Tom Jung, a Digital Audio Pioneer
/23 July 2025
Tom Jung is a pioneering figure in the world of digital audio, whose career has spanned analogue tape, early digital experimentation, and the forefront of high-resolution formats such as SACD and DSD. Beginning as a disc-cutting and location recording engineer in Minneapolis, Jung co-founded Sound 80, the first studio to make commercial digital recordings using a prototype 3M recorder. His frustration with the limitations of both analogue and PCM technologies led him to establish DMP (Digital Music Products) in 1983, one of the first labels to release jazz on compact disc and a consistent innovator in digital recording. Jung’s commitment to capturing music as naturally and transparently as possible has influenced decades of recording practice, and his work remains a benchmark in the pursuit of sonic purity.
Early Beginnings
The Foundation of Sound 80
Tom Jung’s path to founding DMP (Digital Music Products) in 1983 was shaped by two decades of hands-on experience in nearly every aspect of the recording process, beginning in his hometown of Minneapolis. At just 20 years old, in 1963, Jung began working at Kay Bank Recording, a local studio that also operated its own pressing plant. There, he cut 16-inch transcription discs for radio stations, supervised pressing operations, and handled location recordings at high schools and colleges.
Using an Ampex monophonic tape recorder, he would capture performances by school bands and choirs, later editing the tapes and cutting disc masters himself. This early work gave Jung a thorough grounding in recording, editing, and mastering, as well as an appreciation for the technical challenges of analogue media. During this time, he also worked on a wide variety of musical styles, including polka, jazz, classical, and rock’n’roll, and was involved in the recording of notable tracks such as “Surfin’ Bird” by The Trashmen.
In 1969, Jung co-founded Sound 80, a professional recording studio in Minneapolis, alongside composer Herb Pilhofer. The studio name was suggested by a marketing expert who had previously coined the name Cure 81 for Hormel ham. Sound 80 quickly built a strong reputation for high-quality recordings and became one of the most innovative studios of the era. By the mid-1970s, engineers from nearby 3M approached Sound 80 to test a prototype digital recorder.
This moment would profoundly influence Jung’s career. This early exposure to digital audio opened his eyes to its potential for reducing noise, wow, and flutter, which were problems he had long battled in analogue formats. Jung was particularly impressed by the cleaner, more stable playback of piano recordings, which had always been difficult to capture accurately on tape or disc.
In 1979, after a decade of growth at Sound 80, Jung made the decision to relocate to New York. He had become increasingly involved in management and wanted to return to creative work. Taking with him the mobile recording truck he had built himself, named Road 80, Jung began freelancing as an engineer for film scores, jingles, and studio sessions. His remote work included projects with major artists, including recording Billy Joel’s Songs in the Attic for Columbia Records under producer Phil Ramone.
He also engineered scores for major motion pictures such as Dressed to Kill, Star 80, and The Cotton Club, working with composers such as Pino Donaggio, Ralph Burns, and John Barry. During this period, Jung developed strong working relationships with leading New York session musicians including Warren Bernhardt, Joe Beck, Bob Mintzer, and others who would later become key artists for his new label.
These cumulative experiences, combined with a growing dissatisfaction with the technical compromises of analogue and early PCM digital formats, led Jung to form DMP in 1983. This coincided with the launch of the compact disc format. With a deep knowledge of recording, mastering, and digital conversion, and an existing network of world-class musicians, Jung was in a unique position to launch a label that would push the boundaries of fidelity and production values. DMP’s early releases, recorded live to two-track digital and pressed to CD in Japan, marked the beginning of a new era in jazz recording and digital audio.
The Legendary
Tom Jung
Tom Jung
Establishing the
DMP Record Label
The history of DMP (Digital Music Products), founded by Tom Jung in 1983, is a story of technological innovation, audiophile-grade production values, and an unwavering commitment to musical integrity. From its inception, DMP was conceived not as a traditional record label, but as a platform to explore and realise the full potential of digital audio, years before it became an industry standard. Jung’s deep background in analogue and early digital engineering, paired with his discontent with the compromises of analogue tape and the emerging PCM formats, led him to seek a better alternative. DMP became the vessel through which he would pursue that mission, ultimately changing how many viewed the possibilities of recorded sound.
