Does audio quality still matter?
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Gold Member Username: ChitownPost Number: 1097 Registered: Apr-05 | I'm not quite sure what this article is trying to get across. I think it may be an example of a writer trying to find a point, but then getting lost in the findings. Still and interesting read. http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-0606170263jun18,1,5423282.story? coll=chi-entertainmentfront-hed |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 960 Registered: Dec-03 | He doesn't deliver much of a conclusion there does he? It's encouraging that someone says high fidelity music will never go away. I can believe that to be so, that it will not disappear entirely, however, it may only be found in increasingly smaller amounts. Why should record companies worry about quality digital recordings when the combined sales of SACD and DVD-A are the equivalent of all the vinyl sales, and the total of all three formats are nowhere near the sales of the last Brittany Spears CD. Additionally, as long as CDs loaded with block errors are deemed acceptable we will be stuck with the current plethora of mediocrity. |
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Gold Member Username: NuckPost Number: 3072 Registered: Dec-04 | Additionally, as long as CDs loaded with block errors are deemed acceptable we will be stuck with the current plethora of mediocrity. yup. |
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Gold Member Username: Edster922Abubala, Ababala The Occupation Post Number: 4227 Registered: Mar-05 | what are "block errors?" |
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Gold Member Username: NuckPost Number: 3077 Registered: Dec-04 | Unreadable or unwritable segments of a cd or source. Think 'sector errors' of a defrag function. The advent of 1bit MASH cdp's were hailed as a great leap in progression of cd's. All that did was make reading of cd's full of block errors possible, therefore making it possible to play even worse cd's. |
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Gold Member Username: ChitownPost Number: 1098 Registered: Apr-05 | There is a good point being made there that the expenditure on higher end equipment has definitly gone up through the last 20 years. Whereas at some point only the a/v buffs would dare to spend in the thousands for hi-fi equipment, it is much more common these days to have people with mid to hi-fi equipment built into their homes. I think that should eventually translate to better quality mediums for recording and delivery of music as well. I have never really been impressed by CD's. I use them because there really isn't much of a choice. I just can't do vinyl. |
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Gold Member Username: NuckPost Number: 3091 Registered: Dec-04 | Stof, Daks and Art have been riding me for ditching the vinyl, but I think you and me both just can't get over the finesse/esotrica thing. It's just too...finicky. Good=yes. Pain in the butt=Oy Vay! |
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Gold Member Username: NuckPost Number: 3092 Registered: Dec-04 | However, choosing well is very important in cd's. I think Tim said Spears sells more cd's than sacd dvda and hdcd combined, so that tells the tale right there. Gotta cut back on the kids allowances to stop that PDQ. |
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Gold Member Username: ChitownPost Number: 1099 Registered: Apr-05 | Now if I could only find Brittany Spears on vinyl, that would be nirvana. I still have more hope for the hi-def DVD. With more room, there will be less or no compression. I still don't like the media because it is so vunerable, but for now I'll settle for better quality. |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 963 Registered: Dec-03 | I've been contemplating ditching the CD player altogether and put everything uncompressed on hard disk, using an external DAC for playback. |
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Gold Member Username: ChitownPost Number: 1100 Registered: Apr-05 | There is a gorgeous Mcintosh media player you may want to look at http://www.mcintoshlabs.com/mcprod/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=19&cat=Sources&pro did=1113&product=MS300 |
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Gold Member Username: NuckPost Number: 3097 Registered: Dec-04 | Tim, that seems like a good idea, given the resources. Stof, there it is right there. Damn, but that looks like a goodie. It all changes so fast anymore, it seems to me to be hard to tell when to pull the trigger. |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 964 Registered: Dec-03 | Gettin' off topic from the original post. Would it help if I said, "yeah, and get good speakers too doggone it!"? I was going to post over on the digital forum but those subject lines scared me off. How many threads on iPods can you have anyway? I think I'll build my own server, use EAC to rip and Squeezebox to get it to my stereo. |
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Bronze Member Username: Daniel_canadaCanada Post Number: 92 Registered: May-06 | mmmm......time for a turntable. |
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Gold Member Username: ChitownPost Number: 1101 Registered: Apr-05 | You can certainly build your own server, it's relatively easy, but damn that that Mac looks and sounds very good. Plus the fact that it has good DAC's and the transport is really great and it let's you RIP your CD's lossless very effortlessly. |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 965 Registered: Dec-03 | "mmmm......time for a turntable" I think everyone should have a turntable, even if they don't use it as the primary source. There's still several companies doing high quality pressings, 200 gram, super quiet vinyl, etc.. "damn that that Mac looks and sounds very good." I have no doubt of that. |
