whatever happened to DVD-audio?

[The Boston Dangler]

Originally posted by: gevorg
Most of the music made today will not benefit from DVD-A or SACD. This is why:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

Most recording studios make music for ipod and radio users, not for people with decent/quality audio systems.

great link! the black crowes and led zeppelin are 2 offenders that come to mind.

also interesting:
Metallica Death Magnetic - CD vs. "Guitar Hero" comparison

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Red Hot Chili Peppers also insanely guilty, try listening to "Dani California", the fucking snares on that track sound like someone throwing beer bottles at a window.

 

[ed21x]

I don't really know much about DVD-A, but I would guess the next evolution would be flash players that have the processing power to decode really high bitrate files/ formats, and memory space is cheaper now, so storing this digitally is much more preferable.

 

[Eomer of Aldburg]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: FeuerFrei
Many albums are released on Dual Disc. Backside of a Dual Disc cd is a dvd with a multichannel mix of the album. Sometimes simply Dolby Digital, sometimes DVD-Audio, and sometimes only 2 channels... but always higher resolution audio.

I'm guessing popular music is more likely to be released on Dual-Disc than SACD or DVD-A.

Seems like a lot of prog rock/metal groups do the 5.1 DVDs. I have a few Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree albums w/5.1 DVD mix. Never bothered listening to them, though -- don't have a 5.1 setup. 😛

CD has always had adequate fidelity for me, but I'm no audiophile. I don't see HD audio ever really catching on, though. For the iPod generation, it's about quantity, not quality.

I have a few Porcupine Tree Albums on DVD 5.1 and they sound amazing. I wish there was a widespread lossless 5.1 surround format so it could listen to more of my music that way.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler

Originally posted by: gevorg
Most of the music made today will not benefit from DVD-A or SACD. This is why:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

Most recording studios make music for ipod and radio users, not for people with decent/quality audio systems.

great link! the black crowes and led zeppelin are 2 offenders that come to mind.

also interesting:
Metallica Death Magnetic - CD vs. "Guitar Hero" comparison

Yeah, Death Magnetic is pretty bad. Probably one of the worse mastered albums I've had the displeasure of listening to since Icky Thump.

Why do artists let producers do this shit to their music?

 

[soydios]

If we're approaching enough internet bandwidth for high-definition movies soon, then we definitely have enough bandwidth for high-definition audio now. Thus, no new retail physical distribution systems.

 

[ViRGE]

I can understand wanting songs produced at a higher sampling rate and/or bit-depth, but I don't get the desire for 5.1 sound. The band is in front of you, what's going to fill the rear channels?

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: FeuerFrei
Many albums are released on Dual Disc. Backside of a Dual Disc cd is a dvd with a multichannel mix of the album. Sometimes simply Dolby Digital, sometimes DVD-Audio, and sometimes only 2 channels... but always higher resolution audio.

I'm guessing popular music is more likely to be released on Dual-Disc than SACD or DVD-A.

err, dual disk is a complete failure, dvd-a camp's idea of a compromise went nowhere, just like dvd-a and sacd.

Sad really, I like my DVD-As

humm, looks like I have a tiny collection of losing standards... MD, DVD-A and HD-DVD...

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: Jinny
i dont care that DVD audio and SACD offers higher resolution.

CD's only have 16 bits and they can't make use of that.
f'cking dynamics compressed to shit.

(yes i know not all music is dynamically compressed to hell and back, but many are)

if you are listening to the stuff that is dynamically compressed, you don't need DVD-A, ipod is good enough 🙂

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: anxi80

any personal favorites or albums you could recommend? the deck in my car supports dvd-audio and besides the demo disc that came with the car and the beatles 'love' dvd-a, i've been looking for more albums to get and ive seen a few that look interesting but because the price is usually a little bit steeper ive kind of been hesitant.

Depends on what kind of music you want to listen to. You still need to like the artist first. You drive an Acura TL? The first deck they put in was flawed, it is not compatible with all DVD-A for some reason. I don't know what happened to it afterwards since the format is basically toast.

Aaron Neville - Nature Boy and Believe
Vandross - Dance with my Father
Elvis - #1s
Roy Orbison - Black and White Night
Queen - Night at the Opera is a weird mix, but I like the album so...
Elton John - Yellow Brick road
Don Henley - The End of Innocence
Blue Man Group - Audio
Blue Man Group - The Complex
Metalica The Black Album
Seal :1991-2004
Beethoven Symphonies Abbado conducting Berliner Philharmoniker
REM In Time
Santana - Supernatural They did not go full bitrate on this but it is a good album.
Crystal Method - Legion of Boom
Sherl Crow - The Globe Sessions
Michael McDonald - Motown
Steely Dan - Gaucho
David Sanborn - Time Again
Orff - Carmina Burana Deutsche Grammophon Silly fun stuff
Diana Krall - Look of Love
Luis Miguel - Romances
George Michael - Ladies and Gentlemen
Miles Davis - Tutu
Linkin Park - Reanimation
John Coltrane - Blue Train
Ministry - Animocitisomina - definitely lower the volume 🙂
Clapton & King - Riding with the King is disappointing as an album, but fun because of who is doing it


I'll add to this when I look at my pile and try to remember other ones were ok.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: FeuerFrei
Many albums are released on Dual Disc. Backside of a Dual Disc cd is a dvd with a multichannel mix of the album. Sometimes simply Dolby Digital, sometimes DVD-Audio, and sometimes only 2 channels... but always higher resolution audio.

I'm guessing popular music is more likely to be released on Dual-Disc than SACD or DVD-A.

