*Ahem* WOOT!

[Solaris]

sweet jebus! thats awesome...I wish I had money to burn but thats going to my Europe fund!

[espire]

Originally Posted by Roman

It is louder for one thing. That's probably not a good description, something more like higher fidelity or signal to noise ratio.

CDs have been getting louder and louder over the years, because people assume that if something sounds louder, it sounds better. However, this means that if the song is bumped 10dB and the loudest part of the song is only 5dB below the highest possible volume, you will lose much of the volume differences between peaks and quieter parts. This "dynamic range" used to be one of the main advantages of digital audio on CDs, but it's nearly as bad as cassettes these days. Vinyl, anybody?

I'd get the vinyl of Psychédélices except for the horrible shipping costs that I'd have to pay for it, so if any Torontonian is getting one, get one for me too

[Roman]

Originally Posted by espire

CDs have been getting louder and louder over the years, because people assume that if something sounds louder, it sounds better. However, this means that if the song is bumped 10dB and the loudest part of the song is only 5dB below the highest possible volume, you will lose much of the volume differences between peaks and quieter parts. This "dynamic range" used to be one of the main advantages of digital audio on CDs, but it's nearly as bad as cassettes these days. Vinyl, anybody?

I'd get the vinyl of Psychédélices except for the horrible shipping costs that I'd have to pay for it, so if any Torontonian is getting one, get one for me too

Regarding audio, obviously I know nothing. Anyway, that sucks. I've also heard of them doing things like introducing errors intentionally so that it will play fine on a regular CD player, but not on a computer or prevent proper copying on a computer or something like that. Obviously we've gotten around that kind of thing, but yes it is quite sad that a CD has the ability to create better quality music than anything that preceded it, yet maybe we don't get that just because of all this B.S. that has nothing to do with music or improving the quality. Just imagine if you were one of the people who created this technology and thinking it would usher in a great new era for recordings and playback and then you see so much of your work voided intentionally by fighting over compatibility and copyright, cheap equipment, etc. etc...
I will get the vinyl, though I will never play it.

[RadioactiveMan]

I don't think that CDs have the capacity to beat previous recording methods. I know little myself, but I do remember seeing that analog methods can approach perfection indefinitely whereas a digital recording is limited by its size- discs only hold so much.

[Roman]

Originally Posted by RadioactiveMan

I don't think that CDs have the capacity to beat previous recording methods. I know little myself, but I do remember seeing that analog methods can approach perfection indefinitely whereas a digital recording is limited by its size- discs only hold so much.

Well, but that's comparing a theoretical concept. I'm comparing actual used media. Digital never degrades for example. You can make an absolutely perfect copy of it forever (ok, eventually you will probably get some errors creep in). Point is, you can copy and compare your copy. By it's nature, that can not be done with "analog" techniques. As far as size, I think size is not the issue so much with digital. It's more the conversion process, sampling rate, that sort of thing. I can't believe that a vinyl "record" can compete with even regular CDs if done properly, especially for mass marketed media and especially for durability. Maybe I'm wrong about audio quality and "vinyl" technology has come along, well; so has digital technology. However, one can certainly not make an exact copy of a record in one's house. I'm wondering if this is some kind of fantasy rumor being spread to take the music industry back to a time when you had to actually buy a physical object to get the music you want. I'm not buying it (the idea, that is. I am buying the disk).

[lefty12357]

This loudness race is driven partly by radio. Supposedly studies show that people think the loudest radio stations sound the best, especially when listening in a moving car. Soft passages in classical music can be very difficult to hear in a car because classical music has not joined the loudness war.

Compression has been around a long time (even back in the days of vacuum tubes) and is frequently used when recording vocals and certain instruments. It is then used again when the song is being mixed down. It can smooth out a lot of problems inherent in the recording process.

The problem is now it is used in a heavy-handed way to increase volume on the CD. What’s worse is the radio station then broadcasts the song through their compression gear and raises it again. By the time you hear it, it is flat as a pancake and quite loud. Most of the dynamics are gone for the sake of loudness, thus changing the writer’s intent.

Dynamics is one of the writer’s tools which is pretty much lost to him or her now. That’s why I think a lot of writers don’t even bother to use dynamics in their music nowadays, which is a shame, because a whole dimension is lost. Keep in mind that this same compressed music can be put on vinyl too.

There are 3 major steps in recording that affect the final sound, recording, mastering and final product.

The old way was to record on analog multi-track tape, master on 2 track analog tape, and put the final product on vinyl. Analog tape can be partially saturated causing a warm distortion that people find very pleasant, and is missing from the digital method.

Nowadays they usually use digital to record and master, and then they can put it on vinyl or CD. If this is the case, you may see little, if any improvement in the vinyl version. Much of the warm analog benefit came from the analog tape that was used in the old days.

Sorry for the long post...

[Roman]

Originally Posted by lefty12357

...
Sorry for the long post...

Thank you for your detailed post. I will say that loudness does help sometimes. I don't know if it's exactly the same as what you are talking about, but sometimes I listen to a song on YouTube or something and even cranking up my speakers, it still does not sound as good as someone else's post with a louder sound. I figured the data file compression used in the quieter one was not done as well. Similarly, in MJ, there are sounds that one can miss if it is just not loud enough to hear it. I still feel cheated by the industry. It seems like we should generally have much higher quality sound now in 2007, but I swear, between MP3 compressed files for internet streaming or iPods and all the other stuff, music often sounds worse than it did years ago. (though I know access to it is much great now - trade-offs)

[rcs]

Damn industry goobs trying to protect against theft by ruining great audio for the masses that actually purchase the goods.