Is CD quality still CD quality?? Can you hear a difference?

[Shockwave]

Interesting stuff. While browsing some audio forums I came across this little thread. This got me thinking, the RIAA wants us to download music via its pay per websites right? Well, the easiest and most common is 128k. So, if they slowly degrade the quality of CD recordings, it gets closer to matching the quality of 128k.....

Ok ok, maybe I'm being over imaginative. Either way, it makes a decent read, and is some serious food for thought. To me, a CD should be as high of quality as it can possibly be. But, we may be getting less then we pay for it seems......

SO, what does everyone think? Are CD's sounding less CD-ish to you then they used to?

 

[MrPhelps]

Your right, I am not sure about Mp3 pro(64k )neither.

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

dynamic range compression = suck

 

[Paulson]

There'd be too much bandwidth for .wavs, so that's out of the question..

I'd settle for mp3 encoded at 256kb...

 

[SludgeFactory]

There's a real ugly trend going on -- the quest to make your CD hotter than everyone else's. Most people will say something sounds better if it's louder, so that's what recording execs want -- louder songs that "sound better" and get more airplay. From what I understand, relatively few guys are actually mastering CD's. Once you develop a reputation for delivering hit records, you get a lot of work. Right now, a lot of CD's get mastered by a select few engineers who apparently favor heavy heavy compression.

Check out pro audio forums and newsgroups, you'll see producers/mixers complaining how their work is being ruined when it goes to be mastered. The music leaves the studio sounding the way they want it, and then it goes to get mastered and gets compressed to hell by decree of the record company and heavy-handed mastering engineers. All the details in the recording get obliterated and you get this wall of white noise.

A good example is a couple of CD's by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) is a great sounding recording. That CD sounds terrific on any system I've ever tried it on, from home stereos to cars to $40 computer speakers. Then you try Californication (1999), and it's amazing how compressed and hot the signal is. The recording is actually pushed so hot that it starts clipping digitally at some points. You hear clicks coming out of the speakers. There was a thread here on ATOT where someone was complaining about their copy being defective, not knowing anything about this issue. People can hear it and they know something's not right. It's shameful the way a lot of CD's sound lately. I've actually seen it speculated that 10 yrs from now, the "audiophile" re-mastered versions of this stuff will come out, so we can buy it again and get what we should have originally received.

Shockwave, you're right that if they slowly degrade the quality of the source material, the disparity between it and low-bitrate lossy-encoded files becomes less and less. Heh, I'm not sure if that was their original intent when they started compressing the hell out of mixes, but it certainly isn't going to hurt them if the plan is to establish low-grade audio files as the consumer standard, with CD and then SACD/DVD as options for the enthusiasts and audiophiles. Not cool... :disgust:

 

[fatbaby]

Originally posted by: Shockwave
Interesting stuff. While browsing some audio forums I came across this little thread. This got me thinking, the RIAA wants us to download music via its pay per websites right? Well, the easiest and most common is 128k. So, if they slowly degrade the quality of CD recordings, it gets closer to matching the quality of 128k.....

Ok ok, maybe I'm being over imaginative. Either way, it makes a decent read, and is some serious food for thought. To me, a CD should be as high of quality as it can possibly be. But, we may be getting less then we pay for it seems......

SO, what does everyone think? Are CD's sounding less CD-ish to you then they used to?

Bleh anything 128k sounds like crap on my klipsch 2.1s : )

 

[0roo0roo]

i'm still upset i don't have dvd audio i want to pay for the highest quality source possible. then if i want to degrade it into an mp3, i can do it myself. i'm not going to pay for a lousy mp3. especially one by those sleezy companies, garranteed not lame encoded