When did albums start having a full digital workflow start to finish? (Without a digital to analogue to digital conversion during the mixing)

[LuvMyQuad]

Not at all. From the article:

"The main limitation of the code is that it only covers the type of tape recorder used, not taking into account other equipment used in the production of the recording. For example, during the mixing stage (the middle letter in the code) many DDD recordings may have actually been converted from digital to analog, mixed on an analog mixing console, but converted back to digital and digitally recorded, thus earning it a D in the relevant part of the code. In addition to this, many recordings have effects or parts of different recordings added on to them, creating more confusion for the code."

And note the letters refer to the type of recorder used, not the entire production chain.

To add further ambiguity, the middle letter refers to "mixing/editing". And those might not be the same. A good example is Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend. It's listed as ADD, which would imply mixing to digital. However, it was actually mixed to analog; it seems that the middle D referred to editing, such as the fade-up at the start of the title track, which isn't present on the mix. AADD?

There's a good reason SPARS codes were finally dropped.

Yeah. I finally understood it

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Night

What about this?

 

[Sal1950]

There's a good reason SPARS codes were finally dropped.

Amen, you can't count on them to tell you anything fully accurate.
Much like the Hi-Res Audio logo I've discussed here before.
Mark Waldrep of AIX records fought valiantly for the Hi-Res Audio logo to represent something real.
It minimally should denote something akin to his labels offerings.

"Every title on this site was recorded and produced at 96 kHz/24-bits without any analog stages or processing, without any conversion, and without any signal processing"

Instead the powers the be decided that anything released at better than CD data rates is "High Res" regardless of its provenance. In other words you can take an old 1920s Edison cylinder recording, copy it to a 24/48 digital file and call it a Hi-Res recording.
Just nuts, but it sells product and makes money.

https://www.pooraudiophile.com/2015/10/an-interview-with-dr-mark-waldrep-on-hi-res-music.html

 

[KG10]

Amen, you can't count on them to tell you anything fully accurate.
Much like the Hi-Res Audio logo I've discussed here before.
Mark Waldrep of AIX records fought valiantly for the Hi-Res Audio logo to represent something real.
It minimally should denote something akin to his labels offerings.

"Every title on this site was recorded and produced at 96 kHz/24-bits without any analog stages or processing, without any conversion, and without any signal processing"

Instead the powers the be decided that anything released at better than CD data rates is "High Res" regardless of its provenance. In other words you can take an old 1920s Edison cylinder recording, copy it to a 24/48 digital file and call it a Hi-Res recording.
Just nuts, but it sells product and makes money.

https://www.pooraudiophile.com/2015/10/an-interview-with-dr-mark-waldrep-on-hi-res-music.html

View attachment 103047

Out of interest what would you consider more "hi-res" 24/44.1 or 16/48?

 

[Sal1950]

Out of interest what would you consider more "hi-res" 24/44.1 or 16/48?

Personally, I believe MAYBE a 24/44.1 one.
Under extreme conditions the higher dynamic range of 24 bit sampling might have an audible advantage. I highly doubt the slightly extended frequency response of 48k could make an audible improvement.
Simply an opinion.

 

[KG10]

Personally, I believe MAYBE a 24/44.1 one.
Under extreme conditions the higher dynamic range of 24 bit sampling might have an audible advantage. I highly doubt the slightly extended frequency response of 48k could make an audible improvement.
Simply an opinion.

Have you ever did an abx test between a 16bit and 24bit file?

Asking since many people say that 24bit has no audible differenc to 16bit (when the sampling rate is 44.1 that is)

 

[Sal1950]

Have you ever did an abx test between a 16bit and 24bit file?

No

Asking since many people say that 24bit has no audible differenc to 16bit (when the sampling rate is 44.1 that is)

I also believe that to be true, but have not tested myself.
If possible, it would require some very special demanding source material.

 

[barfle]

Mark Waldrep did participate (perhaps even organize) a test, although not to clinical standards, where a handful of 192/24 files were downsampled to 16/44.1 and several other reduced data rates, then padded to make the filesizes similar, and had many of his subscribers see if they could pick the original high resolution files. I know I couldn’t hear differences worth noting, and that was also true of pretty. much everyone else. My hearing isn’t that of a 20-year-old any more, though.

Scott Wilkinson interviewed him about that experiment a couple of years ago (I’m pretty sure it’s still on YouTube), and he’s still convinced that anything beyond 96/24 is a waste, and I certainly agree, at least with my gear and my ears.

 

[Sal1950]

Mark Waldrep did participate (perhaps even organize) a test,

Here's the results of the test you were talking about (I believe)
They were very controversial in the industry, but personally I believe they are very close to the truths.
https://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6993

 

[seoman27]

Have you ever did an abx test between a 16bit and 24bit file?

Asking since many people say that 24bit has no audible differenc to 16bit (when the sampling rate is 44.1 that is)

Uhm thats kind a weird.
24Bit has more headroom.
To compare it to 16 bit you have to amplify the headroom away.
I think this bit wise testing makes nosense.
The 24Bit track can hold a more dynamic track the 16bit can not.
Comparing a track that cab ben 'hold' by both makes no sense at all.

 

[barfle]

Uhm thats kind a weird.
24Bit has more headroom.
To compare it to 16 bit you have to amplify the headroom away.
I think this bit wise testing makes nosense.
The 24Bit track can hold a more dynamic track the 16bit can not.
Comparing a track that cab ben 'hold' by both makes no sense at all.

The point is whether or not that added headroom is audible. 16 bits can give over 90db of dynamic range, and that’s pretty close to the limit of what most people can hear. Expanding beyond that may not be noticeable by many, perhaps a few.

 

[jshep5]

Are we considering albums recorded direct to 2-channel? Because I think some classical ones were made in the 70s...

Telarc CD-80041 featuring Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture was digitally recorded with a Soundstream Digital Tape Recorder at 16-bit, 50 kHz (!) on September 6 and 8, 1978. I believe at that time, the CD Red Book standard had not be finalized. This CD was released in 1979. That was the earliest all digital release I know of.

 

[lukpac]

Telarc CD-80041 featuring Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture was digitally recorded with a Soundstream Digital Tape Recorder at 16-bit, 50 kHz (!) on September 6 and 8, 1978. I believe at that time, the CD Red Book standard had not be finalized. This CD was released in 1979. That was the earliest all digital release I know of.

The LP was released in 1979. The CD not until 1983.