Is it my speakers? I think I'm done with CD's. Are paid-for downloadable files any better? (...and, "Can it reach 60", a quality test for CDs)

[gene_stl]

I always wanted to try the dBx 3bx unlimiter expander which used three bands. I think Linda said she had one. I never got around to it.

 

[Sal1950]

I've got a couple of CD's that sound fantastic too; maybe it's the mastering but might just be the mix? Anything with a ton of crash symbols on CD it seems is just going to be obstructive to enjoyment (at least for me).

Call it what you will, master, mix, whatever but it's not the media. Take that same recording and put it on any digital media you like and it will sound the same. The only real answer for any of us is to purchase the best releases irrespective of the media.

 

[Sal1950]

Maybe it's because I listen to "loud" music, or music that's intended to be played loud...?...but most of my CD's are unlistenable on my system. They were okay for ripping to my mp3 Walkman but they're just unplayable on my home system.

I hate to say it but you just may be condemned to the pain.
In this situation we go beyond the "loudness wars" as normally defined.
It is now more a musicians-artist intent that effects the sound.
If you go to the Dynamic Range Database and click on the top of the DR column,
you can find hundreds if not thousand of albums made with a 00-05 DR.
I don't know what else to say beyond what your hearing is just what they wanted you
to hear and the better the system, the better you'll mostly hear what your not liking.
Sorry

 

[Titch]

Bingo, it's not the format. I think the loudness wars already crested a few years ago. I still buy a few CDs and nothing egregious to report as of late.

Well, I purchased the CD of Harry Styles' Harry's House this year, after it won the Grammy for best engineered album. Doesn't sound nice at all. The treble is tinny and compressed, cranked up on a well-calibrated CD-system with decent speakers (Oppo 203 player, Denon AVR X7200W receiver, Dali Rubicon 8 stereo speakers, B&W active subwoofers).

The last non-jazz or non-classical CD I purchased, released in recent years, which sounded wonderful, was Dusty Springfield's Dusty Sings Soul and Elvis Presley's From Elvis in Nashville. Of course, all those recordings are vintage and no-one felt the need to compress the music to hell and back. But virtually no newly recorded pop/rock CD's I've purchased sound good - and almost nothing remastered since the beginning of this century (apart from Joni Mitchell's box sets). A good example is Tears For Fears "The Tipping Point. The CD is unlistenable on my system and sounds absolutely mind-blowing played from the blu-ray audio (any mix).

So, my purchasing of new CDs has ground to a halt. But I still purchase a smattering of new SACDs and blu-ray audio discs.

 

[Wagonmaster_91]

Sal is right. The mixer/masters share some of the blame for the loudness brickwalling, but many of the artists ask the engineers to do this. "We want our album to sound as loud as the other albums we are competing with on the market." The engineer can suggest that more headroom will result in a better sound, but the artist and producer have the final say. The record companies aren't going to tell a major artist their album cannot sound the way they want it.
Also, a very large segment of the music buying public is listening on phones and other portable devices through earbuds or tiny phone speakers so a compressed to max loudness song appears to be louder on those devices. There is little concern about degrading the sound since that is already going to happen due to the limitations of the portable playback device.

 

[ar surround]

The rules are pretty simple: I play the CD I'm "road-testing" with the volume set at 50 and I slowly increase the volume until the tinny, treble makes it unlistenable and prevents me from increasing the volume any further.

Looks like you've managed to get everyone worked up with your post, Rango. As others have stated, the problem is lousy mastering. What really pisses me off is that my very first CD back in 1985 was this one, and the sound is excellent:

Seek it out if you can.

 

[ar surround]

I always wanted to try the dBx 3bx unlimiter expander which used three bands. I think Linda said she had one. I never got around to it.

I had one Gene, but sold it for scrap when the capacitors went bad. The problem with the 3bx was that it suppressed ambience when the material was processed in surround sound, so I stopped using it. The device was most definitely not a panacea when it came to surround sound.

 

[par4ken]

Thanks for the link Ken. VST compressor plug ins are easy to find, not un-limiters. Orly prob is there's no FAQ or help page to learn more about it, just donate & download.

As I recall if you donate you can download as many of his plugins as you want. Not a bad deal!

No documentation, just three settings, 2 more aggressive than 1 and 3 more aggressive than 2. The post gain setting is not really important (if processing 32 bit float) as you can go above 0 without distortion and then just normalise afterward. Experiment with each setting, to see what sounds the best.

I generally stick with level 2 reasoning that a bit less processing is preferable to too much. It often makes a noticeable improvement, just as often it doesn't sound much different. I guess that some damage can not be undone.

