Nothing wrong with cd's

[Wireworm5]

You know as audiophiles we talk about how good sacds are and dvd-audio, dts and DD. They give us that last little bit of audio nirvana. But a well recorded or remastered cd is impressive as well. I mean if they stopped making this format then the alarm bells would go off for me. Frankly I don't believe the advocates of vinyl who say that format sounds better. Sure if you have a hi-end vinyl rig that it will sound good. But invest the same amount of money into digital sound and would you still make that claim?
For me I only abandoned vinyl and cassettes when it became clear that the cd was a superior format. And when it became possible to burn cds, then there was no going back. The cd replaced my car cassette player, as it was much more convienient to skip tracks while driving. And there was no skipping with my player unless you were driving on the bumpist road in the city.
No, when all is said and done the cd format is still the king. It could be the hi-end of audio if manufacturors stopped making cd-r. But with portable hard drives maybe this would not be a serious blow anymore.
Anyways I won't be abandoning the CD format anytime soon. It is just to damn versatile.

[topspeed]

Clearly, the market agrees with you.

Consider however, that most of the members on this board on not Joe & Betty Consumer, they are audiophiles or, at the very least, audio enthusiast. As such, they live on the lunatic fringe and are far more interested in squeezing every last ounce out of their rigs in an effort to enjoy music at its most emotional level. As a mature format, they are only now starting to realize the abilities of rbcd as many recordings today shame the shrill, shallow crap that was produced in the '80's and '90s. In fact, I have a few titles on both rbcd and sacd where you have to listen pretty closely to hear the difference between the two. There's a difference, but certainly not on the order of the difference between cd and say, audio cassette.

Vinyl lovers, to me, are a lot like tube lovers. It's practically a separate hobby unto itself. From switching tubes to changing cartridges, there's a certain interactivity to it that appeals to fans. Me, I'd rather drop in a disc and enjoy the music, but I certainly won't fault anyone that enjoys this part of the hobby.

Let's look at cars as an example. The best selling car in America is the Camry. This is an incredibly well built and dead reliable vehicle designed to get you from point A to point B as unobtrusively as possible. To gearheads (the car equivalent of audiophiles) it's an appliance. About as exciting as that Kitchen Aid mixer sitting on the counter. You will never, ever, see one in my garage. In essence, it has no soul.

This is the way analog junkies see rbcd: Souless.

[Resident Loser]

...About as exciting as that Kitchen Aid mixer sitting on the counter....

...I have found my recently-obtained Kitchen Aid quite exciting...Three batches of quite tasty bread and, with the optional grinder, freshly ground, spiced-to-perfection, sweet Italian-stye sausages...

jimHJJ(...heavy on the fennel...)

[RGA]

Most people have never heard:

A truly good turntable (Rega isn't it) with a great crtridge (Rega isn't it)
A truly Great Tube amp (Cary isn't it)
A truly great CD player (filtered and upsampled aren't them) IME.

Don't click here if you find me a biased individual and don;t want to read about a certain company I like... you have been warned fairly ahead of time... http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?...il&r=&session=

[Wireworm5]

I didn't want this to turn into a vinyl vs cd debate. I simply wanted to point out the merits of the cd. I grew up with vinyl and a tube amp. Mind you I never had an expensive cartridge or the system I have now. Perhaps if I were to get a phono good cartridge I might change my view.
Throw vinyl in there with sacd etc., the merit of cd is the ability to burn copies easily which you can't do with these formats. And its audio capability is only bettered by these other formats when you invest money into a system that can do them justice.

[jtgofish]

I didn't want this to turn into a vinyl vs cd debate. I simply wanted to point out the merits of the cd. I grew up with vinyl and a tube amp. Mind you I never had an expensive cartridge or the system I have now. Perhaps if I were to get a phono good cartridge I might change my view.
Throw vinyl in there with sacd etc., the merit of cd is the ability to burn copies easily which you can't do with these formats. And its audio capability is only bettered by these other formats when you invest money into a system that can do them justice.

Vinyl has an air and ease that CD can lack,but CD replay has improved greatly.On. balance I prefer CD.Even seriously expensive turntable/arm/cartridge set ups I have heard still can't reproduce transients like piano cleanly.CD sounds much better with a good ribbon super tweeter which seems to make them more analogue sounding-certainly sweeter and more airy.

JT

[theaudiohobby]

...
Vinyl lovers, to me, are a lot like tube lovers. It's practically a separate hobby unto itself. From switching tubes to changing cartridges, there's a certain interactivity to it that appeals to fans. Me, I'd rather drop in a disc and enjoy the music, but I certainly won't fault anyone that enjoys this part of the hobby.

