Interesting Article: "The Death of High Fidelity"

[Travis In Austin]

I thought this was a great article about how compression is used in recording these days. It is from Rolling Stone so even I could understand most of it.

http://tinyurl.com/26d9la

Travis

[oldtimer]

Just received my copy last week and enjoyed reading it. They kind of dismiss all of us diehards who insist on buying quality, we are clearly dwarfed in the marketplace.

[oldbuckster]

Lotta' truth in that article ..................... I think it's dying too, I-pods are killing it ..........

[LarryC]

I wrote an article for my college alumni news letter describing my fraternity's victory in a campus choral contest (I led the group). The alumni office kindly arranged to take the cassette tape recording I sent them (recorded from the original LPs to RTR tape and saved for lo these many years) and put the music online a la You Tube.

I was really dismayed -- the online transfer was compressed, taking the life out of the music and the performance!!

They must have found someone, perhaps not a professional shop, who had the equipment and software to turn the analog cassette recording into a digital format.

The alumni office didn't want to pursue the issue, so I didn't say anything more about it. My questions: where was the compression built into the process? Is it STANDARD to include compression in AD conversion software and equipment? Was there a way to avoid it in this case? I'd appreciate some clues here -- thanks!

Larry

[Marvel]

Larry,

It is quite possible that the person who made the file to put online "normalized" the levels. If you had a lot of dynamics on the tape, and it was only vocals, I could well imagine someone doing that. Normalizing would compress the levels, or bring up the quieter passages so they were more even.

Bruce

[LarryC]

Very interesting, Bruce! So it was a choice? Your description fits the result exactly. Unfortunately, the very first quiet part brought up in level was the record scratch from the original LP, which is almost inaudible on my tapes, and then the excitement was definitely diminished. I might have pursued a re-do if I'd known that, though the newsletter editor seemed reluctant.

Larry

[DrWho]

My questions: where was the compression built into the process? Is it STANDARD to include compression in AD conversion software and equipment? Was there a way to avoid it in this case? I'd appreciate some clues here -- thanks!

Youtube compresses everything uploaded to the website - it is not a function of the AD process at all.

Btw, "normalization" does not change the dynamics of the music. All it does is change the volume....For example, let's say that the loudest section in the song is -10dBfs. If you normalize to 0dBfs, you increase the gain by 10dB everywhere in the piece...just like turning up the volume knob. It's purely a thing of convenience and really doesn't affect the sound (there is a very minor rounding issue, but that's not relevant to this discussion).

[DrWho]

From the ariticle:

The inner ear automatically compresses blasts of high volume to protect
itself, so we associate compression with loudness, says Daniel Levitin,
a professor of music and neuroscience at McGill University and author
of This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession.
Human brains have evolved to pay particular attention to loud noises,
so compressed sounds initially seem more exciting. But the effect
doesn't last. "The excitement in music comes from variation in rhythm,
timbre, pitch and loudness," Levitin says. "If you hold one of those
constant, it can seem monotonous." After a few minutes, research shows,
constant loudness grows fatiguing to the brain. Though few listeners
realize this consciously, many feel an urge to skip to another song.

It sounds to me like me like a better understanding of how we hear is required. The whole reason for increased loudness is to grab the attention, but obviously we've got too many 'amateurs' that don't understand hearing perception and don't ever back off the effect.

I don't see it as the death of high fidelity though. These articles are becomming much more common and are pointing to the fact that the mid-fi world is starting to care about dynamic contrast. Also, there has always been an enduring high fidelity market....it's just hard to find beneathe the shear volume of the mass market. If one considers the demographics for a minute, the higher fidelity music is going to be coming from the more artsy fartsy musicians which are most likely going to be at the cutting edge of music....meaning that the larger portion of older people interested in, and able to afford, high-fidelity aren't going to be aware or even interested in it. The good artists don't tend to be incredibly interested in agressive marketing schemes either...(heck, many of the famous ones hated their own work).

[LarryC]

Youtube compresses everything uploaded to the website - it is not a function of the AD process at all. All it does is change the volume.

Btw, "normalization" does not change the dynamics of the music.

I'm sure it's not on Youtube. Assuming it's not, where and how in the process would the compression be applied? And, why does "normalization" sound like a special process, if all we're talking about is raising the level to some reference point -- wouldn't that be a normal move in putting it online?

Larry

[DrWho]

I'm sure it's not on Youtube.

What makes you so sure?

Assuming it's not, where and how in the process would the compression be applied? And, why does "normalization" sound like a special process, if all we're talking about is raising the level to some reference point -- wouldn't that be a normal move in putting it online?

Normalization is not the issue here - it's considered very standard practice and is most likely NOT being performed when the movie is being uploaded.

Compression can be applied anywhere in the signal path...and by compression I'm not referring to amplitude compression (like offered by a compressor/limiter). I'm talking about converting the signal into an mp3 or some other lossy codec that reduces the quality, but makes the file smaller.

The Youtube website is absolutely converting to a different file type when movies are uploaded, unless of course you're uploading the file type it wants to use. In either case, you're going to experience the same quality because the codec being used keeps the file sizes small (faster downloading times and less harddrives required to store it all).

If a lossless codec was used before the file was uploaded to youtube, then you're going to be introducing even more distortions. This might have been done to speed up the upload process.

Why do you ask? You're never going to get high-fidelity on Youtube.

[LarryC]

Normalization is not the issue here - it's considered very standard practice and is most likely NOT being performed when the movie is being uploaded.

