Is the CD good enough?

[Don Richard]

I was researching bit width / sample rates and found the following:

http://mixonline.com/recording/mixing/audio_emperors_new_sampling/

This article describes tests run by Brad Mayer and David Moran that were reported in the September AES Journal titled "Audibility of a CD Standard A/D/A Loop Inserted Into High Resolution Audio Playback".

Don't throw your CDs away yet. They are better than some think.

Don

Honk if you love Horns

[oldtimer]

Is the cd good enough? Depends. Are your ears tin enough?

[oldbuckster]

Is the cd good enough?

YUP, Is for Me ..............

[Mallette]

How many times have we done this? Nonetheless, the answer has never been clear. This is a dialectic in progress and more data presents itself with every iteration, so...

The question is: WHICH CD?

Until I'd posted some of my 16/44.1 stuff and recieved the reviews of my peers (and superior ears) I would not be so bold to say this, but, while a wider frequency response and 24 bits would undoubtably improve things, the problem appears to be with the engineering, not the spec. I was just listening to a 24/88.2 chamber music recording I made and really thinking about things. It was open, airy, and I could easily close my eyes and be back in the magnificent acoustics of Annunciation again. So I went to a 16/44.1 made in the same space. Difference? Yes. Vast? No.

It appears that with a few exceptions, the majority of release CD's are crap. From my own experience making them, I do not really understand what these people do to drain the life out of the music, but they seem to be very expert at it. I've decided I am an idiot savant. I am not prepared to explain to anyone how I get the results that my peers find pretty exceptional, as I've no idea myself. It seems stupidly simple. I just put the mikes where my ears want to be and turn on the machine. Duh...

Mark Deneen has made a great point in another thread about how wide frequency response amplifiers make an audible difference even though this response is totally out in the utterly inaudible range. This explains WHAT makes a difference, it still doesn't explain WHY.

I hear this...but nonetheless some of my Redbook spec recordings outshine the majority of LP's in my collection...which has some good ones. The high res stuff is even better than that.

There is no question that the Redbook spec is outdated and unneccessarily limited. OTOH, it is quite capable of reproducing good music in the right hands.

I am still learning, but that is what I know as of this moment.

Dave

[Don Richard]

I just got back in town from a trip to the New Orleans area to get warranty work done on my nearly new CD player. After eating lunch I stopped by the only high end audio shop in our area to see what was new. I spoke with the owner, a fellow who has been in the audio business for 30 years to get his take on hi-res audio formats. His opinion is that he doesn't expect SACD or DVD-A to be around 5 years from now. He said that his own listening tests indicate that a properly recorded and mastered Redbook CD is nearly as good as any hi-res format that he has heard. In a listening session he demonstrated to me an audiophile remastered disc that I had a normal copy of. The sound was amazing on a very small loudspeaker system ( Spendor) driven by about $35K worth of Audio Research tube gear fed by an Esoteric Audio CD transport. Some of the best sound I have heard.

Until I got home and played the remastered disc that I bought there on my system. I have never heard my system sound so good. Compared to the original commercial disc the audiophile remastered copy sounded like FM compared to AM radio. Much clearer, much fuller, sharper transients, Night and day difference. And all I am using for a CD player is a $50 DVD player!

Many CDs these days seem to sound rather bad to me. The producers push the engineers to make the disc as loud as possible with little apparent regard to the musical content that is being damaged. The 90+ dB dynamic range of the format isn't being used. The dynamics are all compressed into the top 30 dB or so and the music seems squashed and lifeless.

Want to up the performance of your system for $14? Buy better software, you'll be amazed at the difference.

Don

Honk if you love Horns

[Mallette]

>His opinion is that he doesn't expect SACD or DVD-A to be around 5 years from now.

He is likely correct but his reasoning is flawed. Having mastered at resolutions up to 24/192 and compared, I can tell you without question that these 58 year old ears do not have to strain to tell the difference. Now, I rather suspect that 99% of people cannot...but the point is, with space virtually a non-issue from now on, why limit our bandwidth? I can guarantee you this...a LOT of those who say that cannot tell the difference will gravitate towards higher res but not know why.