The label’s first releases in 1983, which included Tricycle by Flim & the BB’s and albums by pianist Warren Bernhardt and bassist Jay Leonhart, were groundbreaking. These were among the first jazz albums ever released on compact disc at a time when the CD market was dominated by classical music. Sanyo, then one of the few manufacturers capable of pressing CDs, produced these discs in Japan. Jung convinced them to press his jazz releases at a time when there were fewer than a hundred CDs in existence worldwide. This made Tricycle not only the first jazz CD, but also a global demonstration disc known for its live-to-two-track digital purity. Its dynamic range, transparency, and sonic clarity were so impressive that it won CD of the Year in CD Review magazine and became a reference disc in both consumer and professional circles.
These early DMP recordings were recorded on a Mitsubishi X-80 Digital Tape Recorder, as were all recordings through to the late 1980s. The Mitsubishi X-80 Digital Recorder used a proprietary 16bit PCM digital recording format with a sample rate of 50.4kHz, which was not compatible with the standard 44.1kHz sample rate used by the Compact Disc (CD) format. This meant that recordings made on the Mitsubishi X-80 could not be directly transferred to CDs or other digital recording systems that used the CD format. By 1990’s Tom Rotella album Without Words, DMP moved onto using newer technology, 9inluding a Yamaha 19-bit, 64 times oversampling Delta Sigma (Bit Stream) analogue to digital converter, a Yamaha 24-bit digital mixing console and Sony PCM-2500 and Sony PCM 3324 digital recorders.
DMP’s catalogue soon expanded to include a wide range of jazz and fusion artists, many of whom were active in the New York studio scene and had worked with Jung previously. Artists such as Lynne Arriale, Chuck Loeb, Joe Beck, Bob Mintzer, Ali Ryerson, Joe Morello, and the Thom Rotella Band became part of the DMP family. Each release was crafted with minimal miking, no overdubs, and an emphasis on live ensemble performance. This purist approach was central to the label’s philosophy, placing the focus squarely on musicianship and natural acoustics rather than studio manipulation.
Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, DMP continued to innovate. In 1987, Jung employed high-end recording equipment from Cello for key releases such as Warren Bernhardt’s Hands On and Flim & the BB’s Neon. In 1991, DMP became the first label to use 20-bit recording and conversion technology, debuting it on Chuck Loeb’s Balance. This pursuit of greater resolution and cleaner signal paths was relentless, driven by Jung’s dissatisfaction with the limitations of PCM audio.
In 1995, DMP took another step forward by introducing a form of surround sound into its Big Band Tribute series. Albums such as Carved in Stone, The Glenn Miller Project, and Salutes Duke Ellington implemented compatible surround techniques, enhancing spatial realism without compromising two-channel playback. In 1996, the label released Big Band Trane, the tenth consecutive album from the Bob Mintzer Big Band, solidifying its role as a long-term creative home for respected artists.
The next major leap came with the adoption of Direct Stream Digital (DSD), the high-resolution one-bit format developed by Sony and Philips for their Super Audio CD (SACD) platform. DMP was among the earliest adopters of the format. In 1997, Alto by Joe Beck and Ali Ryerson became the first commercial recording made using Sony’s prototype DSD system, which sampled audio at 2.8224 MHz. By 1998, DMP was using Meitner-designed A/D converters to further refine its capture chain, beginning with Just Jobim by Manfredo Fest.
In 2000, DMP released Gaudeamus: Sacred Feast, the world’s first multichannel SACD. The recording used six discrete microphones feeding six channels of DSD with no panning, no processing, and no overdubs. This project epitomised Jung’s minimalist recording philosophy and highlighted the strengths of multichannel SACD as a format for capturing true acoustic environments.