 

[par4ken]

I always wanted to try the dBx 3bx unlimiter expander which used three bands. I think Linda said she had one. I never got around to it.

I was always a bit intrigued by the dBx expanders. I never invested in one, most of my money went to quad. I was actually satisfied (at least, not dissatisfied) with the DR that I was getting from vinyl anyway!

 

[4-earredwonder]

I also went the DBX route myself ...even dabbled in DBX encoded vinyl which only saw the sparse release of very few titles! It was effective for cassettes as well but you couldn't play them in your car.

Another short~lived 'experiment' in the annals of audio history!

 

[MidiMagic]

So...I've been reviewing my CD collection in light of listening to DVD-A and Blu-ray audio and, I've basically reached a point where I'm playing what I guess is a game (?) that I'm unofficially calling "Can it reach 60" (if you want to try it, your volume settings will be particular to your receiver/amp; for me the watershed point is 60, yours I should imagine will almost certainly differ).

The rules are pretty simple: I play the CD I'm "road-testing" with the volume set at 50 and I slowly increase the volume until the tinny, treble makes it unlistenable and prevents me from increasing the volume any further.

A good example is the Pixies Debut album, Come on Pilgrim from the Minotaur box set: it has Come on Pilgrim on CD, DVD-A & Blu-ray. The CD (2.1) and DVD-A (5.1) mixes of Come On Pilgrim can't hit 60 before the treble collapses (or probably more accurately amasses or accumulates) into a distorted trebly mess...

...however, the Blu-ray mix of, Come On Pilgrim (5.1) can be pushed past 60 without the higher frequencies collapsing into a mass of tinny treble and the mix can be played at a high enough volume to bring out the full nuance and color of the music.

Although that's the closest I can currently get to an apples to apples comparison, I'm noticing this trend with the majority of my CD's, I'm not able turn them up loud enough to hear the detail and nuance of the mix because the treble collapses into a tinny mess.

I'm wondering if better speakers might remedy this, but I can't think that that would be the case, as my speakers handle high resolution formats without issue and I have certain CD-based mixes that they can render excellently.

The Come on Pilgrim comparison: 2.1 CD, 5.1 DVD-A & 5.1 Blu-ray audio (with only the Blu-ray audio capable of remaining distinct at volumes higher than the watershed point for most of the CD's in my collection) seem to suggest it's the lower-res CD format that's to blame.

I'm also wondering if paid-for downloadable files are any better, or if stuff is just generally produced low-res enough to fit on a CD, with those files then offered for download.

My guess is that it probably differs from artist to artist, with newer artists, who produce specifically for paid download and who don't have to work within those file-size/resolution restrictions, potentially producing higher resolution files?...with older music, that's not been remastered in higher-resolution for download offering no improvement over CD.

I'm only just starting to explore this stuff, so I don't know if I'm walking an already well-trodden path here...?...but I'm going to start a move over to downloadable files from places like Amazon and Band camp, so I'll be able to make some comparisons, but in the meantime, I'm wondering what light other forum members might be able to shed on this topic?

Are you sure you are not driving your equipment into distortion when you hear that unwanted sound?

 

[JohnN]

Respect for the medium. Bad mastering gives the CD a bad name.

 

[par4ken]

I also went the DBX route myself ...even dabbled in DBX encoded vinyl which only saw the sparse release of very few titles! It was effective for cassettes as well but you couldn't play them in your car.

Another short~lived 'experiment' in the annals of audio history!

I bought a few dbx LP's in more recent years and a decoder as well, when you could still find super deals on eBay. Today I think that dbx records are rather unnecessary as audiophile or even clean vintage vinyl are quiet enough. We have digital solutions for click removal and noise reduction as well. The decoder itself actually adds some of it's own noise and distortion.

One thing that I remember being said about dbx records is that it would fool people into cranking up the volume (often the volume was initially set judging by the level of the inter track noise). The listener would get a rude awakening when the music actually started!

 

[Sal1950]

But virtually no newly recorded pop/rock CD's I've purchased sound good - and almost nothing remastered since the beginning of this century (apart from Joni Mitchell's box sets). A good example is Tears For Fears "The Tipping Point. The CD is unlistenable on my system and sounds absolutely mind-blowing played from the blu-ray audio (any mix).

