Is Hi Rez audio dead? (1 Viewer)

[jcroy]

My listening was via earphones mostly and to classical music. A persistent scratching noise often took me out of the music and made me listen to the record rather than its contents. CDs were a revelation that no amount of careful handling or anti static gun, or "half speed mastering" of my LPs could ever match. I had thousands of records, and gradually over10 years or so replaced them all.

I never quite understood the point of "half speed mastering" of vinyl albums. I thought it sounded like a gimmick.

 

[ScottHM]

The cd versions of the past two albums are completely brickwalled to death, will tons of complaints about it online.

Which is why the argument over CD vs Hi-resolution is moot for most albums. The recording and mastering are far more impactful on the final sound than the format it's released in.

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[TJPC]

I had the complete set of 12” Angel classical albums which played at 45 rpm. I really noticed no difference in them except that they had a shorter playing time. I transferred them all to CD and sold them to a second hand record shop.

 

[jcroy]

Which is why the argument over CD vs Hi-resolution is moot for most albums. The recording and mastering are far more impactful on the final sound than the format it's released in.

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For context, I mind as well mention the title names of my recent purchases.

Kelly Clarkson - Stronger

Tina Turner - Private Dancer

Arcadia - So Red The Rose


The brickwalling issue is very obvious with Kelly Clarkson's albums. I'm guessing very few people listen to her music for high quality sound.

The releases of 25th anniversary of Arcadia and 30th anniversary of Tina Turner, appear to be typical 2010s era remastered brickwalled stuff which likely the original artists had very little to no say on. They were both 2xcd sets, where the respective second discs had all kinds of extra/unreleased songs.

From reading reviews/posts threads and checking the loudness database, I realized these 2xcd anniversary releases of Arcadia and Tina Turner had significant brickwalling issues.

(Arcadia is the side project of Duran Duran at the peak of their success, which consisted of Duran Duran's singer, keyboardist, and drummer. The guitarists and bass player were different guys).


So I ended up purchasing the older cd versions of Tina Turner's "Private Dancer" and Arcadia, which were mastered in the 1990s and didn't have brickwalling issues.

 

[jcroy]

I had the complete set of 12” Angel classical albums which played at 45 rpm. I really noticed no difference in them except that they had a shorter playing time.

The few 12" vinyl 45rpm titles I had back in the day, the only noticable difference was that 12" vinyl 45rmp version was louder than the same song on the official album which was typically 12" vinyl 33 rmp.

Usually the 12" vinyl 45rpm record had one 3 or 4 minutes song cut over the entire valid playable side of the disc. If I had to guess, the grooves were spaced with more "wiggle room" and could be cut with a higher amplitude/volume.

 

[Pupp]

What makes you thinks cd is far superior?

It's laughable that someone thinks CD music is superior to vinyl.

Now, High Fidelity Audio, or similar, is worth comparing to Vinyl.

Regardless of the argument, vinyl will always have a place in music. No matter how good High Fidelity Audio is, it's still not vinyl, and with high end equipment, vinyl can always stand on it's own.

 

[TJPC]

It's laughable that someone thinks scratchy scratchy records are superior to CDs.

 

[mark brown]

Here we go again !

 

[jcroy]

The only recent case I can think of offhand, where the vinyl might genuinely sound better than the cd (or digital ) versions, is Taylor Swift.

Apparently just about all her cd releases are brickwalled to death. Even her recent two 2020 albums and also the re-recorded album, are heavily brickwalled cds.


In contrast according to the loudness database, the vinyl versions of Taylor Swift's albums don't appear to be brickwalled at all.

 

[ScottHM]

It's laughable that someone thinks CD music is superior to vinyl.

It's laughable that nearly 40 years after their introduction CDs are still so misunderstood.

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[jcroy]

Recently picked up another title which was a 20th anniversary "Power Station" cd re-master from 2005. They were a "supergroup" from the mid 1980s, which consisted of guys from Duran Duran, Chic, and singer Robert Palmer.

Comparing the original and re-released versions in the loudness database, the remastered 2005 cd version appeared to be slightly more compressed than the original vinyl and previous cd versions. The most problematic brickwalled track was their hit "Get It On ... Bang A Gong".

I decided to pick up this 2005 version, since the older original cd wasn't available. I didn't want to deal with the online ebay/amazon minefield of second handed cd copies, for something which I probably won't listen to more than dozen times after purchase. (Though if I ever see the original cd version in a local indie/used record store and can examine the disc myself, I might pick it up as an impulse buy).

I compared my old vinyl copies with this 2005 remaster cd, and found that I couldn't tell any obvious differences between the two other than the record noises between songs. I adjusted the volume so that they both sounded about the same volume level (subjectively), where last night I listened to each original album track more than two times back to back between the corresponding vinyl and cd versions.


The original production sounded like it was already highly compressed in the studio and especially during the mixdown. The drums sounded like they were heavily peak limited with a "gated reverb" applied on top. The bass guitar sounds like it was likely heavily compressed, where the Duran Duran bass player is very prominent in the mix and is very technical in his playing. The electric six-string guitar wasn't particularly prominent, outside of the individual guitar solos. The vocals sounded like they were layered, where it was likely recorded at least two times with these multiple vocal tracks mixed on top of one another.

Gated reverb - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So not surprisingly, the entire album has a very slick "overproduced" sound production almost resembling "auditory velveeta" which was typical of numerous mid->late 1980s era pop/rock albums. For such an "auditory velveeta", it would not be easy to listen for further compression/brickwalling sonic byproducts which would be immediately obvious.

 

[titch]

The Dolby Atmos track on the blu-ray disc of this box set - released two weeks ago - is astounding. A superbly mastered album.

 

[PopBodhi]

I only buy CD quality or Hi-Res downloads. MP3 is dead!

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Darn this flakey new-ish site notification system! Almost missed out on this new James Joyce novel, LOL...

_Man_

 

[jcroy]

Darn this flakey new-ish site notification system! Almost missed out on this new James Joyce novel, LOL...

_Man_

.... or randomly generated "dada" text

 

[TonyD]

Got this today.
From Amazon

Had it on my saved cart section for years.
Finally popped up under $14 so I grabbed one.