I thought it nice to thread about some CD's that make you want to barf after you've opened the package and listened to 3 seconds of it!
I recently bought 'The Essential Billy Joel" Columbia $19.95 usd. The thing sounds like crap, Almost as if they played the originals using a 4" pioneer into a Maxwell House 2Lb coffee can and picked the result up close miked on a Fisher Price microphone. These tracks sound nothing like the originals. Too bad...I love Billy.
Anyone have any more...
I recently bought 'The Essential Billy Joel" Columbia $19.95 usd. The thing sounds like crap, Almost as if they played the originals using a 4" pioneer into a Maxwell House 2Lb coffee can and picked the result up close miked on a Fisher Price microphone. These tracks sound nothing like the originals. Too bad...I love Billy.
Anyone have any more...
Bad fidelity CDs
Hi guys
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.
Another disappointment, rather out of character, was Mark Knopfler's Shangri-La, mastered at the studios of the same name in the US. Compared to his previous CDs (Sailing to Philadelphia and Ragpicker's Dream) it was flat and lacked presence.
And as for J.J. Cale: Most everything he does (except To Tulsa and Back) sounds like it was recorded in an Airstream Trailer onto compact cassette. Perhaps it was? I get to the point where I feel buying any new CD is like playing Audio Russian Roulette! But I must say that music recorded in this Millenium have been noticeably better.
The good news is that you don't have to put up with this poor fidelity. Serious audiophiles and music lovers can invest in the Adobe Audition software and a fast PC so they can 'remaster' these bad CDs themselves, so you don't have to put up with rubbish. You'd be amazed at what a bit of parametric EQ and noise reduction can do.
Don't get me started on compressed audio - DAB, MP3 etc. Anything more complex than a solo performer winds up sounding like an Audio Pie. The guys that created this stuff should be tired for crimes against humanity!
Cheers
John Hope
Hi guys
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.
Another disappointment, rather out of character, was Mark Knopfler's Shangri-La, mastered at the studios of the same name in the US. Compared to his previous CDs (Sailing to Philadelphia and Ragpicker's Dream) it was flat and lacked presence.
And as for J.J. Cale: Most everything he does (except To Tulsa and Back) sounds like it was recorded in an Airstream Trailer onto compact cassette. Perhaps it was? I get to the point where I feel buying any new CD is like playing Audio Russian Roulette! But I must say that music recorded in this Millenium have been noticeably better.
The good news is that you don't have to put up with this poor fidelity. Serious audiophiles and music lovers can invest in the Adobe Audition software and a fast PC so they can 'remaster' these bad CDs themselves, so you don't have to put up with rubbish. You'd be amazed at what a bit of parametric EQ and noise reduction can do.
Don't get me started on compressed audio - DAB, MP3 etc. Anything more complex than a solo performer winds up sounding like an Audio Pie. The guys that created this stuff should be tired for crimes against humanity!
Cheers
John Hope
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...
The loudness thing is so self defeating, as most peoples systems have a volume knob they usually adjust to thier taste.
The loudness thing is so self defeating, as most peoples systems have a volume knob they usually adjust to thier taste.
Tweeker said:
Indeed. Has anyone had the misfortune to hear their Greatest Hits album?? It has copy protection. The sound of the whole album is very poor (dull, poor dynamics), but some tracks actually have an audible crackling sort of distortion! At first I thought something was wrong with my CD player, but the same sounds are clearly heard through even cheap computer speakers!
I am tempted to make some kind of complaint and see if I can get a refund. I really feel ripped off.
On a similar note, I borrowed my brother's Maroon 5 cd and it suffered from the same dull sound with terrible lo-fi bass.... It also has the same copy-protection logo on the back. This is depressing.
Oh no... here's another! Blur - Thinktank
I popped this is hoping for some nice sounds but was greeted my messy OTT bass, all over the place it was. Got a little further in and wondered if I had a techincal error. Track 5 (iirc) started giving me terrible crackle and awful sounds, so I checked the inside to find (oh the shock of it) notification of 'copy-protection'.
Another one that makes me very angry. What can we do about it? It wasn't expensive so returning it won't get me far. Really I just want the music
If I write to EMI will they send me one without the noisy copy-protection???
I don't want to pirate music I paid for, or any music really, I just want to enjoy it!!!
I popped this is hoping for some nice sounds but was greeted my messy OTT bass, all over the place it was. Got a little further in and wondered if I had a techincal error. Track 5 (iirc) started giving me terrible crackle and awful sounds, so I checked the inside to find (oh the shock of it) notification of 'copy-protection'.
Another one that makes me very angry. What can we do about it? It wasn't expensive so returning it won't get me far. Really I just want the music
If I write to EMI will they send me one without the noisy copy-protection???
I don't want to pirate music I paid for, or any music really, I just want to enjoy it!!!
Talk about disappointing -- many of the CBS reissues of LP Recordings (aka Szell with the Cleveland SO) -- pretty awful, but what are you gonna do if you want to hear Szell and don't own the original LP's.
