muon* Posted January 22, 2023 Posted January 22, 2023 18 minutes ago, dcathro said: Is this just a hypothesis, or have you done extensive comparisons? My experience is just the opposite. I seek out the earliest CDs from 1982-1986 because they sound so much better than later remasters. Agreed Have a Doors LA Woman CD pre bar code en route now 3
dcathro Posted January 22, 2023 Posted January 22, 2023 10 minutes ago, muon* said: Agreed Have a Doors LA Woman CD pre bar code en route now Target or Japanese?
muon* Posted January 22, 2023 Posted January 22, 2023 (edited) 13 minutes ago, dcathro said: Target or Japanese? Unfortunately neither, Elektra / Warner Germany @dcathro Edited January 22, 2023 by muon*
March Audio Posted January 22, 2023 Posted January 22, 2023 (edited) Deleted Edited January 22, 2023 by March Audio
dcathro Posted January 22, 2023 Posted January 22, 2023 (edited) Here is an interesting interview with Peter Qvortrop of Audio Note UK talking about CD replay. The first part is discussion on the top of the line 4 box transport/DAC, but from 9min 30secs there is a discussion about CD quality, resolution, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BijKabByrZQ Edited January 22, 2023 by dcathro 2
March Audio Posted January 22, 2023 Posted January 22, 2023 (edited) 46 minutes ago, dcathro said: Here is an interesting interview with Peter Qvortrop of Audio Note UK talking about CD replay. The first part is discussion on the top of the line 4 box transport/DAC, but from 9min 30secs there is a discussion about CD quality, resolution, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BijKabByrZQ It's certainly "interesting". Ignoring the guy marketing; won't blame him for that, there are some dubious statements there. Modern ADCs are significantly better than the early discrete ADCs. https://archive.org/details/synthmanual_PCM-1610_brochure/mode/1up Saying that early AAD transfers are the best is a massive generalisation. There may well be good ones, but they won't be better than a carefully done modern transfer that hasn't been "messed" with. Reducing "bitrate", I assume he means bit depth, doesn't go against "all digital theory". Digital theory doesn't make any definitions on what is required. It certainly doesn't say more is better. You just need a big enough bit depth to obtain the required signal to noise ratio. 16 bit is not "mathematically perfect", it just provides a certain level of SNR. 16bit will probably be adequate, but if you want to cover all bases (the best recordings actual SNR) you probably need to go to 18 bit. 24 bit is indeed overkill, it's higher than any commercial recording will ever acheive, or indeed any ADC or DAC if it hasn't been frozen to absolute zero. Note that 24 bit may still be the correct choice for initial recording and digital mixing. Edited January 22, 2023 by March Audio 1
andyr Posted January 22, 2023 Posted January 22, 2023 9 hours ago, aussievintage said: Why are you going down this rabbit hole? Just a day ago you happily described this all as recorded silence ! As Yoda said, av ... bliss, ignorance is! I never knew about the 'noise boost' and frequency spectrum analysis capabilities of Audacity until MLXXX pointed them out. Now that I have seen that 30kHz spike ... I need to try and get rid of it.
aussievintage Posted January 22, 2023 Posted January 22, 2023 1 hour ago, andyr said: As Yoda said, av ... bliss, ignorance is! I never knew about the 'noise boost' and frequency spectrum analysis capabilities of Audacity until MLXXX pointed them out. Now that I have seen that 30kHz spike ... I need to try and get rid of it. insanity, it's still just low level and inaudible
andyr Posted January 22, 2023 Posted January 22, 2023 18 minutes ago, aussievintage said: insanity, it's still just low level and inaudible Well just as well - as I did my experiment (putting a 1kVA isolating transformer plus hash filter between the PC and the wall socket ... and re-ripping a 'silent' track) and it made no difference; that 30kHz spike was still there! Which is just as well - as my wife would probably have killed me when she found 2 extra pieces of gear, next to the PC. I'd still love to know what is causing the spike, though.
