Is it that difficult to make most cd's sound equally as great as the reference ones?

[John Holmes]

I am just wondering (as I enjoy Dave Koz), what is so difficult in making most recordings sound equally as good?

Okay, anything prior to the 90's are a give me. Also, for a format that's been around for 16 or so years, should there be a better "minimum standard" by now? Everything of these years should be digital yes?

I have notice that, not only is there a big difference in quality from label to label, or disc to disc, but also from track to track on the same disc.

Any thoughts?




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[Andrew Pratt]

it might just be a case of user empathy..most people today compare CD's to MP3's so given that light why bother spending time making sure they are done right. It would be nice though if they were produced and mastered to a high level all the time though esp for some genre...I mean if you have to allocate funds towards some titles and not others then don't worry about discs like ms. spears since they will likely only be played on the radio (maybe another source of bad masters?) or on boom box type systems where the end user isn't to concerned about fidelity.

[George Bellefontaine]

A minimum standard would be nice because there is obviously no standard at the moment. Like you, I find the quality all over the board from poor to so-so, to excellent.




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[John Holmes]

I would think, the industry has to know that there is a loyal audiophile group ( which isn't small by any means) that has a need and require the high-fidelity from from their recordings. Now granted, you may not want to spend the extra( if any) on Ms. Spear's genre, however, the business is larger than that.

And I agree about the mp3 point. This should actually support my position of a better minimum standard. It could only help cd sales.




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[Andrew Pratt]

I think the only thing that will help CD sales is to lower the prices by a significant amount to make it more affordable to purchase vs ripping a copy or downloading an MP3. No matter what they try to do to stop pirates there will always be away to do it so make it more affordable to buy the origninal.

[JonMarsh]

Something that really *ticks* me off, is that the music business (record companies) are crying the blues, complaining about low CD prices hurting their business (citing older product on sale) while most new CD introductions are MSRP'd at $18.99. Now, I can buy a lot of SACD's at that price or less! At the same time, the artists are only getting $0.50 to $0.75 per disk, and having to pay for production and marketing costs, also. Who's getting screwed? Not the record companies- but maybe everyone else!

It's my belief that quality sells, but considering how many CD's *weren't* decently mastered in their original releases, it's no surprise that there's still so much variation. Just look at the kind of gear and processing used in a lot of recording and mastering studios. The best are very good; many of the rest are quite indifferent.

Best regards,

Jon




Earth First!
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We'll screw up the other planets later....

[John Holmes]

I have not heard an mp3 of any type on my main system thus, I cannot give my opinion on it's level of quality. However, I agree that, if the mases can get close to the same quality for free then....

Okay, now that SACD is here, would/should this put more pressure on the record companies to compete? Or will they take the approach of " We cater to a different audience"?

I don't know anything about the SACD process. Or how different the recording process is from standard cd. It bothers me though, that a format that has yet to reach it potential in 16 yrs, can command top dollar.




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[P-Dub]

I had a big reply that got erased so let me try again.

I agree, I don't know why cd's aren't created equal. The format is old, the techniques should be down pat and every CD should have the same quality as any other CD. Well that's not the case. So why is that? Could it be the engineer? the equipment? or is it the record company's desire for more money? Does it cost more to make a better cd?

I don't know what the answer is, but I think part of the problem is that there are more regular consumers of music than ther are audiophiles. I mean, how many people actually have proper speaker setup? I'm sure eveybody's got a CD player or more, one in the car, a portable, one in the computer, and a main changer or boom box. So given this playback scenario most consumers are not that demanding. So something that is passable is okay. And that leads us to MP3. This is a downgrade in quality, but most people don't notice the diffence.

Where I think the record companies failed is to push the quality levels of the CD. I mean if they really focused on quality recordings and the difference between that and MP3, they may have a better chance. Plus they have always kept CD prices high. I feel sorry for people buying CD's at full price, especially in the US. At least in Vancouver, the average new release costs around C$13, about US$8.50 before tax. This is before the companies are lowering prices.




Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

[JonMarsh]

Just an update on this topic...

