Analog Tape Transfer to Digital - Bass loss - help/advice/thoughts

[Lek]

I was about to transfer various recordings made on analog tape (1/4" cassette consumer type) when I realized that monitoring from the tape deck had a lot more bass than monitoring after the a/d (to a benchmark d/a)
Any suggestions? I even made the benchmark obviously louder than the cassette deck, and the monitor off the cassette deck still sounded better with more bass. Any thoughts? (by the way i edited a lot of my original post to make it more to the point)

[Mr Generic]

That's the nature of Digital unfortunately. Just make a clean transfer and be done with it.

[brianroth]

How were you monitoring from the casette deck???

Bri

[Lek]

Originally Posted by brianroth

How were you monitoring from the casette deck???

Bri

Hi Brian
I actually tried monitoring from both the 4 track and the cassette deck in a couple different ways to try to account for any discrepancies.

First I played on the Tascam 424 - I listened on the headphone jack directly from the 424. I then pulled my headphone from the 424 and plugged it in my benchmark dac to compare (a normal stereo rca cable was going out the 424 to my a/d, to the Benchmark d/a). Alternately I ran the main signal out of the headphone jack on the 424 (using a stereo to dual mono Y cable) - I'd listen with my headphones on the 424, then pull it out, plug the y cable in, plug in my phones on the DAC.

I did the exact same method with my cassette deck - it has a 1/4" headphone out (though no volume knob).

[lucey]

the DAC1 is pretty lean although you wont get the same low end no matter what

[Bob Olhsson]

Your A to D is probably loading down the cassette deck. Sometimes using the headphone jack sounds better.

My experience has been that the DAC-1 is pretty accurate and when it sounds lean, it's because the signal feeding it sounds lean.

[lucey]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

My experience has been that the DAC-1 is pretty accurate and when it sounds lean, it's because the signal feeding it sounds lean.

I'm not sure how we could ever judge a DA on it's own for "accuracy" per se ... I mean accurate compared to what and how to factor out the AD?

Running a shootout of a Pacific HDCD, Lavry Blue and new HEDD 192 DAs the DAC1 DAs is lean, or perhaps it's "accurate" if you want to see it like that.

[u b k]

Originally Posted by lucey

Running a shootout of a Pacific HDCD, Lavry Blue and new HEDD 192 DAs the DAC1 DAs is lean, or perhaps it's "accurate" if you want to see it like that.

any thoughts on which of those boxes is the meatiest? not which one adds any meat per se, but which doesn't trim any fat? smooth on top chunky on bottom?


gregoire
del ubik

[lucey]

Originally Posted by u b i k

any thoughts on which of those boxes is the meatiest? not which one adds any meat per se, but which doesn't trim any fat? smooth on top chunky on bottom?


gregoire
del ubik

As a DA, the new HEDD192/Avocet is the meaty one ... the newest DA. The old Hedd DA was meat and mush, now it's meat and musicality, with sufficient openness to be 'high end'.

Still very colorful, it's not my choice for mastering but it's pleasant to listen to.

[Lek]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Your A to D is probably loading down the cassette deck. Sometimes using the headphone jack sounds better.

My experience has been that the DAC-1 is pretty accurate and when it sounds lean, it's because the signal feeding it sounds lean.

To give some more info, the a/d being used is the Crane Song Spider (just got it a couple weeks ago - it has the newest a/d's). Up until now, I've recorded everything through my Crane Song Hedd and Api pre which has sounded fantastic, and no lack of bass here! For the transfer I was using the spider a/d's as my hedd is being shipped back to me with the new D/A installed.

To restate, when feeding the spider my tape decks' outputs it seems to lose low and mid-bass. Would this happen with most a/d's? Perhaps it is just my imagination, but I really felt I heard a change in frequency response (in the high's/mids as well - perhaps it is the crappy rca cables I'm using??)

Funny, concerning the headphone jack - monitoring out the cassette deck's headphone out (not the tascam, but my sony), the sound is really good so I y corded it out to the a/d but it still didn't seem to have as much bass (spider spdif's to benchmark d/a)
The only other thing I can thing is the cable from tape deck to a/d converter ... I don' t have the greatest quality rca connection cables.

[lucey]

that's just the nature of conversion ... it doesn't give you the same air movement

I'm a big fan of cables, but I doubt it's the cable.

That converter is not a perfect repro anyway, it's meant to be the first AD at tracking so it has a less than flat eq.

[Bob Olhsson]

The "missing low end" is a pretty typical loading problem. I've never used anything but the mike inputs on a Spider which worked great and I have no experience with the HEDD. I use a high impedance buffer amp for this kind of situation.