aussievintage Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 (edited) 51 minutes ago, andyr said: Well just as well - as I did my experiment (putting a 1kVA isolating transformer plus hash filter between the PC and the wall socket ... and re-ripping a 'silent' track) and it made no difference; that 30kHz spike was still there! Which is just as well - as my wife would probably have killed me when she found 2 extra pieces of gear, next to the PC. I'd still love to know what is causing the spike, though. You have a house full of unshielded wiring surrounding your equipment, and oodles of appliances that can directly radiate as well as feed back into the wiring. There will ALWAYS be little low level bits of noise and interference. This is why equipment should be designed to cope with it - and it does. You cannot hear it anyway because it is low level (and because your ears are inadequate at 30kHz) You should NEVER have looked. Edited January 23, 2023 by aussievintage
BugPowderDust Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 11 hours ago, dcathro said: Is this just a hypothesis, or have you done extensive comparisons? There's no secrets that many of the original CDs (pre 1986) sounded thin and lifeless, because they pretty much just lift and shifted the vinyl master to digital. Many labels didn't even digitally remaster their content for a long time and you can find many examples where a vinyl record of the same content sounds much better than the CD version due to the use of the RIAA filter. Some CDs I have from that period are basically unlistenable even on my $60k DAC. Your ears would have to be painted on to have not found this while delving through early CD releases. It was only when you could get lookahead peak limiters that people started to crush the content during mastering. This let them deal with short, sharp peaks dynamically and this is what gets you to the "brick wall" limiting that squashed the life out of much of the music from the mid 90s on. Wild stabs in the dark at how something sounds due to how it rates on the Loudness Wars database is myopic at best. The developments in digital and analog mastering from the mid 2000s onwards are far more transparent and less prone to compression robbing the music of its life. This is the same cause for many CDs from 1995 on and then about 2006 on to have copious amounts of sub bass. The fact that tools like the TC Finalizer arrived in the mid 1990s is no coincidence with the changes to what you could get away with on a CD. Tools like this had a big effect on the electronic music scene where sub bass and bass in general started to become incredibly powerful in the overall dynamics of music. 1
March Audio Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 3 hours ago, andyr said: As Yoda said, av ... bliss, ignorance is! I never knew about the 'noise boost' and frequency spectrum analysis capabilities of Audacity until MLXXX pointed them out. Now that I have seen that 30kHz spike ... I need to try and get rid of it. Careful Andy, you are using measurement. 4
andyr Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 46 minutes ago, March Audio said: Careful Andy, you are using measurement. Indeed I am, Alan! There certainly is a place for them ... but where I perhaps diverge from (what I've observed of) your philosophy is that I don't think the measurements we currently are able to do on, say, an amp - are adequate to tell us whether it will sound better than another amp.
Cloth Ears Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 (edited) 14 hours ago, dcathro said: Is this just a hypothesis, or have you done extensive comparisons? My experience is just the opposite. I seek out the earliest CDs from 1982-1986 because they sound so much better than later remasters. My sentiments. My early CDs sound better than most of the remasters (Pink Floyd seem to take trouble to get it right, but they're a minority). A friend of mine was asking for an early copy of the Suzanne Vega eponymous album. I liked it so much I backed it up (in case he scratched it)! Interesting that one of the albums I bought before CDs came out was Ry Cooder's 'Bop Till You Drop', which was digitally mastered in 1979. Edited January 23, 2023 by Cloth Ears 1
davewantsmoore Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 17 hours ago, andyr said: So, what can be causing that spike @ 30kHz? The spike is really really small.... so it could be caused by just about anything. 16 hours ago, dcathro said: Is this just a hypothesis, or have you done extensive comparisons? My experience is just the opposite. I seek out the earliest CDs from 1982-1986 because they sound so much better than later remasters. I think you are both "right". The "container" (eg. 16/44, 24/192, whatever) makes basically zero difference.... and so it is all about what sound gets put in the bucket (not the bucket). We all know there are remasters which are horrid ("bad" use of available tools) ... but it is also true to note that much better tools and equipment exists today, and so if you use them well, as good or better quality can be achieved in a recent recording, or in a recent remastering. People made bad recordings in the later half of last century... and they continue to make them in the first half of this century, and vice-versa. 1
March Audio Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 (edited) 8 hours ago, andyr said: Indeed I am, Alan! There certainly is a place for them ... but where I perhaps diverge from (what I've observed of) your philosophy is that I don't think the measurements we currently are able to do on, say, an amp - are adequate to tell us whether it will sound better than another amp. So why are you worried about these measurements of yours? Tell us where "their place" is, if you don't beleive they correlate to sound quality? You misunderstand my philosophy. Edited January 23, 2023 by March Audio
bob_m_54 Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 8 hours ago, andyr said: Indeed I am, Alan! There certainly is a place for them ... but where I perhaps diverge from (what I've observed of) your philosophy is that I don't think the measurements we currently are able to do on, say, an amp - are adequate to tell us whether it will sound better than another amp. Why do you think there is a need to try and relate two totally different aspects of audio equipment? Objective measurements, and subjective impressions are totally different things. The only correlation between the two is still subjective. As for our current capabilities to measure anything we need to know about audio signals and equipment performance, that isn't even a consideration. there is no voodoo, magic or far wotsits energy involved.
andyr Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 1 hour ago, March Audio said: You misunderstand my philosophy. That may well be the case, Alan. 1 hour ago, March Audio said: So why are you worried about these measurements of yours? If you mean the measurement that showed I had a 30kHz spike in a rip I'd made ... simply that: a. I hadn't expected to see it and b. I'd like to know what caused it. 1 hour ago, March Audio said: Tell us where "their place" is, if you don't believe they correlate to sound quality? We interacted a while ago, Alan - on the topic of me suggesting that an ARC tube power amp had better "sound quality" than a (in fact, more powerful) Class D amp. "Better sound quality" to me means ... I prefer listening to it. Quite simples. Your view was that as the Class D amp had a much lower distortion level ... it must be the better amp.
