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The Death of High Fidelity


Goofball Jones

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It's more accurate.


Ever see the Matrix? Morpheus offers Neo a red pill and a blue pill. The blue pill will keep him in the matrix, unaware of reality. The red pill will reveal the truth.


High fidelity is all about audio truth. A high fidelity system's goal is to let you hear how the recording actually sounds. Bad recordings will sound bad. Good recordings will sound good. Superb recordings will sound superb. That's what good it is. It's a red pill attitude.

 

Yeah I wasn't talking about bad recording which can happen digitally or in analog form.

 

Fidelity: The degree to which an electronic device accurately reproduces at it's output end the signal or wave form recieved in it's input end.

 

That means live recordings with their 3rd order harmonics, which by the way cannot be picked up digitally, sound best in tape or album form. Live music is a different medium than studio direct feed recording. But even in studio recordings acoustic harmonics are present that are not picked up digitally.

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Yeah I wasn't talking about bad recording which can happen digitally or in analog form.


Fidelity: The degree to which an electronic device accurately reproduces at it's output end the signal or wave form recieved in it's input end.


That means live recordings with their 3rd order harmonics, which by the way cannot be picked up digitally, sound best in tape or album form. Live music is a different medium than studio direct feed recording. But even in studio recordings acoustic harmonics are present that are not picked up digitally.

 

 

You say some curious things. 3rd order harmonics "cannot be picked up digitally"? Of course they can. Whatever is there to hear, whatever can be detected by microphones, can be "picked up" by digital recording media, up to just less than the Nyquist frequency (half the sampling frequency). And yes, Dr Nyquist's maths are correct, and have been proven so over and over again. This is not to say that the implementation will necessarily be successful, of course. There are many practical considerations that make it difficult. But there's nothing special or magical about 3rd order harmonics. I play a low E on my bass. The fundamental is 41.2Hz. Much louder is the second harmonic, at 82.4Hz. Down a bit from that is the third harmonic, at 123.6Hz. Why do you claim that digital media cannot "pick that up"?

 

Your second claim, that there are harmonics that are not "picked up digitally", is true, but meaningless. Meaningless, because there are also harmonics that are not "picked up" with analog gear. Once a signal is well below the noise floor, it cannot be "picked up" by any recording medium. Analog media also have upper frequency response limitations, just as digital media do. In both cases, the upper frequency limits are well above what most people can hear, anyway. Used to be, I could hear well above 20KHz, but no more. Most folks never could. Given that, the CD standard sampling frequency of 44.1KHz, giving a theoretical upper limit of 22KHz or so, is more than adequate. It can "pick up" all of the harmonics that most people can hear, and then some.

 

None of this is particularly applicable to MP3s, though. Those are different animals from both analog tapes and LPs, and digital CDs and DVDs. Even from each other, as low rate MP3s differ considerably from high rate MP3s.

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The protools and bad sounding modern recordings are only on {censored} that anybody in their right mind wouldn't want to listen to. like fallout boy and evanessence (however you spell it) and that kind of stuff.

 

Damn straight!

Well, it isn't just "only" on {censored} music, it's on some good stuff too, and the WELL produced, DYNAMIC albums are getting fewer and farther between.

 

Interesting point I just thought of though, while typing that:

A LOT of modern music, particularly the {censored} music but some that's played by genuinely talented musicians too, isn't played DYNAMICALLY to begin with. I remember when rock, and after that even heavy metal, had dynamic peaks and dips... and had a GREAT deal more emotional impact (the main point of art to begin with) and was much more interesting to listen to ("Rhyme of The Ancient Mariner" anyone? It had parts in it where you had to "listen close" to hear them... the POINT wasn't to turn your volume up, it was for you to LISTEN CLOSELY, another thing people have forgotten how to do). Nowadays the "rock" and "metal", and hell, most everything else too, isn't WRITTEN with dynamics in mind to begin with... it's "in your face" from the beginning of the album to the end. When I finish a new album, I'm not mad about the poignant social issues the artist is trying to preach to me about, I'm mad at the artist for assaulting my ears and sensibilities for 45 minutes.