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Bronze Member Username: Daniel_canadaCanada Post Number: 93 Registered: May-06 | Timn8ter, have a link for those 200 gram pressings or any seller of new or used vinyl online? |
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Gold Member Username: Stu_pittIrvington, New York USA Post Number: 1418 Registered: May-05 | I couldn't agree more Tim. Over the weekend, I player Black Sabbath's Paranoid album on CD then Vinyl for my cousin. He was blown away. Being a computer geek (programmer or network something or other), he thought digital was far superior to analog. Not any more. I'd be willing to bet he still doesn't buy a turntable though. I guess it's too much of a hassle. |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 966 Registered: Dec-03 | Dan- I like going to AcousticSounds.Com. They have a nice selection of new vinyl. If you're wondering what CDs can sound like if they're done properly, go to http://www.fimpression.com Winston does an exceptional job engineering and producing some of the best CDs in the world. The Audiophile Reference IV SACD is highly recommended. |
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Silver Member Username: DakulisSpokane, Washington United States Post Number: 969 Registered: May-05 | Hey guys, I ditched my turntable several years back. We had a garage sale a month ago and sold about half of my old vinyl, more to go soon. Had to laugh, one guy went through and took every old movie soundtrack my wife had and left a bunch of old, good stuff. Hey, if I'm keepin' a turntable, I'm certainly not listening to the Sound of Music on it. LOL Tim, we need to talk about this whole digital recording thing so I can understand better where you're coming from. My Arcam does great with high quality CDs and it reveals bad CDs, but the same is true with a decent turntable and vinyl, no? So, how does a digital recorder avoid bad recordings? I'm lost here. Thanks, Dave. |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 967 Registered: Dec-03 | I hope I'm understanding your question Dave. A bad recording is going to be bad, regardless, unless you remaster it, which is an entirely different process. Our little audio club has done a fair amount of playing around with this stuff. There's a great deal of speculation about what's happening when we copy a CD to a hard drive using good software. Perhaps we're just sparing the CD player the trouble of doing excessive error correction if we've already gotten the best read from the disk. Then there's jitter and optical read errors.. We're using pretty decent equipment and the transferred data does sound a bit better. We have guys that rip to a hard drive then copy on to very high quality media (archive quality CD-R costing $14 each) and getting good results. My thought was, if you've already got it on the hard drive, just play it from there. |
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Silver Member Username: DakulisSpokane, Washington United States Post Number: 970 Registered: May-05 | Tim, I think you hit it on the head. I guess what I was wondering is whether something like the McIntosh piece allows you to get something more off a bad or OK CD or recording. Kind of, how do you get something better if it ain't there in the first place? |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 968 Registered: Dec-03 | You don't, but if you can get an exact copy of the data on to something that is easier to read and requires less error correction you may be able to improve the performance of your system. |
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Gold Member Username: ChitownPost Number: 1102 Registered: Apr-05 | Of course nothing has more jitters than a turntable. Heaven forbid you should be in an older house with a wood floor and a basement. When the kids run, RonDMC skips. As far as the optical read error, isn't this where a better transport does a much better job then the cheaper cd players? |
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Silver Member Username: PraetorianCanada Post Number: 229 Registered: Dec-05 | The problem is people confuse or misread "quality" with an "effects-based" approach to audio rendering/listening. The debate is less about the superiority of analog over digital (or vice versa) over what we like to hear or have been conditioned to hear. As far as information transfer goes, digital is "superior" to analog, its less complex and far less prone to errors. HOWEVER (there is always a "but"), the cross the digital word has to bear is GIGO, I.E. "Garbage in = Garbage out". So no matter how perfectly recorded a digital song is, the law of averages catches up. There are eight or ten steps to producing a CD, anywhere along that process errors can occur, and worse, the earlier in the process, the more they get compounded. Further, you can get some great recordings from the same process that produced some crappy ones. From the primary master, they produce "glass masters" which beget anywhere from 3 - 6 "stamped" metal impressions. Here is error possibility #1 (not incl recording errors). These stampings produce a variable amount of successful transfers (hence the "3 - 6"). The process is repeated on those impressions, which make up the moulds. So long before you even have a CD mould, you have two levels of error reproduction. Further, the moulding of the CDs may be inconsistent, as well as the metallisation and lacquering. So really it's amazing that anything gets transferred at all (j/k). As to vinyl, the reproduction of errors is really no different there either, my personal opinion is that preference is based on equalisation vs non-equalisation. Generally speaking, digital playback is "flat". For audio enthusiasts who spanned the evolution from analog to digital they have become very accustomed to equalised sound. Further, vinyl playback may be more forgiving for average to poor recordings, but it is a double edged sword, the lack of precision renders high qual recordings incompletely as well. Assuming a decent recording for digital, you get the unbiased naked truth, and some people prefer "good from far" over "far from good" if you catch my analogy. My two cents, you get what you paid for... |
