Thanks for the explanation. I was under the impression that encryption and anti piracy techniques also degrades sound quality.
ViviTheMage
Lifer
- Aug 24, 2000
- 4,153
- 4
- 81
WHAOH!! That's just straight up out of hand (the 1997 one) :shocked:
What were the sources used to create those MP3's???
Unfortunately I am unsure.
http://www.lonyo.co.uk/music2.JPG
Those 2 are of the same song. The top one is ripped to .wma from the original CD (1990), the bottom one is ripped from a 2002 CD (IIRC) and is a live performance of the same song ripped to .mp3. Not sure of the bit rates, but if anything the .wma might be lower.
Even worse, most mastering houses push the process into digital clipping for the sake of being louder than the last CD. I remember the latest System of a Down CD had digital distortion at parts because the needle was pushed too far.
Raduque
Lifer
- Aug 22, 2004
- 13,140
- 138
- 106
I have this problem with a CD I bought about a year ago. I always shrugged it off as a bad rip or a problem inherent in encoding to MP3. Never realized it's due to the studios pumping the volume on the masters so high it clips.
edit: Oh yea, it's a country CD, so not just rock labels are guilty of this.
edit: Oh yea, it's a country CD, so not just rock labels are guilty of this.
CD's have a dynamic range of 96 dB, if I remember correctly.
People have said that one can get a "perfect waveform" with a CD, but it's apparently difficult to do. But the reason people have pushed for SA-CD and DVD-A is that it's much easier to get the perfect waveform with those high-res formats than with a CD. Of course that goes to waste if recording engineers do things like this to the music.
One thing that confused me, though, was that orchestral music often has a dynamic range greater than 100dB, so it would seem that a CD was insufficient to get everything there without compression. Another reason to go high-res I guess.
People have said that one can get a "perfect waveform" with a CD, but it's apparently difficult to do. But the reason people have pushed for SA-CD and DVD-A is that it's much easier to get the perfect waveform with those high-res formats than with a CD. Of course that goes to waste if recording engineers do things like this to the music.
One thing that confused me, though, was that orchestral music often has a dynamic range greater than 100dB, so it would seem that a CD was insufficient to get everything there without compression. Another reason to go high-res I guess.
nakedfrog
No Lifer
- Apr 3, 2001
- 62,947
- 19,190
- 136
I don't really think a 44KHz sample rate can get you a perfect waveform.
I believe they probably went with the best they could get when they came up with the audio CD format; IIRC one of the minds behind it determined it should be long enough to fit Beethoven's 9th in it's entirety.
A 44.1kHz sample rate will allow you to perfectly reproduce signals up to 22.05kHz, as stated by the Sampling Theorem.
www2.egr.uh.edu/~glover/applets/Sampling/Sampling.html
IIRC, Some listeners declare they can hear some of the artifacting that occurs from the filtering that needs to be done to ensure musical bandwidth fits in this range (ie- even though you can't hear the things that naturally occur above 20kHz, they still need to be filtered out because they will be aliased when sampled- this causes some audible artifacts), thus 96kHz can be used to reduce these artifacts (you can place your filter much higher above the audible range).
I would guess it is pretty rare to have a 100db dynamic range (even in classical music), though I won't say it's impossible. Consider that 20db SPL is a soft whisper, and 120dB is typically the threshold of pain for humans, you can see why this would be.
The problem with fitting classical music into 96dB of a CD's dynamic range lies in the noise floor of the equipment/music. All equipment generates noise, which creates a noise floor- if your signal falls below the floor, you won't be able to hear it. Thus even though the dynamic range of a CD is 96dB, when you factor in the noise floor, your available dynamic range is significantly less than that.
www2.egr.uh.edu/~glover/applets/Sampling/Sampling.html
IIRC, Some listeners declare they can hear some of the artifacting that occurs from the filtering that needs to be done to ensure musical bandwidth fits in this range (ie- even though you can't hear the things that naturally occur above 20kHz, they still need to be filtered out because they will be aliased when sampled- this causes some audible artifacts), thus 96kHz can be used to reduce these artifacts (you can place your filter much higher above the audible range).
