[Rclark]

It appears we have a winner! And the Compact Disc emerges, dignity intact.

[brj]

Yep.

More bits and a higher sample rate are good for an initial recording, mixing, processing, etc... but normalizing that down to 16/44.1 is just fine!

Sample rate and bit depth will not affect signal resolution, true.

That said, greater bit depth improves the signal to noise ratio of a system as well as the dynamic range.  Whether you can make use of that depends on your system and what you're listening to.  (Both in terms of the original signal itself and how it was mastered.)

Likewise, a higher sample rate lets your DAC implement reconstruction filters on its output that have less impact in the audio band, just as a higher sample rate helps out the anti-aliasing filter on the ADC input.  44100 Hz / 2 = 22050 Hz, which only gives you a 2050 Hz transition band for your reconstruction filter.  That very small band requires very steep filters, which can impose greater signal amplitude ripple into the pass band and phase issues that impact group delay.  The primary reason many DACs oversample is to get a larger transition band in order to implement reconstruction filters with shallower slopes that are more benign within the 20-20000 Hz bandwidth.

[medium jim]

I was recalling the first cd's I purchased and one of them was Donald Fagen's Nightfly which was recorded in 1982 on a 3M Digital 32 Track machine and mixed on a digital 4 track.   It is as good as anything today, well maybe better as there is no compression. 

Jim

[FullRangeMan]

I will agree with Lampizator: if the CD player had opamps the sound quality is not hi.

[jimdgoulding]

Love the discussion fellas . .

do truck on.

[jimdgoulding]

Duplicate, sorry, but it's a good year.

[jimdgoulding]

 

[django11]

Today's moral? Buy more CDs, put them on your iPod and computer if you like, and enjoy them. Get a great DAC if you've got computer stuff to enjoy, but don't waste your time futzing with computer equipment and music software when you can just buy CDs and enjoy the music itself instead of fiddling with stereo gear. God help us that some people waste time fiddling on their computers just to get music; half the reason the general public loves the CD over LP is simple convenience and never having to align a cartridge, flip an album or clean records or worry about wearing them out

Different strokes I guess but I have always disliked the CD as a physical medium.  I often break the case the first time I open it (not too even mention the pathetic multidisc cases) and the writing is so tiny on the edge I can never, ever find the cd I want.  I incessantly fiddled with CDPs, DACs and repairmen trying to get the discs to sound good/play at all.  Mind you I never bought an expensive CDP player but have a buddy who did that for me.  Serially.

Once set up, I absolutely love the simplicity of JRiver Media player.  I can find all my music quickly and can jump from one song on one cd to another song on another cd just like that.  No looking all over for that cd and no waiting for the bloody thing to load...

[Rclark]

Hey, nice. You're the opposite of me though, I keep them all on a rack and take care if them. It's not hard. Buuut in the unlikely event of a scratched disc my player has 384x oversampling. Oh it's gonna play that disc, haven't found one it won't read yet.

[medium jim]

The ability to download music from the net is one of the worst things that ever happened to musicians who make their money from CD/LP sales.  Sure they make money as well from legitimate downloads, but we know most is not from legitimate sources.  Then there is the fact that artists go to the trouble of creating a CD or Album and the kids today don't even understand that concept, they just download individual songs....kind of like the 50 when the 45 ruled supreme.

Because of this, too many talented bands and artists are left out of the loop or have to self produce on inferior recording equipment...pro tools, acid only go so far.   

The cd while not a perfect medium is still damn good and hopefully will never go away...

Jim

[James Lehman]

Huh? The downfall of making any money from professionally produced medium really tanked when the CD burner came out!

At that point, one could make a perfect digital clone of any CD.

Previous to that, the best one could do was to make an analog tape recording of an LP.

Why do you think the RIAA ruined DAT recorders for the US market?

On the brighter side, the transition has awakened some musicians to the idea that money is to be made in live performance and as a result, there is more music being made that is actually PERFORMED, as apposed to PROGRAMMED.

James. 

[medium jim]

Huh? The downfall of making any money from professionally produced medium really tanked when the CD burner came out!

At that point, one could make a perfect digital clone of any CD.

Previous to that, the best one could do was to make an analog tape recording of an LP.

Why do you think the RIAA ruined DAT recorders for the US market?

On the brighter side, the transition has awakened some musicians to the idea that money is to be made in live performance and as a result, there is more music being made that is actually PERFORMED, as apposed to PROGRAMMED.

James. 

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. With a CD burner, you have to have the source CD.  With illegal downloads you don't.

Jim

[tnargs]

....With a CD burner, you have to have the source CD....

Wellll, I suppose  *someone, somewhere along the chain of copies* has to have the source CD....

[HsvHeelFan]

I disagree with the idea that "First generation CD's all sounded terrible."  I bought my first CD player in March of 1984.  The 2 CD's that I initially purchased, I still have.

Telarc's  Cleveland Orchestra, with Lorin Maazel  conducting, performing Mussourgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition".  The original recording was from 1978.

and

Alan Parson's Project "I Robot".  Both CD's still sound great.  In fact, since my playback equipment has gotten a lot better (thanks to my 4B-ST), I would say that the original CD's sound better than when new.

I think everything is dependent upon the care and attention to detail that the Producer and Engineers used when mixing and mastering the disc.

HsvHeelFan

[mkaiser]

I remember reading about some of the early pop/rock reissues made from the LP master ( a tape that is EQed specifically for pressing a record), but I don't know how often that happened.

I am listening to Jean Sibeleus Symphony Nr. 6 Opus 104 on the BIS label right now. It was recorded in 1983 on the Sony PCM-F1 and the CD itself was produced in 1984. It is a damn fine sounding recording and it makes me wonder why we don't just refine the technology base we already have rather than keep trying to reinvent the wheel and introduce more variables into the mix.  /quote]

I totally agree. 

[Chris A.]

Note that this is a very old thread but I felt that starting a new topic wasn't warranted.

In general, I agree that prior to 1991 and the wide use of multi-band compressors by those mastering guys (I don't call them engineers since they start with good recordings from the mix but basically produce corned beef hash out the back end) that the only way to make the music louder on disc--a vice that the record/disc music companies have been trying to do since the beginning of time--is to roll off the bass below 100 Hz and really press the midrange/treble upwards by an additional 9-12 dB (8 kHz relative to 100 Hz levels).  This is the reason why so many early CDs sound so poor. 

Once you remaster these recordings to "flat" (i.e., a linearly decreasing 5.5 dB/octave relative to 100 Hz), and boost bass from 40-100 Hz back to normal levels), these old recordings sound much better than any original vinyl record.  Trust me... 

More info on the subject can be found here:  https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/155096-the-missing-octaves/

[PA]

I've found that the early cd's from ECM are not to bad ie. Pat Metheny or John Abercrombie

+1

"Bright Size Life" deserves recognition as the great album that it undoubtedly is; with each passing year its place at the forefront of jazz becomes more defined, its universality more than ever clearly revealed.