Holographic imaging

Detlof, in working with CD and LP mastering and with digital and analog master recordings, over and over again I am always struck and disappointed by the signal losses that occur during the mastering process, regardless of the format. If anything, the CD format seems to loose *more* during the process of going from master to produced copy than seems to happen with the LP.

When you are listening to the direct microphone feed, and then compare that to the results of a digital master file or a 1/2" analog master tape (regardless of tape speed) there is always a degradation noticable there too.

If you are familiar with this degradation, you can compensate **slightly** for its loss by microphone placement, but its tricky and most engineers will not take the time. I think this and the above phenomena is why there so few truly exceptional recordings, **especially** when you factor the performance into the equation!

When it comes down to it, I'll go for the performance nearly every time, and simple deal with whatever vulgarities the recording is otherwise. Such a world!

**above** the ensemble, which produces an odd perspective, unless you happen to know that that is where the mics are placed.

Wood floors and microphone height above floor are key in recording. The floor will produce comb filtering as the sound is reflective from it and cancels with teh primary sound - it creates a pleasing spacious sound. Depending on the instruments there are a variety of rule of thumb positions for mics - choral works are often recorded with overhead mics.

BTW - this happens with your speakers in your room too particularly in the low midbass where soudns radiate in all directions => you get quarter wave cancellations off the wall behind the speakers.

They key to this effect is a large flat reflective surface which is positioned symmetrically with repect to the microphone or listener. Some sudios have special plates just for this purpose although often recordings are now made in a an acoustically dead booth and th esoudn of a platye is added by using a reverb (the advantage is you can dial in any reverb you want)

For example side walls do not produce this effect in a listening room - only the rear wall behind the speaker and listener which is symmetric with the bass and midbass frequencies. It is the same for a microphone - if you want to maximize the effect then the mic needs to above the source of sound so that the sound is in between the microphone and the reflective floor.

I recommend Bob Katz book (Mastering) for people who want to read up on this. I am sure Ralph knows more than I do about all this - but I thought many readers may be unaware of this - although as an audiophile I think it is only natural that one should want to understand this stuff (nearly half of what we ever hear is reflected sound)

Let's hope the market recovers as well as this thread.

>>when it comes down to it, I'll go for the performance nearly every time<<

Ralph, how very right you are! Most of us, who love music, would not be in this hobby, if this were not so. It is those moments of bliss, where you forget about your rig and get drawn into the music, which makes this all worth while!

I use to really get drawn into the music with my Thorens TT, NAD 3020, and JBL19s when I was in college...hmmm.