• 06-16-2009, 05:36 PM
    Mr Peabody
    What's amazing is how long computer took to reach the people from the Z1, or short, depending on perspective. I remember the Commodores just coming out in the early 80's. But after that it steam rolled into our life. I'm shocked at how early the microwave was around, it was maybe mid 80's before my family got one.

    The real thing is once my CD is purchased, it's mine, I can listen when I want with no further charge. What you are describing is like attaching a leach to my pocket book. I know there are leaches now but I don't need any more. It's scary to think about all that being in some one else's hands, or control.
  • 06-16-2009, 05:47 PM
    Auricauricle
    That truly is a scary concept....That ownership is fast yielding into rentership! Thanks, Mr. P. I won't sleep well tonight...
  • 06-16-2009, 06:31 PM
    StevenSurprenant
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Auricauricle
    That truly is a scary concept....That ownership is fast yielding into rentership! Thanks, Mr. P. I won't sleep well tonight...

    Many years ago we all had antennas on our homes and TV was free.

    When cable was just coming out, I remember like it was yesterday my mom saying, "That doesn't make any sense, why would people pay for something they are already getting for free."

    She still had an antenna, but eventually she bought cable. Ironic, isn't it?

    Mr. P...

    What would make you change your mind?

    Access to all the music ever made, any time, anywhere?

    How about being able to watch the video of the performances along with the music?

    Maybe you could get a list of all the music made by your favorite performer through their entire career and listen to your hearts content.

    Or how about getting the raw feed before mixing and so that you could compose your own version?

    Maybe you're listening to a song on the radio that really puts a smile on your face and all you have to do is hit the save button to get a copy. This would sure beat trying to find out who the performer is and then trying to find it in a store.

    Let's say that you could keep all music you saved with this service, even if you terminated the service. Wouldn't you still want to have access to new music with all the bennies the service provides?

    There are many ways to entice and all it takes is give you something that owning CD's doesn't offer, something that you just can't resist.

    If you could answer my mom's question, "why would people pay for something they are already getting for free.", I think you will know why someday we will all be renting our music.
  • 06-17-2009, 03:38 AM
    3db
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mlsstl
    This depends on the person. I listen to far more music these days than when I was spinning LPs or dropping CDs in a tray. Having a music server gives fast access to my 40,000 tune collection in a way that cannot be duplicated when one has to go hunting for a album sitting on a shelf.

    I'll admit there is a certain charm to the 12" X 12" album artwork of an LP, but a lot of that was lost with the advent of the CD small jewel case. In any event, once the music starts playing, the only thing that matters to me is what comes out of the speakers.

    As far as LP sales, here are the 2008 numbers from Nielsen Soundscan surveys.

    There were 1.9 million LPs sold in 2008. This was 0.13% of the total 1.5 billion music units sold (CDs, downloads, etc). CD sales were 363 million units, or 191 times the LP sales.

    The biggest selling LP in 2008 was Radiohead's "In Rainbows" which sold 25,800 copies. They sold more tickets for two nights at Hollywood Bowl than LPs.

    So, yes, the LP sales gains look impressive when expressed as a percentage against itself, but the real sales winner in this has been the growth of downloaded tracks which broke the one billion mark.

    I admit to have a hughe download collection my self but sincie I purchased a new TT, I've been spending much more energy buying albums. For critical listening, I immerse byself into vinyl and enjoy all of its mrerrits. While commuting to work via public transportation, I plug myself into an mp3 player and lsiten there.

    I seriously doubt vinyl will make teh resurgance back to its' heyday but I'm certain that it will eventually surplant CDs. As far as going to SACD or DVD-A, studies have been shown that most people cannot tell the difference in sound quality between CD and the high rez audio formats. Thats oneof teh reasons why these two formats never took off.
  • 06-17-2009, 04:54 AM
    Feanor
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by 3db
    Vinyl never vanished. Diminshed greatly yes buts its very much alive and growing. There is also a trend now where people want something tangeable to smell, feel, hold, read, sonmething you can't do with hard drives. People don't want to turn on the computer just to listen to music.

    I agree with people who say that LP will remain a small niche market. Of course, it could grow a lot and still remain a niche.

