Question about Dealing with CX-encoded Albums

[cubdukat]

I recently picked up a copy of one of my favorite albums, Claude Bolling's "Toot Suite," only to find out after I got it home that it was one of CBS' few CX-encoded albums. I was unable to find a CX decoder on eBay, so I may have to emulate it in DCart10.

From what I've read, it compresses the signal 2:1 during the cutting process, and the decoder undoes that. If I use the Expander section of the Dynamics tool and setting it to a 2.0 ratio, would that be sufficient to undo the compression? The article I read says that CX-encoded albums are listenable without the decoder, but I'm ripping it right now like that, and it sounds kinda flat, with no low end.

[Craig Maier]

Hi - I have never tried that. I suspect that I would do two things. First, I would use the dyamics processor as you indicated in expansion mode - - - it may take some adjustments of the attack and release times to get it to track correctly. Lastly, I would bring up the Virtual Phono Preamp and use the bass control to bring back the bass by around 6.0 dB with the mids and treble set to 0 dB. I might also consider reversing the two processes, meaning applying the VPP first and then the Dynamics Processor Expander. Let me know if that does the trick.

Craig