[rms]

For anybody not yet familiar with Barry Diamant, he is a preeminent recording engineer, who is passionate about bringing the highest fidelity possible to the recorded medium. He is now making pristine recordings in the high res format in the most true to the live experience way possible.

In addition to his Soundkeeper Recordings website Barry has started writing a blog about his experiences as a recording engineer which I find utterly fascinating and very informative for those of us interested in high resolution recordings.

You can find it here;

soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com

If you are not familiar with Barry than definitely check out his work, the guy has a really impressive bio.

I hope you all like this. I really enjoy listening to Barry's recordings and this blog is a lot of fun to read.



(Ted - if this doesn't quite fit here please move it to a more appropriate forum, this just seemed like the best fit I could find from all the forums available - thanks)

[blutto]

....funny you should bring up the eminent Mr Diamant because Barry was actually an active member here for a while....unfortunately he left....apparently some of the opinions he expressed created enough frictional blowback that he found better ways to spend his time....a major loss for this forum....he is a great talent and his posts provided some valuable insights based on his vast experience....

Cheers

[ted_b]

I've always said Barry is a great recording engineer, and his comments are always interesting.

His Equinox 24/192 recording continues to be one of my favorite hirez albums, and any and all tracks are usually used to demo equipment for tonality, speed and soundstage depth.

[Geardaddy]

That's too bad he is gone.  He was stellar and tactfully answered all my stupid questions. 

[mav52]

I still enjoy Barry's blog's and his postings on another forum. 

[bdiament]

Thank you rms and everyone else.

I'm really glad if the blog is of interest to folks.  That is what I'm hoping for.
It is certainly an interesting experience to watch it unfold. 
I have a general direction I want it to go, but once I get the first sentence of an entry going, I've pretty much just been letting it unfold, starting with the background in recent posts, hopefully providing some behind-the-scenes views of what is involved in record making -- and how it has all been perceived by someone who came to it as a music lover and audiophile.

I'm still here at the HiRez Music Circle too.  Sometimes the schedule determines how much (or how little) time I can spend here.  As with other fora, when folks start arguing, I tend to go elsewhere since my purpose here is to have fun and share some joy with fellow music and audio lovers.

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

[rms]

Great post by Barry to his blog today;

http://soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com/author/soundkeeperb/

[Geardaddy]

Barry, your thoughts on DSD,  Blue Ray High Fidelity Pure Audio and the future of hi rez?

[wisnon]

Barry has thoroughly answered that on a loooong thread at CompAudiophile and left the thread when it inevitably went South.

From memory, Barry does not like DSD as he is sensitive to the HF ultrasonic noise and thinks that 24/192 done well with a "proper" hirez Dac like the Hilo will sound closest to what he hears in the studio. Cant recall if he commented on DSD128 and higher or Blu ray Hirez or Pono.

He has no issues with peeps who like DSD, just not his cup of tea. No harm, no foul.

[bdiament]

Hi Geardaddy,

Barry, your thoughts on DSD,  Blue Ray High Fidelity Pure Audio and the future of hi rez?

wisnon stated it pretty closely as far as DSD: it just isn't my cup of sonic tea.  While I know many who love it (and I've never argue with whatever brings a person their listening pleasure), I find the high treble discomforting.  I can't say exactly what the reason is but suspect it may have to do with diminishing dynamic range at the top of the spectrum.  My experience has been that any part of the spectrum where dynamics are compromised tends to draw a disproportionate amount of attention -- at least for this listener.

On the other hand, I find properly done 4x PCM (i.e., 176.4k or 192k), such as 192k recordings made with the Metric Halo ULN-8 I use, have achieved a level of accuracy where I have not yet been able to discern the playback from the direct microphone feed.  This is a first to my ears, not achieved by any other recording format, regardless of price or design.  (While there are many devices today claiming 4x capability, in my experience, this would seem to be something much more easily claimed on a spec sheet or in marketing literature than actually achieved in practice, as few of these devices seem to have the clocking accuracy or analog stage performance at wide bandwidth to deliver what the best of them do.  They'll run at these rates but will *sound* better at lower, less demanding rates.)

As to Blu-ray, I looked into it several years ago when I was pondering the different ways to deliver 24/192 recordings to the listener.  In the end, I found it lacking insomuch as the only digital output path available for the audio is via HDMI, a jittery format I don't consider competitive -- at least not today (perhaps at some point in the future).  One could use the analog outputs of the player but this limits the quality to that of the internal DACs (D-A converters).  I know I much prefer using my external, dedicated converters, as I'm sure a great many audio enthusiasts do.  At this point, I don't know of any external converters that have HDMI inputs -- at least not any converter I'd consider using or recommending.  Being locked into HDMI and being hamstrung by licensing fees, Blu-ray just isn't a direction I felt I wanted to go in terms of audio.  (I understand there are boxes that strip the audio from the HDMI signal but in my view, the damage has already been done.) 

