Static on "Bohemian Rhapsody"! Arrrgh! (1 Viewer)

[KeithH]

I hadn't listened to any Queen CDs for awhile, so I threw my import copy of Queen Greatest Hits in the SCD-C555ES in my main stereo system. In this system, I have an NAD C 370 integrated amp biamped with an NAD C 270 power amp and Totem Arro speakers. I go ahead and cue up track 1, "Bohemian Rhapsody", one of my favorite Queen songs (probably the favorite of many a Queen fan). Everything is going fine until I hear static intermittently from the left speaker starting at around the 2:00 mark. The static is especially evident 2:30 into the song. I never remember hearing static in "Bohemian Rhapsody" before. Naturally, I feared something was wrong with the Arro speaker. However, I played the CD in my second system (Pioneer Elite PD-65 CD player, NAD C 350 integrated amp, and Energy e:XL 25 speakers) and heard static from the left speaker at the same points of the song. I then played the CD in my $80 Philips boombox in the kitchen. Same thing. Finally, I played my DCC gold CD of A Night at the Opera in the 'C555ES in the main system and heard the static again. Boy, that sucks. Now that I have heard static in one of my favorite rock songs, it is hard to enjoy the song. :frowning:
It took the higher-resolution of my main system for me to pick up the static, but after I knew what to listen for, I could hear it on lesser equipment. Very frustrating. The thing that sucks about being into higher-end audio is that quality equipment quickly makes you realize that most rock albums really sound like crap. :frowning:
By the way, I wonder if the static will be even more evident on the impending DVD-Audio release of A Night at the Opera. It wouldn't surprise me if that were the case.
Finally, if any of you have recording experience (read: Lee Scoggins ), can you pinpoint the likely source of the static? Just curious.
NP: "'39" from Queen A Night at the Opera DCC gold CD

 

[Ryan L B]

either these are the problems, player (i doubt it though), speakers, or the cd. the cd is the most likely problem since if it was the 2 disc gh, the base is just way to loud on br anyway

 

[KeithH]

Ryan, I was listening to the one-disc import version of Queen Greatest Hits. It has a black cover with a portrait of the group. As I said, I also heard the static on the DCC gold CD version of A Night at the Opera.

 

[Brandon]

Could be any more specific. I just popped in my import GH disc and didn't hear any static.

 

[KeithH]

Brandon, I heard static from the left speaker starting at about 2:00 into "Bohemian Rhapsody". It is an occasional crackling sound.

 

[Ryan L B]

unless you put your ear up to it, you cant hear any bad sounds. like i heard distortion on stairway to heaven right before the solo

 

[KeithH]

Ryan, I could hear the distortion/crackling/static on "Bohemian Rhapsody" while listening at moderate volumes from the couch, some six feet from my speakers.

 

[Ryan L B]

i might try a listen tomorrow and also, at what volume is it really bad and also, do you think that the bass is just a little too loud at the famous piano begining

 

[Ryan L B]

alright officaly it is 2:11 on my cd. i think it was either hollywood records did a bad job remastering or we all got really bad recevers.

 

[NickSo]

Hehe, i got the Record of Queen's Greatest Hits :p)
Just wanted to mention it

 

[Martin Rendall]

Keith,

I feel your pain. I've started noticing all sorts of problems with many CD's which I've owned for years - since getting a decent CD player and speakers.

On my crappy old systems, I noticed no problems. But the new system... it's detailed enough for me to really notice the problems, and now I know they're there, I can here them on all my systems.

What's worse, is that there's a certain common distortion for hard rock/metal/industrial/noisy music which I've never noticed before, which *really* rubs me the wrong way. I never noticed it until I got my Paradigm 100's...

Also, I'm curious about your C370/C270 setup. Are you happy with it? I was thinking of getting these beasts and running bridged (instead of bi-amped ... that's different, right?). Could I integrate it into my HT without too much trouble? It would be a nice complement to my NAD C541...