I have a recording of French opera arias sung by Anna Moffo on LP and CD -- the CD is AWFUL.
I have a recording of French opera arias sung by Anna Moffo on LP and CD -- the CD is AWFUL.
You Can't Win...
The worst CD mastering effort I ever came across was the CD of Chuck Berry's 'Hail Hail Rock 'n Roll', esssentially the soundtrack from a film of the same name, released shortly after Chuck's 60th birthday in the late 1980's.
I originally hired a BetaMax Hifi video of this film and copied the soundtrack onto C90 using a BeoCord 8004 Dolby C HXPRO cassette deck. But BetaMax Hifi being what it was, some of the tracks had long dropouts and what I call 'crumble', and simply muted audio for some of the time.
So I bought the CD of the soundtrack (MCAD-6217), only to find that this had evidently been mixed by a different person to that who mastered the Video soundtrack, presumably both from an original multitrack analog tape. And the mix engineer responsible for the CD had evidently left his brain at home when he mastered the soundtrack CD. And he'd filled his ears with quickset epoxy. The CD tracks are barely recognisable as the same recodings. Were it not for the identical banter between the artists down to the last giggle, one might conclude they weren't the same.
Then a year or two ago, one of the BBC TV stations broadcast the film, and I siezed the opportunity to record the original - sans adverts - soundtrack on my VHS Hifi VCR. And guess what? The VCR happened to have dirty heads and much of the recording defaulted to mono lo-fi El Pathetico mode!
But all is not lost. With their usual predictability, the BBC will repeat the film within 2 years and I shall be ready. With my HHB 830 CD recorder, my cranky VCR, a new DVD recorder, even a PC with a soundcard. . .
I suppose with this degree of deliberate redundancy I'd be sure to have a 4 hr power cut! Perhaps it's a SIGN?
John H
The worst CD mastering effort I ever came across was the CD of Chuck Berry's 'Hail Hail Rock 'n Roll', esssentially the soundtrack from a film of the same name, released shortly after Chuck's 60th birthday in the late 1980's.
I originally hired a BetaMax Hifi video of this film and copied the soundtrack onto C90 using a BeoCord 8004 Dolby C HXPRO cassette deck. But BetaMax Hifi being what it was, some of the tracks had long dropouts and what I call 'crumble', and simply muted audio for some of the time.
So I bought the CD of the soundtrack (MCAD-6217), only to find that this had evidently been mixed by a different person to that who mastered the Video soundtrack, presumably both from an original multitrack analog tape. And the mix engineer responsible for the CD had evidently left his brain at home when he mastered the soundtrack CD. And he'd filled his ears with quickset epoxy. The CD tracks are barely recognisable as the same recodings. Were it not for the identical banter between the artists down to the last giggle, one might conclude they weren't the same.
Then a year or two ago, one of the BBC TV stations broadcast the film, and I siezed the opportunity to record the original - sans adverts - soundtrack on my VHS Hifi VCR. And guess what? The VCR happened to have dirty heads and much of the recording defaulted to mono lo-fi El Pathetico mode!
But all is not lost. With their usual predictability, the BBC will repeat the film within 2 years and I shall be ready. With my HHB 830 CD recorder, my cranky VCR, a new DVD recorder, even a PC with a soundcard. . .
I suppose with this degree of deliberate redundancy I'd be sure to have a 4 hr power cut! Perhaps it's a SIGN?
John H
Hi
Lately I have also been disgusted by the poor quality of some recordings. It’s a sad fact that after so much tinkering, building class A amplifiers, this and that speakers, room treatments, we put a CD and discover that it sounds horrible. Since I‘ve improved my amplification and speakers, I realized that about 30% of my CD’s are unlistenable.
So, how did I notice a bad recording: “Boom-tizz”, or just too much “tizz”. ( Ironically, to average consumers this is a sign of “clarity” and “high quality”).
On some CD’s I noticed that recording volume was pushed way too high, while the dynamics was lacking. Dynamic compression was very annoying on some CD’s: while the bass was “pumping” everything seemed “flat” and “uniform”, but then, when you have what is supposed to be a quieter vocal-instrumental passage, vocals just got “louder”.
With the mainstream music consumers turning to MP3’s, using mediocre speakers, these flaws may pass unnoticed. But to us, audiophiles, this is an offence. I won’t start discussing MP3’s here, that would be too much. Apart from mentioning bad recorded CD’s, maybe we should also mention the good ones. For example, I have had a good experience with Yello-“the best of” and “The Eye”….
Regards,
Vix
Lately I have also been disgusted by the poor quality of some recordings. It’s a sad fact that after so much tinkering, building class A amplifiers, this and that speakers, room treatments, we put a CD and discover that it sounds horrible. Since I‘ve improved my amplification and speakers, I realized that about 30% of my CD’s are unlistenable.