Let's look at cars as an example. The best selling car in America is the Camry. This is an incredibly well built and dead reliable vehicle designed to get you from point A to point B as unobtrusively as possible. To gearheads (the car equivalent of audiophiles) it's an appliance. About as exciting as that Kitchen Aid mixer sitting on the counter. You will never, ever, see one in my garage. In essence, it has no soul.

This is the way analog junkies see rbcd: Souless.

Topspeed, I agree with you, it seems that tube gears and vinylphiles enjoy that tactile or should I say interactive feel that tubes and vinyl afford, here digital replay insert, push play and forget feels soulless in comparison. Soundwise, there is nothing in it, it is down to source material and optimal setup, more so for vinyl where the right calibration etc is absolutely essential to get best out of the format. I love SACD and I have a large and growing investment in it, but I do concede that some recent CDs are very good, Monty Alexander's Imagination being a very good example of the results that can now be routinely achieved on CD.

[Woochifer]

I think you need to look at things on an individual case basis. In the hands of top notch mastering engineer, a vinyl pressing can deliver a more satisfying presentation than the CD counterpart. And conversely, a poorly pressed or mastered LP can sound horrid next to the CD version.

There's also the quality of the playback chain to consider. Unlike with CD players where the measured characteristics are in a relatively narrow range, the sound quality of turntables can vary a lot from model to model, with the choice in cartridges and tonearms creating fundamental changes to the tonal characteristics of otherwise identical turntables. With a decent turntable and a formidable cartridge, the sound quality of LPs can indeed surpass that of CDs by a wide margin. But, as I stated earlier, that would also depend on the pressing and the recording itself. Without access to the original master sources, consumers simply lack the means by which to universally declare one format superior to the other. And in my own collection, I can point to examples where the LP subjectively sounds better than the CD version, and vice versa.

CDs are in a somewhat thankless position because it's possible to get very good audio quality from an entry level player, and the degree of improvement that going to higher end hardware and tweaks is far narrower than the range of audio quality that you see with analog components. To a large degree, the culture of tweaking and eeking out the last incremental improvement in sound quality is a carryover from analog. With analog equipment, you have far greater variation in the sound quality, and tweaks and adjustments can deliver noticeable improvements in sound quality. For example, a less than one degree adjustment in the azimuth angle on a tape deck head can have measureable and clearly audible effects on the flutter and frequency curve. With digital, the audible effects are less drastic, but people still obsess over the same perceived improvements. CDs simply lack the snob appeal and tweakability of other audio components.

topspeed is correct in his assessment of analog fans. They look for more elusive and emotional qualities to enhance their musical enjoyment. However, I do disagree with his view of the Kitchen Aid mixer -- the cookies that my wife makes with ours are a far cry from soulless!

[tdst]

Wooch,

Awesome looking setup. My next question is...WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO BUY A TV?!?

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I rarely disagree with my brudda Wooch, but if equal care was given to both the mastering of vinyl and CD, IMO CD would sound better. The problem with vinyl and CD comparisons that have been done on simular releases is that the master created for the vinyl was often used for encoding the CD. Bad move. The EQ for each should be quite different. When they are the same, the CD will sound hard, and as mentioned souless.

IMO there is nothing particularly wrong with RBCD. The problem is with the anti aliasing filters used in CD players and digital recorders. If they could design better filters(and they have, but they costs an arm and and leg) the sound of CD would greatly improve. This is why raising the sample rate generally improves digital sound. The further you move the filters away from our area of aural sensitivity, the better digital will sound.

I find that surface noise on vinyl is just too distracting for me to enjoy the music. In spite of what RGA has said, I have heard VERY clean vinyl on a VERY high end system. While it did sound warm and easy, it also lacked the level of quietness that CD has. My favorite way to hear analog sound is through 2" magnetic tape with Dolby SR. This setup yields about 20bit performance, and sounds absolutely stunning.

[shokhead]

I think the DTS sound of cd's are the best and besides,its a b$tch to get that LP to play in my car.

[gonefishin]

Good recordings certainly can sound good on CD. One reason they get a bad rap is that people believe if they have similar measurments...that they sound the same. I just haven't found that to be true. Aside from differences in tonal qualities, I've also found there to be differences in dynamic qualities and presentation in the entire stage as well.

dan

[Woochifer]

I rarely disagree with my brudda Wooch, but if equal care was given to both the mastering of vinyl and CD, IMO CD would sound better. The problem with vinyl and CD comparisons that have been done on simular releases is that the master created for the vinyl was often used for encoding the CD. Bad move. The EQ for each should be quite different. When they are the same, the CD will sound hard, and as mentioned souless.

