What he said....

[Phelonious Ponk]

While we examine what's dancing on the head of the pin in the hi-res "conclusive proof" thread, I thought it might be useful to take a look why nothing substantive will be done about it:

http://www.cnet.com/news/sound-bite-despite-ponos-promise-experts-pan-hd-audio/

And why we should all be focusing on changing the real, serious, takes no training to hear problem, the fixing of which could transform our audio experience, make money for the music industry (which means it might actually happen) and get the real potential out of digital audio:

http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/its-masters-damit

In the meantime, ya'll keep watching the dancing. Let me know when you've figured out if it's angels or devils on that pin.

Tim

 

[Ronm1]

No pin head needs to be examined, Tim. As soon as I spin a HiRes disc the improvement is immediately noticeable. What controversy

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

No pin head needs to be examined, Tim. As soon as I spin a HiRes disc the improvement is immediately noticeable. What controversy

Even if the immediately noticeable difference is not the mastering, and would still be immediately noticeable to you when comparing exactly the same master at rebook and hi-res, that's not the point. The point is that most people don't hear it and the market won't buy it. What most people do hear and the market may buy, and what represents a dramatic, not just noticeable upgrade in quality, is good mastering. So if we're interested in a broad variety of quality music, that's the thing to advocate for. If you want quality mastering to be limited to the relatively minuscule portion of content that is available in hi-res, sure, put the cart before the horse.

Personally, I think dynamic range compression is useful in noisy environments. But it should be a DSP chip built into car audio and portable players, not built into our music, and it should have an override.

Tim

 

[rbbert]

I don't think you'll find too many real music lovers who aren't continually disappointed with the DRC in most of today's music. OTOH, even you (Tim) don't pick up on it too well sometimes; Jorma Kaukonen's "Blue Country Heart" has significant dynamic compression and peak limiting, yet you've posted about how nice it sounds...

 

[JackD201]

Even if the immediately noticeable difference is not the mastering, and would still be immediately noticeable to you when comparing exactly the same master at rebook and hi-res, that's not the point. The point is that most people don't hear it and the market won't buy it. What most people do hear and the market may buy, and what represents a dramatic, not just noticeable upgrade in quality, is good mastering. So if we're interested in a broad variety of quality music, that's the thing to advocate for. If you want quality mastering to be limited to the relatively minuscule portion of content that is available in hi-res, sure, put the cart before the horse.

Tim

I advocate both. I don't see why I have to wait for one to happen before the other. Do both now.

 

[rbbert]

I advocate both. I don't see why I have to wait for one to happen before the other. Do both now.

Yeah!!

Fortunately this is happening, just on far too small a scale, and like so many things with a lot of "noise" ( in the sense of bogus hi-res and poorly mastered hi-res, all at too high a price) accompanying it.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I don't think you'll find too many real music lovers who aren't continually disappointed with the DRC in most of today's music. OTOH, even you (Tim) don't pick up on it too well sometimes; Jorma Kaukonen's "Blue Country Heart" has significant dynamic compression and peak limiting, yet you've posted about how nice it sounds...

That's because it does sound nice. Until it hits such an extreme that it distorts, DRC doesn't kill excellent recording of instrument and voice tonality, or a great performance, or an excellent mix...there is a lot of material recorded relatively loudly in recent years that sounds very good. Blue Country Heart is on the list. Go listen to it. Listen to the attack transients of the strings. Is this what you guys call micro dynamics? I just call it dynamics, and it's still there on BCH, even though the overall loudness has been increased through DRC. I guess that's the difference between significant compression and excessive compression. It's not such a fine line, IMO. And FWIW, I think you'd find a lot of music lovers wouldn't recognize the presence of DRC until it gets excessive.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I advocate both. I don't see why I have to wait for one to happen before the other. Do both now.

Fair point, but unfortunately there's a lot of misinformation out there, from Pono, from audiophile boards and blogs, even from the Harman video that was posted here recently, that confuses DRC with codecs, confuses mastering with resolution, points to hi-res as the solution when, in fact, bad mastering (and loud isn't the only issue) is the much larger problem, and all the resolution in the world will not help it.

Tim

 

[cpp]

Yeah!!

Fortunately this is happening, just on far too small a scale, and like so many things with a lot of "noise" ( in the sense of bogus hi-res and poorly mastered hi-res, all at too high a price) accompanying it.

True. Not to mention the huge target for this 'poorly mastered music or hi--rez music is marketed towards the mobile phone carriers that want everything on their smart phone. There are far more of 'them' than 'those that consider themselves "Audiophiles". And from talking to a few of these mobile phone the younger crowd, they don't care about DRC or if it was mastered "right", they just like or care how it sounds.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

That's because it does sound nice. Until it hits such an extreme that it distorts, DRC doesn't kill excellent recording of instrument and voice tonality, or a great performance, or an excellent mix...there is a lot of material recorded relatively loudly in recent years that sounds very good. Blue Country Heart is on the list. Go listen to it. Listen to the attack transients of the strings. Is this what you guys call micro dynamics? I just call it dynamics, and it's still there on BCH, even though the overall loudness has been increased through DRC. I guess that's the difference between significant compression and excessive compression. It's not such a fine line, IMO. And FWIW, I think you'd find a lot of music lovers wouldn't recognize the presence of DRC until it gets excessive.