I believe companies like OPPO will develop universal players. The technology is here, and is not expensive. It is my belief that in 5 years we'll see a resurgence of high end digital recording using a variety of resolutions and channels once we are free of the imposed format restrictions of CD, SACD, DVD-A, etc.

Time will tell. I am going to be working towards this goal with my own R&D on unversal format capable music servers.

Dave

[garyrc]

Mallette: "I've decided I am an idiot savant. "

Even in the reel to reel analog tape days (1970s), several recordings my friends and I made of live sources seemed better than commercial Lps, and even better than prerecorded reel to reel tapes. We used Crown, Revox, and Ampex recorders, with mics like U47s, and carefully placed RCA 77 ribbons (and others). We did exactly what it sounds like you do -- placed the mikes where our ears wanted to be, after listening quite a while. We made orchestral, solo, and small group recordings -- only a very few Rock (demo) recordings, but they were good, as well.

We visited several studios (in a college class "Discover Your Ears") and asked the enginners to comment on this. There were several answers, including that the producers/corps insisted on very loud recordings with constricted dynamics, sometimes using limiters or overall compression, but the only frequent answer was "We usually don't have enough time for painstaking setup and experimentation, except with a few famous bands." Our sound professor (who was an old mixer and professional recordist himself) said, "You don't have enough time to employ the FM principle of mic placement?" He got a twinkle-eyed "Yes" from one enginneer. In this case "FM" means "Fu**ing Magic."

[Mallette]

>"We usually don't have enough time for painstaking setup and experimentation, except with a few famous bands." Our sound professor (who was an old mixer and professional recordist himself) said, "You don't have enough time to employ the FM principle of mic placement?" He got a twinkle-eyed "Yes" from one enginneer. In this case "FM" means "Fu**ing Magic."

I can relate to this great story. I spend an average of 5 minutes placing mikes. I just sort of listen to the space. It tells me where my ears want to be. I do not understand "painstaking setup and experimentation." I am glad these people are NOT surgeons. And, as we all know, even with "famous bands" they do not seem to get it right very often.

Dave

[garyrc]

The one almost universal failure in recording (to my ears), whether auditioned on CD. SACD, Vinyl, DVD, multitrack magnetic film, or whatever, and whether it is because of poor mic placement or some other problem, is the sound of massed strings. I have almost never heard a recording that captures the warm, gutty, ultra complex, exciting sound of massed violins, in particular. Recordists seem to have better luck with the other string instruments.

Does anyone know of a great and warm recording of massed violins I could listen to?

[Marvel]

Gary,

Do you mean that the strings all seem mushed together? This is a problem that I find with many organ recordings... there is too much reverberant field and it all muddles together. I think it is hard to get the string sound, a little more close mic'd sound on group violins. To me it provides the excitement and dynamics of strings.

Assume you mean orchestral works. I'll go through some of my recordings and see what I can come up with.

Bruce

[LarryC]

Does anyone know of a great and warm recording of massed violins I could listen to?

This answer may not be very good, but it'll be unexpected: a DVD I'm using in my classical "class" at the Pilgrimage -- Dvorak's New World symphony by the Berlin Philharmonic, Euroarts 2056048. (I'm watching & listening to it on my TV system, not the 2-channel, on a Sony DVD player, Arcam integrated amp, and Polk L7si speaks.) I think there's good subtlety and clarity from the violins. The only weak point is the deep string bass chord at the end of the slow movement (that could be the Polks).

I agree with you, strings are the hardest for digital and CDs to reproduce. I searched long and hard for a CD player that could make Bach's cello sonatas sound like like they were played on a real cello and not on an edgy, grainy, dried-up facsimile. I think a solo cello is actually as hard for digital as massed violins. OTOH, the weakest part of the recent Met Opera hi-def TV taped re-broadcast of Hansel and Gretel was the massed violins, just as you said.

[LarryC]

Bruce,

My sense (or projection) of what Gary meant was an opaque sound lacking detail, from, say, a string section of a large orchestra. At least that's where I'd anticipate hearing that quality. Unlike recordings of very small chamber orchestras, which can be closely mic'd as you suggest. Old Mercury recordings of the 1950s and 60s had very close mic'ing of violins, but it wasn't always pleasant.

