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CD's. Only for the brain dead? Or dead-eared?


unclemeat

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Hi Guys,

Yes it's been a while since I've posted. I had many nice responses to my original. This won't garner so many especially if anyone on this forum was born after 1980. Or bought a compact disc after 1990. Oh well. I like to make friends but not at the cost of my self respect. So this post will piss off anyone who thinks Fiddy Cent is the be-all and end-all of music. It'll piss off those that believe a click track IS music. And it will piss off anyone that thinks CD's "rock". Outside the classical realm of course. There never was a market for 45's of Beethoven's Fifth.

Let's face it, the digital revolution has let us down HARD. Anyone still buying CD's, the 8 track of the twenty-first century? Do you like spending hundreds or thousands on equipment just so you can REALLY hear music made for MP3? If you've bought a compact disc in the past 15 years, that's what you're getting. Remember 45's? That's what radio stations played, not albums. They were specifically mastered for radio. Which meant they were COMPRESSED. On top of the compression of the radio signal. But it made them sound better on the radio. At least to the record company twits. Well at least they sounded 'louder'. The problem now is that they've eliminated 45's. So if you want a hit song, it comes on a CD compressed to the same level because you can't just master the 'hit' that way, it won't match the rest of the 'album'. Radio stations play Top 40 and nothing else. Pick your format. Pop, rap, country, even the sainted classical stations only play what's on that almighty playlist.

Maybe a couple albums sneak through the mastering mess. But they don't get airplay so who cares? Think I'm kidding? Google Metallica's lastest opus. Even their dead-ear fans are asking for a remaster. No offense to our Met-heads, but 'loud' doesn't equal 'good'. And in heavy metal, loud DOES equal good. And if a band as big as Metallica is having a problem with their discs imagine what's happening with crappy low-level bands like The Stones and The Beatles.

Search isohunt and see how many vinyl transfers there are. And these aren't transfers of Alanis Morissette. I'm talking classic albums. Rubber Soul, Sgt. Pepper's, Fragile, the entire Zeppelin catalogue. Why is that? Well for starters it's the 'remastering' craze. Every album is remastered every five years for a cash cow reissue. The original sounded ok so what do you do? You compress it to sound 'louder'. That's right, those sweet 'remastered' editions? Lay on the compression we
missed in the original release. Fancy new packaging too so people will
shell out for a CD they just bought 5 years ago. Does your 'remaster'
sound different? Louder maybe? Now you know why. And let's not even get
into the remixes. Look what happened with The Allman Brothers At
Fillmore East. They're on their third edition of that because they
screwed it up by removing the mixes that we all grew up with on the
second edition.

And I've just seen the final sign of the apocalypse. And trust me, the fourth horseman drives a Lexus. Now you can buy a tube amp for your iPod. For the low, low price of $1000. Another sign that we'll buy anything if it costs enough. Rebadge a Toyota, double the price and the lemmings are lining up at the showroom door. Make an amplifier to make music that's monstrously over-compressed sound almost like real music and people are shelling out the sheckles.

I've got nothing against MP3 players. I've got one myself. They're handy, nothing else. There is nothing 'audiophile' about these things. And if you're stupid enough to actually buy one of Big Brother's products, well I've got a bridge in New York super cheap. Would you buy a pair of Klipsch if they said you can only use them if you gave them a credit card number first? Welcome to the wonderful world of Apple. Bill Gates is grinning from ear to ear. What? You don't think he's got a big piece of that pie? Sheesh, maybe I can sell you an iPhone at original price then. Before they dropped the price by a couple hundred for no particular reason.

I just listened to a vinyl transfer of The Yes Album and was blown away. Why wasn't I that impressed with the CD I paid for of the same album? And this was downsampled from DVD-Audio quality to burn it to CDR. If you think it's just me, go download one of these transfers. They're done lovingly by fans who are sick of throwing money away on horrendous masters or worse, 'remasters' of their favorite albums.

So am I alone? Does anyone else feel fed up with CD's? Does anybody else think that music was not meant to be heard on a crappy cellphone? Hell, does anybody remember laughter?

Roman

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Sorry Roman, just saw this and don't get down here much anymore.

Hey Roman, Excellent rant and pretty much spot on.

But, there's always a but even when I agree with what people are saying.

I have heard some excellent, truly excellent cds. Try Telarc Chesky and the other small labels. The thing is there are many good people making music out there who care enough about their music to make sure it is recorded properly.

MP3's, pretty much junk.

Didn't know there was vinyl transfer group out there, always thought that was an individual thing. Done it myslef but don't have the patience for it, especially when I can walk over to the table and throw something on. However, I'd like to learn more, is there some sort of community of these folks out there?

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Apparently, no one is looking in this section.