 

Sure, modern mastering engineers, at the demand of their employers, squash the dynamics out of a lot of the material that they "work their magic" on, but more and more the material was un-dynamic before the musicians ever got to the studio... it "became" un-dynamic when "musicians" stopped having even the slightest theoretical spark of a clue of the mere existence of the vaguest understanding of the fairly simple concept of "dynamics."

 

When music is made by and recorded by people who LOVE MUSIC and not by MARKETING EXECUTIVES it doesn't sound like digital ass.

 

True, very true... but the marketing executives have their hands in EVERYTHING, don't they? It's a for-profit world, and those of us with taste and sophistication of any kind are getting rapidly, and complacently, left in the freakin' dust.

Even the rich can't buy quality anymore... it doesn't exist.

But at least they can afford more garbage, right. Sheesh.

 

people ask why I listen to music so loud. SO I CAN HEAR IT LIKE IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE HEARD. loud and clear!!!

 

Heh... not that I really disagree with you... I prefer my volume level to cross that threshold from merely hearing it to actually FEELING it (hey, I'm a bassist ;) ), but rarely does that mean it needs to be "LOUD."

Did you know that mastering engineers (even when mastering something to be "louder") listen at an average level of 85 dB? That's no louder than you'll typically talk to someone on the other side of your living room.

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Damn straight!

Well, it isn't just "only" on {censored} music, it's on some good stuff too, and the WELL produced, DYNAMIC albums are getting fewer and farther between.


Interesting point I just thought of though, while typing that:

A LOT of modern music, particularly the {censored} music but some that's played by genuinely talented musicians too, isn't played DYNAMICALLY to begin with. I remember when rock, and after that even heavy metal, had dynamic peaks and dips... and had a GREAT deal more emotional impact (the main point of art to begin with) and was much more interesting to listen to ("Rhyme of The Ancient Mariner" anyone? It had parts in it where you had to "listen close" to hear them... the POINT wasn't to turn your volume up, it was for you to LISTEN CLOSELY, another thing people have forgotten how to do). Nowadays the "rock" and "metal", and hell, most everything else too, isn't WRITTEN with dynamics in mind to begin with... it's "in your face" from the beginning of the album to the end. When I finish a new album, I'm not mad about the poignant social issues the artist is trying to preach to me about, I'm mad at the artist for assaulting my ears and sensibilities for 45 minutes.

 

Well, gone are the days of a band coming into a studio for a day or maybe two, having it engineered/mastered the next day and the group of songs ready for album pressing the next week. How many great albums were recorded AND mastered in like a week's time? I know several. Then there are several masterpieces out there that maybe took like a month or so to record and master.

 

Now bands get ahold of this software and they sit and massage and tweak and just generally mess everything up for MONTHS and YEARS at a time! Some to the point to where they can't even release what they've been working on. "Chinese Democracy" anyone? :freak:

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how many people do you know that put on a CD and just listen intently without doing something else? face it... music goes with the picture or video you're watching, now.

 

 

More than one person has mentioned this, and I think it's sad. I've preached this very thing over and over again to friends, all the time. Why do we HAVE to be so {censored}ing BUSY all the time? Do we HAVE to multi-task? Can we ever just relax ...and FOCUS on something?