    As a medium it is meaningless to me; (despite that I still own a couple of hundred LPs). For one thing, of the music I mostly listen to, exactly none is produced today on LP. Some people love to fondle those 12" discs; I never did, and I go 'way back before CD was even conceived of.

    CDs were a big ergonomic improvement over LPs. Bigger still is the ability to search and select from your entire collection from the computer. I do 99% of my listening from computer. It seems to me that it is easier to turn on the computer, select and play music, than it is to locate a single CD and load it.
  • 06-17-2009, 04:56 AM
    mlsstl
    Quote:

    3db wrote: "I seriously doubt vinyl will make teh resurgance back to its' heyday but I'm certain that it will eventually surplant CDs."
    Only time will tell.

    My guess is that LPs will remain a presence at the niche market level with a small but loyal following. There are plenty of examples in the world of consumer products that once ruled their territory but, while still available, are a pale ghost of their former dominance.

    I think the death announcement of CDs has been premature. It is still a pretty handy way of distributing music. While broadband internet connections have made great strides the past decade, they still aren't really fast enough to conveniently support wide scale downloads for lossless music at true CD bit rates.

    While that will improve with time, there is also the issue of portability. You can pick up a CD and play it in your car, in a friend's car, or take it to a party and so on. iPods and similar players offer portability, but you're not assured of inter-connectability with other people's systems.

    You can also trade and sell CDs in the open market, even on Amazon and eBay. Try listing a download for sale on Amazon and you'll likely get a call from the RIAA police.

    I do expect CD sells to continue to drop, and the download market continue to expand. That said, CDs are going to continue to be around for many years. If nothing else, think of the size of the already installed base of players. While they will eventually age, break and be replaced with something else down the road, that's not going to happen overnight.
  • 06-18-2009, 06:56 PM
    Woochifer
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by 3db
    As far as going to SACD or DVD-A, studies have been shown that most people cannot tell the difference in sound quality between CD and the high rez audio formats. Thats oneof teh reasons why these two formats never took off.

    What studies would those be? And what sources did they use to come up with those conclusions?

    I'm not aware of any CD, SACD, and/or DVD-A sources available to consumers that were mastered using identical board feeds and identical settings. That shortcoming alone makes valid comparisons between the formats almost impossible outside of a studio setting.

    If you're comparing a CD version of an album with the SACD or DVD-A version, it's very easy to tell differences with many of them. Whether those differences are due to the higher resolution or due to differences in the mastering process, it's impossible to know without having access to the master source.

    SACD and DVD-A failed because you had competing formats and because the music industry never embraced the formats. If you want SACD to succeed, all the record companies had to do was transition their releases over to the hybrid disc format and ensure that their new releases were made available in the format. That never happened.

    FWIW, I always saw SACD and DVD-A's primary value in their multichannel capability. A well done 5.1 music mix lends a sense of "you are there" more impressively than just about high end two-channel setup I've ever heard, and it can give that sense even with a modest midrange setup.
    FWIW,
  • 06-19-2009, 05:43 AM
    luvtolisten
    I think it all comes down to, the majority of people just didn't think the difference was worth it, for whatever reason.Supply and demand. It drives the industry. If the demand was there, you'd see SACD's all over. Apparently the interest of the masses just wasn't there.
  • 06-19-2009, 12:00 PM
    Woochifer
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by luvtolisten
    I think it all comes down to, the majority of people just didn't think the difference was worth it, for whatever reason.Supply and demand. It drives the industry. If the demand was there, you'd see SACD's all over. Apparently the interest of the masses just wasn't there.

    I think the problem is that the industry could never figure out what to do with SACD and DVD-A. Is it a premium two-channel format for audiophiles, or a multichannel format that people can play on their new home theater systems? Is it a successor to the CD or is it simply an enhancement to the CD? Does it go into only high end audio equipment, or does it go into entry level equipment like HTIBs and video game consoles?

    Sony alone answered yes to all of those questions, even though those answers sent inherently contradictory messages to the market. And Sony was a case where one hand was not speaking to the other, as their music and hardware divisions often pursued completely different agendas with SACD.