T-man -

I don't think we're in disagreement here. The issue in a lot of cases is simply that the LP and CD versions did not have an equal amount of care taken at the mastering stage, and that's what I was commenting on. And the LP has yet another dimension to account for in that the sound quality of LPs can vary from pressing to pressing. Even a very well mastered LP can sound horrible because of bad QC or using worn stampers, and back in my LP-buying days, I would very often return LPs that had these kinds of defects and would occasionally go through multiple copies of an album before I got one that sounded right. With newer recordings, I would agree that the CD version sounds better most of the time.

[KitR]

T-man -

I don't think we're in disagreement here. The issue in a lot of cases is simply that the LP and CD versions did not have an equal amount of care taken at the mastering stage, and that's what I was commenting on. And the LP has yet another dimension to account for in that the sound quality of LPs can vary from pressing to pressing. Even a very well mastered LP can sound horrible because of bad QC or using worn stampers, and back in my LP-buying days, I would very often return LPs that had these kinds of defects and would occasionally go through multiple copies of an album before I got one that sounded right. With newer recordings, I would agree that the CD version sounds better most of the time.

Possibly, but both the DVD and the Vinyl pressings of Cream @the Albert Hall2005 sound better than the CD in mine and other's opinions. What one cannot argue about is that CD has at last begun improving because of the competition. Although it still can't hold a candle(sorry, I mean LCD!) to SACD to my ears. Ironically - and again to my ears, digital only sounds any good when amplified with tubes. But the standard players ARE improving all the time. But with the renewed interest in Vinyl there is now a plethora of Turntables, Arms and Cartridges and you don't have to spend an arm and a leg to ressurrect decent analog sound. Ironic really!

[shokhead]

Possibly, but both the DVD and the Vinyl pressings of Cream @the Albert Hall2005 sound better than the CD in mine and other's opinions. What one cannot argue about is that CD has at last begun improving because of the competition. Although it still can't hold a candle(sorry, I mean LCD!) to SACD to my ears. Ironically - and again to my ears, digital only sounds any good when amplified with tubes. But the standard players ARE improving all the time. But with the renewed interest in Vinyl there is now a plethora of Turntables, Arms and Cartridges and you don't have to spend an arm and a leg to ressurrect decent analog sound. Ironic really!

Well in most cases a dvd would sound better then a cd and a SACD is suppose to sound better then a cd. Easy to knock the poor little old cd but play fair.

[KitR]

Well in most cases a dvd would sound better then a cd and a SACD is suppose to sound better then a cd. Easy to knock the poor little old cd but play fair.

..."the poor little old CD"... You mean of course the "Perfect sound forever!"; "Huge Dynamic Range" etc and other drivel spewed out by the hacks in '81& '82 heralding the arrival of the Compact Disk on the Recorded Music scene. You had to wait another year to get it in the 'States. When I first saw it I thought "At Last", no more screwing around with bloody records...but then I listened to it. ' 'spose I'd been spoiled by my Linn/Syrinx/Koetsu analog rig, but THEY did say perfect sound...lying scum(can I say that?! We'll see!)

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

..."the poor little old CD"... You mean of course the "Perfect sound forever!"; "Huge Dynamic Range" etc and other drivel spewed out by the hacks in '81& '82 heralding the arrival of the Compact Disk on the Recorded Music scene. You had to wait another year to get it in the 'States. When I first saw it I thought "At Last", no more screwing around with bloody records...but then I listened to it. ' 'spose I'd been spoiled by my Linn/Syrinx/Koetsu analog rig, but THEY did say perfect sound...lying scum(can I say that?! We'll see!)

Spoiled? Perhaps. However CD sound at that time was much like the infancy of DVD. Bad filter design, ringing filters, brickwall filters, poor choice of microphones and associated equipment, poor D/A conversion in both the recording and playback side dogged the sound of CD for more than a decade. Once these things improved, and the overall sound of CD improved, then the marketing departments of studio's driven by sales came in and ruined the sound once again. Make it louder, compress the crap out of it was there montra, and now we are back to poor CD sound

Part of redbook CD problem is to have fixed standards. All recording are static at 16/44.1khz no matter the resolution that was recorded. This is where DVD has an advantage over CD. You can record music on the DVD platform anywhere from 16/44.1khz all the way to stereo 24/192khz. That is a huge range of resolution.