Tim

I bought Serge Fiori's latest CD and it measure a very poor DRC6, but it sounds wonderful nonetheless. I don't feel like there is really anything missing. That's not to say it couldn't sound better, but it is what it is.

 

[JackD201]

Fair point, but unfortunately there's a lot of misinformation out there, from Pono, from audiophile boards and blogs, even from the Harman video that was posted here recently, that confuses DRC with codecs, confuses mastering with resolution, points to hi-res as the solution when, in fact, bad mastering (and loud isn't the only issue) is the much larger problem, and all the resolution in the world will not help it.

Tim

Pono's charts and the "compression confusion" did make me wince a bit. Yeah.

 

[rbbert]

Some degree of dynamic compression will bring out detail by making quieter sounds louder and thus more easily heard. The trade-off is the dynamic "attack" of the music; listen to one of Doug Macleod's albums on Reference (hi-res or CD) and you'll hear how that kind of music can sound. You have to turn the volume up slightly to get the same amount of detail, but then you get the more shimmery, realistic guitar sound too.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

True. Not to mention the huge target for this 'poorly mastered music or hi--rez music is marketed towards the mobile phone carriers that want everything on their smart phone. There are far more of 'them' than 'those that consider themselves "Audiophiles". And from talking to a few of these mobile phone the younger crowd, they don't care about DRC or if it was mastered "right", they just like or care how it sounds.

How it sounds is all I care about as well. But with a simple upgrade to some decent IEMs ($100 will do), good mastering will sound a lot better than bad mastering every time.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Some degree of dynamic compression will bring out detail by making quieter sounds louder and thus more easily heard. The trade-off is the dynamic "attack" of the music; listen to one of Doug Macleod's albums on Reference (hi-res or CD) and you'll hear how that kind of music can sound. You have to turn the volume up slightly to get the same amount of detail, but then you get the more shimmery, realistic guitar sound too.

You'll get no argument out of me. Less compression is good. It serves a good purpose for noisy environments, does not help much otherwise. I think the amount of harm is grossly over-exaggerated, but I'd still like to see the war come to an end. And I'd love to be able to buy an uncompressed (or very lightly compressed; compression is useful in the studio) re-master of Blue Country Heart.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Pono's charts and the "compression confusion" did make me wince a bit. Yeah.

Yeah, and the Harman video really made me cringe, because I know they know better. Neil? I'm not so sure he does.

Tim

 

[JackD201]

Strictly speaking the loud parts are first squished down and THEN the whole caboodle is brought up including the noise floor. That is DRC. Normalization is when you set a peak and goose everything up so the waveform looks like a comb. IMO that is actually the bigger monster.

 

[rbbert]

Strictly speaking the loud parts are first squished down and THEN the whole caboodle is brought up including the noise floor. That is DRC. Normalization is when you set a peak and goose everything up so the waveform looks like a comb. IMO that is actually the bigger monster.

Most pop/rock recordings use both types of compression.

 

[JackD201]

depends on the decade. Normalization is computer age stuff. It became much more prevalent in the 90s onwards.

 

[Atmasphere]

What most people do hear and the market may buy, and what represents a dramatic, not just noticeable upgrade in quality, is good mastering. So if we're interested in a broad variety of quality music, that's the thing to advocate for.

Tim

That's been the problem for 40 years now... the problem has to do with the fact that it takes time to master things properly- without a lot of processing, which no matter the format, mucks things up. If you can convince the labels that its worth it to have the engineers spend double the time with each project so that they can be mastered properly and thoughtfully, great! Until then, don't hold your breath.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

That's been the problem for 40 years now... the problem has to do with the fact that it takes time to master things properly- without a lot of processing, which no matter the format, mucks things up. If you can convince the labels that its worth it to have the engineers spend double the time with each project so that they can be mastered properly and thoughtfully, great! Until then, don't hold your breath.

And the only thing that is going to convince the labels to spend the time and money is a market for the product. And as long as the market - music lovers - continues to be confused about the difference between quality mastering and hi-resolution digital, between codecs and dynamic compression, etc., the less likely it is anything will improve outside of specialty catalogs. Hi-res digital has already failed to attract a market large enough to change the way the industry does things -- see SACD, DVDA, Blu Ray audio -- they probably won't be going there again. A legitimate reason to re-master and re-sell back catalog...again...that is endorsed by artists, studio engineers, audiophiles? They might go there, and if they did, they could make a significant improvement in sound that anyone could hear. Market. Motivation. Instead, the artists, engineers and audiophiles are endorsing something trained listeners and esoteric audiophiles with super systems can hear, and if the mastering is not changed anyway, it will still suck. It'll just suck at higher resolution.

Pardon me for not seeing the logic in that.

Tim