Great audiophile recordings/albums

I know.
When I was listening to Fall Out Boy a few years ago, I downloaded it, but it sounded terrible when I cranked it up. Blaming the MP3, I bought the cd, same thing. It wasn't until last year that I learn of compression and how it affects the music. Which is why I now stay away from Remastered recordings.
 
It is a very sad state o9f affairs when an ostensibly superior medium like cd by now sounds hugely inferior to ye olde stylee lp due to excessive dynamic compression.
And that is by somebodies choice!

I used to buy 3 to 5 new albums a week before the Loudness Wars, it is now down to not much more than 3-5 per year! And they wonder why music sales keep falling…
 
These days many recordings are compressed so much as to severely affect the sound quality.
The stuff I heard by Green Day is a good example, 'American Idiot' is so compressed it is unlistenable. I had to delete it from my itunes folder as it is painful to the ears, especially when played loud.
Horrible, just horrible…

Charles, what do you expect from iTunes, they are mastered for earphones, not great speakers. Get some great earphones, and maybe your ear/brain mechanism can fool you into thinking iTunes is hi fi. LOLOL

On the other hand I have never come across a recording which was unlistenable due to too much dynamic range. Not necessarily ideal for background music but never unlistenable.

That is because you have been listening to commercial recordings that has already has compression applied in the studio. I would invite you to listen to 7.1 recordings I have made of my church's Easter concert. 2,500 singers, a 15 piece amplified band, a 120 person orchestra using a combination of Ray Kimber's ISO miking setup, along with my own DPA proprietary setup with no compression applied anyhere. Unless your room is ultra quiet, your system will be straining badly to reproduce the peaks.
 
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Charles, what do you expect from iTunes, they are mastered for earphones, not great speakers. Get some great earphones, and maybe your ear/brain mechanism can fool you into thinking iTunes is hi fi. LOLOL


I expect it to sound exactly like the cd I ripped into it as an AIFF.
I have never bought anything from the itunes shop or any other mp3s, everything in my itunes library is ripped off cds I bought and stored as AIFFs.

Green Day's 'American Idiot' had to be erased and I gave the cd away because it is, as I said, unlistenable. My sister uses it now as background muzak.

And when I say I have never heard anything which was unlistenable due to too much dynamic range that does include stuff myself or friends have recorded in studios or live without any compression whatsoever.
 
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I find Hayseed Dixies albums have a very good sound indeed.
This is probably because their singer/guitarist/fiddle player also is the engineer and co-owner of the studio they use.
According to them (and I have no reason not to believe them) there is no compression or even eq on anything. Just good playing and positioning of mics. None of their albums have ever been 'mastered'.
Their last album also comes with a bonus cd containing the individual tracks so anybody with Garageband (or presumably Logic Audio) can do their own mixes.
Kinda leaves the owners of Window machines out in the cold but that doesn't really bother me that much.

And yes Zeptoplix I too can appreciate well recorded music in genres I usually can't stand but I wouldn't listen for fun in the long run. It is good for figuring out how they did certain things though, even if it is just to get some inspiration/ideas for other projects.
Mind you there are not that many genres I dislike but noodly jazz and most forms of metal come very high on a short list!
 
Dead Can Dance - Into the Labyrinth . Hybrid world music. Excellent recording and ambiance. Great vocals, mix of acoustic and electric/electronic music.
Massive Attack - Mezzanine - Mind-blowing electronics, vocals.
Flaming Lips - At War with the Mystics. Modern Rock/Pop excellent recording.
 
And when I say I have never heard anything which was unlistenable due to too much dynamic range that does include stuff myself or friends have recorded in studios or live without any compression whatsoever.

Then these were obviously small band recordings. I can record a 8 piece wind esemble without compression easy. However things change dramatically as you add instruments to the mix. There is no way to playback a uncompressed recording of a 110 piece orchestra in our living rooms, the background level(ambient) is too high. Do you really think your system or anyone you know system can playback 115-120db above a typical background level of 40-50db? I would love to hear a system that could do 170db in room.

This idea that no compression is better than ANY compression is pretty rediculous. There is good compression used to scale down the overall peaks, and there is limiting which is behind the loudness wars. Compression is pretty gentle, limiting is pretty darn aggressive. Compression can be inaudible, there is no way limiting can - you are going to hear it.
 
Dynamic compression, like everything else, is a relative thing.
Very few singers or electric bass players are capable of performing satisfactorily completely without.

A little is a very good thing but when it gets too much like with Green Day and the majority of other modern recordings it destroys sound quality.

When it comes to classical or opera I only really enjoy live performances though. May be because I used to work at the German Opera Berlin for a while but there is not much worse than going to the ballet and they use prerecorded music.
A waste of time and money IMO.
 
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Charles, what do you expect from iTunes, they are mastered for earphones, not great speakers. Get some great earphones, and maybe your ear/brain mechanism can fool you into thinking iTunes is hi fi. LOLOL



That is because you have been listening to commercial recordings that has already has compression applied in the studio. I would invite you to listen to 7.1 recordings I have made of my church's Easter concert. 2,500 singers, a 15 piece amplified band, a 120 person orchestra using a combination of Ray Kimber's ISO miking setup, along with my own DPA proprietary setup with no compression applied anyhere. Unless your room is ultra quiet, your system will be straining badly to reproduce the peaks.

Where to get this bad bwoy recording ....?
 
Wide dynamics in the studio is terrific, but in the home with its high ambient level, not good at all. Some of my recordings have such a wide dynamic range, they are unlistenable in every person's room I know.

Could you quantify , what are we looking at for dynamic range , some of my recodings have a lot, unfortunately i run out with current amplification at 40 db ...
 
The best recording I've ever heard is by Harry James and his Big Band. It's a direct to disc performance called "The King James Version". It was apprently recorded in a church with 3 mics. It's the most "you are there" recording I've ever experienced (the music is good too ;-)

James Brown's "Live at the Apollo" is also incredible IMHO. Yes, it does sound like a 50 year old recording. But it sounds like what I imagine it sounded like at the Apollo that night (including fans screaming drwning out the musicians at times). The CD, BTW, sound like crap. Listen to the LP (and I am not a vinyl junkie - most of my listening is digital).

Earlier in the thread Jack Johnson CDs and Joe Jackson's "Live in NY" were recommended. I would agree with those recommedations.
 
I recently purchased an audioengine d1 DAC. I have it connected via the S/PDIF interface.

I've owned many different versions of Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon over the years. I just got the SACD 6.1 version a few days ago and have listened a few times, converted to 2 channel.

I've never heard it like this before. The best detail I've ever heard. You can even hear the "mistakes", if you can call them that.

I'm probably behind the curve here, but I wanted to comment.

Thanks.
 
Analog has way more dynamics than CD , its the most obvious difference between them with surface noise being second ...

That is the really sad thing because it should not be that way.
Technically the CD medium is capable of a much greater dynamic range than the LP but the vast majority of remastered CDs since the mid to late '90s does have a much lower dynamic range than the original vinyl releases.
 
Could you quantify , what are we looking at for dynamic range , some of my recodings have a lot, unfortunately i run out with current amplification at 40 db ...

Let's say your noise floor in your room is 40db. You are going to playback a recording with 60-65db of dynamic range. So to hear everything in the recording, the lowest level in the recording has to exceed the noise floor of the room. So 40db is where you start, and to get the peak volume your system must playback at 105db peak. Now raise that noise floor to 50db, and now the system must playback levels of 115db. Can you see where this is going, and why compression(light) is needed?