It makes me want to stick with MIDIs. That 3 MB song is only 32 KB!

I just noticed VLC has some preset configurations for the equalizer. None of them seem to "smile" though.
Anon | Email | Homepage | 01.01.08 - 3:13 pm | #

That's really interesting. I'm not what you'd call an audiophile, I've never had the cash to spend on a proper high-end stereo, and I don't listen much to classical or jazz. But I do get really annoyed by those tracks where as you turn up the volume to better pick up some part, clarity remains elusive but the speakers muddily thud at your ears, and make you turn it back down again to avoid pain. Now I know why.
JQ | Email | Homepage | 01.01.08 - 4:13 pm | #

My parents got themselves a new radio/cd player/stereo/turntable. My mom wanted the turntable to listen to her old albums. My step-dad had bought a number of cd's over the years to replace them as their old record player died out. Mom was never happy with them, she always said that they never sounded right. So we are sitting at their dining room table listening to Perry Como doing Christmas songs on record, and my step-dad, who isn't a big music fan, said "You know, that really does sound a lot better". They are going to start looking at flea markets and swap meets, not to mention ebay, for more old albums. It really is better quality sound.
cologeek | Email | Homepage | 01.01.08 - 5:44 pm | #

I think loudness war is almost all of the problem--by comparison the difference between 128k MP3 and CD is minimal. From what I understand, part of the specification for SACD was specifically designed to combat this. There's a SACD spec for either average volume or minimum headroom--I don't remember the details, but the net result is that "loudness war" mastering will actually sound quieter than SACD-friendly mastering.
Sevesteen | Email | Homepage | 01.01.08 - 5:47 pm | #

Sevesteen,

Yes, but SACD actually has a HELL of a lot more headroom, so they can master the whole thing louder, without ruining the dynamic range.

At that point, we can just turn down the volume knob; and not lose any data from the music.

Of course SACD and DVDA have both failed miserably (which is too bad; but it was idiotic record company marketing that did it).

I'm guessing that the next successful physical distribution media, will be read only flash cards. At that point, the only format limit is file size, vs length, vs media cost; and every different artist can make that choice for every different album.
Chris Byrne | Email | Homepage | 01.01.08 - 5:56 pm | #

The best CD standard to this day remains that engineered by Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, "MFSL".

For an album to be produced on MFSL's 24k gold Ultradisc, it was required of the owner of the original studio masters to loan 'em to MFSL, who then remastered them to the digital environment, using a proprietary digital algorythym, which presented a much higher density of "information" onto the physical CD.

And it was because of the ability of the 24k gold medium to receive those more closely etched zeros and ones that said algorythm was possible.

So, a clean, perfect studio cut, true to the orginal tapes, rendered by uncompromising math onto the most stable, non-oxydyzing medium known to man.

I have five such discs, and have located what will by my sixth on a recent net-search.

Mobile Fidelity, may God rest their late, corporate soul, was the anthethisis of the crappy practices which Chris has so brilliantly exposed.

And let this be known to one and all. You don't have to be any sort of audiophile, even an imitation one, to hear the difference.

Now Chris, a request for more in a similar vein.

If the twenty years from '75 to '95 were the pinnacle of development for high-grade consumer audio equipment (and I think they were), then what the hell has happened since then, and what's left for the discriminating listener to choose from for purchase?

What can one do in traditional stereo for say, $2,000, to include receiver, speakers, CD source and~or other necessary devices?

Say you top out at $5,000, invested over a span of the next three years.

I don't expect I'll ever have a dedicated audio room or otherwise perfect acoustics. And I'm truly focused on stereo, not surround sound or other gimmicky. Fact is, I'll be quite happy to run a generic BestCircuitFrys "all in one $400 box" system dedicated to the teevee for surround. (can ya tell it's just not that important to me?)

But, the stereo is.

Listening to Dark Side of the Moon on Ultradisc, when played on a superb system..... indescribable, sublime and very sorely missed.


Jim
Sloop New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Jim | Email | Homepage | 01.01.08 - 9:07 pm | #

I'm interested to see that vinyl recordings are returning. Some folks- thank god- hung on to all those record lathes and presses.

