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My first encounter with K2 Mastering

I'd like to share my first experience with K2 mastering. I received Chinese music CD "Red Cliff Capriccio" featuring Wei Li renowned Guzheng player. Guzheng is a string instrument (zither family) that is large horizontal box (size of electric piano) with approx. 20 strings on the top (four octave range). Recording was made in Skylark Studios known for low background noise with close miking that gives more of "orchestral" quality. Expressive power of this instrument is absolutely incredible with powerful transient and loudness while at the same time soft passages are clean and delicate. I've never experienced such purity and dynamics in any recording I have. I don't know what is better in K2 mastering but result is incredible on standard redbook CD. I'm sold - what is your experience with K2 mastering?
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bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,958 posts
 
Kijanki,
I meant to answer your question but it slipped my mind! Anyway, better late than never....
In the original K2 & in the newer K2HD processes the key does lie in the A-D conversion from the master tapes/original digital recording and then in the subsequent down-conversion & truncation to 16 bits. Here is some info on the K2HD mastering process:
http://hificable.dk/k2-hd-mastering/
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,958 posts
 
Kijanki,
here is a bit more technical info on JVC's K2 process:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Resolution_Compact_Disc

it seems that besides the A/D & down-conversion, the aspects of making a physical disk are also precision controlled.
This reminds me of several (yester year) home-use CD burners (such as the Yamaha) where we could burn longer pits. These burned CDs sounded much better than the commercial CDs but the penalty was that all the tracks not always fitted onto 1 CD.
kijanki's avatar
kijanki OP
4,428 posts
 
Bombaywalla, Thank you for the links - very interesting. Many people assume that 16/44.1 has to be perfect because Nyquist says so. Nyquist criteria requires no signal above half of the sampling frequency or signal would fold (alias) to 0Hz and up. That is impossible to do perfectly and any close to brick wall filter introduces non-linear phase (uneven group delays) screwing up summing of harmonics. Also Nyquist criteria applies to continuous waves only. Reconstruction of signal becomes difficult with short duration time and high frequency (cymbals), since SINC functions (that suppose to correct limited frequency response caused by limited time/duration) sum very limited number of terms introducing interpolation error. That's where people hear more natural sound from Vinyl or SACD. On the other hand Master tapes have less of a problem being recorded at 192kHz, more than 9.6x upper limit of 20kHz compare to 2.2x in redbook CD. All this suggest that downsampling process is extremely important to CD sound quality. I already enjoy standard redbook CD the way it is (perhaps have less than golden ears) but quality of this K2 mastering, while still in 16/44.1 format, make me ecstatic.
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