[shokhead]

..."the poor little old CD"... You mean of course the "Perfect sound forever!"; "Huge Dynamic Range" etc and other drivel spewed out by the hacks in '81& '82 heralding the arrival of the Compact Disk on the Recorded Music scene. You had to wait another year to get it in the 'States. When I first saw it I thought "At Last", no more screwing around with bloody records...but then I listened to it. ' 'spose I'd been spoiled by my Linn/Syrinx/Koetsu analog rig, but THEY did say perfect sound...lying scum(can I say that?! We'll see!)

I could easly say the same thing about LP when they first came out,easy. Kinda like cereal,snap,crackle and pop.

[gonefishin]

Spoiled? Perhaps. However CD sound at that time was much like the infancy of DVD. Bad filter design, ringing filters, brickwall filters, poor choice of microphones and associated equipment, poor D/A conversion in both the recording and playback side dogged the sound of CD for more than a decade. Once these things improved, and the overall sound of CD improved, then the marketing departments of studio's driven by sales came in and ruined the sound once again. Make it louder, compress the crap out of it was there montra, and now we are back to poor CD sound

Part of redbook CD problem is to have fixed standards. All recording are static at 16/44.1khz no matter the resolution that was recorded. This is where DVD has an advantage over CD. You can record music on the DVD platform anywhere from 16/44.1khz all the way to stereo 24/192khz. That is a huge range of resolution.

Yeah, the first CD players were a big let down (many of the recordings sucked too). Thanks goodness they have much improved over the years.

Comparing the first sounds of redbook isn't a good measure of it's abilities today. To do so is just a bad comparison.

dan

[KitR]

I could easly say the same thing about LP when they first came out,easy. Kinda like cereal,snap,crackle and pop.

Oh indeed! I buy most of my LP's used and they all have had their Rice Krispies - I thought that was MYdescription: used it for year - still. great minds think alike they say. However, with a decent rig the RK's do not affect the music, whereas the negative aspects of CD do very much. In another post the advantages of DVD are illustrated - and I agree. As I say, since I got tubes into my signal path, most of my CD's have been rendered very listenable - over the long term; not to mention almost as enjoyable as mediocre vinyl! But get a really good vinyl LP and only SACD can compete - and surpass in some cases. But the fact is quality is the least consideration these days, and that CD, MP3 etc suit.

[KitR]

Spoiled? Perhaps. However CD sound at that time was much like the infancy of DVD. Bad filter design, ringing filters, brickwall filters, poor choice of microphones and associated equipment, poor D/A conversion in both the recording and playback side dogged the sound of CD for more than a decade. Once these things improved, and the overall sound of CD improved, then the marketing departments of studio's driven by sales came in and ruined the sound once again. Make it louder, compress the crap out of it was there montra, and now we are back to poor CD sound

Part of redbook CD problem is to have fixed standards. All recording are static at 16/44.1khz no matter the resolution that was recorded. This is where DVD has an advantage over CD. You can record music on the DVD platform anywhere from 16/44.1khz all the way to stereo 24/192khz. That is a huge range of resolution.

How annoying! I find myself in full agreement! In many ways it's rather like Tubes and Solid State amplification; with the latter debuting when the former had reached full maturity and technical excellence if a recent review in Stereophile of a Fisher Reciever is to be judged as Accurate. SS amps back then were not terribly good IMO.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

How annoying! I find myself in full agreement! In many ways it's rather like Tubes and Solid State amplification; with the latter debuting when the former had reached full maturity and technical excellence if a recent review in Stereophile of a Fisher Reciever is to be judged as Accurate. SS amps back then were not terribly good IMO.

You really do not need tubes in the signal path to improve the sound of CD. What is really called for is VERY good D/A conversion. This is the area were Theta, Wadia, Meridian, and several others I cannot remember have stepped in to fill the need. Good filter design, or higher sampling rates improves digital sound. Since CD's cannot support frequencies past 22.5khz, then good filter design is the ticket. A good transport and something like the Theta General V will give you far better sound than using a tube based pre-amp. Tubes IMO are sound fatteners(for lack of better words), and their emphasis on the midrange tends to IMO make the highs seem rolled off. Others may love it, but it is not my taste.

[Smokey]

Tubes IMO are sound fatteners(for lack of better words), and their emphasis on the midrange tends to IMO make the highs seem rolled off.

Good post TT.