[Mallette]

In 1989 in my capacity at the National University of Singapore, I had the only opportunity I've ever had to mike a full symphone orchestra, the SSO at Victoria Hall. Lousy acoustics and the orchestra was not all that hot...however, I felt it came off very well. I flew two PZM's mounted on 1 meter square plex at an angle and altitude to place every instrument as close as possible to the same distance from the mikes.

The presence was pretty cool. I thought the performance sucked and did not keep a copy...wish I had.

I do have one I did a few years ago with a mid sized string group, perhaps 30 in all (including winds, etc) where I used the same technique. I'll see if I can locate it and how well it worked.

I do not see why there should be a detail issue with strings, and it certainly has nothing to do with whether the recording is digital or not.

Dave

PS - As Bruce mentioned about organ recordings, you lose detail (assuming your mikes and record chain are the right stuff working properly) mainly by the acoustics of the room and distance from the source. If the acoustics suck, you eliminate them with naturally directional mikes like PZM's or ribbons placed as close to the source as possible. Even with excellent acoustics, like a great cathedral, detail decreases with distance and loss of the sense of space comes with being too close, so finding the place your ears want to be comes into play. The Toscanni recordings in the NBC studios are famous for their detail because they were made in darn near anechoic chambers with ribbon mikes of the DX variety. What a surprise! However, they are also devoid of any sense of space.

[LarryC]

it certainly has nothing to do with whether the recording is digital or not

That has decidedly not been my experience, with commercially-issued recordings at any rate. Certainly yours may be different.

[Marvel]

and it certainly has nothing to do with whether the recording is digital or not.

I have to agree with that 100%.

[Mallette]

it certainly has nothing to do with whether the recording is digital or not

That has decidedly not been my experience, with commercially-issued recordings at any rate. Certainly yours may be different.

If your only experience is with CD's or the rather limited supply of SACD or DVD-A, then you have inadequate experience with digital recording. Part of the problem is that digital is SO precise that it is utterly unforgiving of the engineer, sort of like Heritage is!

Dave

[LarryC]

Well, I have a few hundred CDs and a few SACDs but no SACD player. SACDs on my redbook CD player sometimes have funny balances, as though only two out of 4 or 5 channels are playing, so I try to stay away from that for that reason. Gary's SACD player will eliminate that problem, although I understand he rarely plays CDs/SACDs because he likes his LPs better. Perhaps SACD technology has improved.

Is the sound from DVD-A the same as that from music DVDs? The classical DVDs I've been listening to sound very good, although I haven't heard them through my tube/Klipsch 2-channel system. Anyway, it took long searching and more coin to make my CD player sound as good as my LP player, and that was not a pleasant experience.

I also have never heard a digitally recorded or mastered LP that didn't have an irritating and non-musical sound compared with most of my LPs. A couple of nights ago I played an LP someone had recently given me, and was puzzled at the hard, grainy, unlistenable sound until I spotted "digitally remastered" on the cover. Those must be a worst-of-all-worlds medium.

Given the above, and since most recordings and many new ones are only available on CD, it's hard for me to have a high regard for digital compared with analog.

Larry

[Mallette]

Larry:

> Perhaps SACD technology has improved.

I am going to take this one line and what I say applies to that, CD, and DVD-A as well. NO. The technology has NOT improved. It does not need to. It started capable of doing precisely what analog is capable of doing, except without compression or noise, and still does that.

ITS THE ENGINEERING, DANGIT!

I started out with my own recording experiments to try to figure out why my LP's sounded better than CD's in spite of the CD's lack of need for dynamic compression and far lower noise floor and established the above to my satisfaction. I've now added a hypothesis that suggests that another part of the issue may well be the very totally accurate and unforgiving nature of digital, especially very high res digital, that perhaps emphasizes engineering issues.

