R2R Tape vs Vinyl - which is closer to the Master

[Mike]

Interesting Mike, to what end would you transfer the digital formats to tape? To get rid of the glare?


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I tried it for fun with a Paul Simon CD I love, but sucked on digital. Once I put it on tape, I couldn't believe the transformation. Night and day. More body, warmth, more organic.


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[Kuoppis]

I tried it for fun with a Paul Simon CD I love, but sucked on digital. Once I put it on tape, I couldn't believe the transformation. Night and day. More body, warmth, more organic.


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Yes, I can relate to that, very interesting.

I have been thinking whether I should start to make DSD copies of my vinyls for digital use. I might lose some of the vinyl authenticity, but it still might be nicer than a straight digital version in FLAC or something.

But So far it is still inconclusive to me.


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[Mike Lavigne]

I tried it for fun with a Paul Simon CD I love, but sucked on digital. Once I put it on tape, I couldn't believe the transformation. Night and day. More body, warmth, more organic.


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you are hearing (1) your preamp's input and output circuits (assuming your CD player was not direct into the RTR deck), plus (2) the input electronics of the RTR deck, plus (3) the output electronics of the RTR deck......in addition to the particular linearity of your transport, heads, etc.

so drawing a clear conclusion on the 'format's' influence result is a question.

dubbing processes are not all made equal.

with my Studers, deck to deck, it's pretty identical. I can make a dub of a dub of a dub and I don't get additive colorations. maybe the degree of 'air' is slightly less generationally, but that's about it. if it was overlaying something it would build up.

I absolutely agree that mastering a digital file to tape can be significant and we see lots of digitally recorded albums done this way for a good reason. but not all RTR decks do add that flavor like that. OTOH there is a bit of 'tape' continuousness (could be interpreted as a few things) that comes through when going from digital to tape.....that is seemingly not a part of the dubbing process tape to tape as coloration.