New Article

Dan Banquer · « **on:** 13 Jan 2003, 02:06 pm »

There is a new article up on www.audioholics.com, and soon to be posted on Dejan's zero distortion web site. The article is called Current Trends in the Recording Format Arena. This article is not about hardware or cables but it concerns all audiophiles/ music lovers. Part one of this article is a must read because no consumer magazine that I know of has covered this in any great depth.

MaxCast · « **Reply #1 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 03:13 pm »

Thanks for the link, Dan. Sure put me in a somber mood. With redbook you don't know what you will get in reqards to quality and with hi-rez, you don't know if it will be around next year.
Very interesting to read the producers pov. Good read.

Dan Banquer · « **Reply #2 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 04:05 pm »

Thanks for the input. From what I am hearing here this "disease" is spreading to jazz. As you can imagine, I am less than pleased.

audiojerry · « **Reply #3 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 04:06 pm »

So the recording industry cries about declining cd sales, while at the same time it is allowing adolescent and pre-adolescents drive the market to determine what is popular and how cd's should be engineered. Then the industry tries to blame internet sites like Napster for its failing revenues.
I don't see how this can ever be fixed or turned around.

It makes me want to aqcuire every discontinued cd I can get my hands on and stockpile several good cd players as backups for the next 20-30 years that I will hopefully still be able to enjoy music.

Dan Banquer · « **Reply #4 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 04:48 pm »

This is exactly what happens when the recording companys respond to the lowest common denominator. WRITE TO THE RECORD LABELS AND DEMAND BETTER!!!!!! ALSO WRITE TO MAJOR CONSUMER MAGAZINES AND DEMAND THAT THEY COVER THIS ISSUE AS WELL!!!!!. I consider this issue to be the AIDS of audio.

audiojerry · « **Reply #5 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 05:14 pm »

Maybe we can start one of those internet chain letters and send it to everyone we know, with a final copy with hopefully thousands of signatures can be forwarded to the recording industry.

I'd try to start one, but I'm too internet illiterate.

Dan Banquer · « **Reply #6 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 05:19 pm »

I have the article in a pdf file. Send me your e mail address and we can start sending to everyone we know.

MaxCast · « **Reply #7 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 05:32 pm »

Send me one and I'll send a few copies around. Anyone have time to post record label emails/us mail addresses?

We should start a petition drive from ALL the audio web sites. We should complain to audio manufacturers that cd's sound crappy on their cd players. We should.....damn, I am starting to sound like a SUV hating tree hugger.

nathanm · « **Reply #8 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 08:30 pm »

Ahh yes, the ridiculous "maximum loudness" obesssion. Extremely annoying. Compression has its place, but it is abused when it kills whatever dynamics or crescendos might be in the recording. For example, in many rock songs there will be a 'soft part' and a 'loud part', but there is hardly any program level difference between the two. If the song starts with a nice acoustic lead-in and then they start rocking with drums and electric guitars, that should be comparatively much louder. But rarely does this ever occur. The soft and loud parts are so compressed that there is no feeling of an increase in energy. Part of it does have to do with the bandwidth limits of the medium, but I still think it is abused.

The thing that ruffles my feathers is that this notion of "the record's not hot enough" hinges on an assumption that does not exist. The first problem is that these compressed-to-hell recordings have trained many listeners to only desire music to be at a single volume level with hardly any peaks. The second problem is that if you play them Band X whose record is cut hotter than Band Y, they will just adjust their volume knob to match Band Y, they sure as hell aren't going to say, "Ooh, it's louder, it must be better". Now I've never underestimated the stupidity of the average music buyer, but come on, they aren't THAT stupid are they? People care about songs with hooks and huge, gigantic choruses, they don't give a shit about the average program level. I would like to know where the labels are getting this data from, probably from the same place Hollywood gets the idea that "audience DEMAND better special effects!" DEMAND!? Have any of you ever picketed the front of the theater shouting with a bullhorn "I demand more realistic multi-camera sequential freezeframe effects! I demand a more realistic fur plugin for Maya!" What the hell!?

But none of this is any surprise to me. Nearly every "successful" piece of media you can possibly look at or listen to in this whole world is geared towards the dumbest, simplest, most broad, please-everybody, totally dilluted, milquetoast CRAP imaginable. I have no idea why people are pushing education so much because the fact is that the weakest morons humanity has to offer are the ones we most want to please! They're the ones in charge!

(*pauses to regain composure*)

This is precisely why I feel we need a Mapleshade approach for music besides Jazz, Blues, or Bluegrass. I think rock recordings done with that technique would be SO MUCH more exciting than the artificial approach taken today. There's absolutely no room sound or feeling of space in that stuff. It's simply way too "perfect". You NEED to hear little noises and creaks and buzzing amplifiers. It adds texture. But no, let's noise gate every goddamn track so there's nothing inbetween the notes!

nathanm · « **Reply #9 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 08:32 pm »

DVV · « **Reply #10 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 09:05 pm »

Just compare your mid-80ies CDs with the current ones and you'll know exactly what Dan and Gene are on about. Yes, including those compilations of ye olde hits 1965.