The advent of high resolution via music server (i.e., computer) was a revolution as far as I'm concerned.  Even without considering the random, virtually instant access and how much better one's connection to their music library is, just considering the sound alone, there is, in my view, no competition.  For the very first time in all my experience as a music lover and audio enthusiast, the listener at home can hear the sound of the final master.  Even the best playback from a spinning disc, on the best transports and players I know of, does not sound indistinguishable from the master.  It can get close, but I've never heard it "disappear", while playback from the computer *can* do this routinely. 

The future?  I don't know where mass audio will go.  I think it will move toward the computer -- we already see the immense popularity of downloads.  Perhaps in coming years it will move up from lossy formats to "CD quality" (an oxymoron if I ever heard one   ;-}).  After that, who knows?  I'd like to see more high-quality high-res and would hope it becomes more standard at some point, especially when bandwidth increases sufficiently to allow anyone, anywhere to download a full album in a reasonable amount of time.  (I don't think we're there yet... at least not for non-data-reduced, raw PCM formats like .aif or .wav, where a 24/192 album can be between 4 and 5 GB.)

What are *your* thoughts on these things Geardaddy?

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

[Geardaddy]

Hi Barry.  I am not sure what to think.  Despite being a fairly highly technical subject, the format discussions seem a little confusing, contradictory, and emotionally charged.  I am intrigued by DSD largely due to the fact that so many people are foaming at the mouth about it.  That being said, SACDs never sounded "right" to me.  Is it the dynamic compression or high frequency fizz?  I don't pretend to know.  I am not sure why digitizing a SACD magically transforms it?  I have spoken with people in your industry who claim tape is still king but that CD is an adequate digital medium as long as the implementation and recording process is good.  When I mention DSD, they scoff and have a low opinion of it as do you.  I had a recording engineer in Charlotte, NC come over to my house to hear my sound room recently.  We spent more time chatting about these issues than analyzing the room.  What he shared was rather chilling.  $ drives the boom and sizzle.  Rap pays a lot of the bills.  The customer is king, and we audiophiles are simply anachronisms.

Morbid things aside, I still think the ideal digital source is easeful (aka analog) without dynamic compression.  I am not sure why the digital domain has been such a struggle.  I grow tired of piano recordings for example that sound metallic.  Over and over and over.  Beautiful music from beautiful instruments simply butchered.....

[wisnon]

GD, wait till you hear well done DSD128 and you will join the foaming crew too!

And now with a $1K Tascam, you can digitize vinyl to DSD128 and with Audiogate and JRiver, you can decimate and upsample PCM to DSD128. If your Dac has a sweetspot at DSD128…then you are golden.

[simon wagstaff]

There's always something new, eh? I also have reservations about SACD. I would have been perfectly happy with 24/96 dvd-v, starting what, 15 years ago?

I find myself listening to more and more stereo these days.

BTW, glad to see you are still here Barry. Love your work and appreciate what you have to say.

[bdiament]

Hi Geardaddy,

Hi Barry.  I am not sure what to think.  Despite being a fairly highly technical subject, the format discussions seem a little confusing, contradictory, and emotionally charged.  I am intrigued by DSD largely due to the fact that so many people are foaming at the mouth about it.  That being said, SACDs never sounded "right" to me.  Is it the dynamic compression or high frequency fizz?  I don't pretend to know.  I am not sure why digitizing a SACD magically transforms it?  I have spoken with people in your industry who claim tape is still king but that CD is an adequate digital medium as long as the implementation and recording process is good.  When I mention DSD, they scoff and have a low opinion of it as do you.  I had a recording engineer in Charlotte, NC come over to my house to hear my sound room recently.  We spent more time chatting about these issues than analyzing the room.  What he shared was rather chilling.  $ drives the boom and sizzle.  Rap pays a lot of the bills.  The customer is king, and we audiophiles are simply anachronisms.

Morbid things aside, I still think the ideal digital source is easeful (aka analog) without dynamic compression.  I am not sure why the digital domain has been such a struggle.  I grow tired of piano recordings for example that sound metallic.  Over and over and over.  Beautiful music from beautiful instruments simply butchered.....

