whtboy Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 i couldn't sleep and wanted to listen to something soft that wouldn't wake up my boy. so i put on sade's 'lovers rock'. it's cool that i'm hearing more detail on all my cd's with my new cornwalls but i'm realizing they make bad recordings sound worse. the voice tracks on this cd sound good - and sade has a beautiful voice - but on my cornwalls the synthesized rhythym tracks sound like total crap!!! sound guys, record producers - whoever they are - who think quartz-precision, lo-fi midi drum loops are good substitutes for real musicians are self-important idiots and it sucks when they mess up what could have been a much better album. am i alone here? this is the main reason i don't listen to most rap. every hit on the hihat should *not* sound the same and be in perfect 144.00000 tempo. this sounds so lifeless. <fast forward 30 minutes> i just ordered - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000056MMD/002-5795759-1930412?v=glance&n=130 my 320GB hard drive and m-audio sound card came in today. i'm building a linux music system and have already started ripping all my cds with the flac lossless encoder. is there a website/forum/review-center you guys would recommend for good cd reviews? -j Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbsl Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 I had the same problem with my La Scalas! Bad recording sounds terrible on Heritage speakers. There must be some software so you can record it to the hard drive and then tweak the music and record the improved version onto a cd. I'm not talking about trying to make the bad recording sound incredablly perfect but better than the origanal cd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seti Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 I had the same problem with my La Scalas! Bad recording sounds terrible on Heritage speakers. There must be some software so you can record it to the hard drive and then tweak the music and record the improved version onto a cd. I'm not talking about trying to make the bad recording sound incredablly perfect but better than the origanal cd. I think Larry posted the link to RealityCheckCD which sounds really interesting. http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/viewpoint/1005/aachapter72.htm http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/viewpoint/0905/aachapter71.htm KaiserSETsay and I are going to send a cd to him and split the cost to see if this is fact or fiction. If what he says is true it is worth a shot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whtboy Posted January 20, 2006 Author Share Posted January 20, 2006 I definitely fall into the category of people who believe bits are bits. I can see how there would be differences between a cheap DA convertor and a good one, but I would be extremely suprised if a $99 Sony player used a transport spit out different bits with a pressed cd, a cheap cd-r or a special, tricked out cd-r. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seti Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 I was at KaisersSETsays house about a month ago to let my brother listen to his gear as he was considering buying some b&w speakers like kaiser has. We switched between many sources and listened to music for several hours: vinyl on a thorens table cd on his ead transport and dac ipod with songs ripped at the highest bit rate available minidisk player My brother was highly irrated that he could tell a considerable difference between the digital sources EAD/iPod/Minidisk as he thought the same bits are bits. I had heard the difference before but just sort of ignored it but to my brother this was abit excuse the pun of a revalation for him. I personally don't believe in spending ghastly amounts of money on fancy sources and equipment as I am a cheap bastard but I think in everything build quality does matter whether it's for aesthetics or performance. However the RealityCheckCD article if I read it correctly believes the actual CD and how it was originally mastered makes or breaks a system garbage in garbage out. I'll have to think about it abit more and I'm sure we will post an opinion after we get one of his test cds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whtboy Posted January 20, 2006 Author Share Posted January 20, 2006 When I say "bits are bits" I mean that once a 16-bit 44kHz digital signal is pressed to CD, the digitial signal coming out of any non-defective transport is going to be the same whether it comes from a 5 year old $99 Sony cd player with digital outs playing a cheapo CD-R copy or a $5000 audiophile transport playing some super special, extra clean audiophile CD-R copy. Unaltered digital is digital. No loss, no differences. Obviously, there will be differences in DA conversion, but I'm talking about the digital side of things. Comparing the audio quality of lossy codecs like MP3 (with the iPod) and Altrac (with the minidisc) is like comparing cassette recorded copies to the digital source itself. I don't think anyone is going to argue those codecs alter the sound, whatever the bitrate. That's why people use lossless formats like FLAC. Combine that with the cheap DA convertors and amplifier circuits often found in portable electronics, I'm not at all surprised you could hear a difference. What I'm saying is that I don't believe there's any way to take an existing CD and make it sound better unless you are going to do some sort of remastering, but I don't think