Disappointing CD's....

[DSP_Geek]

Re: Dynamic range expansion with Adobe Audition

Hi SY
No, it was Angioplasty No. 3, despite years of good eating, high fitness, no smoking, clean living, relatively unstressful job and home life, fairly young etc. MD says it's bad luck and the general conclusion is that have to live with the cards you're dealt when you're born.

My daily heart regimen is 50 milligrams CoEnzyme Q10, 1000 mg
fish oil in capsules, baby aspirin (80 mg), and tofu several times a week in salads. Can't hurt.

In any event, the original subject sounds like a fertile ground for experimentation, perhaps even setting up a Wiki for optimal decompression settings for various albums/tracks.


Francois.

 

[amperex]

95% of the listening public would not notice any difference in-between a good CD & crap. That is why some get away with selling junk as most have junk for a stereo.

 

[amperex]

95% of the listening public would not notice any difference in-between a good CD & crap. That is why some get away with selling junk as most have junk for a stereo.

 

[amperex]

BTW- Worst CD

A few for sure, but two that stand out are Boston 'Don't Look Back' by EPIC & Qasis '(What's the story) Morning Glory?' by EPIC.

The CD dynamics, imaging, soundstage and details is poor to the point my 'hot-rodded' tube type FM tuner just kills these CDs on a great FM station.

 

[sup2jzgte]

The most dissapointing CD I have Ever purchased was Chapter V by Staind. It sounds like the other 2 craptastic CD's they released, just with bit more whinning. I wish Staind would go back to The Tormented days or atleast the Dysfunction

 

[KBK]

anything with Rush on it. After the first few though, it isn't dissapointing anymore. Just expected.

 

[inertial]

Hi,
One of the most disappointing CD I have purchased is
INTI ILLIMANI 3 : Some tracks are total distorted. The others are anyway unlistenable.
Note that the LP version is one of my favorite and best sounding album I know.

Inertial

 

[davidsrsb]

Re: BTW- Worst CD

A few for sure, but two that stand out are Boston 'Don't Look Back' by EPIC & Qasis '(What's the story) Morning Glory?' by EPIC.

The original vinyl version of the 2nd Boston LP dosn't sound to good either. I was really disappointed after the debut LP

 

[Bare]

No arguement..
lotsa Recordings are simply Poor..
But this also applied to Vinyl when it was current.
Do note that on a mid Fi playback system the vast majority of thes 'poor' recordings sound quite acceptable.. sometimes quite good even.

So who's the fool??

the guy with the Mid Fi or the one with the Hi resolution system

 

[maxlorenz]

So who's the fool??

the guy with the Mid Fi or the one with the Hi resolution system

Good one!

Thanks to the thread starter for this opportunity to take this out of my soul:
The worst CD I own is Simon Rattle's version of Shostakovich's 10th symphony, Emi Classics, mid 80's recording (but 1993 release). A flat, boring, anemic recording if there are.
And Rattle's conduction?... Who knows? I can't stand listening enough to judge. And I bought it for that on the first place!

I don't mind throwing my $ on wire and caps but buying CD's is allways a pain, appart the fact that some CD-R sound better than the originals.
What happened to the said reduction in CD prices when Sony/Philips's rights over the format had expired?

M

 

[DragonMaster]

Red Hot Chili Peppers poor recording goes way beyond not caring about fans with quality rigs, its as if they are optimising for loudness on car radios with 3 inch speakers...

Californication clips like hell, but it was at least recorded on R2Rs.

About Greatest Hits(I have the Greatest Hits and Videos canadian version), I had no copy protection problem with it. I have been able to put the CD on my HDD w/o problems and I think it even sounds better than the original Californifcation album.

Stadium Arcadium (Their latest) is OK tho.

 

[lndm]

Do note that on a mid Fi playback system the vast majority of thes 'poor' recordings sound quite acceptable.. sometimes quite good even.