Another question: are these problems the reason why audiophiles are embracing SACD and DVD-A? If there answer is "yes", then I think I'm starting to understand the existence of these formats...

Martin.

 

[KeithH]

Martin, I hear your pain. After upgrading my main stereo system, I started hearing flaws in many older rock recordings. It is frustrating, but hey, that's what's on the disc.

I love the C 370/C 270 biamped combination. It's definitely better than the C 370 alone. In my opinion and those of many others, NAD amps are excellent for the money. I have not tried the C 370/C 270 combination in bridged mode, though I am intrigued by the option. I just fear that I would be pumping too much power into my speakers. My Totem Arros are rated at 4 ohms, so I would be throwing a lot of power at them in bridged mode. Maybe my fears are unfounded.

Biamping and bridging are different. To biamp, you use one amp (usually the integrated) to drive the tweeters on both speakers and the other amp (usually the power amp) to drive the drivers on both speakers. Thus, for one speaker in a biamped set-up, you run a speaker cable from the tweeter binding posts to the integrated amp and a speaker cable from the driver binding posts to the power amp. You remove the shorting straps between binding posts. When biamping, you are not increasing the power in your system. You are simply using separate amps to drive the tweeters and drivers, but not decreasing the impedance load seen by each amp.

Note that the biamped configuration that I described above, which is the one that people often use and the one that I use, is called passive biamping. This is because one is still using the speakers' crossover circuitry. It is often said that active biamping, where one uses an external active crossover, is preferred. However, quality active crossovers can be costly, and one must do surgery on their speakers to disable the built-in crossover circuitry.

To bridge your system, you use one amp to drive one speaker and the other amp to drive the other speaker. For one speaker, you run one speaker cable to the integrated amp. For the other speaker, you run one speaker cable to the power amp. You increase the power to your system because each amp is only driving one speaker. Thus, your integrated amp sees a lower overall impedance load when driving one speaker versus two.

 

[KeithH]

Martin asked:

Another question: are these problems the reason why audiophiles are embracing SACD and DVD-A? If there answer is "yes", then I think I'm starting to understand the existence of these formats...

I don't really think so. I don't think the static or distortion we hear in older recordings can be attributed to flaws in the CD format. Rather, I feel it is simply a result of flaws in the recording process (faulty or poor-quality equipment). I suppose these flaws we hear could also be a result of deterioriation of older master tapes in some cases. In any event, I don't see how the higher-resolution formats are going to be able to work around distortion that seems to be inherent to certain recordings. In fact, I would expect the high-resolution formats to accentuate these flaws. As an example, I have often noticed that hiss on older recordings is more evident on SACDs than CDs. With high-end audio and high-resolution, you get the bad with the good.

I have noticed a crackling-type distortion in portions of the vocals on Meat Loaf Bat Out of Hell. This distortion is plainly obvious whether I listen to the original CBS CD, Sony remastered CD, Sony MasterSound gold CD, or Sony SACD.

 

[Martin Rendall]

Keith,

Sadly, these flaws aren't restricted to just older music. Some brand new CD's sound like crap, with the same problems. I suspect that errors and distortions are introduced the recording, production, and encoding to CD. And many artists or record companies aren't willing to pay the extra expenses to do over until it's perfect.

My tastes run more toward smaller label music, or really noisy music. I suspect neither get the treatments they really deserve.

I'll tell you, though. When I first started noting these problems, I got really paranoid and started switching systems, CD players, and speakers around to convince myself it wasn't a hardware problem. I still have my older Energy speakers hooked up to the "B" speaker setting for my mains, just so I can do quick tests... Driving me nuts.

Regarding the NAD, do you have any thoughts on integration with the HT? One idea I've seen mentioned before is to take the MAIN L/R preouts, and pump them into the 2 channel pre-amp, and plug the CD player right into the 2 channel pre-amp. The idea is that for music, you go from CD to 2 channel system, to speakers. For HT, you go from HT receiver, to 2 channel system, to speakers for the MAINs, and from HT receiver to surround speakers directly.

