cjacek
Analogue Enthusiast
I found this perusing the net. It's most fascinating, especially that it echos many of our members' thoughts on this very subject. The article is from the early 80's. 
Source: http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/194/
CD: A Lie Repeated Often Enough Becomes Truth
Doug Sax & Larry Archibald, December, 1983
Larry Archibald on CD:
This article on Compact Discs and CD players is by Doug Sax, president of Sheffield Records and a longtime opponent of digital recording. J. Gordon Holt offers a response elsewhere in this issue, in which he advises readers to buy a Compact Disc player as soon as they can afford it. Gordon in general hails the Compact Disc as the greatest thing to hit audio since the stereophonic LP.
Sax's article was initially written for Billboard magazine. Billboard also ran a response from Peter Burkowitz of Polygram entitled "Sax on CD: A Bigoted Attack." We don't have room or permission to run the Burkowitz reply but, if anything, it was even more extreme than Sax's original article, though more in line with Stereophile's editorial position. Statements like the following have simply never been borne out in the entire history of the recording industry: "there are no means of adding anything to, or subtracting from, the master tape" (in CD mastering); and "16-bit uniform quantization digital recording and reproduction, including the CD, does not, and cannot, add or subtract audible sensations of any kind. Period." (emphasis added)
Sax has carried his anti-CD campaign further, in a letter to 140 high-end audio manufacturers. In fact, our original intent was to print that letter, but we are bowing to Sheffield's desire to have reprinted the Billboard article. The letter appealed for an end to silence on the CD (from high-end manufacturers), and contained its own forceful language: "Clearly the CD does not match the abilities of a digital master tape"; "it (the CD) is a finite, low-resolution, synthesize model of its input. The only thing infinite about the CD is the BS."; "I simply cannot enjoy music that has been digitally processed."
Doug Sax has proved himself to be one of the best producers of audiophile discs in the world, especially when it comes to sonics. Stereophile's reviews of Sheffield discs have become practically boring they are so unanimously raves. All the more surprising, then, that one of Sheffield's greatest fans, J. Gordon Holt, should have such profound disagreement with him on the subject of digital recording in general and CD in particular.
It should be noted that Sax is making two distinct points: 1) he "respects the ability of digital recording systems to store energy," but finds digital recordings musically unacceptable; and 2) the Compact Disc is a woefully inadequate version of the digital master tape—you might as well compare the sound of a cheap Sansui to a Conrad-Johnson Premier One.
For the record, there is some disagreement in the recording industry about Sax's statements. Jack Renner of Telarc frankly feels that the CDs Telarc is now producing are identical to their digital master tapes. The particular sound you get from the CD depends on the player you use. It's Renner's opinion that the Philips Magnavox players provide a significantly more accurate version; he feels the Sony has a glassy high end.
Sax's statements about the British press don't tell quite the whole story. Readers are recommended to the excellent British high fidelity magazine, Hi-Fi News & Record Review (HFN/RR), in whose pages are found both high condemnation and vigorous defense of the Compact Disc. [HFN/RR was edited at this time by John Atkinson.—Ed.]
As we have noted in these pages before, there seems to be no middle ground about digital, particularly CDs. Having heard truly excellent sound from CDs, I simply cannot condemn the process. There seems to be even more evidence for accepting digital recording as an acceptable medium: our experience with the Sony PCM Fl bears this out, as do the records from Sonic Arts.
I think it is unwise, however, to put all the blame for the many terrible-sounding CDs on bad miking, bad mixing, etc. These were all present with analog records, and I simply don't believe that the analog record-making process has that kind an effect on poor engineering practices. In other words, I think there is still much to learn about how to produce truly excellent digital recordings, and perhaps faults in the processes by which the digital master tape is turned into a Compact Disc—or in the digital master tapes themselves.
At this point, the debate over CD and digital is still a very spirited one and we are all learning more because of it. Not the least important result has been a resurgence of analog discplaying equipment, as if to meet The Digital Challenge (as Monster Cable puts it). Let's keep our minds open and try to learn from both the critics and proponents of CD.—Larry Archibald
Doug Sax on CD:
We've never had anything for the home like the Compact Disc before. Using digitally coded pits read by a laser, it achieves noise-free reproduction without wear. Although less than 5" in diameter, it can contain over one hour of uninterrupted music—and that music will have an impressive dynamic range with a full frequency response.
