Atmasphere I know it can be different for that reason. My question is if it is in fact done that way? What is the intended audience? Audiophiles that care about the best possible sound or Iphone and Bluetooth speaker users looking for a new toy? At Urban Outfitters on 5th ave Manhattan, over the holidays, they had a large section dedicated to electronic toys. It included things from the cheapest Crosley to several entry level turntables. Also a decent selection of new records $30 a pop or more. I wonder if the records are made to just sell new junk to the masses or to truly take advantage of the format? I suspect the former to a large extent. A lot of the new record releases had nice packaging and artwork, etc. and seemed substantial, but is that just a glossy package?
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Really good info. Thanks so much. |
Don, I know its all digital but that does not preclude having a superior recording in terms of dynamic range on a record compared to CD.
Its all a matter of how done and who is the target audience. I suspect new vinyl targets the masses and is not up to potential as a result. Mostly the same mastering as on CD but released on vinyl for something new to sell. But I’m hoping I’m wrong. I would buy new vinyl releases of some popular recordings I like if I felt confident that the vinyl product is superior.
My daughter has bought one or two new records recently. One is Thriller. I’ll have to give it a listen and compare. Of course that is one of the best quality original pop recordings of all to start with. You’d think the recording industry would learn that you have to deliver an exceptional product in all regards to have success like that. Will be interested to hear how the new vinyl sounds.
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RR,
Sounds right to me.
Cheers!
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"they will send the master digital file with the understanding that the LP mastering engineer will deal with it as needed. "
Isn’t that pretty much what they sent the CD mastering engineer as well?
The end result will depend mostly on what determines how it will be dealt with at that point. Is it individual discretion? Maximizing the sound quality? Or compromising it in some way for whatever other reason?
My guess is as mentioned earlier it probably depends on the company and their target customers. That is assuming it costs more to produce a high quality product than otherwise, which is usually the case. Costs will be managed accordingly and differently by maker. In the end is it any different than last go round with records? Most are compromised (like CDs) but a few labels (and maybe some particular artists with clout) focus on sound quality more than others. Those are the ones that might be worth it it seems to me. Unless one just likes to play records regardless (we already know how that ended last time).
In the end it sounds like a very mixed bag, not any different than CDs, except with a format where the ceiling is theoretically higher at least in terms of dynamic range, something mostly only select few audiophiles with really good systems might care about. Resolution as well but the actual significance of the technical differences there are even more debatable.
And only a very few these days would even begin to think about large format tape formats, which is probably the only format historically that most would agree is the real champ.
High res digital can stake a claim even today I think in some cases if one looks hard enough. Someday perhaps not too far off I expect high res digital will in fact gain traction and exclusively claim a significant niche as the high end for home audio fidelity.
Records may survive as well not so much because of sound quality but because records are a nice product you can hold, read look at whatever, you know, teh physical connection that we largely lost with tiny CDs.
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Cut to meaningfully compare formats you have to compare the best of both. Quality of individual releases in any format can vary from horrid to the best. Format alone assures nothing. |
Natalie Merchant has a voice of gold. One of my favorites. I could listen to her sing the phone book. |
Those DR ratings for Back In Black are a bit surprising but not fatal. I’ve always thought the CD copy I have to be a louder but otherwise good quality recording. Its a good example of why there is more to music than just absolute DR, especially in popular genres. I have many CDs especially newer remasters that have a lot to recommend even if absolute DR is not one of those things. Pop/rock/blues based amplified music does tend to be loud overall when heard live. Classical and other more acoustic forms tend to vary more. Those are the ones where bad DR tend to impact my enjoyment more. But like most here I suspect I still love a great recording with great DR.
Fact is if records were made to full DR potential, most players used today would not be able to track it and would probably even jump the grooves when teh real dynamics hit, like as used to be the case when the early Telarc digital recordings hit the market and would not play on any but the best vinyl setups of the time. With more dynamic CDs or digital a high power amp (Class D now offers smaller lighter and less expensive options for that) and A decent pair of speakers is all needed. Extracting the music from the medium is not as problematic these days with even decent quality digital found on a decent quality Iphone even.
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As I recall the three numbers are:
1. DR for the entire album/release
2. DR of the track with minimum DR
3. DR of the track with highest DR
So it tells you not just range for the whole album/release, but which tracks are best and worse. First number should always be in the range of second and third I would expect (average is somewhere in the range of min and max).
I don’t know how the site is managed or how the numbers are verified or not.
My gut interpretation from what I have seen so far is the numbers are of interest but should be taken with a grain of salt or two. I personally would not use this alone to determine what to buy unless overall dynamic range is all one cares about. I have many wonderful sounding recordings that do not rate particularly high here. Amy Winehouse Back in Black is a good example.