I've taken enough hearing damage over the years I probably can't tell the difference between one and another- but it's good that SOMEONE is paying attention and calling the morons on their stupidity.

And for this, we're supposed to pay thirteen bucks? And now, the RIA wants to show that ripping your OWN cd's is a crime?
og | Email | Homepage | 01.02.08 - 6:07 am | #

Ok, ok, please tell me where I can find a recording of Ben Stein Reading Ayn Rand
REALLY LOUD.

That would be a hoot.
Mark in AJ | Email | Homepage | 01.02.08 - 8:32 am | #

OMG! What a lesson, my brain hurts. I want my music back.

I don't hear well as it is and I can tell that "yesterday" music was a lot better than today's.

Thanks for the lesson.
Jerry | Email | Homepage | 01.02.08 - 11:05 am | #

Interesting little detail--among the recorded pieces I listen to on CD, I have a great respect for certain (orchestral) movie soundtracks.

The one that springs to mind is Gladiator soundtrack. The dynamic range varies considerably, and it is the dynamic range that makes the battle-piece so powerful.

I don't know if all orchestral movie scores do it the classical way, though I suspect that they do. After all, if the symphony can force the recording engineers to not ruin their Brahms and Beethoven, they can probably force the recording engineers to not ruin John Williams and Hans Zimmer.
karrde | Email | Homepage | 01.02.08 - 12:09 pm | #

Jim in Sloop New Dawn:
Take a look at the offerings from Bowers & Wilkins. We just revamped our home theater last year, and with a 5.1 (though we used Hsu Research for the sub) using their 600 series speakers, and a receiver that does a pretty good self-calibration, we came in well under your 5k over 3 years point. If you drop the center and rears and sub to go with straight stereo, you can even beat the 2k mark now, I'd suspect, and maybe even step up to the next series up. They sound amazing. Although you may want a grain of salt with this enthusiasm, since we were upgrading from bose, once we upgraded I started hearing things in the audio tracks of things I loved that I never even knew were there, tv, cd, and movie all.
Stingray | Email | Homepage | 01.02.08 - 12:30 pm | #

Did you ever consider that the loudness factor is a way to conceal the obvious: that popular musicians today are discouraged from making music that requires brains to appreciate? That's what decades of bubble gum pop and boy bands have brought us, where the music must be maxxed out in volume to cover for the fact that there is nothing underneath the noise that couldn't be cobbled together on a mid-priced Casio keyboard by an amateur musician.
A. Magnus | Email | Homepage | 01.02.08 - 12:34 pm | #

Thank you for explaining why I have felt that I have been going deaf, when I haven't been. Well I have sorta. I have otosclerosis, the stapes in my left ear has been replaced with a teflon piston about 12 years ago. I thought that it was going bad again, with my inability to distinguish sounds in mid-range frequencies on CD's. Now I know that they have been deliberately made 'noisy' and that is why they sound awful to me. I think I shall go back to listening to rare mastered vinyl on a high quality deck and see what the difference is.
Ken Hall | Email | Homepage | 01.02.08 - 1:01 pm | #

Similar article was done in IEEE's spectrum magazine this past summer, it has a bigger technical insight into what the "loudness" is all about and some history.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/aug07/5429
Anonymous | Email | Homepage | 01.02.08 - 1:46 pm | #

Question: Is good music or music with meaningful lyrics ever ignored by record companies for political messages they don't agree with?
fenderman | Email | Homepage | 01.02.08 - 1:50 pm | #

The mastering differences required by the SACD headroom specification are far more important than the increased dynamic range of the format. There is more than enough dynamic range available on standard CD for 99% of uses if they would just USE IT!. A similar mastering specification for CD would give most of the audible benefit of SADC with no additional equipment.
sevesteen | Email | Homepage | 01.02.08 - 9:48 pm | #

Great piece. Makes me respect Rick Rubin even more. To my ear, everything he does is crystal. My friends and I have an ongoing joke about Rubin's $5,000,000 "Don't Suck" button that he pushes just as the band's about to record.