What set DMP apart from other audiophile labels was not just its sonic excellence, but the sense of authenticity in its recordings. The label consistently favoured live ensemble performances captured in pristine acoustic settings. There was a deliberate avoidance of editing, overdubbing, or artificial reverb, a philosophy rooted in Jung’s early live-to-two-track techniques at Sound 80 and Kay Bank Recording. DMP’s sessions were about performance, not post-production.
Although the label never pursued mass-market success, its influence within the recording industry was profound. DMP’s recordings were frequently used as reference material by engineers, speaker designers, and mastering studios around the world. Its embrace of emerging formats like SACD and its use of the most advanced digital conversion technology available kept it at the bleeding edge of high-resolution recording for over two decades.
By the early 2000s, as the music industry began shifting toward lossy digital formats and streaming, DMP remained committed to quality over convenience. Even as mainstream attention moved elsewhere, the label’s catalogue remained a vital resource for audiophiles and engineers who cared about sound fidelity. Tom Jung continued to work on SACD projects from his home studio, which was equipped with professional-grade monitoring and conversion systems, ensuring that his legacy of uncompromised audio excellence would continue into the high-resolution digital age.
DMP stands today as one of the most influential digital labels of the 20th century. Its recordings not only pioneered new technical standards but also preserved the artistry of countless musicians in a format that continues to reveal new detail with every listen. Through DMP, Tom Jung redefined what was possible in recorded music and laid the groundwork for future generations of high-fidelity digital audio.
Flim & the BBs Tricycle was the worlds first Jazz CD and became an audiophile demonstration disc the world over.
The Mitsubishi X-80 Digital Recorder used to record the majority of DMPs 1980s CD releases.
Tom Jung's
Relentless Pursuit of Perfection
Tom Jung’s dedication to sonic excellence did not stop at simply being one of the first to embrace digital audio. His lifelong pursuit of perfection led him to revisit and remaster several key titles from the DMP catalogue using superior technology as it became available. Among the most notable examples of this commitment are the four 24‑karat gold CD editions released by DMP in the 1990s: Tricycle and Big Notes by Flim & the BB’s, the self-titled Thom Rotella Band, and NY Cats Direct by John Tropea.
These special editions were not just reissues dressed in fancy packaging. They were meticulously remastered using DMP’s then-evolutionary 20-bit recorder/mixer system, custom interfaced with high-end 20-bit analogue-to-digital converters. The liner notes also point out th euse of the Digital Domain VSP being used for sample rate conversion during the mastering process. The result was a significant improvement in dynamic range and headroom, providing a much more faithful reproduction of the original recordings. These discs remain a rare and prized addition to any serious audiophile’s collection.
The liner notes from these releases explain the process clearly:
DMP 20-BIT ORIGINAL RECORDINGS
Current DMP releases are recorded with the label’s evolutionary 20-bit recorder/mixer interfaced with custom high end 20-bit analog to digital converters. Today, DMP is the only jazz label to exclusively record all 20-bits of music at the original sessions allowing up to 24 dB additional dynamic range. This increased headroom makes it possible to take full advantage of the 16-bit CD through advanced mixing and mastering techniques realizing the maximum potential of the CD format. After twelve years of leadership in the application of digital technology, DMP continues to make quality improvements with each new recording.
DMP Gold Disc Remasters
As someone who owns all four of these 24‑karat gold discs, I can confidently say they sound significantly better than their standard CD counterparts. The clarity, dynamic impact, and overall realism are a testament to Jung’s deep understanding of both recording technology and musical nuance. These remasters are further proof that Jung was not just an early adopter of digital audio, but a true pioneer in its evolution, consistently pushing beyond the limitations of the time to deliver the highest possible fidelity.
Tom Jung’s legacy is defined by an unwavering commitment to audio purity, innovation, and integrity. From his early analogue work in Minneapolis to his groundbreaking use of digital recording at Sound 80, and later through the visionary output of DMP, he consistently challenged the boundaries of what recorded music could achieve. Jung’s meticulous attention to detail, his embrace of emerging technologies like DSD and SACD, and his refusal to settle for anything less than the best possible sound have left a lasting imprint on the world of high-fidelity audio. His influence continues to resonate with engineers, musicians, and audiophiles who value the art of true, transparent recording.