Maybe others have more insight regarding the reliability of the numbers reported.
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Agree with lowrider except some very red releases might still be worthwhile if....
1) You like the artist and want the music
2) You don’t care about earbleed
3) If you do care about earbleed, you better have a top notch system with low distortion and noise levels. That way you might still enjoy the music that’s there. The example for me I would cite is Death Magnetic by Metallica which is one of the worst DR recordings listed but I still enjoy cranked up high as it should be. It is still good nicely etched and crafted metal music, just not very dynamic. It makes for a good test record actually along with the others if recordings like that matter to you at all.
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Agree. Resolution and dynamic range are two different things and not necessarily correlated. You can have lots of bits available for both but its still the recording engineers that get to determine how or if to use them or not.
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ct, thanks for all that. I agree in general.
BTW Springsteen is a mixed bag for me but Darkness is perhaps my favorite end to end of all his releases and I have no issues with my CD (ripped to music server) copy for what it is.
BTW, playing CDs versus streaming ripped CDs from computer disk storage is another good topic to consider when assessing the overall utlity of modern digital versus vinyl. My overall satisfaction with digital jumped way into the green when I made that transition. I have not played a CD in years other than in my car. Its rip and stream only these days baby! No looking back.
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The Adele that I am most familiar with is the tune "Skyfall" which was the theme song for the recent James Bond movie. I know and like it from a class at the gym (balance). I only have an mp3 download from Amazon so far and its not bad, fairly listenable overall I would say. Lossless digital version is surely better.
I do notice that orchestral soundtrack recordings on CD tend to fair pretty well these days. Sometimes they are exceptional. I think its because people hear this music on a large scale on a "good" system at any good quality local theater these days so the soundtrack releases try to retain that appeal. Although in general of course modern acoustic or orchestral music tends to fair better in terms of DR I think than a lot of more electronically amplified pop music. Same holds true with live concerts. If you go to enough well produced live concerts using electronic amplification you realize that similar stuff recorded and listened too at home is really not that much different. So if the goal is believe that what you hear at home is what you would hear live, no problem there in many cases. If the goal is for every recording to sound like the best, well we know how that always works out....
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Geoff,
All I;m saying is lossless CD res format is higher resolution than lossy (the .mp3 download).
But yes format alone does not assure the content so anything is possible.
In the case of the mp3 even, Skyfall may not be the DR champ in the grand scale of things but it is a very well done recording overall I would say though certainly not perfect by audiophile standards and is a lovely listen even if not particularly an Adele fan like me. I do think she is talented though and very much enjoy some of her stuff, warts and all.
I would only add that I often later get CD versions of tracks I like that I first download as .mp3 mostly out of convenience and in every case the ripped CD version is better by a small margin. I usually keep both on my music server and when one queues up randomly I try to guess which it is and usually guess right. Hows that for a/b blind testing?
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Ralph, again though even if production of uber dynamic lps need not have technical limitations, and teh makers are inclined to leverage the technology to the max (rather than make some compromises in the interest of managing cost and overhead usually involved in making a higher quality product), there is still the problem that very few people have the playback equipment needed to track it well much less not have the stylus jump the groove. So it only makes sense to produce such a product at higher cost and profit margin since only a few will be able to benefit. It has to be in teh business model of the label/brand so people who care know what to look for.
I thought it obscene at first that Urban Outfitters in manhattan was selling $30+ records and cheap Crosley products to play them on. If those records are REAL records, there will be some unhappy customers trying to play them. Makes more sense for them NOT to be. That way they will play on almost anything but sound Top Notch on nothing. Least common denominator has to win. Audiophiles beware.
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I wouldn’t argue the Winehouse "Back in Black" might be considered somewhat "bright" tonally, but i would argue that if things are going well during playback, its not an issue any more than one might experience at a comparable live performance where there is nothing to take the edge off other than perhaps cheaper seats.
I find the same to be true with many newer remastered CDs in particular, DR aside. They tend to be "hotter" sounding than many older versions released prior to early 90s or so, many of which could be considered flawed in the other direction ie washed out and bland.
I recall reading there were some major changes to the standards used in mastering and making CDs back in the early to mid 90’s that accounts for the difference overall heard with many CDs prior and post. This had nothing to do with loudness wars at the time. that came into play after. So now you have both "brighter and louder" CDs in genreral.
Though I did just a few years back, I don’t find it particularly problematic anymore though. I’ve fine tuned my gear over the last few years to the point where I feel I hear what is in the recording seldom with any fatigue which is all one can ask for.
Being 56 years old and not hearing to 20Khz anymore like I used to probably helps in this regard.
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