The recording does indeed have some saturation of the original tape. However it is not taken from an LP. The original was recorded on 3 track, 1/2 inch tape at 15 i.p.s. The remaster and remix for the original Columbia CD was done using one of the original tape machines to play the master tape. It was remastered in 20 bit with Sony's super bit mapping, which is the same thing as 'noise shaped dither' like I used on my doctored file.

I sent Gonk the entire CD that I prepared that has some modern and clean all digital recordings which play in their entireity in 16, then 12 and 8 bit. The effect of the bit depth reduction is easier to hear on the more current digital pieces. This CD will be making the rounds through this forum if anybody is interested.

One point in all this is that as the digital words get longer, it gets more difficult to hear the effects of the bit reduction i.e. it is harder to tell between 16 and 12 bit than from 12 bit to 8 bit. It is almost impossible to tell when switching from 24 bit to 20 bit, or to 16 bit. I have a number of original 24 recordings on hard disc and can do the switching on the fly to either 20 or 16 bit, from 24.

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited October 16, 2002).]