Nelson Pass said:
Sadly your right Nelson. An awful lot of junk sounding CD's out there for sure. Most electronic or popular music is shot to hell.
I'm less critical these day. I spend at least an hour a day in the car and can happily enjoy music from mp3 or the radio just as much as my home system. I think we do get carried away sometimes with this search for fidelity. That isn't essential to enjoy music but is essential for us to take part in this hobby and be taken seriously. A case in point would be Andrews post light heartedly condemning my taste in sources.
Near the earlier days of SACD, albums were being sold at SACD prices where the source was Redbook files digitally converted to DSD. Columbia(Sony) claimed they did not understand why this would upset anyone.
I think this means it all sounded the same to the marketing types who wanted to quickly expand the SACD availability catalog. These same people supervise the release of new CDs. I agree sound quality variations on CDs vary as much if not more than variations between commercial amplifiers.
Worse, I've run into two recording engineers on the forums who not only argue that cables/amplifiers/capacitors don't make any difference, they argue that it's not possible for them to make a difference. Usually their posts end with words similar to "I'm a recording engineer, I know these things".
Of course they also quickly get on the "snake oil" bandwagon and tell me what a fool I am to be taken in by scam artists (I think that supposed to include you JC and NP
). I of course find it remarkably stupid to believe that 10's of thousands of people worldwide hear no difference and can't wait to unload excess cash. I myself have little trouble in hearing the improved sound quality of a superior product (thanks, not only for the products, but for prodding an industry to get better JC and NP 
).
I think this means it all sounded the same to the marketing types who wanted to quickly expand the SACD availability catalog. These same people supervise the release of new CDs. I agree sound quality variations on CDs vary as much if not more than variations between commercial amplifiers.
Worse, I've run into two recording engineers on the forums who not only argue that cables/amplifiers/capacitors don't make any difference, they argue that it's not possible for them to make a difference. Usually their posts end with words similar to "I'm a recording engineer, I know these things".
Of course they also quickly get on the "snake oil" bandwagon and tell me what a fool I am to be taken in by scam artists (I think that supposed to include you JC and NP
). I of course find it remarkably stupid to believe that 10's of thousands of people worldwide hear no difference and can't wait to unload excess cash. I myself have little trouble in hearing the improved sound quality of a superior product (thanks, not only for the products, but for prodding an industry to get better JC and NP ).
Of course. Some sources always reliable include, Blue Note, Rhino, Mobile Fidelity, Mapleshade and many others.Nelson Pass said:
I didn't mean to imply all sources, many studio's have upgraded both their equipment and wiring. According to Cardas at least one did DBT to pick a cable vendor.
In general as the digital playback equipment improved many studios "got it" and recording quality has improved.
Vinyl is fine for bar jazz or rock. For philharmonic orchestra, its dynamic range is insufficient and one can never get 60dB between loud and silent passages of music. I have never been satisfied with classics on vinyl.
IMHO much of vinyl's popularity is due to groove noise spectrum. We know that many prefer vinyl cut to master tape. There is nothing else that makes sense but groove noise. This is just audio, so many tastes and no reasonable reasoning.
IMHO much of vinyl's popularity is due to groove noise spectrum. We know that many prefer vinyl cut to master tape. There is nothing else that makes sense but groove noise. This is just audio, so many tastes and no reasonable reasoning.
Honestly, when I see how little success the wiki here has (I even got recently an email where one member wanted to know where one could find the Aleph-Wiki which I set up aeons ago), it's probably a bit of a waste of time.
Just do a google for FLAC or lossless audio you'll get swamped by the results. Don't forget to use a proper ripper like EAC (exact audio copy, for free at http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ ) so that you do get a genuine bit copy on your harddisc.
How you manage the wealth of tracks on your pc is completely up to you.
All the best, Hannes
This is so true!
I'm lucky that I have a musical taste that brings to a certain degree excellent mastering (if limited then usually by the lack of cash for proper equipment, not by the requirement to sound properly on a ghetto blaster). However I could imagine that in these cases the CD editions are equally nice than the lp-edition (I never checked since my CD-player is exclusively used by my girl friend).
PMA said:
I have to admit that well A/D sampled LP and well burnt to CD sounds on good system much like the original LP, with all its attributes and "sound advantages"
Well, yes, except when Netlist does the sampling, because he takes out pops and ticks and such
And yes, *well recorded CD's* to my taste sound more open, more clear, wider response and soundstage than a good LP. Problem is, the majority of CD's are *not* well recorded. They are recorded to win the loudness wars. They misuse a technologically advanced medium (the CD) for other purposes than to improve sound reproduction. And then the CD, as a format, gets blamed, totally wrongly. Sad.
Jan Didden
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