I guess I had forgotten how dbx works. I do not have that capability. That would explain a lot. This is probably the only dbx piece of vinyl that I've ever owned. No plans to buy more either. I don't remember it with vinyl so much and associate it with tapes. Thanks though.
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After you brought this to my attention, I did a bit of reading on dbx albums. It seems that many enjoy them with the proper gear and it may be preferred over Dolby. I'm not likely to take that step.but never say never. When I had Dolby on a cassette deck, I never used it as it seemed to me to take away from what I started with. There was a time when I taped every album when it was new, put it away and listened to the tapes to preserve the LP's. Haven't done that in many years. I am much more careful with the records these days. Well cared for, they can last a lifetime. In the case of this record, I assumed it was just something that was done in the recording process, not thinking I would need "proper gear" to listen to it. They (dbx pressings) are few and far between so I guess it never became a "big thing" or at least not the norm. Thanks for setting me straight though. |
@billpete @cleeds is correct. The album is dbx encoded. You must have a dbx decoder in order to listen to the album correctly. It works on the same principle as Dolby A, B, and C. Dolby A was created for professional studios. When cassettes overtook the old cartridge 8 tracks. Remember them?:) Dolby saw a marketing opportunity in the consumer market. And so they developed Dolby B and eventually Dolby C. Soon all cassette decks were being built with Dolby B and C encoding/decoding capabilities. dbx came out with their own version and went after the same market. You could purchase outboard dbx encoders/decoders. Some receivers would have dbx decoding built in. To listen to a dbx encoded recording without decoding it. You will get garbage. Like Dolby encoding. dbx increases the high frequencies in the recording. Since tape hiss is essentially white noise. It is most noticeable in the upper frequencies. When the recording is decoded. It decreases those frequencies in the same manner that it increased them. By doing so, it also decreases the tape hiss which resides in those frequencies. Causing the recording to be much more free of tape hiss and also the inherent noise caused by the electronics. Neither Dolby A, B, C or dbx is truly transparent. It is effective at reducing the noise. But it also affects the actual sound of the recording. So it comes at a cost. I was never a fan of analog noise reduction. Especially on the consumer level. Until, to Dolby's credit, they improved on the original Dolby A that was being used in professional studios. They introduced Dolby SR. The SR stands for Spectral Reduction. It was a dynamic form of noise reduction, that was capable of choosing what frequencies were enhanced and by how much on-the-fly. No one but Dolby knows exactly how it worked. It was a closely guarded secret. But it was truly remarkable. Instead of using it on the master mix down copy. You would use it on every channel of the multitrack recorder. I worked with a Studer 2" 24 track machine. At 15 ips (inches/sec) 24 tracks of tape hiss is a lot of hiss. If you ran at 30 ips it was even worse. I had 24 Dolby SR encoders in-line with the input of the tape machine and 24 Dolby SR decoders in-line with the output of the tape machine. The results were truly remarkable. At that time, I doubt that there was any recording studio of quality that didn't use it. It was a game changer. But it was relatively short lived. Because digital recording was beginning to raise its ugly head. Not just with the appearance of CDs on the consumer end. But in the studios as well. Sony introduced the first multitrack digital recorder around the same time. They were very expensive and very few studios could afford them. They recorded at 48K/16bit. I have already discussed what I think of a 16 bit word depth. But that is when you started to see albums that would say DIGITALLY RECORDED. It was used as a marketing tool. A big deal. Dolby was quick to realize that analog was going to be a thing of the past. And began putting all of their research into digital formats. Which was a very smart move. Because Dolby's AC3 format which they named Dolby Digital would be chosen by the FCC to be the standard audio format for digital TV. Within the years that followed, tape would give way to hard drives. And nonlinear editing. Such as ProTools. I was in charge of audio for a PBS facility. I did audio for video. I worked through the conversion to digital television. If you think that the audio world was impacted by digital. You should have seen what it was like in the video world. When the FCC announced that it was remapping the frequency spectrum and announced a deadline date when all television would be broadcast digitally. It impacted even the smallest TV stations. Rendering basically all of their equipment archaic and useless. It also impacted the consumer. Basically rendering their televisions archaic and useless. I worked through that transition. It was a nightmare. The technology wasn't even developed yet. And it would change from day to day. If a station invested in a piece of gear at the wrong time. There was a good chance that it would be rendered useless within a matter of months. Obviously, TV also includes audio. And so audio was impacted just as hard. It was my job to choose the correct equipment and when to buy it. The speed at which technology was changing the landscape increased to a point that it became impossible to keep up with it. From that point on it never relented. Up until the day that I retired. I knew that the day that I walked out of that facility that my knowledge of the landscape would be obsolete within months. It was a sad day for me when I was forced to wheel my Studer 24 track 2" analog tape machine equipped with 24 channels of Dolby SR out of the door to be taken to the garbage heap. I loved that machine. It was truly a thing of beauty. Once again I apologize for the digital history tutorial. I found your dbx copy on Discogs. But it doesn't have a date for the release. Do you happen to know when you purchased it? Without a decoder it is useless to you. Although I am sure that there are people that collect dbx encoded vinyl. So it might worth quite a bit. I didn't even know that they made dbx encoded vinyl. I thought that they had used the dbx encode/decode at some point in the chain before pressing it. And was just using it as a marketing ploy. Had I known that it was pressed encoded. I would have warned you. It wasn't until I found it on Discogs that I realized that it was actually encoded and that you would need a decoder. You might be able to find one on eBay for not much money. They are basically worthless. But who knows? Maybe they are coveted by collectors. If nothing else. It is a unique and probably rare album to have in your collection. I just checked on Discogs. There are only three NM copies for sale in the US. And one NM for sale in Bulgaria. They are selling for around $100 + shipping. In the spirit of this discussion. Last night I was thinking that we haven't yet heard the 2008 remaster that Island Records did and was only distributed in the EU. I looked and I was able to purchase a NM copy of it for $40. And so I did. Just out of curiosity. It sure beats the $200 that I would have to spend for an Analog Productions remaster. So I have both an A&M first pressing and a 2008 Island remaster on their way to me. It will be interesting to hear both of them and compare. Have fun with your new gear. I hope that you are happy with it.
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@rudd2004 thanks for the recommendation for Masterpieces! Sound is gorgeous (I'm listening on Tidal through a Marantz 8b), and the story of the recording is fascinating. For anyone else who's interested: https://slate.com/culture/2014/12/duke-ellingtons-best-album-masterpieces-by-ellington-reviewed-on-the-new-vinyl-lp-reissue-from-analogue-productions-it-sounds-better-than-ever.html |
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