Jaw dropping enhancements in sound quality

It was a while ago and I didn't like it so much I took it back. It may wipe the floor on my current set up, maybe I should go and get another copy. The CD that I've currently got is a plain CD reissue from the mid 90s.

But..then again this may just be me. I bought the Best of the Doors for the car on Holiday. It's been remastered and I'm not sure I like that either.

The later (better recorded) stuff from LA woman sounds okay to me but I don't like what they've done to the early songs.

 

Most CDs that are really bad I don't own, since they were unenjoyable!

But a few I do own and find them rather dissapointing would be the second Athlete album Tourist, Avril Lavigne's second album Under MY Skin, Dashbord Confessional's latest album Dusk and Summer, Cute Is What We Aim For- The Same Old Blood Rush With a New Touch (which I just smashed on the floor, oops!), Brand New - Deja Entendu, Vertical Horizon - Go, Audioslave (same band as RATM so should sound fantastic!)... I could go on.

All of those I own, and are not the worst I have heard. They are mainly 'acceptable' but far from great.

I heard KT Tunstal's latest at Kmacs a few weeks ago and it was very bad. I have not heard it on my own system so it might be better than I give it credit for but from what I heard that day the use of heavy compression was completely inappropriate for the type of music and made me want to turn it off.

Mike, I listen on a couple of systems these days and while things are definitely more acceptable on the bigger more dynamic system, I still find the above albums rather wearing. The Behringer kit I use is heavily modified as you know so its really rather different to the stock kit, and either way I don't think could be blamed for making compressed CDs sound unpleasant.

I suspect the fact is, we all have different thresholds for compression, clipping and other distortions. I find myself less tolerant these days given the amount of badly mastered stuff being produced. It gets on my nerves more as I keep hearing great music and recordings compressed and squashed to shit!

 

enjoy...

http://users.bigpond.net.au/christie/comparo/part4.html

 

They don't - the majority cater for Joe Public listening on the radio in the car or on their i Pod. My only point is if your system makes a lot of this output unlistenable, then IME it's the system that is to blame more often than not. Most music does sound good without spending tens of thousands. It's just a problem for some who spend something in the middle

Simon,

Audioslave. Sounds great. Proac used it at Bristol one year. On a good system it can sound majestic. With regards to the Behringer, I had a long conversation with Dr Radomir Bozovic some years ago who explained to me exactly how the effects of digital clipping are compounded in DSP correction algorithms but most of it went in one ear and out the other. But having used both Tact and DEQX and found them to be lacking real resolution of microdynamics, I would be amazed if your budget unit was able to improve on their level of performance, despite your excellent and well thought out modifications.

 

Pseudo?
ie false?
The words people choose often betrays their ideology-how disappointingly familiar.

 

Yeah, I agree Audioslave is one of the better ones. Their most recent album Revelations is better than the first one too, which is promising. BUT, compare it to the first Rage Against the Machine album and there is no comparison. Audioslave, unlike some of the other albums I mentioned which can be quite a bit worse, just starts to send me to sleep and I loose interest, which should not happen with that sort of music - its just the lack of any contrast or 'let up' in the sound.

I know you visit Japan a little, and Joel lives there... but you don't happen to listen to much J-pop, do you? I got a recent Kyoko Fukada album - Universe. I would really enjoy it, if it didn't feel like she was shouting at me! I mean she obviously isn't, but it just has that feeling to it. While I can accept it and listen past, I shouldn't have to!

On the note of the correction algorithms, what you mention sounds interesting but is not something I know much about either. I only use a small amount of correction in the bass so change nothing above 100Hz. I assume the signal above 100Hz is passed on pretty much un-altered.

 

am i wrong or you've flirted with the idea of a digital correction to go with the horns you're building.... any idea what exactly you've had on mind?

 

I used full Tact systems years back and recently DEQX. I did consider DEQX for the horn project, but after some experimentation, I concluded that it left too much of it's own processed thumbprint on the music. There's a lot of people using digital correction with horns as it's an easy way of time aligning the different elements and of EQ'ing some less that SOTA units. It's a compromise too far for me. 128 bit / 732 khz processing apparently should be totally transparent and that's not too far off so I might revisit it then.

 

You ought to give the impulse filters and convolution method a go. Your interested enough in this to work through the technicalities and it may just be a step in the right direction. It doesn't meet your goal of 128bit/732Khz but 64bit/192Khz is much more precision and resolution than the Tact or DEQX. Indeed its certainly ahead of the DEQX for crossover and the Tact for room correction.

The filters are intelligently created and can be hand crafted in addition to this. No filter induced digital 'overs' will occur - its simply impossible once a normalisation routine has been used to process the filter during creation. If there's overs in the mastering then it does nothing to fix that and will just playback as it would on an analogue system - revealing the issue but not adding to it.

Such is the finesse and power of the system, I use it to correct all frequencies, minimum phase and excess phase. If you tried that on the DEQX it sounded wrong most of the time.

Analogue systems may well currently do those micro dynamics and subtleties better but correction can work outside boundaries set by analogue so the potential for a better sounding system is possible given some prerequisites. I still think very few people know how to correctly create room filters. There's some common misconception that its about flat responses and technically perfect performance from one tiny measurement position within space. AQT Psychoacoustic processing that deals with time and amplitude is something I use with generating room correction filters another is smoothing and averaging the original listening position measurement so as not to over correct the sound.
As the real pro's will tell you(that's not me!) correction filters are an art and don't entirely adhere to commonly held audio wisdom.

 

I had a very good friend who used to play J-Pop at me whenever he had the chance. At the time - listening to it through his integrated TV / DVD player - it veered between extremely funny and quite unpleasant. He loved it, and not just for the obvious teenage girl thing.

I inherited some of his discs when he died; there's one Mini-Moni song that is possibly a work of genius IMHO...

Martin.

 

Sadly I tend to be with Ian or Joel when record shopping in Tokyo, so we aren't even allowed to leer at the window displays. Apparently J Pop does not classify as "world music".

The closest I got was to watch a Hiromi DVD - Japanese Jazz fusion. Nice eye candy if seriuosly off her rocker. Records on Telarc - serious audiophiles only need apply.

 

I've tried to like J-Pop but everything I've found seems distinctly second-rate compared to Sugababes or Girls Aloud.

Anyway, a good system doesn't hide compression but doesn't draw too much attention to it either. Most hi-fi systems are like this, the problem in reality is usually the listener rather than the hardware - audiophiles mostly don't listen to music, they're much more interested in sound. They also tend - with exceptions, obviously - to have really bad record collections, because they favour the well-recorded over the good.

-- Ian

 

Sadly?

 

Seems like you are saying the two things are mutually exclusive.

 

Moving from using the phono stage in my Quad 22 to the Rotel RQ970 phono stage, and then equally moving from that to the Linto, which is the still the one piece of HIFI that has impressed me more than any other, simple to use, no options to f*ck up the sound, dead silent and sounds superb.

 

Sorry but are any of the items you mention speakers?

 

no - why should they be?

 

No, not at all. But if someone won't play a great record because it's not a pristine recording, the problem is that person and not the equipment they use.

-- Ian

 

Read my original question again, you have quoted it in your post

 

I don't think you can say a record is a great one without any reference to the mastering quality. It boils down to what makes a record great - surely how it sounds when played is a huge factor together with the melodies, harmonies, lyrics etc.

We could for example, say Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is a great piece of music but a certain recording of it may not be great for a number of reasons e.g. players is an amateur piano player or mastering of disc is not great

Doesn't mean I don't appreciate Gershwin's music. Can still say a certain recording of it is bad though.