Interesting project started by Michael Fremer

Will the result determine which technology is better or who is the better mastering engineer?

There is a huge sample of quality recordings out there both analog and digital in various formats. Not sure what two additional data points can prove regarding digital versus analog other than how the two cases covered are different and why. The answer would probably lie mostly in the skills of the people involved using the tools they choose to do their thing.

Even then what is determined about those two resulting recordings would have no bearing on any of the rest out there both digital and analog. Either technology might win anytime in any particular case.

Unless I'm missing something?

Mapman- fair point. I think there is a tendency for people to say: digital master= sucks. I'm more of an early/original pressing (which country, which plant, etc) kinda guy, but given that many remasters today are from digital files (not talking about stuff that started life recorded digitally), perhaps it will show that not all digital is bad. (Kind of ironic coming from me, not that I'm a basher, but have no digital in my system). The Steve Wilson re-do's of Aqualung and Benefit both impressed me compared to numerous other early and later versions on vinyl, though much of the magic was in the remix, rather than simply the mastering medium. I haven't really followed the Fremer project in detail,was aware of it and chimed in originally just to point out that it does cost real money to do this. But, your point- that every record and mastering is different, is on target in my estimation.

I have the Wilson Audio LP Don and Peter referred to. Its purpose, as stated on the jacket notes, was:

... to produce a test recording of musical material to specifically demonstrate one test variable ... one generation of digital processing by a professional grade digital recorder. Any difference in sound between side one ("Original") and side two ("Digital") can only be caused by distortions introduced by the digital processing itself. All other excuses used by digital apologists to explain less than perfect sound from digital ... all have been cancelled out."

The LP was produced using very high quality material from two Wilson Audio recordings, one of ragtime piano and one of a jazz trio. They had been recorded and were played back during the mastering using Dave Wilson's custom 30 ips 1/2 inch analog recorder. Both masters were cut within one hour of each other using the same equipment, with levels carefully matched. The only difference between the two sides is that on the "digital" side the Soundstream 50 kHz 16 bit digital recorder, which as I recall was state of the art in its day, was inserted into the signal path between the analog tape machine and the mastering equipment.

That methodology made the question of which side was "better" irrelevant. The only question was the existence or non-existence of differences between the two sides. And exist they did, the differences being clearly audible, as I recall, even on the fairly modest system (by high end standards) that I was using in the mid-1980s.

Thirty or so years later it seems like a re-do of that kind of comparison would very much be of interest, even though I whole-heartedly agree with Mapman that "either technology might win anytime in any particular case." I will be signing up and contributing my $10.

Thanks, Peter, for calling this to our attention.

Regards,
-- Al

And since the mastering engineer is Kevin Gray I am confident. I have quite a few he mastered. The Blue Note reissues from musicmattersjazz are awesome.

I think if the mastering job is done by the same engineer, the results should still have validity and be of interest to all of us. I'm surprised to see so many skeptics and negative comments.