Hi-fi News has their hirez reviews with measurements online now

Orb · Jul 27, 2015

This probably should be here and also in the Music section.
While there is a limited number of hirez reviews provided (they only do 5-6 a month and it seems some older ones are still not online) it is very informative and can be useful in picking up some great albums that are validated as being hirez or worthy of hirez format.
http://www.hifinews.co.uk/news/browsemodern.asp?at=292&atg=27
The two lines are peak and RMS, best to go through a fair few of the reviews and read both the review and technical notes also provided.
Christopher Breunig (CB) does much of the hires reviews and has a great ear-critical listening (picks up on quirks without knowing the measurements).
Also the review measurement information can be interesting when considering instruments as this can also be reflected in the measurements on solo aspects.
PS, do not look at Pink Floyd Endless River as it is rather depressing

Enjoy

Cheers
Orb

amirm · Jul 27, 2015

That's excellent!

amirm · Jul 27, 2015

Pretty interesting data as one digs in like this one: http://www.hifinews.co.uk/news/article/artist-helge-lien-trio--album-badgers-and-other-beings/20882

Perils of high resolution production where the person creating the recording obviously can't hear the ultrasonic tones generated by whatever equipment.

Orb · Jul 27, 2015

Yeah great work IMO by Hi-fi News and in particular Keith Howard and then Paul Miller, they started this back in 2011-2012 as an investigation and then kept at it until they had it fine tuned enough to use with their reviews.
This is one reason I am interested in Meridian MQA, even if it does not take off maybe it will act as a catalyst for labels-studios-distributors to get their digital act finally together, scary how much is messed up, especially closer it is to mainstream (although plenty of classical albums with anomalies).

That said there are some incredibly good releases as well.
Glad your enjoying having a look

Cheers
Orb

bmoura · Jul 29, 2015

Orb said:
This is one reason I am interested in Meridian MQA, even if it does not take off maybe it will act as a catalyst for labels-studios-distributors to get their digital act finally together, scary how much is messed up, especially closer it is to mainstream (although plenty of classical albums with anomalies).

Of course some who have heard music that has been processed with MQA encoding prefer their music without such processing.
In fact, they would point to MQA as doing some of the messing you refer to....

Orb · Jul 29, 2015

bmoura said:
Of course some who have heard music that has been processed with MQA encoding prefer their music without such processing.
In fact, they would point to MQA as doing some of the messing you refer to....

Seems majority approve of it, although there has not really been an equal CD-MQA comparison done yet, that said it would be highly unlikely all would prefer MQA.
My point though was how MQA can help overcome those terrible measuring albums because it goes beyond digital filters, and a positive should be that it could act as a catalyst (meaning it does not need to be MQA implemented) for the industry to not screw up digital recording-mastering-distributing.
Now would you prefer an album not to have those artefacts and issues as shown with the one selected by Amir

I think I would take MQA over a screwed up digital album

But to re-emphasise maybe it will start to concentrate the labels-studio-distributors to do this correctly all the time without relying upon MQA.

Please note I am not saying all digital albums are bad, but it is very far from consistent and in reality there are only a small % (say less than 33%) that truly worthy of hirez mark while the rest is either flawed or average.
Cheers
Orb

MadFloyd · Jul 29, 2015

I wish there was some sort of primer on reading the graphs.

amirm · Jul 29, 2015

MadFloyd said:
I wish there was some sort of primer on reading the graphs.

Good comment! I can write one but Bruce is more qualified to do it than me. He has explained in different posts but not in a concentrated manner.

bmoura · Jul 29, 2015

Orb said:
Seems majority approve of it, although there has not really been an equal CD-MQA comparison done yet, that said it would be highly unlikely all would prefer MQA.

Having heard MQA myself, I strongly prefer 24/96 PCM or DSD editions of music to what I have heard in the Meridian demos of decoded MQA.
No question about it.

MadFloyd · Jul 29, 2015

amirm said:
Good comment! I can write one but Bruce is more qualified to do it than me. He has explained in different posts but not in a concentrated manner.

Strange, Orb replied with some info (I got a notification with his post content) and I came back to this thread to thank him but his post is no longer here...

