Re: Lionheart CD: The Distorion Chronicles

[gt4586c@prism.gatech.edu (WILLETT,THOMAS CARTER)]

In article <30344@mimsy.umd.edu>, dbk@TOVE.CS.UMD.EDU (Dan Kozak) writes:
> 
> Digital doesn't distort, it glitches.  The difference is painfully 
> obvious to anyone who has heard the difference.  A tape prepared for
> LP cutting would be _less_ likely to distort, but I'll work that into
> my theory of what's happened.  To wit:
> 
> If you hear distortion on peaks (i.e. the loudest points of the recording)
> the problem is probably _not_ the CD, but some other component (best guess:
> preamp) of your system.  The CD is producing (cleanly) a peak that causes
> distortion in your system.  Why not on another CD?  Perhaps that CD _was_
> mastered differently and had had extra limiting applied, (or was made from
> a master tape that had been designed for LP and therefore had extra limiting
> to cope with the smaller dynamic range of an LP).  Since the peaks had been
> limited, your system didn't distort.  Obviously, I'm working with very little
> data so there's no way I can be sure about this, but it makes more sense
> than anything I've heard yet.
> 
> #dan
> 
> Clever:         dbk@cs.umd.edu    | "Softly her tower crumbled in the 
> Not-so-clever:  uunet!mimsy!dbk   |  sweet silent sun." - Nabokov

In the interest of trying to guess the source of the nastiness on my copy
of the Lionheart CD, i'll make a few comments as to why my system is
blameless.  First of all, when i use my cd player i set my PS Audio 4.5 
preamp on STRAIGHTWIRE, so there is essentially a direct connection between
the amp and the CD player, and therefore I cannot be overloading my preamp.
Second, my amp is not causing the distortion because 1) my Adcom GFA-555 has
distortion lights which go blinky-blink when the amp starts to clip, and
these lights never came on, and 2) the distortion can be heard at all volume
levels, from very quiet to loud.  That leaves the only possible system
culprit as the CD player, and I think we both agree that it is 
impossible to overload a properly designed CD player.

I think, therefore, that the distortion was recorded onto the CD.  The next
question is where in the recording chain did it appear.  If the RIAA
equalization is applied to the cutting lathe after the master tape, then I
guess that somebody got really lazy with the track level settings when
mastering the master CD and let them overload.

 
-- 
thomas willett 
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta  
gt4586c@prism.gatech.edu
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." - Salvor Hardin (Foundation)