I can't say I see things the say way as your engineer friend but then I've always said if you ask three audio folks a question, you'll get at least four different answers (five of which are probably wrong  ;-}).

As to the piano recordings (and many others), I think the flaws happen much earlier than when they get recorded, regardless of the format.  Ever want to listen to a grand piano with your head under the (often closed) lid, ears only inches from some of the hammers (and much further from the rest of the hammers)?  One has to wonder why the engineers who place their mics in such places never asked themselves this very question.

Long ago I realized that 90-95% or more of the overall quality ceiling of any recording has already been determined by the time the signals are leaving the microphones.  (They have not yet entered the cables that carry them to the mic preamps, much less been recorded yet on analog or digital media.) 

In my opinion, we can worry more about formats only when the signals leaving the microphones are properly attended to.  When that happens, my experience has been that the best analog can be wonderful, CD at its best can be tolerable but properly done 4x PCM (e.g. 24/192) has the potential to simply get out of the way like nothing else.  (Too bad most digital spec'd for 4x doesn't deliver on the potential.  As with everything else, marketing takes advantage of opportunities for commerce.  Happily, there are those designers that do push the envelope and show us how good it can be.)

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

[jtwrace]

What about recommending your best work? 

[Geardaddy]

As to the piano recordings (and many others), I think the flaws happen much earlier than when they get recorded, regardless of the format.  Ever want to listen to a grand piano with your head under the (often closed) lid, ears only inches from some of the hammers (and much further from the rest of the hammers)?  One has to wonder why the engineers who place their mics in such places never asked themselves this very question.

Long ago I realized that 90-95% or more of the overall quality ceiling of any recording has already been determined by the time the signals are leaving the microphones.  (They have not yet entered the cables that carry them to the mic preamps, much less been recorded yet on analog or digital media.) 

Touche

[Geardaddy]

GD, wait till you hear well done DSD128 and you will join the foaming crew too!

And now with a $1K Tascam, you can digitize vinyl to DSD128 and with Audiogate and JRiver, you can decimate and upsample PCM to DSD128. If your Dac has a sweetspot at DSD128…then you are golden.

So, you are grooving on that avant garde Swedish jazz trio eh?  Honestly, it will be a LONG time before my music library is anything other than Redbook.  Need a dac that does justice to that format first and foremost.

I am not a fan of upsampling.  I understand the Meitner MA-1 does just what you're looking for (PCM>>DSD128).  Time to sell the Lampi? 

[wisnon]

You understand WRONG!

The MA-1 is a DSD64 only Dac. Don't confuse with PBD and EMM Labs. Conversion of PCM to DSD128 is not the same as upsampling rates in PCM.

2nd, I have TWO Lampis, one PCM dedicated and one DSD dedicated. The PCM Lampi is optimized for RBCD already...

Third, I have over 1 TB of DSD, so if you think T-Rex, Queen, The Stones are Swedish and play Jazz, then I have news for you!

Lastly, you need to HEAR stuff and try for yourself firsthand, instead of listening to bashing engineer type who don't listen to music as much they analyze sound waves.

Get with the PROGRAM, GD!

[Geardaddy]

From the Meitner site:

"MDAT™: 2x DSD upsampling
From there, the signal goes straight into the Meitner Digital Audio Translator (MDAT™) which upsamples digital audio to 5.6MHz, double the SACD standard sampling rate. "

Of your 1TB DSD library, how much of it is DSD128?   

[ted_b]

GD, I don't want to put words in Norman's mouth but I think he meant that (my) MA-1 plays only DSD64, not (yet) DSD128.  Yes it internally upsamples EVERYTHING to 5.6mhz, but that is an internal thing (dozens of DACs internally upsample into the megahertz range).

I have only 20+ albums in DSD128 (Opus 3, 2L, a few others) but they are quite amazing when played back on a good DSD128 capable DAC.  Randy had his exaSound E20 (I won the E28 but it is primarily a multichannel DAC and the E20 is clealry better at 2 channel) here on Friday, and I blew his mind with some of the analog-direct-to-DSD128 that Hugo and Jan Eric have done over at Opus 3/dsdfile. 

Yes, I agree fully with your contention that a DAC first must be SOTA at handling redbook, our stand bearer, and likely 90% of the titles in most music lovers catalog.  Everything else is secondary (unless, as Randy and I found out, you upsample, offline, redbook-to-DSD128).  The E20 was polite (and maybe a little boring) in native 16/44 but fabulous with the same titles at DSD128!  I have not normally been a conversion (PCM to DSD) fan but this was a clear case of "getting to the sweetspot".  Western Digital is gonna love Randy.