Well, as usual it was another rant written using the Irish Method. That's right, get drunk then write. Anyway, I don't have a turn table right now unfortunately. And I'm not sure about a "community" of vinyl transferers but it might exist. I mentioned Isohunt which is just a Bittorrent search engine.

And yes, I understand there is some good music slipping through unfortunately. That will be stopped. Just not soon enough. So drop some Soma and fagetaboutit.

Roman

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Excellent post Roman. Current CD's sound so bad that I haven't bought one in over a year. The last one I bought was Velvet Revolver, and the recording was so terrible that I tossed into the trash out of disgust. In fact, todays recordings in the genre I enjoy sound so bad that I decided to quit wasting money on chasing the 2-channel holy grail. Here is the irony -- the better my system got the worse they sounded. I'm the happiest I've been in years by just listening to the tuner and doing Blu-ray concerts and movies.

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That's all well and good except there's almost nothing as far as DVD crap to listen to. And I'd shoot myself before listening to a tuner. I've heard enough Clearasil commercials for one lifetime.

I've got Alan Parson's quadrophonic mix of Dark Side Of The Moon. Outside of that which has never been released, what else is there? I don't want some cash-in DVD, I want to be able to listen to the music I love in relatively decent fidelity. That hasn't existed since the mid Eighties. Who would have ever thought that time period would be the final hurrah in music history?

Of course you'll have idiots lining up to tell you how much better CD's are. Really? Number one problem is the time limit. It is WAAAAAY too long for the product released today. Hell, even the prog-rock bands rarely released double LP's. Now it's the standard for Britney and all the other dregs of the music business like U2. Sorry, none of them have that kind of song writing talent.

Roman

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If you can swing it it's best to just have the band come over to your place and play live.Of course I'm sure it's possible the gear could get set up wrong and start you off on another rant.I prefer a good recording myself,but I also like music.It appears to me some get so caught up in their"system"they can't hear the music.I grew up listening to am radio,then fm,then 45,then albums,then 8track,then cassette,etc....I love music,I enjoyed them all.

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Spot on.

I happen to LIKE the Led Zep boxes and the few Rolling Stone CD remasters that I have. I think they tightened up and quieted the mixes without compressing the life out of the music. In fact the MCM's are juiced up and Mick and the Boys are out back right now. Gotta head out...

And Thebes, shame on you mang. You Invented this place! Let's get back on the weekly bandwagon, shall we? I've got a conference table of vinyl in the hearth room right now, I'm in!

Michael

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Roman - Where in Delaware are you?

I also have that Rhino reissue of The Yes Album and it IS amazing! I'm not as crazy about the Fragile reissue by Analogue Productions but I still play it on occasion.

Michael - As far as Zeppelin is concerned, their original pressings were so bad in some cases, there was no place to go but up. However, the Classic Records reissues are most excellent and blow away any CD issue I've heard.

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I guess I qualify for both part of the title. I listen to only CD's, just because I haven't got my TT up and running. I would be nice if all of us would list or post the "BEST" CD recordings, I know everyone like different kids of music but list the good ones and let folks pick and chose as they please.

Not knowing a whole lot of how a CD is made, I guess the recording, types of equipment, mastering, the sound engineer and probably a whole bunch of other stuff. All that I know is there are some good and a lot of bad, I use then to sail off the back deck and see how far they fly.

Just a though.

CB

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i have a stash of late 80's and early 90's cds. some good, some bad of both. some of the best sounding recordings i've heard are either fairly recent, or on dvd in dolby/dts. you must be listening to the wrong type of music roman!! isn't it all good as long as you enjoy the music?

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Of course, every different 8-track requires shims in different places.

Ha Ha , that was soooo long ago that I allmost completely forgot about it . It was a real PITA when I had a deck in the glovebox of my old Ford Galaxy 500 . Pretty long reach from the drivers seat .
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But wait.

Don't you remember the first time, after years of struggling to get pop&click-free music from your albums or hiss-free music from your cassettes, that you heard a CD ?

It was magic.

THere was NO background noise, and dynamic range to blow your socks off.

So WTF, why should it be different today ? Here's a great explanation I stumbled across on youtube about "The Loudness War". Trust me, it's worth the time:

CDs, at least theoretically, offer better dynamic range than other easily accessible audio media. The problem is current audio engineering practice which forces engineers to compress the crap out of the dynamic range, making everything sound very "flat" (but loud).

I agree with most of what Unclemeat wrote, but hey, I've got CDs that sound FANTASTIC. I think there still could be hope for the CD medium, if we just stop the dynamic range compression and loudness war.

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Spot On! The CD format is unfairly blamed for all that is wrong with sound quality. CD's CAN sound awesome and I've got plenty that do. The format is fine but the problem, and it's a big problem, is the lousy way so many CD's are now recorded. Kind of makes you wonder if there is a conspiracy designed to kill off the CD.

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