Addicted to music Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 (edited) 16 minutes ago, andyr said: If you mean the measurement that showed I had a 30kHz spike in a rip I'd made ... simply that: a. I hadn't expected to see it and b. I'd like to know what caused it. This would drive me insane, I’d lose sleep over it! I would seriously utilise everything in my arsenal to find the cause, but that’s just me. if I saw that I would have got of my arse, stay off SNA until I found the source. Edited January 23, 2023 by Addicted to music
andyr Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 1 hour ago, bob_m_54 said: Why do you think there is a need to try and relate two totally different aspects of audio equipment? Objective measurements, and subjective impressions are totally different things. I'm in total agreement with you there, Bob. But some people here bang on about how tube amps have such high distortion measurements - so they cannot be "as good" as a Class D amp. 1 hour ago, bob_m_54 said: As for our current capabilities to measure anything we need to know about audio signals and equipment performance, that isn't even a consideration. there is no voodoo, magic or far wotsits energy involved. Indeed, it's not 'voodoo', Bob. But the normal measurements we see in reviews - eg: bandwidth distortion level current delivery ... do not seem to be able to explain three simple things about the sound of amplifiers: why some "engage you" - ie. make you want to keep listening ... rather than sounding boring why some present a flat sound stage - ie. 'X' and 'Y' are there ... but there is no 'Z' and why some (when they do have 'Z') can throw a sound stage forward of the plane of the spkrs - whilst others present a sound stage which goes back from the spkrs Obviously, these comparisons are when one amp is substituted for another; the rest of the system remaining the same. That suggests to me there are additional factors we need to find a way of measuring, to get a full picture of how an amp is going to sound.
andyr Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 1 minute ago, Addicted to music said: This would drive me insane, I’d lose sleep over it! I would seriously utilise everything in my arsenal to find the cause, but that’s me. I have (utilised everything in my arsenal) Peter! I take solace from Dave's comment: 6 hours ago, davewantsmoore said: The spike is really really small
Addicted to music Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 19 minutes ago, andyr said: I have (utilised everything in my arsenal) Peter! I take solace from Dave's comment: I don’t care what anybody saids, it’s not small, It has the potential to effect other things. Like I said that’s just me, how you deal with it is entirely up to you. If I were designing and that 30khz isn’t suppose to be there I’d be investigating. But that’s me.
March Audio Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 (edited) 5 hours ago, andyr said: That may well be the case, Alan. If you mean the measurement that showed I had a 30kHz spike in a rip I'd made ... simply that: a. I hadn't expected to see it and b. I'd like to know what caused it. We interacted a while ago, Alan - on the topic of me suggesting that an ARC tube power amp had better "sound quality" than a (in fact, more powerful) Class D amp. "Better sound quality" to me means ... I prefer listening to it. Quite simples. Your view was that as the Class D amp had a much lower distortion level ... it must be the better amp. But Andy, surely you were listening to it and your subjective interpretation was that there was no problem with the sound quality, so why are you fretting about measurements which you say tell you nothing about sound quality? I explained why the amps sounded "different", all proven by measurements, specifically how the tube amp had a load dependant frequency response aberration. I never said anything about one being better than the other. Why do you persist with this lie about what I said, even when the precise text has been pointed out to you previously? Your individual interpretation of "better" is all on you and has little relevance in the wider scheme of things. BTW if you didn't record at 96kHz and just at 48kHz, you wouldn't even see this noise. It is actually a perfect demonstration of why it's better to use only the necessary bandwidth. By going to 96kHz you are just recording unhelpful noise. Edited January 23, 2023 by March Audio 1
March Audio Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, andyr said: But some people here bang on about how tube amps have such high distortion measurements - so they cannot be "as good" as a Class D amp Who has said that Andy? It's the same old tired misrepresentation. No one has said that. Edited January 23, 2023 by March Audio 1
March Audio Posted January 23, 2023 Posted January 23, 2023 (edited) 16 hours ago, andyr said: do not seem to be able to explain three simple things about the sound of amplifiers: why some "engage you" - ie. make you want to keep listening ... rather than sounding boring why some present a flat sound stage - ie. 'X' and 'Y' are there ... but there is no 'Z' and why some (when they do have 'Z') can throw a sound stage forward of the plane of the spkrs - whilst others present a sound stage which goes back from the spkrs 1. That's just your personal interpretation. It won't necessarily be relevant to, or the same for others. Your emotional reaction is yours, and yours alone. It's often got little to do with the actual equipment's performance or sound. Influenced by many biasing factors or your emotional state. You are right, measurements of equipment won't explain what's subjectively/emotionally going on in your head. Why would they? You need to learn to separate the two. 2. Easily explainable. We *do* understand how spatial effects work. See Q Sound. 3. See 2. But we have been through all this before, several times, and you just don't listen. You just trot it out over again in the next thread. Plus it's off topic so I will stop. Edited January 24, 2023 by March Audio 1
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