When the Dixie Chicks' "...Long Way..." album came out (admittedly, I'm more a fan of Natalie's personality/politics than their songs) I was blown away by the clarity and overall production value. It bummed me out a little, because I'd just been recording some songs and they sounded worse than they did an hour before.

Of course, Rubin did that one. Why is he so much better? I suppose, because he likes music. Either that, or the "Don't Suck" button.
Bryan Newbury | Email | Homepage | 01.03.08 - 8:46 am | #

I have a few MSFL LPs. Wonderful stuff.

I'm dubious about getting a decent stereo setup for $2000, because I'd have to include a turntable at least on par with the VPI Scout, and that'll eat up most of $2000 right there, including a good tonearm and cartridge. You can save some buying used though.
jed | Email | Homepage | 01.03.08 - 10:51 am | #

I am a musician, someone who should be the most offended by audio compression. Yet, I actually prefer it.

Every time I have to grab the volume control to raise the soft passages on a jazz CD, or to lower the volume of a blaring TV commercial wedged into some documentary, my two instant gut reactions are:

1.) "Can't these f@#$%-s use a compressor to even out the volume?" and
2.) "Since they didn't I should really put one on this TV/CD player myself."

True, I never liked the pianissimo - fortissimo hysterics either with which some misguided souls play Beethoven nowadays. To me a ppp to fff jump is not musical at all, it's just plain stupid. I played Beethoven's piano myself (at a lucky moment it could be done in Paris) and can attest that it has nothing like the dynamic range of a modern grand. A full bang "fff" fortissimo on it is the equivalent of a "mf" mezzoforte on a modern 7' Steinway. So let's not get carried too far away with volume extreme hysterics, shall we? Or if we do, let's be frank and admit: this isn't the composer original idea, just a bit of interpreter's dilettantism.
George | Email | Homepage | 01.03.08 - 11:44 am | #

I'm with you, George. There are definitely times when extreme dynamic range is annoying. I haven't noticed it with recorded music or concerts, but in movies, which seem to have gone to the extreme opposite of musical recordings, in dynamic range. This is done, I think, for the sake of "realism", as if it's somehow more pleasant to view a movie if my eardrums nearly rupture just like they would if I were in the vicinity of a real explosion.

One particularly onerous example is Alien 3. If I had the volume turned down enough to be able to stand the sound effects, it was impossible to hear the "sotto voce" dialog. (Of course, with the actors mumbling instead of enunciating, that was sometimes difficult anyway). There have been other offenders. I recall quite clearly that after seeing the fifth element, I vowed to never set foot in a cinema again, and I've pretty well kept to that.
jed | Email | Homepage | 01.03.08 - 6:43 pm | #

Oh lord Jed... I get so irritated with "overmix" in TV and Movie soundtracks. I HATE having to constantly change the volume radically in a movie.
Chris Byrne | Email | Homepage | 01.03.08 - 6:52 pm | #

Interesting...

Right after college, my old roomie bought some Magnepan speakers. They're the "ribbon" type, and I found that when I was listening to a nice acoustic recording, they sounded better than almost any speaker I'd ever heard. But when I listened to any modern CD, they sounded like crap.

I wonder if this might explain it... It wasn't a limit of the speakers (what I previously thought), it was that they were driven by an audio signal that was crap, and as you mention, "garbage in, garbage out"...
Brad Warbiany | Email | Homepage | 01.04.08 - 12:31 am | #

How about Ben STILLER reading Ayn Rand at the top of his voice? LoL

Ok, ok, - serious question, then:

I have profound hearing loss, but I enjoy music, so I tend to turn it up. Is your explanation why my head and even eyes tend to hurt after a while of listening to music?

Good post, btw.
workinwifdakids | Email | Homepage | 01.04.08 - 10:38 pm | #

One more reason to Do It Yourself. Get with an engineer who knows music and knows his/her gear if you don't want to be your own engineer, but otherwise keep control of what you create.

Of course, a lot of folks these days don't know much about dynamics (beyond the quiet verse LOUD CHORUS lookit me I'm Kurt Cobain!!!1!!1) or microphone technique, or etc.

Bog, I sound old. :-P
Oldsmoblogger | Email | Homepage | 01.06.08 - 3:51 pm | #