Compression can be applied anywhere in the signal path...and by compression I'm not referring to amplitude compression (like offered by a compressor/limiter). I'm talking about converting the signal into an mp3 or some other lossy codec that reduces the quality, but makes the file smaller.

The Youtube website is absolutely converting to a different file type when movies are uploaded, unless of course you're uploading the file type it wants to use. In either case, you're going to experience the same quality because the codec being used keeps the file sizes small (faster downloading times and less harddrives required to store it all).

If a lossless codec was used before the file was uploaded to youtube, then you're going to be introducing even more distortions. This might have been done to speed up the upload process.

Why do you ask? You're never going to get high-fidelity on Youtube.

This is certainly a complicated area from what you say! This was not a movie, but rather an audio-only musical file. I personally sent an analog audio tape of high quality to a college alumni office along with an article on how my fraternity won a choral contest (I led the group), to be placed in an alumni newsletter. The alumni office arranged with some local talent to put it online on the whitman.edu website.

I don't have access to the link right now, but am almost certain it was not a Youtube URL. Beyond that, I have no knowledge of how they did it.

You say it's going to be compressed anyway? Then, how was it that Youtube was used for the segment shown in another thread that demonstrated an uncompressed and compressed selection that made the difference obvious?

Why am I asking? Because the group's performance was very exciting, both by my opinion and others who heard it on my tapes. However, the online rendition removed all the excitement and is boring to listen to. Ultimate fidelity was not necessary to hear the excitement -- BUT the original dynamics WERE needed! I wish that had been captured for online listeners.

I wanted to know what happened and how it could have been prevented.

Larry

[Marvel]

From what Larry describes, there is compression going on, i.e., peak limiting, etc. And I was mistaken about the normalize function. On the software I usually use, normalze can take one of several paths. The audio can be maximized, or set to match an average of multiple files... I was thinking of the maximize part with compression going on. My bad.

Bruce

[Daddy Dee]

Mark makes an interesting case for the future of LP's. I'm hoping that since CD's are also facing "extinction" that there will be artistic interest in pressing and engineering good recordings for CD as well.

I used to see "remastered" as good news. Now, I know it is not necessarily so.

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Mark makes an interesting case for the future of LP's. I'm hoping that since CD's are also facing "extinction" that there will be artistic interest in pressing and engineering good recordings for CD as well.

I used to see "remastered" as good news. Now, I know it is not necessarily so.

I completely agree DD. Well mastered CD's can sound so good. New jazz recordings really seem to show off the medium. My guess is that they are not in competition in the compression wars. (Please everyone, I did not say that CD's are better than LP's).

As far as the remastering, I was listening to Crime of the Century a few days ago, one of my favorite CD's. I bought it in 1989 (first CD that I ever bought). For some reason this CD sounds outstanding. I was thinking of getting a remastered CD but it is a crap shoot and the MSFL (??) CD is $150+. What do you do. Is there a website that rates remastered CD's for audio quality that isn't controlled by the recording industry? I'd buy quite a few remastered CD's if I knew what I was getting.

[Colin]

forget the pops, clicks, wow and flutter of mechanical discs, the future for tweaking audiophiles is Slingboxes and high fidelity downloads:

http://www.stereophile.com/news/051605musicgiants/

The more I improved my stereo system, the more it revealed other flaws, especially the recordings. I thought then, as I do now, that tweaking audiophiles will devote a portion of their hi-fi budget to high quality recordings - they are the ones who can best hear and appreciate the quality.

AM radio wasn't hi-fi, so audiophiles bought FM tuners. Cassettes weren't hi-fi, so we bought reel to reel decks. Records weren't quality enough, so we bought master recordings. iPods are so much dreck, so we will download lossless releases.

BTW, not only did I think that Dolby dynamic range expansion would save the record industry from the CD, but I thought that music video DVDs would eclipse the CD...

[gaspr]

I wonder if the day is near when almost all music is sold via downloads. If that day comes, it would seem that it would be easy for the engineers who want to do some good work, to be able to make different recording qualities available at very little extra cost. For example, for every recording, make an Ipod version available, as well as an audiophile version. Then let the customer choose. Wishful thinking??

[mfk]

So bloody true...real High Fidelity is dying except for a few diehards. Most of this is because of the iPod thing and peoplel getting used to listening to sampled music, coupled with the drive by some major manufacturers to make things house friendly, eg tiny speakers and a subwoofer, like the Bose Acoustimass series...sound is ok, but they are invisible in a room, nothing like my HII's or the RF/RC/RW stuff, not exactly invisible.

[Chris A]

This is why so many of the people who enjoy good sound and good music are turning to vinyl. I think that end of things is booming.

When I buy CDs online now, if there is an older version and a newer "remixed version", guess which one I buy now?

The prices are also much cheaper for used un-remixed CDs. []

[rivieraranch]

You all really want to get me started. Somebody posted this same article over on DECWARE forums and I flipped out. I am not going to repeat my comments here because it is too painful for me. You all should check out the thread that resulted from my post, as I believe it is a good read.

[Audio Flynn]

I'm very quickly losing my interest in giving even one more nickel to SONY/BMG, EMI, et al. There should be enough recycled material out there to fill my needs at this point.

If I am folowwing Mark correct, I too buy used more than new music software both digital and vinyl. I have only bought new from www.yourmusic.com in the past 7-8 months due to the lower than retail store price.

I find only a few people in my local peer group that invest in high fidelty. Nearly all of my friends apreciate my system, few are motivated to build a system for themselves.