Why most recordings sound like crap....

[serengetiplains]

Originally posted by bishopdante
From my understanding of the issue, the problem with CD is not the bit depth but the sampling rate. Effects such as the Nyquist limit, phase issues of frequencies between the nyquist limit and 1/4 of the nyquist limit, aliasing of non harmonically related frequencies close to the nyquist limit etc etc. All these play around with the crucial top frequencies that play a huge part in spacialisation and separation between instruments.

And those factors might touch just the beginning of what irks about CD sound. Ed Meitner thinks PCM is alien to audio generally. He suggests our hearing is most sensitive to relative changes in velocity of the vibrating medium the largest of which, graphically speaking, occur the zero crossing of the acoustical wave. The PCM format, he says, has the least resolution right at the zero crossing (what's less than zero, you might ask), leading to a loss of information or sensibility critical to the way our hearing works. See his interview on Positive Feedback:

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Iss...rinterview.htm

I also recently came upon a reference to low res PCM sound in an article by Menno van der Veen where he speaks of a study comparing brain wave responses of persons to music high-frequency limited at 26 and 48KHz respectively, the latter being much preferred subjectively, the subjective preference correlating to the heightened presence of certain brain waves. Van der Veen concludes by saying:

"My experiences add some facts to this remarkable research. I found that the sound character is very good when we record in a
bandwidth of 16kHz, but going up to a bandwidth of 22kHz does not make the sound quality better—harsh components seem to
enter the recording. However, recordings within a 48kHz bandwidth sound magnificent, showing none of these harsh effects. A prudent conclusion might be that the frequency range between an estimated 16 and 22kHz seems to generate a harsh and "grindy" sound character, whereas with the information up to 48kHz, the harsh character disappears."

http://www.plitron.com/PDF/PB/Article/Atcl_3.pdf

[dvdwmth]

Originally posted by Da5id4Vz


Deutche Gramaphone=Noncrap

Are you by chance referring to old DG. I was just listening to that beethoven Von Karajan-Berlin Philharmonic box set they released about 10 years ago......Sounds Awful. Shrill, grainy, unclear. When I used to listen to vinyl, a substantial number of records in my unplayable pile were DG. You know those records with the colourful modern looking covers. Alot of it was contemporary composers. Alot of those were garbage. I have heard that DG went through an era where they made total crap recordings. Apparently that is in their past though.

Whos heard the Proprius recording of choral music done in the 70s called cantus something. Quite famous audiophile recording. Amazing. Two mics and a revox. I had the vinyl version but Ive never heard the cd version. I assume its also great.

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Whos heard the Proprius recording of choral music done in the 70s called cantus something. Quite famous audiophile recording. Amazing. Two mics and a revox.

Yep...Must be Cantate Domino you're refering to.

Most DG recordings from the early Seventies are absolute crap.
They were just milking Herbert von Karajan's success to the bone.
No idea what the new recordings sound like nowadays, I've been avoiding that label for well over thirty years now.........

I don't know if the label's been mentioned before but another excellent little label is the Italian based Phone. (written in ancient Greek)

Actually, here's a few that immediately spring to mind:

Astree (historical music and instruments)

Harmonia Mundi (depends on the recording engineer but usually never bad sounding)

Hyperion (British music mostly)

Lyra (fabulous simple miking technique, Blumlein style)

Opus3 ( tedhnically excellent, buy it if you like the music)

Many, many more.

In fact, just sticking to classical music alone, there's so much good stuff around that it would take a lifetime to try and collect all of it really...

Cheers,

[dvdwmth]

Yah, thats the recording.

On Proprius' website they say that two Pearl TC4 microphones where used. These are old mics but I was wondering if anyone here could say what a modern equivelant would be. I suspect that whatever it might be it will have a scary price tag but I'm really keen to find an answer. Is there anything particularly unique about these mics. Why is this recording so damn good.

Heres the link

http://www.proprius.com/catalogue.as...article&id=623

On the subject of recording "rock" with two mics, wasn't the cowboy junkies stuff that you hear about from audiophiles recorded with two mics in a church. Havn't listened to them myself but it sounds like that worked out ok.

[AcuVox]

Just picked up this thread and threadlets. Replies below:

1. "Commercial" music has sounded worse since patronage shifted from musically educated and adept aristocracy to status and entertainment seeking bourgeis circa 1800. Since most recording purchasers do not have a memory of what music sounds like (real music does not involve wires and speakers), it is not surprising that the major labels create melodramatic note-perfect renditions with overly warm, dynamically compressed, spatially confused sound.

2. Most CDs have frequent clipping which accounts for the worst sound. Good sounding "classical" CDs are at least 10dB lower in average level (20dB below pop). Besides the already mentioned good labels this includes Archiv, BIS, Capriccio, Chesky, Claves, Delos, ECM, Gaudeamus, Gimell and Lyrichord. My theory is that they don't have the budget to screw up the sound.

Ray Kimber is recording using an 8 channel A/D fed 2 analog signals through a series of three attenuators. He then switches channels during mastering to "Gain ride" past digital clipping. Optical and variable-mu compressor/limiters can be employed as another compromise (never SS VCA), but DSD obviates the necessity.