 

To answer the above question: I do. Not as often as I used to (when I worked on cruise ships there wasn't nearly "as much to do" as there is around here, and almost every day there would be at least an hour or two of just listening to music, on quality headphones), but I love to just sit comfortably and LISTEN to an album. Actually listen, focus on it... listen for the nuances of performance, little mistakes, stereo imaging (I LOVE good stereo imaging, it's far more artistic than most surround stuff). You ever just listen to the "little things" like how an artist played with stereo imaging? Pink Floyd were MASTERS of it, the stereo image was actually one of the instruments, with as much artistic and emotional impact as any note-bend or dynamics. Get some GOOD headphones (they're easier than sitting perfectly motionless in your room's stereo sweetspot) and LISTEN, uninterrupted to Umma Gumma. The "nuances" will blow your mind. Queensryche used surround in the same artistic way on some of their albums... if you have a decent surround system do the same thing, sit down in the sweetspot and listen to "Promised Land" or "Hear In The Now Frontier" and see how the artist MEANT for you to hear his art, and see how the NUANCES, like dynamics and spacial imagery truly add to the experience we know as "music."

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The ex wound up with the nice JBL L100s.

 

 

I am so very sorry - I have a pair that serve as my mains for my HDR/computer multitracking and wouldn't dare reference anything without them. They and my auratone 4" cubes.

 

FWIW - nothing will ever be any better than the least compressed source from which it comes. If it is on CD it is already too late.

 

The biggest thing digital has done for us is lowered the noise floor - there is nothing wrong with running at half throttle if it is clean, IMO.

 

VBR and HBR are dandy and as good as anything (save raw/192 stuff) and playback of these sorts of files are coming to a home theatre near you. Portability will catch up, and having 160 gig on a portable player may be required, but worth it if you have the playback hardware to realize its benefit.

 

It's a matter of how you want to be heard - taking the time to compile the right way the first time makes all the difference. There is nothing wrong with saving a version and having it available on request, and the CoDecs are out there. DVD Audio according to Wikipedia

 

EDIT; FWIW, I used to be an audio engineer so I got way spoiled early on. A flat/tuned, adequately powered listening environment is an experience most of us have never had.

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You say some curious things. 3rd order harmonics "cannot be picked up digitally"? Of course they can. Whatever is there to hear, whatever can be detected by microphones, can be "picked up" by digital recording media, up to just less than the Nyquist frequency (half the sampling frequency). And yes, Dr Nyquist's maths are correct, and have been proven so over and over again. This is not to say that the implementation will necessarily be successful, of course. There are many practical considerations that make it difficult. But there's nothing special or magical about 3rd order harmonics. I play a low E on my bass. The fundamental is 41.2Hz. Much louder is the second harmonic, at 82.4Hz. Down a bit from that is the third harmonic, at 123.6Hz. Why do you claim that digital media cannot "pick that up"?


Your second claim, that there are harmonics that are not "picked up digitally", is true, but meaningless. Meaningless, because there are also harmonics that are not "picked up" with analog gear. Once a signal is well below the noise floor, it cannot be "picked up" by any recording medium. Analog media also have upper frequency response limitations, just as digital media do. In both cases, the upper frequency limits are well above what most people can hear, anyway. Used to be, I could hear well above 20KHz, but no more. Most folks never could. Given that, the CD standard sampling frequency of 44.1KHz, giving a theoretical upper limit of 22KHz or so, is more than adequate. It can "pick up" all of the harmonics that most people can hear, and then some.


None of this is particularly applicable to MP3s, though. Those are different animals from both analog tapes and LPs, and digital CDs and DVDs. Even from each other, as low rate MP3s differ considerably from high rate MP3s.

 

 

Record companies make 100, that's 100, real vinyl albums that go out as promos to big shots on every large volume CD run because the fidelity is understood to sound more like live recordings. They are collectors items. Maybe digital recording can detect 3rd order harmonics but they do not reproduce them the same as the ear hears in live music venues. Only analog can do that. That's the reason for the vinyl first pressing, i.e., to show the real sound.

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Record companies make 100, that's 100, real vinyl albums that go out as promos to big shots on every large volume CD run because the fidelity is understood to sound more like live recordings. They are collectors items. Maybe digital recording
can
detect 3rd order harmonics but they do not reproduce them the same as the ear hears in live music venues. Only analog can do that. That's the reason for the vinyl first pressing, i.e., to show the real sound.