Great example !!!
You have to be aware of the masterings that are available, lookie here,

Now that's an incredible difference made due to Steven Wilsons mastering.
The good news, I believe the BluRay also contains a Wilson 2ch mix with the
same high DR
The bad new is you'll have to pay for the BD.
But this is QQ and that's what we all buy.
Cheers

 

[Sal1950]

What really pisses me off is that my very first CD back in 1985 was this one, and the sound is excellent:

My very first CD was Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms 1985 release. With a DR16 It sounds fantastic to me.
There's not a damn thing wrong with Redbook 16/44.1 sound.
YMMV

 

[ar surround]

My very first CD was Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms 1985 release. With a DR16 It sounds fantastic to me.
There's not a damn thing wrong with Redbook 16/44.1 sound.
YMMV

That CD was another winner.

 

[Sal1950]

Another short~lived 'experiment' in the annals of audio history!

LOL. I owned the much downscaled DBX 117 I think it was, never impressed by its performance. I used a Phase Linear 1000 Auto Correlator to more success. Back in the day
I thought it brought some nice improvements to LP playback. Lowered surface noise and, high pass filtering together with peak unlimiter - dynamic range expander. A seriously good product in it's time. Both can be seen upper right
Bob Carver really did show flashes of genius on occasion.
Bringing innovative and exciting products to the 70-90s HiFi market

 

[kfbkfb]

Anyone try creating fake surround sound from expanded/peak unlimited stereo content (sort of related - my HDCD decoded demo CDs seem to have more fake surround sound [DPL2 music] than when they are played unHDCD decoded - online docu about HDCD encoding doesn't mention altering the phase relationship between L and R)?


Kirk Bayne

 

[user 19847]

So...I've been reviewing my CD collection in light of listening to DVD-A and Blu-ray audio and, I've basically reached a point where I'm playing what I guess is a game (?) that I'm unofficially calling "Can it reach 60" (if you want to try it, your volume settings will be particular to your receiver/amp; for me the watershed point is 60, yours I should imagine will almost certainly differ).

The rules are pretty simple: I play the CD I'm "road-testing" with the volume set at 50 and I slowly increase the volume until the tinny, treble makes it unlistenable and prevents me from increasing the volume any further.

A good example is the Pixies Debut album, Come on Pilgrim from the Minotaur box set: it has Come on Pilgrim on CD, DVD-A & Blu-ray. The CD (2.1) and DVD-A (5.1) mixes of Come On Pilgrim can't hit 60 before the treble collapses (or probably more accurately amasses or accumulates) into a distorted trebly mess...

...however, the Blu-ray mix of, Come On Pilgrim (5.1) can be pushed past 60 without the higher frequencies collapsing into a mass of tinny treble and the mix can be played at a high enough volume to bring out the full nuance and color of the music.

Although that's the closest I can currently get to an apples to apples comparison, I'm noticing this trend with the majority of my CD's, I'm not able turn them up loud enough to hear the detail and nuance of the mix because the treble collapses into a tinny mess.

I'm wondering if better speakers might remedy this, but I can't think that that would be the case, as my speakers handle high resolution formats without issue and I have certain CD-based mixes that they can render excellently.

The Come on Pilgrim comparison: 2.1 CD, 5.1 DVD-A & 5.1 Blu-ray audio (with only the Blu-ray audio capable of remaining distinct at volumes higher than the watershed point for most of the CD's in my collection) seem to suggest it's the lower-res CD format that's to blame.

I'm also wondering if paid-for downloadable files are any better, or if stuff is just generally produced low-res enough to fit on a CD, with those files then offered for download.

My guess is that it probably differs from artist to artist, with newer artists, who produce specifically for paid download and who don't have to work within those file-size/resolution restrictions, potentially producing higher resolution files?...with older music, that's not been remastered in higher-resolution for download offering no improvement over CD.

I'm only just starting to explore this stuff, so I don't know if I'm walking an already well-trodden path here...?...but I'm going to start a move over to downloadable files from places like Amazon and Band camp, so I'll be able to make some comparisons, but in the meantime, I'm wondering what light other forum members might be able to shed on this topic?

I noticed your location is in London. I suggest you take some CDs you have problems with and go to one of your audio stores that sell a wide variety of equipment and play the music on a variety of systems they have set up. You may find it is not the source material, but the limitations are in your playback equipment. Pushing amplifiers and speakers into clipping leads to distortion and can damage equipment not designed for loud playback levels.

 

[barfle]

I always wanted to try the dBx 3bx unlimiter expander which used three bands. I think Linda said she had one. I never got around to it.

I never had a 3bx, but I do have a dbx decoder, and the effects are pretty nice. The unit itself is certainly showing signs of age, and it’s on my pile of ‘shit I gotta fix’ when the house and car projects get done. There’s a button that doesn’t latch, so it’s probably not rocket science, but who knows what’s actually worn down.