3. Multi-miking produces an utterly confusing sound field and nasty comb filters. Surround mixes tend to be worse. Chesky and BIS are producing near-coincident multi-channel that sounds superb in the sweet spot of an acoustically tuned room with first rate equipment - but it sounds worse than 2 channel a foot off center and/or in standard architecture.

James Johnston's amazing surround recordings have been buried by AT&T. Like Michael Gerzon's work before him, there were no commercial releases. It is ironic that everything we know of as "stereo" derives from preliminary experiments cut short by Blumlein's military service.

4. Distortion compounds geometrically - i.e., distortion of distortion sounds much worse than distortion of signal. Bad recordings tend to exacerbate flaws in the playback equipment. Corrective action usually creates problems worse than the solved problem, like noise reduction and CDs.

5. All audio equipment is designed to a faulty frequency domain model of hearing. This probably started with Helmholtz who perceived cilia as tuning forks. They are not just low Q - they are active Q! Humans can determine pitch to greater precision in less time than DSP algorithms fed by fixed Q transducers (mics).

When you switch to a time model of hearing, frequency range extends from zero (unique events like a single drum beat) to 200KHz (von Bekeszy); so although the primary hearing mechanism is only flat from 400Hz to 5KHz, time perception extends from a lifetime down to 5us. Time distortion and frequency contamination are still on the fringe of audio design, and most repro equipment can't resolve time errors in the recording.

6. Last is the quantization distortion of 16 bits and 44KHz. The minor classical labels are going DSD, another indication that they have good ears.

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Great post, Acuvox.

Time distortion and frequency contamination are still on the fringe of audio design, and most repro equipment can't resolve time errors in the recording.

Absolutely....
From what I've witnessed in the past it's far more likely that evolution is going to come from the smaller labels, not the big players in this industry.

Cheers,

[bishopdante]

Thing is, production values are always secondary to the material. I'd rather hear a badly recorded excellent tune played back off a dictophone through a 2" paper speaker with a rip in it than rotten bad music played back through a boutique hi-fi.

I'd also rather hear somebody play a song on an acoustic guitar, and sing, and make no mistakes. That's music, baby.

How many times has this point been made? Oh dear, I just re-iterated an awful cliche.

[soongsc]

Originally posted by dvdwmth
Yah, thats the recording.

On Proprius' website they say that two Pearl TC4 microphones where used. These are old mics but I was wondering if anyone here could say what a modern equivelant would be. I suspect that whatever it might be it will have a scary price tag but I'm really keen to find an answer. Is there anything particularly unique about these mics. Why is this recording so damn good.

Heres the link

http://www.proprius.com/catalogue.as...article&id=623

On the subject of recording "rock" with two mics, wasn't the cowboy junkies stuff that you hear about from audiophiles recorded with two mics in a church. Havn't listened to them myself but it sounds like that worked out ok.

The original recording released on LP was great. When they first released the CD version, it was ****. The second release they made it right again, and changed the cover somewhat to distinguish between the two. I have both releases and notice the difference significantly.

[soongsc]

Originally posted by fdegrove
Hi,



Yep...Must be Cantate Domino you're refering to.

Most DG recordings from the early Seventies are absolute crap.
They were just milking Herbert von Karajan's success to the bone.
No idea what the new recordings sound like nowadays, I've been avoiding that label for well over thirty years now.........

I don't know if the label's been mentioned before but another excellent little label is the Italian based Phone. (written in ancient Greek)

Actually, here's a few that immediately spring to mind:

Astree (historical music and instruments)

Harmonia Mundi (depends on the recording engineer but usually never bad sounding)

Hyperion (British music mostly)

Lyra (fabulous simple miking technique, Blumlein style)

Opus3 ( tedhnically excellent, buy it if you like the music)

Many, many more.

In fact, just sticking to classical music alone, there's so much good stuff around that it would take a lifetime to try and collect all of it really...

Cheers,

Reference Recordings is not too bad.

Mercury "living presense" series is also pretty good.

Miking method definitly make a difference. I remember doing a recording at church on a simple Dual tape recorder. Two mikes pointed about 30 degrees each way with the heads about head-width apart made a recording that was better than many recordings commercially available at the time.

[thoriated]

I don’t agree with. Some of the oldest audio DACs (like some of TDAs,….. there are plenty of this on the internet) sounds better then any DAC from the new production. Secret of the good sound isn’t in sampling rate not in bits. DAC is important but almost perfect technology of this exists for more than 15 years.

In my experience, Redbook 16 bit linear PCM resolution is itself audibly far short of 'perfect'. That's not to say that all such recordings sound 'bad', but even if some are sounding ok they don't provide an audibly plausible or complete approximation to the original sonic event disappointingly often to my ear. So why settle for repeated disappointment?

I can't get too excited about the 'best' 16 bit DAC out there without the proper context for its application being discussed. I want a standard that at its *worst* will equal analog's best, *not* a standard like Redbook that at *its* best falls far short of competent analog in many areas subjectively.