So, how did I notice a bad recording: “Boom-tizz”, or just too much “tizz”. ( Ironically, to average consumers this is a sign of “clarity” and “high quality”).
On some CD’s I noticed that recording volume was pushed way too high, while the dynamics was lacking. Dynamic compression was very annoying on some CD’s: while the bass was “pumping” everything seemed “flat” and “uniform”, but then, when you have what is supposed to be a quieter vocal-instrumental passage, vocals just got “louder”.
With the mainstream music consumers turning to MP3’s, using mediocre speakers, these flaws may pass unnoticed. But to us, audiophiles, this is an offence. I won’t start discussing MP3’s here, that would be too much. Apart from mentioning bad recorded CD’s, maybe we should also mention the good ones. For example, I have had a good experience with Yello-“the best of” and “The Eye”….
Regards,
Vix
jean michel jarre,in hifi news may,2005 has some thoughts about cd quality,and the
lack thereof
he said poor sound may be the reason for slumping music sales
that issues cover,
http://imagebank.ipcmedia.com/imageBank/h/hifi_may05.jpg
any thing of poor quality shood be publicly exposed
(including this writers grammar/spelling etc.)
also led zeps 1st album, released on cd,was reviewed by some female reviewer in Audio
magazine,she said that digital really showed the limitations of analog recording(thin bass)
some years later jimmy page said ,that when he helped redo this album,it was not
hard to make it sound better
lack thereof
he said poor sound may be the reason for slumping music sales
that issues cover,
http://imagebank.ipcmedia.com/imageBank/h/hifi_may05.jpg
any thing of poor quality shood be publicly exposed
(including this writers grammar/spelling etc.)
also led zeps 1st album, released on cd,was reviewed by some female reviewer in Audio
magazine,she said that digital really showed the limitations of analog recording(thin bass)
some years later jimmy page said ,that when he helped redo this album,it was not
hard to make it sound better
Steve Hillage - 'Live Herald'.
I was at one of those concerts, and the sound was the best (amplified) live sound I'd heard at the time, apart from Pink Floyd. Quadraphonic too!!
The CD, on the other hand, sounds like it was bootlegged on a portable CD player of the period: pitch instability, severe dropouts, sudden level changes, high noise floor ...
Oddly, Hillage produced and remastered the material for CD himself - what was going on there?
I was at one of those concerts, and the sound was the best (amplified) live sound I'd heard at the time, apart from Pink Floyd. Quadraphonic too!!
The CD, on the other hand, sounds like it was bootlegged on a portable CD player of the period: pitch instability, severe dropouts, sudden level changes, high noise floor ...
Oddly, Hillage produced and remastered the material for CD himself - what was going on there?
CD´s poor quality
What about a boycot to the recording companies?
It is unbelievable the quality of the Cd´s these days, considering
the premium price we pay for them.
I quit buying CD for quite some time not only because money is
not an abundant commodity but also considering the price and,
above all, the poor quality of this media.
Could it be because the recording companies think "they´re not
used to better if you refer to MP3", so do not make an effort to
improve it.
This reminds me the FM band (even though is not comparable),
many years ago its quality was relatively acceptable and a tuner
was a justifiable piece of equipment to have in your system. Today,
well, forget... And the same applies to the TV sound! May be when
the HDTV becomes more affordable....
But coming back to the CD´s, I think one should boycot those suckers.....
What about a boycot to the recording companies?
It is unbelievable the quality of the Cd´s these days, considering
the premium price we pay for them.
I quit buying CD for quite some time not only because money is
not an abundant commodity but also considering the price and,
above all, the poor quality of this media.
Could it be because the recording companies think "they´re not
used to better if you refer to MP3", so do not make an effort to
improve it.
This reminds me the FM band (even though is not comparable),
many years ago its quality was relatively acceptable and a tuner
was a justifiable piece of equipment to have in your system. Today,
well, forget... And the same applies to the TV sound! May be when
the HDTV becomes more affordable....
But coming back to the CD´s, I think one should boycot those suckers.....
I bought a CD by "The Go Team" recently after seeing them on TV. The quality is dreadful so I sent them an email :-
This was their reply :-
So if they let artists produce rubbish because "... we don't dig clean production" we might as well give up now. In the UK digital radio seems to be getting more and more popular but the bit rate is dreadful. I am worried that in the not to distant future that record companies wont even bother recording original work using the best quality available because they know that many customers will just accept any old crap without comment.
This was their reply :-
So if they let artists produce rubbish because "... we don't dig clean production" we might as well give up now. In the UK digital radio seems to be getting more and more popular but the bit rate is dreadful. I am worried that in the not to distant future that record companies wont even bother recording original work using the best quality available because they know that many customers will just accept any old crap without comment.
what an excuse - if someone doesn't care how their music is produced - why should I give a s...t about their music.
Sloppy production is an affront to the listener and imo inexcusable.
If that's their "production" philosophy - the trash can is always wide open.
Considerng the effort that was put into production with what they had in the sixties and seventies...this attitude stinks.
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