I do not have an emotional bias here. I stacked my LP's for nearlly 10 years flush in the belief in the superiority of the new technology and was stunned when I finally hooked up a turntable and cranked up an LP after that time. As I would at least like to THINK that I am an objective, empirical person, I set out to find out how this could in spite of the scientific evidence suggesting that digital should be equal to or better than. It was and is. However, better technology does not guarantee a more satisfying result.

I do not expect to lay this to rest hear, as it seems to come back to life in these pages every year or so. That's fine...still worthy of discussion and I enjoy it.

However, analog recording is inferior to digital in three important areas: noise, wideband response, and dynamic range. That is a scientific fact beyond dispute.

Which sounds better in the final result is the responsibility of the engineer.

Dave

PS - Finally, DVD-A has nearlly 8 times the resolving capability of DVD music videos and far greater high frequency potential than the LP. In fact, it has far greater HF bandwidth than any microphone ever built.

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Well, I have a few hundred CDs and a few SACDs but no SACD player. SACDs on my redbook CD player sometimes have funny balances, as though only two out of 4 or 5 channels are playing, so I try to stay away from that for that reason. Gary's SACD player will eliminate that problem, although I understand he rarely plays CDs/SACDs because he likes his LPs better. Perhaps SACD technology has improved.

Is the sound from DVD-A the same as that from music DVDs? The classical DVDs I've been listening to sound very good, although I haven't heard them through my tube/Klipsch 2-channel system. Anyway, it took long searching and more coin to make my CD player sound as good as my LP player, and that was not a pleasant experience.

I also have never heard a digitally recorded or mastered LP that didn't have an irritating and non-musical sound compared with most of my LPs. A couple of nights ago I played an LP someone had recently given me, and was puzzled at the hard, grainy, unlistenable sound until I spotted "digitally remastered" on the cover. Those must be a worst-of-all-worlds medium.

Given the above, and since most recordings and many new ones are only available on CD, it's hard for me to have a high regard for digital compared with analog.

Larry

Larry,

What are you using for a CD player? I don't doubt you but I am curious.

I just bought all of Nora Jones's CD's. I believe they are digitally recorded. I use an upsampling Musical Fidelity CD player. They simply sound fantastic to me, like most Jazz. I am amazed when I hear a new CD recording that has not been compromised (that is why I bought every one of Diana Krall and Nora Jones's CDs). I don't doubt that higher resolution can and will sound better, but I am not hearing the harshness with my particular equipment.

Interestingly, I lent my SS Musical Fidelity preamp to a friend who has a VTL tube preamp and power amps. The Musical Fidelity preamp sounded more "tubelike." A softer top without the glare of the tube preamp. He wasusing his Thiel speakers. Go figure.

[LarryC]

Tigerwood, I think there are a couple of things to mention here. My CD player is a two-box -- a Wadia 270se transport, modified by Great Northern Sound (the "se" has the newer, heavier, Teac disc drive used in Esoteric transports); and the Wadia 27i DAC, also mod'd by GNS. Both Wadia items have been discontinued and are probably drifting behind the times, but they've done well in my 2-channel system.

The other thing to mention is that I frequently listen to large-scale orchestral and choral classical works. Recording those apparently is very challenging, and I'm not sure if it's possible to record them with the same intimacy and detail as small groups and soloists. That may be part of the debate you're seeing here.

And then there's the challenge presented by different kinds of sounds. This thread started with problems presented by massed strings, and I still think digital has a much harder time with the subtleties of either solo or massed strings, than with harder, clearer, sounds of solo wind, brass or percussion, or pop voices. Incidentally, it's not harshness I think I hear in strings and large-scale groups, but rather a dry grittiness that seems one step removed from the continuity of an analog signal in recording and reproduction.

That said, one CD I readily put on here for folks is The Carpenters -- amazingly clear, right there, and not degrading a thing. I have never heard either an LP or CD recording of classical music that equals it. I also doubt that I would have an issue with a digital Norah Jones recording, although I like my LP and have no desire to get the CD. I probably would have the same reaction as you to the fidelity.

Preamps are very difficult for some reason. I've had a long-standing preference for tubes, but only CATs and a Joule Electra have satisfied me. I've not heard a Musical Fidelity or VTL in my system.

Larry