 

 

Interesting...but they have to press 4 sides I take it? A CD is like 80 minutes while an album, using both sides, is like 45 minutes. Many of the CD's today will utilize the full 80 minutes of the CD.

 

Also, if the CD of a band was made to be continuous (meaning made recently with the CD format in mind and utilizing the full capacity), you'd have to break that up 4 times for the vinyl album. Can break up the flow.

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The ex wound up with the nice JBL L100s.

 

Bob, My system growing up was a Kenwood KR750 and JBL 4311b's (as I understand, they were the next evolution of the L100s. I KICK myself for offloading that rig.

 

I had no idea my folks had those kind of ears and taste in the 70s when they bought that setup. And I was a dumbass that wanted a 5.1 setup.

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I'll just weigh in here and say that I agree to an extent with the crux of the argument, I hate how the overall quality of music that people listen to has decreased over the years with the swaps in mediums. That said, I'm quite happy to rip my CD's or get my mp3's in AT LEAST 256+ quality or VBR 0. The file size is bigger, yes, but I can easily hear the difference between 128 and 192 compared to 256. It might not be "truly" high fidelity but I've bought good quality in-ear sealing headphones for that reason. I personally strive to get the best quality vs convenience mix that I can, and right now with my 10GB mp3 player I get that. It won't ever be the same as running a good old LP through a high quality stereo, and one day I'm sure I'll be a dumbass and fork out way too much money for that privilege, but until then I'll stick with what I got thank you very much ;)

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You do know you can make songs that are over 92kbs.


I dare you to say a fully uncompressed 320kbs mp3 will not gracefully blow your ears out.

 

 

Doesn't matter if the CD source of the mp3 is engineered to have less dynamic range to begin with.

 

Read the article...has nothing to do with "blowing your ears out". We're not talking about converting CD's to mp3's. It's the loss of subtlety in the music and how music is engineered today to just be louder while losing it's dynamic range.

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It's the loss of subtlety in the music and how music is engineered today to just be louder while losing it's dynamic range.

 

You know you can make music on computers that is miles more 'dynamic' than any record could produce these days. Besides, I think the loss of 'dynamics' happens in the recording studio not in the CD manufacturing plant.

 

Summary: If people think tech is too 'inefficient,' then they are not doing it right.

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Record companies make 100, that's 100, real vinyl albums that go out as promos to big shots on every large volume CD run because the fidelity is understood to sound more like live recordings. They are collectors items. Maybe digital recording
can
detect 3rd order harmonics but they do not reproduce them the same as the ear hears in live music venues. Only analog can do that. That's the reason for the vinyl first pressing, i.e., to show the real sound.

 

 

I'd like to point out that no recording will ever sound like a live show. A reproduction of any media, no matter what it is, loses quality. This is true of images as well as video. The instant you capture something the experience is automatically that of the capturing device; whether that be your ear, eye, a microphone or a lens. Technology has come a long way, but if you want to hear live sound, see a show. If you want an idea of what that show was like, listen to a recording.

 

On the subject of digital versus analog: both obviously have their flaws and digital, mind you, has only evolved in the last few decades where as analog has been around for almost a century. With time the technologies will gain fidelity back as formulations and algorithms become both more complex and more simple at the same time. Both technologies do work towards the same end, however. To reproduce 'live' sound (which itself is modified if the instrument is an electric instrument). Some people swear they can hear the difference, I'm too busy enjoying the music to notice.

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I'd like to point out that no recording will ever sound like a live show. A reproduction of any media, no matter what it is, loses quality. This is true of images as well as video. The instant you capture something the experience is automatically that of the capturing device; whether that be your ear, eye, a microphone or a lens. Technology has come a long way, but if you want to hear live sound, see a show. If you want an idea of what that show was like, listen to a recording.


On the subject of digital versus analog: both obviously have their flaws and digital, mind you, has only evolved in the last few decades where as analog has been around for almost a century. With time the technologies will gain fidelity back as formulations and algorithms become both more complex and more simple at the same time. Both technologies do work towards the same end, however. To reproduce 'live' sound (which itself is modified if the instrument is an electric instrument). Some people swear they can hear the difference, I'm too busy enjoying the music to notice.

