical likes.

Sometimes these have taken the form of various artist compilations that may of been by year or record label or taken the route of a single performer.

An interesting subset of such releases is those that offer previously unissued recordings or mixes as after all once you've got a bunch of recordings by artists or a specific era you are likely set to go for your life.

Many recordings from the Rock and Roll era to the late nineteen sixties came out in mono, aimed for teens with shoe box record players or AM Radio and over the years people have tried to find the session tapes to mix them into stereo, the current standard, unused stereo mixes or make via many techniques such mono recordings into stereo.

In the past the attempt by crudely adding echo, splitting the high and low notes and so on made things worse - those of us who bought records in the seventies and early eighties recoiled in horror to how many of those attempts sounded.

That reaction lead the "Back to Mono" movement that has influenced many modern re-issues where anything in  mono is left that way and for original mono hit singles to be used in compilations over stereo remixes made for albums.

In more recent years attempts using computerized technology and advanced very narrow filtering of sounds has lead to some new attempts at the holy grail that is turning mono into recognizable stereo.

Buddy Holly is an artist that via those oldies radio shows and fifties nostalgia I've always loved, teens of my generation were amongst the biggest buyers of 1978's "Buddy Holly Lives: Twenty Golden Greats" recognizing how he influenced many of our heroes.

In the mid nineteen eighties MCA Records in the US, the arm of which did b******** all to promote him and his legacy leaving to MCA in Great Britain where he's more respected put out a couple of compilations that used the real master tapes, mixed from the sessions and mastered by one Steve Hoffman.

Cd's such as 1985's From the first time from the original masters" remain the gold standard of Holly releases because someone cared to find the proper unadulterated tapes.

Recently Hit Parade Records in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, issued this thirty track cd that uses "Digitally Extracted Stereo" utilizing three programs with much human intervention to ensure every track is in stereo.

Previous albums only had his last songs such as "It Doesn't Matter Any More" and "Raining In My Heart" and the unreleased at the time songs overdubbed  by The Fireballs" such as "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" which was a big hit in the UK in true stereo coming out as stereo became a thing on record.

The vinyl edition of Buddy Holly Lives had the others in fake stereo while the cd version followed the mono stays in mono convention of today.

When I got this cd I wasn't sure how this was going to work out having heard some good examples of this modern technique - much of the Beach Boys Wild Honey album of 1967- and the bad "Do You Wanna Dance?" from same groups Today album in the "stereo portion" of the cd.

The extent to which each sound is clear in that original mono mix does seem to affect how well these techniques can work and in Buddy Holly's case Norman Petty's recordings at Clovis, New Mexico, were amongst the finest of that era.

I'd even say they are better than a good number that came out decades later actually.

This does mean that actually the "stereo" is surprisingly good, stable across the image and adds that missing dimension although had a "proper" stereo mix been attempted at the time it would of course be preferable for capturing everything by design.

Hearing tracks like Rave On and Not Fade Away which was covered on 45 by the Rolling Stones no less in what is a good example of the illusion that much popular recordings in stereo are not being recorded with each instrument as a stereo pair in space.

The insert notes while not revelationary, are comprehensive outlining Buddy's life and career which is what he deserves.

I would not toss aside those cd's Steve Hoffman remastered mainly in mono back in the mid nineteen eighties but would put this along side it as an alternate form of hearing these songs as the actual mastering is better than some of Universal/MCA's current cheaper compilations and this having 30 tracks on it is great value.
 

Platinum Jubilee edition

 It's a different week this week and so things will be a little different on this blog.

We are marking the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, which is something I believe no other reigning monarch has ever managed although in recent years Her Majesties walking ability has declined causing her to miss some events and alternatives ways found for others which at the ripe old age of ninety-six you can well expect.

Yesterday was the special Trouping the Colour which usually would be held on the Saturday rich in its centuries old pageantry, colourful uniforms, horses and carriage processions which with every going around of the Sun I get to enjoy more and more.

It's not that it's quintessentially British, so much that kind of grand event, drilled to the last degree, choreographed is something while a few aspire too only we really pull off and as Her subjects just seem to love. 

There was a massive flight pass featuring warplanes from WW2 and modern ones in a spectacular display creating the number 70 but also the Red Arrows team with the red,white and blue smoke coming from them that I loved to see at airshows when I was younger. 

Pix credit: Routers.