    SACD's issues with copy protection and analog-only output hampered its appeal with higher end consumers, while the lack of inclusion with newer releases and initially with lower priced hardware limited its appeal with entry level consumers. Ironically, with HDMI and the availability of lower priced components that can deliver/receive SACD signals, many of those issues have been resolved, but only after much of the industry has abandoned the format.
  • 06-19-2009, 01:53 PM
    pixelthis
    The two primary problems with both SACD and DVD-A was marketing meltdown.
    A multichannel format sold to audiophiles, a lot of the source material "remixed"
    so that the experience is anything but what an audiophile would want.
    And joe six couldn't care less, of course.
    Record companies made a tenative foray into these formats, about as much as could be expected, considering both were a horse designed by a bunch that couldn't even agree amongst themselves as to what direction to go in.:1:
  • 06-22-2009, 01:45 PM
    texlle
    I figured the next generation home audio source after the death of the CD would've been a hard drive in a box with a usb slot. Say you buy a source with a 20GB hard drive and upload your music via a jump drive, or even better, your laptop/desktop, iphone, whathave you. With a computer, you can access your home stereo HD source and arrange your files however your want them.

    Why isn't this available? The technology is there, we just need a few good companies to step up and put it into production.
  • 06-22-2009, 06:02 PM
    Mr Peabody
    Why would you need another hard drive component? If it's already on a hard drive just send the signal wireless to yur amp. That's available now, check with Feanor, Ajani and I forget who all, but several here do that already.
  • 06-23-2009, 10:31 AM
    3db
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Woochifer
    What studies would those be? And what sources did they use to come up with those conclusions?

    .
    FWIW,

    http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/explanation.htm
  • 06-23-2009, 06:35 PM
    Kevio
    No one is going to freak out about 3db's link? Come on, I need some entertainment over here.
  • 06-23-2009, 07:00 PM
    RGA
    SACD and DVD Audio has a few problems - one there is a mistake in the belief that the masses will pay more money for higher quality when what the masses want is mp3 to load as much low bit version onto an ipod as possible. The fact is the vast majority want cheap cheap cheap with the most storage and features as possible. And the sound isn't THAT bad. I have recorded in lossless to ipod and the sound is respectable - not hi-fi but most people have never heard hi-fi and frankly they don't any better and even if they did the price is out of reach of most.

    Secondly it 1 is not not bad enough the high end niche and mostly (2 channel) market has certainly not decided that SACD is superior to top flight Redbook players - or for that matter even better than vinyl - a large segment of the audiophiles have not adopted that CD is better than vinyl despite technical measurements and they are not on board with SACD - though many may like SACD better than CD.

    Listening to a CD in two channel on Audio Note's DAC 4 and CD Two transport directly against the same albums on a $10k SACD machines in two channel and the AN system was vastly superior to my ear (bias maybe but several people listening who don't own any AN agreed). All of them agreed not just one or two. Granted these were both way up their price scale - and good vinyl beat them both. I preferred the two channel vinyl and CD to the multi channel Martin Logan /BAT and Bryston set-ups of SACD.

    But the fact is that if the niche market 2 channel guys don't jump on the SACD bandwagon then the niche becomes a niche within the niche. High SACD machine sales are skewed because the format was tossed in with cheap DVD players with many consumers not even knowing it was part of the machine. I know a Sony manager who sold hundreds of these machines and he told me that maybe 1 in a hundred specifically asked about whether the machine could play SACD. And I was one in the hundred and I didn't buy one!

    This is not to dump on SACD - because I have heard very good sounds from it bettering a lot of other CD players - superior recording quality on some discs - all else being equal - will sound better - and some of the machines have good SACD playback with abysmal CD playback skewing the results considerably - people will say listen to how much better the SACD sounds compared the same machine's redbook but this is a problem if the maker deliberately makes the redbook sound like crap to make the SACD portion sound so much better in direct comparison. Certainly it would be nice to have one - but after hearing the top Sony - it's not really better than the better CD players - or even a $799 Dac1 with a cheap transport. But for the usual mainstream - the cheap end of the market I would take one over average Redbook.

