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Is it OK to have a CD at 0 dB?


flyry

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Hello. I've heard that the standard is -0.3 dB. Is this correct? Is it a problem to have a CD at 0 dB? I'm using A4 studio to "master" a give-away live band recording. It "maximizes" to 0 dB, which sounds great, but when I do the second process to make the levels -0.3 dB it messes up the sound. I'd like to just do the one process to 0 db if it's not a problem. Thanks.

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Hello. I've heard that the standard is -0.3 dB. Is this correct? Is it a problem to have a CD at 0 dB? .

There's really no standard for CD level other than "as loud as possible." The problme with getting too close to full scale (0 dBFS) is that most D/A converters get to sounding pretty funky over the top dB or so. If this is not a problem (for example, with the typical rock record which thrives on distortion) then you can go ahead and hit full scale all you want. If you're "mastering" a classical or Jazz CD or some other form of music where the listener is likely to notice that it sounds very clean, then I'd keep the level down to -1 dBFS. Those listeners don't mind turning up the volume control if they want to hear it louder.

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Not to mention that it may sound like ass in some players with poor converters that can't handle the level.

 

:thu:

 

I learned over time that it doesn't sound good. I can pump out a CD that is 5 times as loud as anything you've ever heard. My buddy said [back when I first started cooking up beats] that I should sell some of my jams to guys who go to crankit competitions. :eek:_~

 

Now I never burn a CD that has anything going over -6. It just sounds better, imo.

 

+1 for the volume knob!

 

It's a crap shoot, in regard to converters. I've sold CD players and/or shelved them right after I got them because the converters sounded like crap and/or had audible clocking/jitter/digital noise issues.

 

Better to stay on the safe side. And if you limit everything at -6, then twenty years from now when they remaster your classic, it won't sound like ass. :D_~

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It won't cause the universe to dissolve or anything.... If there are a certain number of consecutive samples that are at 0, some duplicator companies will reject it. Have you tried -0.1? or -0.5?

 

 

This is closer to my understanding.

 

I'm interested in reading more about this audio degradation in the top x (or .x) dB that some posters are referring to. That's a bit of of a new one on me. (I'm not suggesting, however, that the strategy of leaving yourself a little headroom is a bad one -- simply focused on this putative degradation at the very top of the converter's dynamic range in a signal with no actual "overs" [which I guess I'd define here as consecutive 0 dBfs words in the digital audio stream].)

 

I'd love to read up on that. If anyone has a link to the facts...

 

 

[Of course, I'm referring strictly to levels here -- NOT the hideous "competitive loudness" squashing that some folks do; that's a separate issue since the degradation there (all else being equal) comes from "overdoing" the compression/limiting. And no argument on that degradation. Some of it is simply awful. I heard a newer ZZ Top song ("Bang Bang") the other day that was pretty close to unlistenable, even once.]

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I'm interested in reading more about this audio degradation in the top
x
(or .
x
) dB that some posters are referring to.

 

 

Digital Level

In digital production, level has traditionally been measured on a sample-by-sample basis. The highest possible level in a digital encoding is called 0 dBFS (or Full Scale Digital, FSD), and the only thing to be concerned about is not to hit that ceiling with too many samples in a row. However, a signal which needs more headroom to reproduce than a sine wave peaking at 0 dBFS can easily exist in the digital domain. We refer to such signals as "0 dBFS+", and haven

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Another issue is with the way analog electronics is designed. Typically, harmonic distortion starts rising exponentially around -10 dBFS, and reaches 3% THD in PRO gear at 0 dBFS (for a steady-state tone).

(This is true if the equipment is not over-designed. Many people deliberately over-design their gear so the 3% THD level is reached at a much higher level)

 

For consumer gear the number is typically 5 to 15% THD instead of 3%.

 

For non-steady-state audio, such as a transient that ends up in the 0 dBFS+ mode, the harmonic distortion is going to be much worse, in general...

 

That's why it ends up with the crapola sound quality.

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Whoa, Nelly.

 

Are you talking about CONVERTERS there, Philbo?

 

Because I'm 101% sure that there are NO pro converters with THD figures ANYWHERE close to that as they reach the levels required to drive their AD to 0 dBfs...

 

I must be misunderstanding what you're getting at, somehow.

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