[BC] CD vs LP

[Dana Puopolo]

Telarc also made these.  Another trick was to cut the lacquer at half speed
(with the master tape also running half speed).

There is still demand for disk mastering. My friend (and former employee) Bob
Weston just opened a mastering lab in Chicago.

I had a copy of Dark Side of the Moon, half speed mastered. It sounded REALLY
good! I think it was pressed by Mobile Fidelity.

-D


------ Original Message ------
Received: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 07:31:46 PM EDT
From: Broadcast List USER <Broadcast at fetrow.org>

Well, not direct to vinyl, direct to the master lathe(s).

There were other direct to disk companies besides Sheffield LABS,  
like Crystal Clear, and others I cannot currently remember.

The lathes create a lacquer master, which is (was) used to make  
daughters, ...

They did sound technically good, though the performances were  
sometimes lacking.  Since one mistake by anyone would make the entire  
side useless, the musicians would play cautiously so the performances  
often were lackluster.

Also, since there was no preview head to adjust the drive of the  
cutting head, the mastering engineer had to do it manually.  If he  
misjudged and made the head move too fast across the master(s), the  
recording time was limited.  If he went too slow, and the performers  
got loud, the grooves would "overlap" and the side would be ruined.

I have more than a few, and some that were recorded both direct to  
disk and digitally, then turned into CDs.  The records sounded  
better, but noisier.

It just reinforces the fact that 44.1 kHz sampling was far too low,  
and 16 bit linear was just dumb on its face.