I find the PM model 2 DAC a bit flattering compared to the DAC-1. Better (probably the best there is) if you're feeding an analog processing chain, not so great if you want to spot and fix breath pops or distortion. The PM also isn't nearly as fussy about loading as most including the Benchmark which can sound a bit bland if its loaded down. I haven't used a PM model 1 in years although I don't remember it sounding all that different from the model 2. I also have no recent experience with Lavry D to As.

[lucey]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

I haven't used a PM model 1 in years although I don't remember it sounding all that different from the model 2. I also have no recent experience with Lavry D to As.

The 1 and 2 are the same sound, more sample rates on the 2.

I know you love he DAC1 yet you should check out the Lavry Blue. Nathan did a writeup on the shoot out and I agree with their opinion. To my ear the 5534 sound is in the DAC1 no matter what they say.

I have the new Mytek 8x192 on order and it's meant to compete with the Lavry ... we shall see!

[Jay Kahrs]

There's probably a couple things at work and part of it is impedance & loading issues. Some of it might be attributable to a -10 vs. +4 thing too. But when you really get down to it...there's no possible way that a signal could be exactly the same when you compare the original source to a copy that's been through a whole conversion process. No matter what converters you have, it's always gonna sound a bit different from the source.

Is it anything to get worried about? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on how different it sounds and if the tone has become offensive or not. But realisticlly...man...it's a freakin' miracle that cassettes sound halfway decent to begin with. If you're only losing a tiny bit of low end, don't worry about it and make it up in the mix or at some other stage.

[RKrizman]

Originally Posted by Jay Kahrs

There's probably a couple things at work and part of it is impedance & loading issues. Some of it might be attributable to a -10 vs. +4 thing too.

I'm surprised that this sort of thing hasn't been addressed by the manufacturers. Preamps and consoles have trims, impedance switches and all sort of doodads and little amplifiers or transformers and gain-stagin options or whatever to maximize the signal flow. Why is it that we think we can just dump any old signal into a converter and get a great result.

I think as time goes by and people get over their digital hysteria, and as more myths get exploded and people take a closer look at the whole chain, we may find that more of the problems with digital occur in the analog domain than we may have suspected.

-R

[Lek]

Originally Posted by Jay Kahrs

Is it anything to get worried about? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on how different it sounds and if the tone has become offensive or not. But realisticlly...man...it's a freakin' miracle that cassettes sound halfway decent to begin with. If you're only losing a tiny bit of low end, don't worry about it and make it up in the mix or at some other stage.

Hey Jay. It was not a tiny bit of low end; to my ears and senses, a lot of 'oomph' and 'kick' that could be heard when monitoring from the cassette deck was gone. But yes, I will just make it up at a later stage in the process.

Okay, if this is an impedance thing - what doodad/device do I need to transfer from my cassette deck to my spider? I've found this http://www.sonifex.co.uk/redbox/rbbl2_ld.shtml and http://www.tieline.com/Tieline_04/Pr...ons/AC400.html so far.

[Jay Kahrs]

Originally Posted by RKrizman

I think as time goes by and people get over their digital hysteria, and as more myths get exploded and people take a closer look at the whole chain, we may find that more of the problems with digital occur in the analog domain than we may have suspected.

Totally.

For me, at least half the battle was fully realizing, understanding and finally respecting 0dBfs as it relates to 0VU. When I started backing levels down the sound of everything opened up dramitcally and started to sound a lot better then it did when I printed super hot.

Now, let's confuse the issue by going from -10 to +4 and balanced to unbalanced and blah and blee and yeah...it gets pretty confusing unless you know some of the theorys about what's actually happening when you turn those knobs and patch around.

Greg - Either one of those boxes should work...there's a ton of used bump boxes out there for dirt like the Tascam & Fostex ones. If you really need to get one (I wouldn't unless I were doing a ton of this stuff but that's me) then I'd either go used & dirt cheap or get one from a place that will let you take it back. It's highly possible that you might not hear any kind of sonic improvement and all it's going to do is take care of the level difference...which is why we have control over input gains!

[RKrizman]

Originally Posted by Jay Kahrs

TNow, let's confuse the issue by going from -10 to +4 and balanced to unbalanced and blah and blee and yeah...it gets pretty confusing unless you know some of the theorys about what's actually happening when you turn those knobs and patch around.

So just to take it a step further, what actually happens in the analog front end of a converter? Is it analogous to line inputs on a console? Is it chips? Would it sound better if it was discrete? Class A? transformers?

Anybody know what really goes on up front and if it matters?

-R

[Jay Kahrs]

Originally Posted by RKrizman

So just to take it a step further, what actually happens in the analog front end of a converter? Is it analogous to line inputs on a console? Is it chips? Would it sound better if it was discrete? Class A? transformers?

Absolutely!!!

thumbsup

Or we could just say, it depends...