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Hmm....
I've watched this thread, twist, turn and morph over the past half hour I've been reading it. When done I was at first tempted to write some long treatise on the current state of recorded music et al. But in the end two lyrics kept popping up in my head.
"There's a sound sure for every time." - "Spongee Reggae" - Black Uhuru
"Rollover Beethoven and tell Tchikofsky the news!" Chuck Berry
Some 40 years ago my parents felt the same way about my brother's music (James Brown, Funkadelic etc...) and said so. 30 years hence folks from "generation z" will be saying the same thing about the pop drivel (probably being downloaded straight to the cranimum by then) present in that era.
Same song yesterday, same song yesterday..." The Last Poets.
As long as there's recorded popular music there will be old folks, like some here, railing against the garbage that passes for music in some future time. It's inevitable. Still in all it's a fun argument to have.
Da Worfster
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Peabody
I believe Sony quit pressing SACD's over a year ago. I remember that being a big announcement. If they have begun again, please enlighten me. SACD is barely surviving as a nitch product. It would be interesting to from somebody like Acoustic Sounds what their LP & SACD sales figures are. My guess is vinyl sells more than SACD.
What I read last year was that Sony's Terre Haute facility cut back the SACD production line to one daily run per week. SACD releases are still trickling out, but most of them are not for high volume titles.
Not sure how the vinyl volume would compare with SACD. Problem here is that SACDs also include hybrid discs, and there was always inconsistency as to whether hybrid discs would be counted as CDs or if the count would only include single-layer SACDs. I recall that when Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon was rereleased on a hybrid CD/SACD disc, that title alone outsold all of the new vinyl produced that year combined. Of course, it's probably only a small minority of people purchasing that title that use the SACD layer, so you can't really use that as a measure of SACD adoption either.
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Originally Posted by Mr Peabody
I wouldn't mind hearing a good MC recording where the mixing and engineering was done properly.
Try the San Francisco Symphony's Mahler series. Exceptional recordings and performances all the way around. I was in attendance at Davies Symphony Hall for the Symphony No. 5 recording session, and the mike placement is designed to emulate the conductor position. Comparing the multichannel mix with the two-channel mix, it's no contest -- the multichannel mix is far more realistic rendering of how the SF Symphony actually sounds inside of Davies Hall. This is not to say that the sound is perfect, because Davies Hall has always had issues with the acoustics. But, what these recordings do in the multichannel version is recreate the live experience inside Davies Hall, and to that end, the Mahler series does a great job.
Another reference quality title is the LA Philharmonic's recent release of Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps. This recording has got some mindblowing sonics, and it's another great multichannel exploration. I've yet to see a concert at Disney Hall (which has gotten plenty of acclaim for its acoustics), so I have no idea how well this recording captures the experience. But, at a subjective level, this is a great listen.
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Originally Posted by Mr Peabody
The few DVD concerts I've heard in 5.1 give some ambience but most of the surrounds just give clapping fill. And I don't think it's natural to have instruments coming out of the rears. Maybe for Classical and you were getting the perspective of the conductor. I've always wanted to hear the MC mix of Dark Side Of The Moon (Pink Floyd) to see what they done to that.
Well, a lot of stereo recordings aren't all that natural either (nor are they supposed to be, given that nearly all pop recordings are purely studio creations). One advantage of multichannel is that it allows for more coherent differentiation between individual instruments. A stereo mixdown entails a lot of individual tracks getting crammed together, and creating that phantom center effect often requires a lot of EQ and processing. Spreading the instrumentation across five channels can actually make individual instruments sound clearer because a level of processing might have been removed. There are plenty of approaches to multichannel recording, and just there are plenty of good and bad stereo recordings, you have a similar differentiation between multichannel recordings.
DSOTM is actually not one of the better multichannel recordings that I've heard. If you want a good example of what multichannel adds to a studio recording, you might want to give Steely Dan's Two Against Nature and Everything Must Go a listen (those are DVD-As that also include DVD-V compatible 1.5k DTS tracks). In those cases, the instrument placement into the surround channels created a level of depth perception that I've rarely heard from any two-channel playback. The good multichannel recordings are not about creating a ping-pong effect with instruments coming at you from all angles, but rather creating a sensory envelopment effect that creates a very strong perception of depth.
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I don't have SACD but I will have to look for one of those DVD's. Maybe if a MC music format takes off the engineers will be allowed to explore and do the MC recordings justice.
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we always get at least one of these threads per year...someone else saying how hifi is dead! nobody wants it! the audio world is falling to bose! oh noes!
yeah... But it is fun discussing it all I guess...
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Originally Posted by E-Stat
Interestingly, the advent of the higher resolution formats has yielded better results for the lowly Redbook CD medium. The primary limitation of the 44.1k sample rate was not the resulting bandwidth per se, but rather the need for an abrupt filtering cutoff to assure that there is ZERO content above 22k. The original so called "brickwall" filters introduced phase shifts that lost resolution. My understanding is that virtually all recordings today are mastered at least at 192/24 allowing for a far more gradual filter slope (done digitally at that). Then remastered to 44/16. Win win for everyone.
rw
Just a few comments to your post. While you are correct about the brickwall filters being an issue, that issue was long put to rest when oversampling became the norm within CD players. Most all of the dedicated CD players I have owned use 8x oversampling which would push the filter response up to 352.8khz. So there is no need for brickwall filters anymore. Oversampling is also being used in digital recorders as well so the source recording does not have brickwall anti aliasing filters in the way during the recording process.
As far as music recording sample and bit rates, it depends on the medium the recording is destined for. Most music only recordings are done at 24/176.4khz or 24/88.2khz with the latter more prevalent. This makes downconversion to red book CD easy and less computational heavy. If a recording is bound for DVD-A, it is most likely recorded and archived at 24/96khz. 24/192khz is problematic in several ways. It requires alot of storage to archive and alot of computational power to process. There is some problems with bass lag and unnatural image expansion. Lastly there is no medium with the exception of bluray disc that could pass it in multichannel.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Terrence the Terrible
Most music only recordings are done at 24/176.4khz or 24/88.2khz with the latter more prevalent. This makes downconversion to red book CD easy and less computational heavy.
Thanks for your perspective.
rw
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