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Gold Member Username: ChitownPost Number: 1104 Registered: Apr-05 | I think its safe to say that digital technology has no mercy on bad recordings. Vinyls tend to be a lot more forgiving. |
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Silver Member Username: Daniel_canadaCanada Post Number: 102 Registered: May-06 | Thanks for the link. |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 969 Registered: Dec-03 | For whatever reason, one of the most memorable listening sessions I ever had was a Satchmo LP on a Well Tempered turntable. Wonderful! |
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Gold Member Username: ChitownPost Number: 1107 Registered: Apr-05 | The only thing that really intrigues me about vinyl at this point are all the little shops peppered across the Chicago that sell them new and used. They are just so cool. There is one about a block west of Saturday audio exchange. When I am turned away disappointed at Saturday Audio because I don't find any bargains (like a used Bryston sitting around for $250) then I head over to that shop and buy some music... CD's of course. |
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Silver Member Username: DakulisSpokane, Washington United States Post Number: 979 Registered: May-05 | Michael, Tim, Stof, Dan and Nuck Michael, thanks for the expansion on Tim's explanation. I'm intrigued with vinyl, grew up with vinyl, had all the vinyl cleaning tools, brushes, cleaners, etc. and the multiple stylises to deal with different genres and I just really don't want to go back there. I paid for a very good Arcam CD player so that I could search for and buy better recorded CDs. The problem is when I play a poorly recording CD, my wife or kids will come in and say "what's wrong with your stereo, that sounds horrible." And, it does. The bad CDs just sound worse and the good ones are incredible. Which takes us back to the original point, how do we get labels to care about the quality they're putting out if everyone buys the crappy CDs anyway? Dunno. |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 977 Registered: Dec-03 | Labels care about sales. Perhaps we can be "music missionaries" spreading the "good word" about the huge difference quality recording and production techniques make in the enjoyment of music. This should be the goal of all those "audiophile clubs" around the country (along with "bang for the buck" equipment). The conversion rate will be a small percentage because most who hear the difference won't care enough to put money down for it. Still, if one person tells ten..... |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 8754 Registered: May-04 | . " ... if one person tells ten..... " I think that's how iTunes got started. . |
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Silver Member Username: DakulisSpokane, Washington United States Post Number: 982 Registered: May-05 | OK, This spurs me to another idea, which kind of came out of the tubes and "do you listen" threads. Somewhere in there, someone broke off with a thread on favorite CDs. During that time, I know Jan trumpeted his reference CD, which led me to buy a couple of the old Elvis recordings, very good BTW. (I'm still waiting Janon a copy of the reference CD.) Anyway, the point being, maybe we need a thread solely on well recorded CDs, irrespective of genre, or possibly even by genre, so we can use each other's experience to increase our respective library. So, far you guys haven't led me astray on recordings and I've probably added 30-40 CDs over the last year. Who wants to start it? |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 980 Registered: Dec-03 | ME! ME! https://www.ecoustics.com/electronics/forum/home-audio/243272.html |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 8757 Registered: May-04 | . Dak - I need your address and you will receive a disc in the mail. . |
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Silver Member Username: DakulisSpokane, Washington United States Post Number: 983 Registered: May-05 | Jan, Send an email to dakatrandanco.com and I'll send you the address. I would have tried to send a PM but I know that you don't do those. Tim was supposed to get it to you the last time you did this and he forgotted. That's what happens when you keep your head in a speaker cabinet too long. Hey, just kiddin' Tim. |
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Gold Member Username: ChitownPost Number: 1116 Registered: Apr-05 | Forgotted? Is that a legal term Dave  |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 982 Registered: Dec-03 | no i dint |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 8758 Registered: May-04 | you dint notdoit? |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 984 Registered: Dec-03 | i dint forgoted |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 8761 Registered: May-04 | . You gottalotta 'splainin' todo, Lucy! |
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Silver Member Username: DakulisSpokane, Washington United States Post Number: 985 Registered: May-05 | Forgotted is from the Latin root forgette, which literally interpreted means, "Senior moments include waking up everyday with new friends." As opposed to the Latin root, fughetaboutit, which means: "Badges, badges, we don't need no stinkin' badges." |
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Bronze Member Username: Clarence_yIllinois USA Post Number: 29 Registered: Apr-06 | I didn't realize how much knowledge I would gain when I first joined this forum. Now I'm learning Latin too. I gettin smart. |
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