This may hurt, but while the phenomenon described is indeed universal, however it is much more pronounced in the US than in Europe. Oh, people do it here too, but less of them then over there.

Listen carefully to Deutsche Grammofon and Decca CDs and you'll notice they kick out people who try stunts like that. Glorious dynamics in the true sense of the word.

If you think this is limited to audiophile pressings, think again. For example, pick up a CD or two by Gregorian Masters of Chant - very modern, occasionally overprocessed, but with tremendous dynamic range. And I have to turn the wick up when I put them on - wonder why?

Cheers,
DVV

Dan Banquer · « **Reply #11 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 09:21 pm »

Recently I was at a friends listening to his new SACD player and a few new SACD discs. All of us who were there came to the conclusion that what happens in the recording studio is now more important then which format is chosen. That's real progress from 50 years ago.
Your absolutely right Dejan about dynamic range; without it, music is just a pale lifeless corpse.

MediaSeth · « **Reply #12 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 09:29 pm »

Give the masses a "Loudness" button if that's what they want, before audiophiles sink to tinkering with new forms of dynamic range expanders. Please.

DVV · « **Reply #13 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 09:34 pm »

Quote from: MediaSeth

Give the masses a "Loudness" button if that's what they want, before audiophiles sink to tinkering with new forms of dynamic range expanders. Please.

Loudness button??? Sacrilidge! Unholy! Anti-Christ!

O sinner, have ye forgotten they have been banished as unclean, along with the tone controls?

Thus, in the name of (deceptive) simplicty, we have all been damned to listen to the wailings of the unholy as the Dark Ones master it to be.

Not so cheerful,
DVV

Dan Banquer · « **Reply #14 on:** 13 Jan 2003, 09:47 pm »

Quote from: MediaSeth

Give the masses a "Loudness" button if that's what they want, before audiophiles sink to tinkering with new forms of dynamic range expanders. Please.

Unfortuneately, a dynamic range expander isn't goint to remove the clipping. Recording Engineers have told the producers to archive a copy that's 10 db down in level for the "Best of" series that they will want to release 5 years from now. What's on those discs is permanent to the best of my knowledge, and no real way for us to alter that.

Sounding_Board_Audio · « **Reply #15 on:** 14 Jan 2003, 03:27 am »

I don't think internet petitioning or emailed feedback is generally effective, whatever the cause at hand. Sending snail mail to recording companies can be somewhat effective. Letters to editors of all kinds of publications would be effective regardless of issue, imo, especially if in the present argument you link declining sales and piracy to poor quality and industry malfeasance.

What really talks is dollars. While I like to own CDs, file sharing is an important brake on RIAA industry price fixing and poor selection, format nonsense and bad recording quality.

The other aspect is patronizing and publicizing the many small recording labels which do a better job, such as John Marks' label, Water Lily Acoustics, Reference Recordings and so on. Telarc is fairly big but does good work, too.

Also, if you have a favorite artist on a major label, it might be good to write the artist mentioning your concerns and an alternative label you think offers good audio quality and a match for their music. All the artists but the biggest are getting screwed financially by their (major) label anyway. The industry should be made aware that there are better labels, or encouraged to think about self publishing. Small and decentralized means better quality for us, and less political and market power for the majors.

I despise the RIAA and Valenti and the majors...unfortunately I like to buy CDs of mainstream artists, too.

I hope this makes sense. I'm verklempft, or however you spell it.

MaxCast · « **Reply #16 on:** 14 Jan 2003, 01:30 pm »

Quote

The other aspect is patronizing and publicizing the many small recording labels which do a better job, such as John Marks' label, Water Lily Acoustics, Reference Recordings and so on. Telarc is fairly big but does good work, too.

I agree on this point. See this thread for other recommendations:
http://silver.he.net/~johnr2/circles/viewtopic.php?t=365

Quote

Thus, in the name of (deceptive) simplicty, we have all been damned to listen to the wailings of the unholy as the Dark Ones master it to be.

Quote

All of us who were there came to the conclusion that what happens in the recording studio is now more important then which format is chosen

I came to that realization while upgrading my system....You can have a real kick ass system and still have it sound like crap because of the recording. No matter what equipment we have we will always be bound by the quality of the recording.

Dan Banquer · « **Reply #17 on:** 14 Jan 2003, 01:52 pm »

Max;
You hit the nail on the head and that's one of the main points of my article. If the recording sucks it doesn't really matter how good your system is. My impression of the format war and stereo is that what happens in the recording studio is now more important than whether it's redbook CD, SACD or DVD A.

JoshK · « **Reply #18 on:** 14 Jan 2003, 03:24 pm »

damned if we do, damned if we don't.....

Makes a lot of sense, also explains why so many of the newer vinyl releases sound like poo....

jqp · « **Reply #19 on:** 15 Jan 2003, 03:56 am »

Thanks for the link. Too bad I had to be so digusted in reading it. But the truth is often not pretty. It makes me think of the guys driving around with their trunks rattling trying to impress everyone.

Of course some similar problems are present with vinyl, and it has its own set of problems...We should definitely compile a list of CDs that have the best recording qualities. Kind of hate to think like that because that is not what music is all about. But I won't listen to crap recordings more than once or twice.