    Apparently there is a new OPPO player that is really good - it is $499 and is a Blue Ray player as well as a "good" SACD player and a "good" cd player. Certainly worth getting into SACD if you don't already have Blue Ray and for balance - a fellow poster who loves SACD wrote a very good review just the other day of the new OPPO 83

    http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/hi...25/259031.html

    The labyrinth menus would drive me bonkers but some folks love screwing around with the remotes. Personally I want to set the settings and then when the disc goes in it should remember the settings forever.

    My DVD player always goes tot he 5.1 track and with two speakers I get no voices - so I have to hunt throught he menus to get it back to 2.1 stereo which is the setting and the only one I want to use. Royal pain in the arse. The OPPO looks not to have improved that in the slightest but on sound and for the money it may be worth going to this format for my next video player/Blue Ray/SACD.

    I am not in the loop - but it seems to do virtually anything you could possibly want it to do.

    http://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-83/
  • 06-23-2009, 07:38 PM
    Mr Peabody
    RGA, I haven't seen Audio Note jump on SACD, do they offer anything?
  • 06-23-2009, 10:11 PM
    Woochifer
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RGA
    SACD and DVD Audio has a few problems - one there is a mistake in the belief that the masses will pay more money for higher quality when what the masses want is mp3 to load as much low bit version onto an ipod as possible. The fact is the vast majority want cheap cheap cheap with the most storage and features as possible.

    Yep. I think that the record companies had incentive to go along with SACD at the very least because here was a copy protected format that was backwards compatible with CDs. SACD was introduced just as multichannel was beginning to gain traction, and it could have easily ridden the coattails of home theater as people added 5.1 DD and DTS to their systems.

    But, the politics of the format war took hold, as Warner had a vested financial interest in DVD-A (due to their patent holdings in the DVD format) and Sony had its stake in SACD. And of course, using a hybrid disc format added costs to each disc, and CD sales had not yet tanked when SACD first came out. Plus, the record companies restrictions on digital output further limited its appeal.

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RGA
    And if that were not bad enough the high end niche and mostly (2 channel) market has certainly not decided that SACD is superior to top flight Redbook players - or for that matter vinyl.

    I've mentioned this before, but I think in the audiophile world, a lot of people have invested big time sums in their CD setups. The last thing they want to hear is that a lower cost disc player can match or surpass the sound quality of their investment, so there's an ingrained bias against the format from the outset. Kind of ironic, given how the CD format was the scourge of the audiophile community for years, before the advent of pricey DAC and transport separates.

    At the very least, the DSD remastering that was done in conjunction with the SACD releases greatly improved the sound quality on many releases, and on many hybrid releases that improvement did not always transfer over to the CD layer.

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RGA
    But the fact is that if the niche market 2 channel guys don't jump on the SACD bandwagon then the niche becomes a niche within the niche. High SACD machine sales are skewed because the format was tossed in with cheap DVD players with many consumers not even knowing it was part of the machine. I know a Sony manager who sold hundreds of these machines and he told me that maybe 1 in a hundred specifically asked about whether the machine could play SACD.

    For those $150 players that Best Buy carried, I would agree. But, for the ES models, I doubt that anyone bought those without knowing about the SACD capability.

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RGA
    This is not to dump on SACD - because I have heard very good sounds from it bettering a lot of other CD players. Certainly it would be nice to have one - but after hearing the top Sony - it's not really better than the better CD players. But at the cheap end of the market I would take one over average Redbook.

    For me, the reason to go with SACD or DVD-A is the lossless multichannel audio. People can quibble about whether or not it's possible to detect a difference in the resolution, but the benefits of a good multichannel mix are quite clearcut. The solidity of the side imaging, the depth perception, and the spaciousness with a good 5.1 track go beyond anything I've heard from any high end two-channel system.

    The SACD releases have slowed to a trickle, but there's a good body of works out there to mine through. The SF Symphony's Mahler releases were the reason I got a SACD player in the first place, and so long as the final release in that series (their monumental performance of the 8th Symphony) comes out as scheduled next year, I'll be happy.

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RGA
    Apparently there is a new OPPO player that is really good - it is $499 and is a Blue Ray player as well as a "good" SACD player and a "good" cd player. Certainly worth getting into SACD if you don't already have Blue Ray and for balance - a fellow poster who loves SACD wrote a very good review just the other day of the new OPPO 83

    http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/hi...25/259031.html

    The labyrinth menus would drive me bonkers but some folks love screwing around with the remotes. Personally I want to set the settings and then when the disc goes in it should remember the settings forever.

