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Written by Aenn Seidhe Priest
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Saturday, 11 April 2009 01:31 |
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This is not for the faint bank accounts.
Ingredients
Software player and encoder: Foobar2000 player with Secret Rabbit Code resampling plugin and BS2B "headphone stereo" plugin.
Free wave processor: SoX - features an analogue filter emulation.
CD audio declip utility: Declip Pro (32-bit) - fixes CD dynamics squashed/clipped by mastering.
Alternately (expensive): Waves S1 Stereoimager+ (Blumlein-style stereo imaging, great for headphones) and Izotope Trash (as dynamics processor).
Headphones: AKG K-240 Studio (Mk. II is more expensive and mostly the same thing, except for extras like vinyl pads; *not* K-242HD with a fixed cable) or AKG K-271 Studio (less bass, more isolation) or any other model with a mini-XLR socket. K-141 and K-171 aren't that recommended as they're supra-aural, more fatiguing and with a less natural sound. K-702 will boost total cost beyond $1000.
Cable for AKG headphones: Sweetcome Diva Mk. II or Sweetcome Diva Junior. Those are the best cost/performance cables.
Headphones, alternative: Denon AH-D2000 or Roland RH-300 or Roland RH-A30 or any of the fancier high-end Audio-Technica models - anything circumaural and top-of-the-line that can be recabled with star-quad.
Cable for alternative headphones: any star-quad recable.
Player: Edirol R-09HR or Korg MR196/24 recording deck. This is professional kit, all business, powered by rechargeable AA batteries, and swapping SD flash memory cards for storage.
High-density SD cards and Korg or Roland rechargeable AA batteries for the recording decks.
A card reader.
Interconnect: any silver twisted-pair mini-mini cable.
Amplifier: Minibox-D or Minibox-F from Head-Direct.
Codecs: FLAC, Monkey's Audio - anything to store upsampled and processed audio.
CD ripper/player: Exact Audio Copy.
File manager: Total Commander.
While at it, a decent 96/24 USB interface is Edirol UA-1EX - it also has a good clean headphone output.
A good amount of hard drive space is required for storing and processing 96/24 wave files.
Preparation
Secret Rabbit Code resampler
For CD albums, rip wave files. Resample to 96 KHz with Foobar2000 and Secret Rabbit Code "best sinc" algorithm. Save wave files as 96-KHz/24-bit integer or 32-bit float.
Process with Declip Pro or Izotope Trash analogue filter emulation first, to correct dynamics and remove any mastering "dirt". Save to 32-bit or 24-bit wave only, otherwise there will be progressive loss of detail below -6 dB - "16-bit cold and hollow" (that's the primary cause of the "CD loudness war", BTW).
Izotope Trash - filter input low, output high
Process dynamics with Izotope Trash (optional, but it helps contrast - set analogue filter "throw" to high - input gain low, output gain high) or SoX (free utility).
Stereo imaging can be done with Waves Stereoimager+ or similar plugin. Look for a parameter called "shuffle" or "crossfeed". There're several free imaging VST plugins and free VST hosts - KVR Audio has a listing. "Shuffle" is a reference to Blumlein Shuffle - a technique that simulates natural crossfeed at higher frequencies and bass boost at low frequencies that occur in the real world. Shuffle is more natural than many headphone crossfeed processors.
Bauer Stereophonic-to-binaural processor can convert "speaker stereo" to "headphone stereo" and is an alternative to Blumlein Shuffle implementations. This is a free utility. There is a command-line and a Foobar2000 plugin.
Once processing is done, wave files get converted to 96 KHz, 24-bit, and copied to the flash memory cards.
And, of course, there already're some recording labels offering high-quality original material in 88/24 and 96/24 formats. Even 192/24. These won't need any processing except maybe BS2B "headphone stereo" adaptation. HDTracks and Linn Records are two labels with online stores.
This is where the combination of Sweetcome Diva Mk. II, AKG K-240 Studio, Minibox-D, silver interconnect, and recording deck come into play.
Voila - stunning sound of music that owners of paltry 44-KHz players can't even dream about. And in the case of original 96/24 records it's a stunning lifelike music playback.
Processed files can be stored in 96 KHz/24-bit FLAC format (FLAC doesn't support floating point bit depth). Size reduction can be anywhere from 70% for very high dynamics to less than high MP3 bitrates (~300 kbps for 44/16 files) for quieter classical music.
Total Commander is a very efficient orthodox file manager; the likes of Windows Explorer and Mac Finder are cumbersome and slow next to it. It is entirely keystroke-based. Total Commander completely removes the need for player library maintenance, and it supports drag'n'drop, so an entire subdirectory link can be dropped onto a Foobar2000 playlist.
An external hard drive is probably another worthy addition, with DVDs for storing high-resolution FLAC albums offline.
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