Could this be done with the C370? Maybe it's the more expensive 2 channel preamps which provide the mechanism to do this?

Regards,

Martin.

 

[Anthony Hom]

Now I will have to find my MFSL version of this CD when I get home and see if its the same there, too.

 

[KeithH]

Martin said:

I'll tell you, though. When I first started noting these problems, I got really paranoid and started switching systems, CD players, and speakers around to convince myself it wasn't a hardware problem. I still have my older Energy speakers hooked up to the "B" speaker setting for my mains, just so I can do quick tests... Driving me nuts.

That sounds like me. As I said, I will take the CD in question to my second stereo system and even an $80 boombox. Fortunately, each time I have found that there is nothing wrong with my hardware.

As for integrating the C 370 with an HT system, I believe that could be done, but I have never considered it. I am perfectly happy keeping my home-theater and main stereo system separate.

I'm not surprised that these flaws aren't limited to older recordings. I figured that flaws would be observed more often in older recordings due to the use of inferior equipment by today's standards in many instances plus the possibility of deteroriation of older masters.

Anthony,

I also have the MFSL version of A Night at the Opera, but I have not played it since noticing the crackling in "Bohemian Rhapsody" last night. If you do play your MFSL copy, I'd be curious to learn the results.

 

[KeithH]

Another song I can hear crackling on is Pink Floyd's "The Dogs of War" on A Momentary Lapse of Reason. I especially hear it starting at about 3:00 in. Like on "Bohemian Rhapsody", it is really annoying. The crackling is more evident on the remastered CD than the original, at least to my ears.

 

[Jason_H]

Distortion/crackling in some CD recordings. I just discovered this phenomenon. It REALLY is annoying, isn't it?

I just recently moved up from a very entry-level Denon receiver to an Onkyo TX-DS898. I have JBL Studio series speakers (GREAT bang for the buck speakers) all around, S312's in front, and S-center, and S-38's for rears. I started noticing some slight crackling when I was listening to certain recordings...mostly on mid-high frequencies. My first thoughts were:

1) My new receiver is defective in some way, maybe a bum power supply or

2) The tweeters on my speakers were ruined from driving them with my old receiver (but this seemed unlikely since I never drove them very loud).

But then I realized...hey, I never really hear this same crackling when I'm watching DVDs. I popped in a few CDs that I knew were well mastered, and of course, all noise vanished. Clear as day even when running very loud. On the poorly mastered CDs, I could hear the noises even at very low volumes. It finally became clear that some of my CDs obviously had mastering flaws that had never really been apparent in my old setup...the new receiver was really bringing them out. But everything that does sound good sounds so much better, it's a very fair trade-off!

After reading all the threads following the Sony SACD players, and many of your experiences KeithH, I'm pondering moving up to a 222ES or 555ES player. I'm just using my lowly Panasonic RP91 for CD right now, I know it's hardly ideal.

 

[KeithH]

Jason, thanks for sharing your experience. I brought my remastered A Momentary Lapse of Reason CD to work today to play it through my lowly computer speakers during lunch. I even heard the crackling on "The Dogs of War" there. As I said in an earlier post, it took my better stereo system to make the crackling obvious, but now that I know what to listen for, I can hear it through crappy speakers too.

Regarding your player situation, I am not overly familiar with the 'RP91 as a CD player. However, if it is anything like my Technics DVD-A10 DVD-Audio player, which was replaced by the 'RP91, then the 'C555ES will be a big step up. I know a couple people on this forum who own the 'RP91 and 'C555ES, and both have said that the 'C555ES is much better. I would expect the 'C222ES to best the 'RP91 as well.

I just received a 'C222ES for my second stereo system today from J&R Music World. In fact, it's still sitting in the box. I'll set it up in a little while and post thoughts on the Audio/Video Sources board. I also have a 'C333ES stereo SACD changer in that system for comparison.

 

[Ryan L B]

what i heard at least. it was only for a second and only in the left speaker. unless you got a good copy, the problem will happen with every single cd player (i heared it in my headphones)