 

 

Check out the study in the link on my last post. By the way you gotta hear quad vinyl to believe it! Everyone that I know that heard it was amazed at how real it sounded.

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Bob, My system growing up was a Kenwood KR750 and JBL 4311b's (as I understand, they were the next evolution of the L100s. I KICK myself for offloading that rig.


I had no idea my folks had those kind of ears and taste in the 70s when they bought that setup. And I was a dumbass that wanted a 5.1 setup.

 

 

I've got a pair of JBL 4311Bs. I love them. :love:

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You do know you can make songs that are over 92kbs.


I dare you to say a fully uncompressed 320kbs mp3 will not gracefully blow your ears out.

 

 

It isn't the baud rate, it's the bit rate that makes CDs a less-than-ideal audio source. CDs are 16 bit 44k and no MP3 will improve upon that if that is your original source.

 

The article intimates a practice built in to the master tracking/mastering process that is similar to what radio stations did/do anyway. It is a shame we're subject to it from the industry as well. Not everyone masters in this manner, and far fewer actually take the time to offer up good audio (DVD audio) for those of us who'd prefer it. If mastered as the article suggests, most popular music wouldn't be worth acquiring as a quality audio source any way.

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It isn't the baud rate, it's the bit rate that makes CDs a less-than-ideal audio source. CDs are 16 bit 44k and no MP3 will improve upon that if that is your original source.


The article intimates a practice built in to the master tracking/mastering process that is similar to what radio stations did/do anyway. It is a shame we're subject to it from the industry as well. Not everyone masters in this manner, and far fewer actually take the time to offer up good audio (DVD audio) for those of us who'd prefer it. If mastered as the article suggests, most popular music wouldn't be worth acquiring as a quality audio source any way.

 

Most modern independent sound engineers will laugh at anything less than 24 bit audio. Of course, people are starting to use DVDs now also.

 

I personally re-record some of my song library in HD, 32 bit, 320kbs, and 96000Hz... if you are going to be ruining your hearing with it, why not make it enjoyable? It might take up a few mb per minute, but it's worth it.

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You know you
can
make music on computers that is miles more 'dynamic' than any record could produce these days. Besides, I think the loss of 'dynamics' happens in the recording studio not in the CD manufacturing plant.


Summary: If people think tech is too 'inefficient,' then they are not doing it right.

 

Yes, I know they can make music on computers that is good...the problem is, hardly anyone is doing it. They also over engineer the crap out of everything.

 

And the loss of dynamics happens in the engineering/mastering of the music, not inside the studio itself.

 

I have a feeling you still haven't read the article. :rolleyes: Yes, there will be a test later!

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A lot of the problem with modern music has nothing to do with it being crunched with few dynamics. It has to do with lack of talent and poor songwriting. But then again years ago, those bands/artists had to pay big bucks for studio time, an album flopped and they were never to be heard from again. The ease of recording has changed all that.

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A lot of the problem with modern music has nothing to do with it being crunched with few dynamics. It has to do with lack of talent and poor songwriting. But then again years ago, those bands/artists had to pay big bucks for studio time, an album flopped and they were never to be heard from again. The ease of recording has changed all that.

 

well...that too. :)

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Most modern independent sound engineers will laugh at anything less than 24 bit audio. Of course, people are starting to use DVDs now also.


I personally re-record some of my song library in HD, 32 bit, 320kbs, and 96000Hz... if you are going to be ruining your hearing with it, why not make it enjoyable? It might take up a few mb per minute, but it's worth it.

 

 

However, in a direct comparison, it has yet to be shown that anyone can hear the difference between 16/44.1 and any of the higher spec formats.

 

I have several music DVDs, and they sound better than the CDs. What that says to me is that the CDs were poorly mastered.

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