    My DVD player always goes tot he 5.1 track and with two speakers I get no voices - so I have to hunt throught he menus to get it back to 2.1 stereo which is the setting and the only one I want to use. Royal pain in the arse. The OPPO looks not to have improved that in the slightest but on sound and for the money it may be worth going to this format for my next video player/Blue Ray/SACD.

    I am not in the loop - but it seems to do virtually anything you could possibly want it to do.

    http://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-83/

    Another avenue would be Oppo's $140 universal DVD player, which has been cited as a very good multichannel music player, and even better than the BDP-83's predecessor, which placed more emphasis on the video processing. Another advantage of the Oppo is that it can send the DSD signal via HDMI, one of the few that can do this without transcoding the DSD signal to PCM first. A handful of receivers and processors can natively handle a DSD signal, but anytime you do any kind of delay, bass management, or other signal processing beyond simple leveling will be transcoded to PCM.

    That Oppo BD player though is the first truly universal player now that high def has arrived in earnest, and the processor they use in that player is purportedly one of the best around. Remains to be seen if its audio performance is up to the task.

    I know that with my Sony SACD player, the setup allows for changes to the default layers read, as well as how you have the speakers aligned. I'm surprised that a DVD player would not save the speaker setup options. Anything with a 5.1 analog output would need to allow for playback using fewer than five speakers.
  • 06-23-2009, 11:31 PM
    RGA
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Mr Peabody
    RGA, I haven't seen Audio Note jump on SACD, do they offer anything?

    Peter bought all of the competitors top of the line SACD machines has hired some of the top guys to pull it apart and get it to sound "decent" to him and he hasn't found it yet. This is his opinion he's entitled to it. I like some of the SACD machines and the disc - my last post seemed harsher that I meant it to be. I am considering a machine - I have not been impressed with any of the multi-channel mixes - and these were set up by professionals - but I am not a big fan of Martin Logan speakers or Bryston amplifiers so I am willing to give it another go with gear I like at the outset. I don't want to blame the SACD technology when it could have been the hardware.

    The OPPO if it lives up to billing - and Layman is pretty solid over at AA - it will be worth it. I am a huge movie fan and I do not have Blue Ray so ....

    Again I hop I didn't sound too harsh on SACD - I know lots of people swear by it but I have to go with what I heard in my own auditions and Bob Neil and I hear it the same way when we compared SACD to the AN combination of redbook. But I have not compared inexpensive SACD for example to inexpensive CD - I may very much think a $500 SACD blows the doors off every $1500 CD player on the market. So I apologize for poor writing.

    Bob Neil is probably a little more balanced on the topic - I found a very similar set-up to be significantly better than the SACD machine I heard - but Bob's machine was one of the best available at the time he did the comparison - http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue8/audionote.htm
  • 06-24-2009, 05:03 AM
    Mr Peabody
    In hearing some of The Blu-ray 5.1 mixs even I have become a fan of a good recording. When listening to the 5.1 and then switching to 2.0 you definitely seem to lose something.

    Mahler is out on BR by the way. Check www.bluray.com for releases.
  • 06-24-2009, 05:19 AM
    Feanor
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Woochifer
    ...
    For me, the reason to go with SACD or DVD-A is the lossless multichannel audio. People can quibble about whether or not it's possible to detect a difference in the resolution, but the benefits of a good multichannel mix are quite clearcut. The solidity of the side imaging, the depth perception, and the spaciousness with a good 5.1 track go beyond anything I've heard from any high end two-channel system.
    ...

    Yep: I've been saying this for quite a while. M/C is the biggest advantage of SACD (& DVD-A). If you heard a well produced recording played on even a half-decent setup, you will know that M/C can convey a sense of ambience, of concert hall presence, that 2-ch simply cannot.