That might explain why THD% (Total Harmonic distortion) of tube amps tend to be higher than SS amps. As less accurate the amplified signal is, the higher THD will be

[KitR]

You really do not need tubes in the signal path to improve the sound of CD. What is really called for is VERY good D/A conversion. This is the area were Theta, Wadia, Meridian, and several others I cannot remember have stepped in to fill the need. Good filter design, or higher sampling rates improves digital sound. Since CD's cannot support frequencies past 22.5khz, then good filter design is the ticket. A good transport and something like the Theta General V will give you far better sound than using a tube based pre-amp. Tubes IMO are sound fatteners(for lack of better words), and their emphasis on the midrange tends to IMO make the highs seem rolled off. Others may love it, but it is not my taste.

EXCELLENT! Something to disagree with wholeheartedly! The use, nay, need for such devices - expensive ones too - at all is precisely why CD is such a balderdashed medium. Granted most people wouldn't realise that, but then they don't appreciate hi-end analogue either. In any case a half-way decent player should include a decent D/A converter and adequate filters as a matter of course. To me - especially in the infancy of CD reproduction - the rolled off highs(and don't forget that tube distortion,in contrast to solid state, is harmonic in nature) make CD "sound" a little more paletteable to people that prefer music to mere sound.
You are of course correct in your analysis, and it is becoming clear that oddly, the lack of supersonic frequencies does have a subtle effect on how humans percieve the Musical Experience. Analogue doesn't have this limitation: nor I believe, does SACD. Not to mention that - certainly with acoustic instruments, and the human voice - the mid-range is precisely where the fundamentals of most music are to be found. That is why for my ears, tubes are superior for musical reproduction as opposed to sound reproduction. Thus for me - incidentally this applies also for moving coil cartridges with their tipped-up treble frequencies - I find myself the opposite to you in preferring those rolled off highs: curbing as they do, the essential stridency of CD sound - I REFUSE to call it MUSIC - reproduction! Over to you sir!

[Woochifer]

Possibly, but both the DVD and the Vinyl pressings of Cream @the Albert Hall2005 sound better than the CD in mine and other's opinions. What one cannot argue about is that CD has at last begun improving because of the competition. Although it still can't hold a candle(sorry, I mean LCD!) to SACD to my ears. Ironically - and again to my ears, digital only sounds any good when amplified with tubes. But the standard players ARE improving all the time. But with the renewed interest in Vinyl there is now a plethora of Turntables, Arms and Cartridges and you don't have to spend an arm and a leg to ressurrect decent analog sound. Ironic really!

And that example points to what I was saying -- you have to look at this issue on a case by case basis, because it's simply impossible to argue that all vinyl playback will be inherently superior to CD, or vice versa. Vinyl has so many more variables to account for, especially with the pressing quality. Back in the vinyl heyday, the LP stampers would frequently get overused, and the sound quality could vary tremendously depending on whether first generation stampers were used, the LP got pressed with a worn stamper, the LP was pressed off-center, the LP was warped, the quality/density of the vinyl used, and/or the amount of gunk on the surface. Obviously, you no longer have the quality problems associated with having to manufacture millions of copies of an LP title, but then again LPs now cost nearly double what CDs cost.

I don't think that the CD improved because of the competition (keep in mind that the inferior prerecorded cassette had already supplanted the LP as the dominant format before the CD was even introduced), but because of the factors that Terrence cited -- engineers learning how to work with the medium, more recordings optimized for digital playback, fewer recordings originally optimized for the vinyl medium (and not compensated for at the mastering stage for digital playback), improvements to the D/A conversion and filtering, etc. The CD has been the dominant format since the early-90s (the sales from just one hit CD will outnumber the annual sales of all new LPs combined), it would only make sense that the typical recording and playback chain would now be optimized around the CD format. When LPs dominated sales, it only made sense that the recordings worked around that medium, and that transitioning a lot of those recordings over to digital playback would sound less than ideal.

"Renewed" interest in vinyl? I've been hearing this since the mid-90s when LP sales finally stopped declining and some alternative rock artists insisted that the record companies issue their albums on vinyl. But, in the overall scheme of things, it comes across to me as wishful thinking. Vinyl never really went away to begin with, but has slogged along as a niche product since the late-80s, and nothing has changed on that front. The only thing that has changed over the past decade is that record companies have figured out how to make money off of vinyl by marketing it as a collector-priced limited edition product. That kind of approach was formerly only used by audiophile labels such as Mobile Fidelity, but is now the norm, even with major label releases (which are limited editions and contracted out to specialized pressing plants such as RTI). The old days of being able to buy new LPs for about 2/3 the price of a CD are long gone.