Since building the MP DAC and getting my weird new "cheap" transport, I find a lot of older CD's sound much better than they used to- particularly even some stuff from the 80's that was rather lacking. Not necessarily now "audiophile" quality, but a lot of the irritating stuff is gone- guess it wasn't in the recording, but in the way the recording "stimulated" bad things in the playback gear.

A very interesting, if a little scary, concept.

Pardon me while I go crank up my "Nervous Night's" disk from the Hooters. It's never sounded better.

-Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[John Holmes]

Now this is what has bothered me for some time...we have been told that cd (redbook) still have yet to reach there potential. And I know this is true for every few weeks, I seem to stumble on an even better sounding disc than what I thought was possible. Yet we still have new audio formats popping up offering better resolution.

IMO, my system is the enrty level of mid-fi. If I can hear these drastic changes from disc to disc, than we are being bambozzeled as the consumer on needing the "newer formats"




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[George Bellefontaine]

Well stated, John.




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[JonMarsh]

Bamboozled? Yes, no, maybe.

Does SACD on a $1500 to $2500 player sound better than CD on the same player? Definitely. (personal experience here, guys- if you haven't tried it, don't knock it.).

But, CD on other setups in the same range can sound better than CD on that SACD player (we're talking about an SCD777ES, originally introduced at $3500). In my own experience, I would be referring to my MP-DAC and modified Philips transport, combined cost about $1400. There are less colorations which are sins of commission that the typical mid-fi CD player has. By mid fi CD players, I mean anything with op amps and electrolytic caps in the signal path. This is 95% plus of the players out there. Including a lot of well regarded imports from Europe.

My take is that the CD format as a whole is not as transparent as SACD, in terms of the encoding and information quality. At this time, no one really knows how good SACD can be, because there aren't really any "state of the art" SACD players. Even the big Sony's have many opamps in the signal path, electrolytic output caps, and issues re transport jitter. They're pretty good for the money, except when compared with some oddball stuff like my current rig.

So far, the absolute best CD player I'veheard is an Ayre D1 DVD player. Yet, it is possible to hear some things in very good SACD recordings that seem to be a function of the recording, not the player, which are better than CD's, and which still make me hope that someday there is an SACD player on a par with the D1. What I hear may also be affected by the mastering quality. That the actual digital format is superior enough, that on the same players, even the inexpensive models, SACD sound better than CD, means there IS a valid reason to persue high res formats. Unless, your tastes lean more towards MP3, in which case this discussion is pretty silly. :LOL:

Speaking of new players, Ayre is introducing the CX-7 in about two months, which will be styled like the AX-7 integrated amp, and offer a high precision clock and zero feedback analog circuitry, in a unit dedicated to CD only playback. The DAC master clock is fed to the transport by a clever means (a high grade CDROM drive), so that clock stability and low jitter are maintained through the player.

So what's a person to do? There's obviously a lot of CD's out there, so get the best CD rig you can find for your budget. In most cases I would recommend careful selection of a CD player over getting an SACD player, for pragmatic reasons. But if you can afford it, you may still want to give SACD a listen. DVDA is harder for me to recommend, because of the mediocre quality of most players until very recently, and the dearth of software. But there are some new Denon's that are interesting, if pricey.

Either SACD or DVDA is an experimental luxury, in my opinion. But experiments can be intersting.

-Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[John Holmes]

Since the cost of the CDE-775 (I think that is the #) has dropped to around $200 bucks or so, I maybe able to swing getting one. I would really like to hear SACD in my setup. As it stands, I use my dvd player (Tosh 1200) as my transport. I have an older Sony (CDP-291) but, it's in the bedroom and has no digital out.

The fact that most people hear the benefits of SACD and DVD-A, makes me believe it is there. But, I cannot afford to spend upwards of $500.00 to hear it. Especially when I know that, the current crop of redbook still has so much potential for less. And a lot of what can be done would cost me nothing, if the studios would just do it right to begin with.

Maybe Bamboozeled was too strong a term! :LOL: I mean, it is probably time to move on from cd's. They have been around a long, long time and technology has moved forward. It just seems unfair, that we have been working to maximize the sound of a format by buying better gear and much of the upgrade should have been with the recording process.

Oh, and let's not forget that Blue light laser is around the corner...




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's