I would guess it is pretty rare to have a 100db dynamic range (even in classical music), though I won't say it's impossible. Consider that 20db SPL is a soft whisper, and 120dB is typically the threshold of pain for humans, you can see why this would be.
The problem with fitting classical music into 96dB of a CD's dynamic range lies in the noise floor of the equipment/music. All equipment generates noise, which creates a noise floor- if your signal falls below the floor, you won't be able to hear it. Thus even though the dynamic range of a CD is 96dB, when you factor in the noise floor, your available dynamic range is significantly less than that.
coaster831,
I just read the dynamic range bit from a book on acsoutics (The Master Handbook of Acoustics). I don't remmember it exactly, but it gave figures for the dynamic ranges of various instruments, and said that a CD is only sufficient for a piano playing and not anything with more than a couple instruments. Of course I could be remembering it wrong, but it was only a few weeks ago.
I just read the dynamic range bit from a book on acsoutics (The Master Handbook of Acoustics). I don't remmember it exactly, but it gave figures for the dynamic ranges of various instruments, and said that a CD is only sufficient for a piano playing and not anything with more than a couple instruments. Of course I could be remembering it wrong, but it was only a few weeks ago.
That's just one track in the recording though. You might kill the dynamic range of the guitar individually by compressing it, but with a good mix you can still have a rich dynamic range by not crushing the mix in mastering.
A well-compressed mix should "breath" (pump) with the rhythm. When you ride the clipping needle all you get is "loud."
The weak link in audio reproduction is the noise floor of components, and the distortion and compression of speakers.
mugs
Lifer
- Apr 29, 2003
- 48,920
- 46
- 91
Doesn't the fact that he has a 4 minute song squished into the small space have anything to do with it? I mean if we looked at a 10 second section of it, wouldn't we see more of what he wants to see?
(I'm not referring to the clipping at the top and bottom, I'm talking about the fact that it looks like it's all the same volume)
- Aug 24, 2000
- 4,153
- 4
- 81
Not really... You'd definately see the frequency variations much clearer, but the amplitude (the squished parts at the top) would remain the same. If anything it would allow you a clearer view of the clipped peaks.
Edit:
Example This is about 2/100ths of a second. Although you can now clearly see the waveform, notice the peaks are still above the clipping threshold.
BTW, this is not the same song, this is a mono sample from a track we recorded too hot at practice one night. I just thought I'd use it as an example..
Interesting, I consider myself a bit of an audiophile but I have never taken the time to consider just exactly what the quality of the source is. Thanks for sharing.
Once you really start getting into it and have a nice stereo. Your source is the most important part. The recording and the component.
Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 20
- 81
Another example
The first is "I Love Rocky Road", from 1983.
The other one is "Angry White Boy Polka", from 2003. Very obvious compression.
Geez, I'm an amateur audiophile, if I can even be called that, and I even know that you should avoid clipping like that.
However, looking at "You're Pitiful" from this year, it looks like perhaps the dynamic range has returned?
The first is "I Love Rocky Road", from 1983.
The other one is "Angry White Boy Polka", from 2003. Very obvious compression.
Geez, I'm an amateur audiophile, if I can even be called that, and I even know that you should avoid clipping like that.
However, looking at "You're Pitiful" from this year, it looks like perhaps the dynamic range has returned?
There's sort of two issues being thrown about here, one being digital clipping (going above 0dBFS) as Jolly Roger showed above (which is certainly a problem), and the extreme compression used to raise the AVERAGE volume of the recording, which is what is typically happening at bad mastering sessions these days as a product of labels trying to make their albums louder (Jeff7 has a good example of a a big difference in average volume- even if you pushed the first example from 1983 into clipping, the recording from 2003 will still sound much louder- at a cost of greater distortion- because the RMS levels are much greater). Here's an excellent article on it:
Text
Edit: You can see in his examples most of the older Rush recording still hit around 0dbFS, but the average level goes up as each album goes on until it just looks like a solid block.
Text
Edit: You can see in his examples most of the older Rush recording still hit around 0dbFS, but the average level goes up as each album goes on until it just looks like a solid block.
so audio over-compression is the newest in a long line of AT crusades? lemme see
american cars, 1 lb bulk beef, multiblade razors, compression,
what was before that?
american cars, 1 lb bulk beef, multiblade razors, compression,
what was before that?
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