that's what's happening with this copier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seti Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 What I'm saying is that I don't believe there's any way to take an existing CD and make it sound better unless you are going to do some sort of remastering, but I don't think that's what's happening with this copier. I agree it doesn't sound possible but alot of people say it definately sounds better so what the heck it is worth a try. I am also a pessimist and won't believe it until I hear it for myself. I'll let ya know. We just have to agree on which of our CDs to send to him to be copied with this newfangled device. Should I send one that I don't think could sounds better or send a crappy one and see if it improves? Hmm maybe both. http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/viewpoint/0106/aachapter75.htm http://positive-feedback.com/Issue16/RealityCheck.htm When I first got into this hobby I thought alot of what was being said was BS but I found myself proven wrong all to often. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whtboy Posted January 20, 2006 Author Share Posted January 20, 2006 "Only one hitch: Each must be re-recorded. No CD player or transport currently available is able to overcome the inherent design flaws of mass-produced CDs" I dunno man, sounds a little flaky to me. I'm very eager to find out what a blind AB test reveals. I would also be interested to see an analysis on the binary cda/wav files themselves to make sure they haven't just been doctored up a little bit ;-) If the "new" digital source is different at the bit level then this would simply fall into the category of digital expanders, stereo width processors, etc., no? -jacob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whtboy Posted January 20, 2006 Author Share Posted January 20, 2006 Hahahaha... no wonder, he's a frckn lawyer!!! " What is your background? I have a B.A. in mathematics and a certificate in software engineering from San Diego State University. I was also a physics major for a time, and I studied optics in order to produce Finyl. All this, plus a natural scientific curiosity and a love of music, contributed to my interest in improving the sound of CDs. I also happen to be an attorney. " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnysal Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 you are right on the mark about this issue, I have heard songs on other people's systems and enjoyed them immenseIy onyl to be dissapointed when I finally got to hear them on my system. Besides that recent Sade album I can think of some Lisa Stansfield albums that sounded like crap on my system (especially the fake drum and cymbal tracks) but sounded ok on other systems. I wish more producers would take to mixing and mastering on audiophile systems (at least for comparison purposes) instead of box box speakers....grrrr...tony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Robinson Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 When I added the Njoe Tjoeb upsampler kit, a lot of those unlistenable CD's became tolerable. Not great, but listenable. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garymd Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 And these are only Cornwalls............. I'm guessing the CD would sound even worse on Khorns/Belles/Lascalas. I have LPs/CDs that sound great on my Cornwalls but horrible on the Khorns. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whtboy Posted January 20, 2006 Author Share Posted January 20, 2006 What is the general hierarchy of the Heritage series in terms of sound quality? Do the higher end systems have different mids/tweeters? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Def Leper Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 I share your pain. After I got my Cornwalls I immediately started going through my music collection, both CD and vinyl, and found many new gems that that came alive, and some old favorites that went from "WOW" to "OW". The "OW's" I just listen to on the home theater system, which is a decent all-JBL setup that I chose for a neutral sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
louis Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 it only gets wores the more you spend reguardless of speakers makes the better ones sound better but bad is bad louis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HatTrick66 Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 Iv'e had my CW's about three weeks and I could not agree more about the bad going to worse. However, the good is oh so good.[][<)] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seti Posted January 21, 2006 Share Posted January 21, 2006 It is dissapointing when your old faves sound like new doodie but I still listen cause I love em anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steamer Posted January 21, 2006 Share Posted January 21, 2006 I believe it starts with the mastering process, 30 min ago I grabbed a Van Halen cd(diver down)and put it in...well it sounded really bad,Im thinking WTH then realize I picked up the wrong one. I bought several Van Halen discs a few years ago that had been remastered with HDCD to replace the originals mastered in the mid 80's I put the remastered one in and well there is a huge difference.Actually makes Van Halen sound good with LaScala's vs. the original releases. Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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