Bruce B · Jul 29, 2015

MadFloyd said:
I wish there was some sort of primer on reading the graphs.

You can start with these threads:

When is Hi-rez not really Hi-rez

Listening with your eyes? How to read graphs.

rbbert · Jul 29, 2015

It's too bad there isn't more information on dynamic compression and peak limiting in these mini-reviews. For instance, the Punch Brothers album on that first page has horrible (to my mind) compression but it tisn't even mentioned and the album gets 90% for sound quality.

Orb · Jul 29, 2015

MadFloyd said:
Strange, Orb replied with some info (I got a notification with his post content) and I came back to this thread to thank him but his post is no longer here...

Yeah cos it was a mess

and more confusing than helping, was thinking how to write it clearer, part of the challenge is either trying to explain the relationship between RMS and peak or find a good studio article on it (maybe Bruce touches on this in his own articles on here).
You need both to measure what is happening and can help in interpreting dynamic range - but bear in mind this analysis is much more than that and about analysing the hirez album in terms of digital 'quality'.
In essence the chart is a snapshot so we are not seeing everything Hi-fi News does.
It is showing the variability of both peak and rms values over the time period of the track (or at times a segment of the track) and also its relation to the whole frequency range (check out a solo piano album release for an idea just how quickly a piano trails off after 10khz), this is why you see the red or blue lines being specific vertical heights or 'depth' across the frequency range, less depth means less variability.
The dB is not dBFS per se but relative to the interpretation of the peak and rms values.

The data structure is very useful in identifying anomalies, whether it pertains to spurs/filter behaviour/noise/etc, and does have meaning in seeing how instruments 'perform' in terms of their loudness over the whole frequency.
This is the crux of it, and my interpretation so could be very wrong.
Cheers
Orb

amirm · Jul 29, 2015

MadFloyd said:
Strange, Orb replied with some info (I got a notification with his post content) and I came back to this thread to thank him but his post is no longer here...

He deleted his post.

Orb · Jul 29, 2015

rbbert said:
It's too bad there isn't more information on dynamic compression and peak limiting in these mini-reviews. For instance, the Punch Brothers album on that first page has horrible (to my mind) compression but it tisn't even mentioned and the album gets 90% for sound quality.

Are you sure it is not just one channel in the mix that is coming across compressed/limited?
Just comparing Punch Brothers to the Diana Krall albums they have reviewed and the the Punch Brothers is better than all of them in terms of measurements (albeit might be closer to the 0dbfs limit than Diana Krall).
I used Diana Krall because her recordings also have a high noise floor, and many see her recordings as well done.
Cheers
Orb

Orb · Jul 29, 2015

amirm said:
He deleted his post.

Yeah explained above,
was busy and had other things going on, so dog's dinner is a good description of it

Cheers
Orb

Orb · Jul 29, 2015

Just to add,
here is an example of my point regarding dB and dBFS.
http://www.hifinews.co.uk/news/article/artist-david-crosby--album-croz/20879

The technical note says:

Though close-miked, compression is held in check by Croz’s engineers resisting the temptation to hit the 0dBFs limit, most peaks ending at a sensible –6dBFs to –3dBFs. Some low-level tones are present at 30kHz/40kHz on this 96kHz file.

Cheers
Orb

rbbert · Jul 29, 2015

Orb said:
Are you sure it is not just one channel in the mix that is coming across compressed/limited?
Just comparing Punch Brothers to the Diana Krall albums they have reviewed and the the Punch Brothers is better than all of them in terms of measurements (albeit might be closer to the 0dbfs limit than Diana Krall).
I used Diana Krall because her recordings also have a high noise floor, and many see her recordings as well done.
Cheers
Orb

I can't look at the file right now but I will tomorrow. I do remember when I got it being very disappointed with the prevalence of rounded-off peaks and high average volumes, not good signs for that style of music.

Orb · Jul 30, 2015

Thanks rbbert.

Here is a good example of a piano specific album with those measurements.
http://www.hifinews.co.uk/news/article/artist-ingrid-fliter--album-frederic-chopin-preludes/20811

The track on the album shown is not overly dynamic due to way played but captures every detail and makes good use of bit depth, .

Cheers
Orb

Hi-fi News has their hirez reviews with measurements online now

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