    It's unfortunate that audiophiles have resisted investing in M/C setups otherwise more would understand this. Of course, the cost of M/C is a big problem -- many 'philes invested their last dimes in their 2-ch equipment and just can afford the strain of extending these to M/C. Also, the practical difficulties of configuring a M/C listening room are not trivial: rooms that are great for 2-ch often can't be made to accomodate M/C.
  • 06-24-2009, 11:22 AM
    Woochifer
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RGA
    Peter bought all of the competitors top of the line SACD machines has hired some of the top guys to pull it apart and get it to sound "decent" to him and he hasn't found it yet. This is his opinion he's entitled to it. I like some of the SACD machines and the disc - my last post seemed harsher that I meant it to be. I am considering a machine - I have not been impressed with any of the multi-channel mixes - and these were set up by professionals - but I am not a big fan of Martin Logan speakers or Bryston amplifiers so I am willing to give it another go with gear I like at the outset. I don't want to blame the SACD technology when it could have been the hardware.

    I think at a certain point, it becomes more about creating a certain type of sound signature. The whole reasoning behind DSD/SACD is that it brings the consumer closer to the resolution of the original source. Remember that Sony created the DSD format as an archiving tool for their analog tape library, which has many recordings approaching the point where the tapes have begun deteriorating.

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RGA
    The OPPO if it lives up to billing - and Layman is pretty solid over at AA - it will be worth it. I am a huge movie fan and I do not have Blue Ray so ....

    Blu-ray's a must, especially if you've already upgraded to a HDTV. Broadcast HDTV look very good, but a decent BD can look jaw-droppingly great.

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RGA
    Again I hop I didn't sound too harsh on SACD - I know lots of people swear by it but I have to go with what I heard in my own auditions and Bob Neil and I hear it the same way when we compared SACD to the AN combination of redbook. But I have not compared inexpensive SACD for example to inexpensive CD - I may very much think a $500 SACD blows the doors off every $1500 CD player on the market. So I apologize for poor writing.

    I caught what you were getting at. I think that the larger point is that the SACD releases themselves afforded an opportunity to revisit a lot of recordings and make improvements over the CD versions. When comparing a CD with a SACD, it's not just the resolution that changes, it's the mastering, the processing used during the transfer, etc. Comparing the two-channel CD and SACD tracks, some of them sound very similar, and others sound very different.

    Concord Jazz in particular did a lot of reworking when they put out the CD/SACD hybrid versions of their recordings. But, in creating the 5.1 mixes, they also cleaned up the sound considerably by eliminating a lot of the processing that was clearly used when mixing the original two-channel tracks.

    Even the highest end of high end CD rigs remains limited to the quality of the CD transfer. With most of the SACDs I've heard, it seems that the transfer was done well. No excessively high levels, no evidence of heavy dynamic range compression, etc. With SACD, you generally start with a clean transfer. The trend with CD transfers unfortunately is to bump up the levels as high as possible, and use compression to keep it from using all the bits. In years past, remastered CD issues were all about fixing the harsh edge that accompanied many early CD releases. But, some the more recent CD remasters I've heard are now bumping the levels higher and getting closer to distortion levels.
  • 06-24-2009, 11:22 AM
    Woochifer
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Feanor
    Yep: I've been saying this for quite a while. M/C is the biggest advantage of SACD (& DVD-A). If you heard a well produced recording played on even a half-decent setup, you will know that M/C can convey a sense of ambience, oF concert hall presence, that 2-ch simply cannot.

    It's unfortunate that audiophiles have resisted investing in M/C setups otherwise more would understand this. Of course, the cost of M/C is a big problem -- many 'philes invested their last dimes in their 2-ch equipment and just can afford the strain of extending these to M/C. Also, the practical difficulties of configuring a M/C listening room are also not trivial: rooms that are great for 2-ch often can't be made to accomodate M/C.

    Well said, Bill! :thumbsup:
  • 06-24-2009, 11:54 AM
    Feanor
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Woochifer
    ...

    Even the highest end of high end CD rigs remains limited to the quality of the CD transfer. With most of the SACDs I've heard, it seems that the transfer was done well. No excessively high levels, no evidence of heavy dynamic range compression, etc. With SACD, you generally start with a clean transfer. The trend with CD transfers unfortunately is to bump up the levels as high as possible, and use compression to keep it from using all the bits. In years past, remastered CD issues were all about fixing the harsh edge that accompanied many early CD releases. But, some the more recent CD remasters I've heard are now bumping the levels higher and getting closer to distortion levels.