I used to listen to my favourite songs in my mum's car on the drive to school. There would be microphone overloads and such that sounded good as if they were part of the performance.

Now I listen on good gear and these distortions don't make sense any more, they are just unwanted distortions, yet at the same time behind them, I can hear the finest detail recorded on a different track, that I wouldn't have heard any other way.

It makes me want to build a high distortion system

 

[DragonMaster]

The system doesn't make much difference in my case but the speakers do. When I use my super-efficient PAs, I don't hear anything, when I use my old Hitachis I don't hear anything(Any of them can show clipping even with my cheap Toshiba amp) and when I use my new DIY Hi-Vi Research-based speakers, I do hear a lot of changes between the amount of treble, bass, tone, detail, etc.

 

[DragonMaster]

As an example - listen to the majority of Pink Floyds recordings and you will find their quility impecable - and that comes across whether you have them on CD, Tape, Vinyl, Mp3 or whatever other new fandangled mediums they come out with.

Not so with "Echoes" CD... I wondered why there were no dynamics compared to my LPs. Extracted a song from the CD, they used a limiter in every loud passages. Looks like I'd need an SACD or DVD-A version is such thing exists(I can't find anything else than the LP and CD version.

One of the worst quality masterings I ever came across was the original CD release of Jethro Tull's Aqualung. (I bought this circa 1984). I looked it up on the web recently and discovered to my disgust that at the time they made this CD, they couldn't find the original master tapes and so mastered the CD from the original vinyl press master (the mother or father or daughter or whatever it's called), presumably played on a phonograph of sorts!
Subsequent re-issues of this CD have been OK - they found the tapes, I guess.

It was even worst than it is now??? (I bought a 1998 reissue with "Prism Noise Shaping" conversion and it doesn't sound very good(Voices sound bad and there's no bass). Sometimes I prefer my old Best of Jethro Tull worn commercial tape.)

 

[lndm]

I'll give for example: Animals - House of the rising sun. Right at the end, the keyboard outro goes into overload. It could be intentional, or deficient equipment, or a sound engineer getting carried away in the moment (perhaps with artificial assistance).

On a cheap system, you can get caught up in the moment too. On a better system the focus could be on the distortion, not the moment, and a little harshness can come through too.

EDIT: Dragonmaster, I'll second the tapes. I liked their sound, complete with their deficiencies, and they were portable enough to take to your friends houses. Good times

 

[jives11]

Miles Davis "Sketches of Spain" - Love other Davis CD's but this one one sounds so shrill I sold my copy on ebay - it sounded awful.


Anyone care to coment if the LP was easier on the ear ?

Davis was a genius and "Flamenco Sketches" from Kind of Blue would be in my personal top 5 but "Sketeches from spain" needs a rolloff at about 7Khz to be able to be in the same room.

 

[davidlzimmer]

I'm not saying they are bad recordings. But, on my present system that makes all CDs sound so much more musical and alive, Styx CDs just don't sound as good as they used to. Comparatively.


EDIT:

On a cheap system, you can get caught up in the moment too. On a better system the focus could be on the distortion, not the moment, and a little harshness can come through too.

So very true. The tiny litle imperfections become much more noticable on a quality system.

 

[DragonMaster]

But the overall sound is poorer.

 

[davidlzimmer]

If you are saying poorer on a low quality system, I agree.

Let me make this clear. Some of the "imperfections" I was speaking of, actually make the recording more real and alive.

 

[lndm]

A poor recording may have come from equipment that somehow produced for example a convoluted spectrum of harmonic distortion. It may have included for example distortion cancelling technologies that reduced even order HD but not so much the odd. It may have run through several poorly designed high feedback stages.

Ironically, the distortion spectrum from a playback system can mask this, producing a resultant spectrum that is less objectionable.

My cousin had a Kenwood midi system. This system had a distinct sound of it's own. Everything coming out of it sounded good. Everything coming out of it also sounded the same. Unfortunately, nothing sounded truly HiFi either.