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Hi, Bill,<br>
<br>
I got into TV facilities engineering right out of university in 1974
and did that full-time until 2004 when I switched over to tape
restoration which I had started doing in 1998 part time. I could
hear the noise reduction of Dolby A (properly aligned) but didn't
hear the artifacts that I hear now once John's magic software
removes them, even though my hearing was better then, but less
trained. I actually had suggested that we consider Dolby A for ALL
1-inch type C video tapes as we were considering that switch in the
late 1970s. Julie Barnathan got me in his limo for a ride back to
the hotel after the NAB show one day and asked me, "What difference
am I going to hear on 3-inch speaker." No Dolby A on the 1-inch
machines. Which, with 20/20 hindsight was probably a good idea for
archiving and interchange.<br>
<br>
It's shocking the number of noise-reduction-encoded tapes that I
transfer that have no reference. I've gotten very good ad adjusting
Dolby B by ear. One can hear the mistracking if the overall level
remains the same and you adjust the machine's output level and the
monitor level together...it "snaps" into place. Of course, that
makes it impractical to use the cassette machine's built-in Dolby. I
use an outboard Dolby 422. <br>
<br>
I continue to be amazed at the number of people who don't really
understand this. If you haven't looked at the 361 manual link, it's
worth a look as it didn't help ease the confusion, but the rule is
the Dolby Tone goes to the centre dot on the Dolby meter (though I
think those meters weren't all that consistent--perhaps why they
went to LEDs in the 363 (A/SR) and 422 (B/C/S) processors. Sadly
those are no longer available.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
<br>
Richard<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2020-02-09 3:27 p.m., Bill Whitlock
via ProAudio wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1386668364.382279.1581280051471@mail.yahoo.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div style="color:black;font: 12pt Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've
been reading this thread with great interest - and admittedly
cringed at the talk of using A encoding as an "effect" - but I
can attest to the ignorance about multi-band "companding" by
many mastering engineers. I was manager of electronic
development engineering at Capitol from 1981-1988 and, toward
the end saw the mastering people grappling with the differences
between mastering for vinyl and cassettes and the "new" CD -
lots of opinions and very little science about reference and
peak levels. I was never directly involved in the mastering
process. Most of my work was developing improved record
electronics for 64x cassette duplication (Capitol "XDR" brand)
in the factories, including our own implementation of B&O's
HX Pro. In 1988, in our development lab, we were recording
cassettes at 64x directly from digital masters (they were
amazing first-gen analog). Anyway, because I understood the
physics of magnetic recording, as well as the companding
processes of Dolby A and B, I often got called into disputes
about reference levels and "Dolby tones" - and the importance of
machine calibration tapes of accurately-known fluxivity (185 vs
250 nWb <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">is</span>
a big deal). And, for what it's worth, I had pretty good ears
back in those days and could never hear the effects of Dolby A
if the signal chain was properly calibrated and set-up.
Therefore, I can completely understand the Dolby staff "eye
roll" and agree with Bob.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Bill Whitlock</div>
<div>AES Life Fellow</div>
<div>IEEE Life Senior</div>
<div>Whitlock Consulting</div>
<div>Ventura, CA</div>
<div>Office (805) 755-5018<br>
<br>
<br>
<div
style="font-family:arial,helvetica;font-size:10pt;color:black">-----Original
Message-----<br>
From: Bob Olhsson via ProAudio <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:proaudio@bach.pgm.com"><proaudio@bach.pgm.com></a><br>
To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:proaudio@bach.pgm.com">proaudio@bach.pgm.com</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:proaudio@bach.pgm.com"><proaudio@bach.pgm.com></a><br>
Sent: Sun, Feb 9, 2020 11:51 am<br>
Subject: Re: [ProAudio] FeralA - Recordings released encoded
with Dolby A<br>
<br>
<div id="yiv5360207976">
<style>#yiv5360207976 #yiv5360207976 -- _filtered {} _filtered {} #yiv5360207976 #yiv5360207976 p.yiv5360207976MsoNormal, #yiv5360207976 li.yiv5360207976MsoNormal, #yiv5360207976 div.yiv5360207976MsoNormal {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:sans-serif;} #yiv5360207976 a:link, #yiv5360207976 span.yiv5360207976MsoHyperlink {color:blue;text-decoration:underline;} #yiv5360207976 .yiv5360207976MsoChpDefault {} _filtered {} #yiv5360207976 div.yiv5360207976WordSection1 {} #yiv5360207976 </style>
<div>
<div class="yiv5360207976WordSection1">
<div class="yiv5360207976MsoNormal">A problem was that
Dolby A was designed for 185 nWb. record levels and
assumed tape hiss would be present to mask the
artifacts. Elevated Dolby levels were a bad sounding
mistake. I asked someone from Dolby about this at an
AES show. He rolled his eyes and said “Yes, most
Americans get it wrong.” A huge proportion of
British pop and classical records during the late
‘60s and ‘70s used properly aligned Dolby.</div>
<div class="yiv5360207976MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="yiv5360207976MsoNormal">Bob Olhsson
615-562-4346</div>
<div class="yiv5360207976MsoNormal"> </div>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1
1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in;">
<div class="yiv5360207976yqt6183181151"
id="yiv5360207976yqtfd35217">
<div class="yiv5360207976MsoNormal"
style="border:none;padding:0in;"><b>From: </b><a
rel="noopener noreferrer" shape="rect"
ymailto="mailto:proaudio@bach.pgm.com"
target="_blank"
href="mailto:proaudio@bach.pgm.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">Richard L. Hess via
ProAudio</a><br clear="none">
…Working with John on this has pointed out to me
how much damage Dolby A coding/decoding did to a
recording. Back in the day, my purist recording
friend, Don Ososke from San Francisco never used
Dolby as he hated what it did to the music. I
tried some dbx and found it horrid, but I needed
some NR on the choir recordings I was doing, so
I sprung for a pair of 361s and used them, but
I'm really glad we have that behind us now.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="yiv5360207976yqt6183181151"
id="yiv5360207976yqtfd43058">
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style="font-size:10.0pt;"> </span></div>
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<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Richard L. Hess email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:richard@richardhess.com">richard@richardhess.com</a>
Aurora, Ontario, Canada <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.richardhess.com/">http://www.richardhess.com/</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm">http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm</a>
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.</pre>
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