    When it comes to classical, CD remasters, new CDs, and CD layers on hybrid SACDs have all gotten better and better (in general). There is no evidence at all of an increase in the use of compression by the industry. Oh, well, just a fringe benefit of listening to classical music.

    If there is any trend back to LPs there is no evidence of it in case of the classical genre. Meanwhile about half of all SACDs are classical. Basically LP is irrelevant to classical listeners, (apart from the collections of old vinyl that some people have).
  • 06-24-2009, 06:07 PM
    E-Stat
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Kevio
    No one is going to freak out about 3db's link? Come on, I need some entertainment over here.

    Freak out? The test proves what it proves based upon its methodology. This is yet another example of what may be entirely an earnest attempt to test the difference, but takes the usual convoluted path by using a test setup that is not at all representative of the way we use our systems, much less representative of what a given medium can do.

    Here are a couple of flawed examples. Over at AA, a poster proposed a cable comparison by inserting a Y adapter into the output of a CD player, attaching the two cables under consideration to the adapter and to separate inputs on a preamp. Then one could switch inputs to compare the cables. While this arrangement works, it has a fatal unintended flaw: the input of the amplifier would end up "seeing" the summed metrics of both cables. Thus the comparison would be "both" to "both". Some time ago, a former poster named Skeptic (or Soundmind over at AA) proposed his so called "shunt" test for comparing cables. Place a cable between the tape out / tape input jacks and simply switch the tape monitor to compare whether or not that cable was sonically "perfect". There are multiple flaws with his approach. First of all, it is the source components and amplifiers which can respond to different cable metrics. Placing a cable in a buffered tape loop isolates the cable from those interactions. Secondly, the test involves circular reasoning. In his case, the operating assumption is that inexpensive, unshielded, high capacitance cables are the full equivalent of higher performance cables used in real world situations. Yet, he crippled the test from the outset. He used high cap cable from the source to the preamp, from the preamp to his equalizer, and from the equalizer to his amplifier. Then, he would add a fourth cable into the tape loop vs a higher performance model and not surprisingly, never heard a difference. That's like trying to determine the opacity of two different qualities of glass panes by stacking three dirty panes and seeing if you could tell the difference between adding yet another dirty pane or a single clear pane. The only valid test would be to use only the number of cables required and to replace all of them at the same time.

    Similarly, Meyer's test make a number of assumptions. First of all, one of the players he used was an inexpensive Pioneer deck that has no better S/N that CD players. Quite a few recordings were simply SACD or DVD-A versions of recordings that were also released on lower resolution formats. Even in the days of LPs and cassettes, the quality of a recording was determined by the lowest common denominator. As with my first cable story, a box is wired that either switched in or out the additional loop via another cable through a CD recorder. So, regardless of setting, additional cable and box loading effects are inflicted on the test gear.

    The only valid test has been conducted by many a recording engineer: make simultaneous recordings of the same performance without compromising the performance envelope of the high resolution format. There is no need to add cables, boxes, additional loading factors never used in home systems. Simply compare what each medium is capable of doing. Admittedly, because of the commercial needs for delivery on multiple mediums, frequently the high rez version is crippled from the outset. Do you really think that a high-rez re-master of "Dark Side of the Moon"Pink is going to explore the dynamic range capability of the medium? There are good reasons why virtually all recordings today are mastered at 24/192 or better. And fortunately for those of us who still listen to CDs, the result is better performance. The filtering can be more gradual with fewer phase issues and a few lost bits here and there in the mixing process don't have the same negative effect on the result.

    rw
  • 06-24-2009, 09:48 PM
    Kevio
    Given all the fuss over DACs as a critical element in a reproduction system, I was quite surprised that subjects could not hear an extra set of 44.1 kHz AD and DA conversion inserted into the signal path. I think you're claiming this can be explained by the fact that the source material was not of high enough quality to illuminate the additional stages. And yet people claim to hear stark differences in different DACs even when the source is conventional 44.1 kHz, 16-bit sources.