CD is the first new storage medium of any viability since the compact cassette, and its parentage is indeed the same, the ever impressive Philips. Unlike the cassette, the CD has no ability to record.
Its impressive list of features would seem to guarantee success. All the discs are compatible with all the players, regardless of manufacturer. The incompatibility mistakes of four-channel reproduction are not being made again.
Launching a new storage medium for the home is an enormous task. The investment in Europe and Japan has been prodigious. The CD claims to offer "perfect sound, forever," there by automatically satisfying the demands of both the high fidelity and audiophile markets. As production increases and the costs of both players and discs come down, the CD is slated to replace the LP altogether.
The only question left for me to decide is whether to retire immediately or try to hold an a few more years, inasmuch as one company that I head is an audiophile label and the other is concerned solely with disc mastering.
One can understand, then, that I have watched with more than casual interest the unprecedented promotion for the CD. The traditionally noncritical audio magazines in the United States have been positively drooling over the merits of the CD. This created a demand for the player months before they even went on sale.
Recently, CD players and discs have become available across the country and, for the first time, all have the opportunity to compare its performance to the rhetoric surrounding it. I was most interested in popular product with which I am familiar. I certainly didn't expect perfect sound; nor do I feel the CD needs anything more than very good sound to succeed since its other advantages are so obvious.
But what I have heard on many players, and on more discs than I would ever care to listen to again, is mediocre sound, sound that is often unappealing and fatiguing. Many engineers who have auditioned the CD have had the same reaction.
I have been on record, since I first heard a digital master tape, that there is an enormous price to be paid, in musical terms, for the noise-free performance of digital. Although digital storage is not my cup of tea, I nevertheless have a great respect for how well a professional digital recorder performs. I can hear obvious virtues that could easily please some of the people all of the time.
No such respect can be engendered by the CD, however. A handful of cheap chips and a few "inaudible" digital generations have eaten at its heart and soul. Its performance no more resembles a professional recorder than a production Chevrolet matches a NASCAR racer.
The CD is going to force the consumer to come to grips with the problems of digital technology, first because the CD is the worst presentation of that technology, and second because all the music heard from the CD will have these digital colorations even if the master tape was recorded in analog form.
In Los Angeles, the recording capital of the world, the storage medium of choice for over 90% of all commercial albums is analog.
For the last four years, manufacturers and magazines have answered negative responses to digital recording with sentiments that state, "It is the fault of the LP record. The LP cannot handle the information that is stored on a digital master. Wait until you hear it in a pure digital form."
The CD has only been out in limited quantities for two months, and already the high-fidelity magazines are receiving complaints about its sound, complaints that are generally aimed at the commercial product that is the backbone of our industry.
The answer in essence says, "Since the CD replicated the master tape, the faults lie in the engineering. Engineers are going to have to use better microphones and less EQ to satisfy a medium as revealing as the CD." That's a lot of BS! A lot of good sound is being lost and a lot of unmusical sound is being added between the master tape and the finished CD.
That's my opinion, and also the opinion of Bernie Grundman, A&M's renowned disc cutter. Eventually the buck will have to stop where it belongs, on the shortcomings of the CD system itself.
Who has approved these discs before they went on sale? Some of the commercial discs appear to have been altered from their original concept. It seems that someone with no taste or knowledge of the music has "improved" on the original. In many cases, a vital process has been eliminated—the participation of the producer and engineer. I find it amazing that, after a fortune has been spent to develop and market a new technology, producers or engineers are rarely involved to insure the musical quality of the finished product. The ultimate sales potential of the CD will be determined by word of mouth, and the word on the street is that it is a big disappointment sonically.
In evaluating classical recordings, the British audio press noted for performing critical listening tests, has recently published reviews that are scathingly unfavorable. Some reviewers cited an inability to listen to the CD for any length of time. Listening to a complete disc was usually beyond their perserverance. No characteristic could be more undesirable in a music storage medium.
If one believes that good promotion, many desirable features, and the absence of noise will justify the CD system, then its future should be fine. But I believe that we are offering music, not silence, and an audio player with a disc price of $17.98 has got to offer more. It has to offer the one thing that the CD is struggling with—excellent sound that is accessible to all.
The last thing our industry needs is a new format that offers half the sound for twice the price.—Doug Sax
Source: http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/194/
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