Great article on LOUD CD's.

[BradH]

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/articles/8A133F52D0FD71AB86256C2E005DAF1C

[3-LockBox]

I know that most remastered CDs that have come out in recent years are merely the same CD, only louder. This is sometimes an improvement, since a lot of these CDs were poorly mastered in the first issues. But sometimes with the second and even third re-issues, there isn't any marked improvement in the sound quality, just a louder volume with each re-release. I think the latest <b>Yes</b> re-issues are a prime example of that. While the first issues of <b>Yes</b> releases were muddy and lifeless, the remasters were an improvement. The third issues of these same CDs are louder, but one wonders why they weren't released like this on the second go around. I'm glad I didn't sell off my first issue remasters ( the second time around ) for the newer remasters ( the third time around ). Confusing, huh? I think that with a decent wavefile manipulation program (like Goldwave), anyone could make the old <b>Yes</b> remasters sound like the newer ones. Certainly, its not the same as using the actual source tapes, but are they? I know for a fact that a lot of first issue CDs were masters off of third generation or worse source material.

But even those re-re-remastered <b>Yes</b> CDs are no where near as squelched as some of the new pop releases. Take for example <b>Fleetwood Mac</b>'s latest. Looking at these songs on a program like Goldwave, they appear like a solid square wave like white noise, with no real discernable peaks. And there is no way to fix a problem like that once its commited to CD. I myself use Goldwave to normalize or volume level match on comps that I make, I sometimes take the liberty of adding effects and EQing when dealing with older, anemic sounding first issue CDs. But when I tried to make a comp recently with some songs off the <b>Fleetwood Mac</b><i>Say You Will</i> CD, nothing I could do would normalize it. Lowering the RMS value to match the other songs resulted in a terribly muffled sound, since it brought the peaks down with it. With Goldwave, its easy to raise the peake value without raising the rms value that much by using the 'dynamics' manipulation function (at least after much practice). While its easy to raise and lower peak values this way, even with the average volume function, once the rms value is increased beyond a certain percentage of the peak value, its next to impossible to reverse. And yes, a signal that is clipped this bad is very fatiguing to listen to.

I don't have a problem with raising the average volume to an extent. It does allow for more detail to come through, and most of the time gives the music some much needed punch. But a lot of the new releases today are geared toward the younger generation who are impressed with how well the music program pushes their sub woofer. And some audiophiles are leaning toward 5.1 or even 7.1 home systems where dynamics and soundstage are more a function of electronics and high powered subs. Hotter sounding CDs probably justify the need for mega-powered subs, and benefits the retail audio/video market. Since most major home audio manufacturors also have affiliations with, actually own, or are owned by, recording/distribution companies...well, you figure it out.

[BradH]

I think that with a decent wavefile manipulation program (like Goldwave), anyone could make the old <b>Yes</b> remasters sound like the newer ones. Certainly, its not the same as using the actual source tapes, but are they? I know for a fact that a lot of first issue CDs were masters off of third generation or worse source material.

Wow, that's not how I hear it. I have two of the Rhinos, The Yes Album and Going for the One, and they sound the same as far as loudness and peaks. Even Goldwave shows them to be practically the same. But the Rhinos sound to me like they really were taken from the masters. The instruments are clearer and more distinct while the L/R separation is about the same. Didn't Howe hand the masters over to Rhino? I'm always surprised when I hear Yes fans say the Rhino releases aren't much of an improvement. I'll be selling my Gastwirt and Marino remasters. I don't think Atlantic could find an original master to save their life. I believe they grabbed the earliest production master their research budget allowed, remastered it and slapped a silver sticker on the front. (You'll notice the Atlantic remasters didn't say "Original Master" once the shrinkwrap was off.) You're right on the money about the multiple generation thing. It actually happened more often in the vinyl years, especially with a popular release. Everytime ATCO emptied it's warehouses of, say, Houses Of The Holy, it would give a busy little house engineer a chance to tweak his way into rock immortality on the new production master used to cut the new master stamper. Tape upon tape, tweak upon tweak, year after year. The end result was that the first cd of Houses Of The Holy was unlistenable while Page had the original tape the whole time. Meanwhile, something like Gentle Giant's Power And The Glory from 1974 sounded clear on its first cd release. That's because Capitol didn't sell that many GG albums. They never had to pull out the production master to cut new moulds, no engineer got a chance to "improve" it a seventh or ninth time. In other words, the popular albums suffered the worst treatment; on vinyl and on cd.

I don't see much chance of the "louder is better" mentality ever going away on a large scale. It's too advantageous from a marketing perspective. It's like television editing, they can't risk losing your attention for a second. Nowadays music competes for your attention in cars, restaurants, stores, all places with ambient noise. The louder mastering technique is also tailor made for cruddy little mp3's from hell and their limited dynamic range. The record companies may complain about theft but they know their market.