Seems like a lot of prog rock/metal groups do the 5.1 DVDs. I have a few Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree albums w/5.1 DVD mix. Never bothered listening to them, though -- don't have a 5.1 setup. 😛

CD has always had adequate fidelity for me, but I'm no audiophile. I don't see HD audio ever really catching on, though. For the iPod generation, it's about quantity, not quality.

I think it was this, combined with format war that killed high res audio. I still say SACD is a sack of lies. DSD is just fucked up.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler

Originally posted by: gevorg
Most of the music made today will not benefit from DVD-A or SACD. This is why:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

Most recording studios make music for ipod and radio users, not for people with decent/quality audio systems.

great link! the black crowes and led zeppelin are 2 offenders that come to mind.

also interesting:
Metallica Death Magnetic - CD vs. "Guitar Hero" comparison

Yeah, Death Magnetic is pretty bad. Probably one of the worse mastered albums I've had the displeasure of listening to since Icky Thump.

Why do artists let producers do this shit to their music?

You mean you like the song???

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: gevorg
Most of the music made today will not benefit from DVD-A or SACD. This is why:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

Most recording studios make music for ipod and radio users, not for people with decent/quality audio systems.

I don't care much for the "new" music anyway. I want the older stuff in hd digital audio format.
When HD-DVD and BRD came out, I thought they would also incorporate the codecs for dvd-a and sacd in so people can play those in the new players. Nope, zippo, nada. Yet another 2 stranded format (3 if you cound hd-dvd)

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
I can understand wanting songs produced at a higher sampling rate and/or bit-depth, but I don't get the desire for 5.1 sound. The band is in front of you, what's going to fill the rear channels?

Properly setup surround audio is very nice. Problem is, most people don't have properly setup surround sound.

 

[TwiceOver]

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: ViRGE
I can understand wanting songs produced at a higher sampling rate and/or bit-depth, but I don't get the desire for 5.1 sound. The band is in front of you, what's going to fill the rear channels?

Properly setup surround audio is very nice. Problem is, most people don't have properly setup surround sound.

Most of the DVD-A stuff I have listened to just duplicates the channels to the rears and kinda just fills up the room. The only exception that I have heard is Tool where in standard Tool fashion they spend the entire album fucking with your hearing.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: TwiceOver

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: ViRGE
I can understand wanting songs produced at a higher sampling rate and/or bit-depth, but I don't get the desire for 5.1 sound. The band is in front of you, what's going to fill the rear channels?

Properly setup surround audio is very nice. Problem is, most people don't have properly setup surround sound.

Most of the DVD-A stuff I have listened to just duplicates the channels to the rears and kinda just fills up the room. The only exception that I have heard is Tool where in standard Tool fashion they spend the entire album fucking with your hearing.

At the very minimum it expands the soundstage, so even for 1 person standing centre stage, the read channels add the reverbs in, assuming it was mixed properly. Also, most people have smaller surround sound speakers and it just doesn't quite work if they are not up to par.

Ideal setup for surround audio is 5 identical speakers + slave subs, but that is a bit impractical. I got 2 subs and my surrounds are smaller main speakers. Def Tech BP2000 for mains, BP10B for surrounds.

It feels great to be massaged by sound 🙂

Besides, DVD-As have both 2 channel and 6 channel. You want 2 channel, you got 2 channel. For vocals, I prefer 2 channel, for louder stuff, bring out all the speakers!

 

[Juddog]

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: TwiceOver

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: ViRGE
I can understand wanting songs produced at a higher sampling rate and/or bit-depth, but I don't get the desire for 5.1 sound. The band is in front of you, what's going to fill the rear channels?

Properly setup surround audio is very nice. Problem is, most people don't have properly setup surround sound.

Most of the DVD-A stuff I have listened to just duplicates the channels to the rears and kinda just fills up the room. The only exception that I have heard is Tool where in standard Tool fashion they spend the entire album fucking with your hearing.

At the very minimum it expands the soundstage, so even for 1 person standing centre stage, the read channels add the reverbs in, assuming it was mixed properly. Also, most people have smaller surround sound speakers and it just doesn't quite work if they are not up to par.

Ideal setup for surround audio is 5 identical speakers + slave subs, but that is a bit impractical. I got 2 subs and my surrounds are smaller main speakers (1 model down from my front).

It feels great to be massaged by sound 🙂

Besides, DVD-As have both 2 channel and 6 channel. You want 2 channel, you got 2 channel. For vocals, I prefer 2 channel, for louder stuff, bring out all the speakers!

2 channel DVD audio goes to 24 bit at 192 kHz, whereas surround maxes at 96 Khz/16 bit or 48 Khz /24 bit in 5.1. 9.6 Megabits per second is the maximum bitrate that you can hit with DVD-audio, thus the limits.

For reference, CD is 16-bit, 44.1 kHz.

Good suggestions listed above on music to sample out.

One of the other problems with DVD-audio is that the technology is moving so fast, that many of the early adopters have already moved on to Blu-ray which supports TrueHD - 8 discrete channels at 24 bit / 96 Khz or 6 channels at 24 bit / 192 Khz. The first Blu-ray to offer TrueHD was the Phantom of the Opera.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: QueBert
Vinyl > CD/DVD/SACD

Sounds better, and if you take care of it will last 10x as long. I have CD's from the early 90 that won't play right anymore. I have wax from the 60's that plays beautifully still 🙂

Every time you play the record it changes

 

[anxi80]

thanks for the recommendations sdifox and soulassassin. especially adding the mini reviews. ill definetly make it a point to check out some of those recommendations, especially the miles, coltrane and queen and also the lp for the speaker workout. ministry and clapton/king would be interesting also. and fox, i have the rl. spidey07 is the one with dvd-a in his tl.

 

[funkymatt]

heh, DVDA is a band the south park guys came up with too.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: anxi80
thanks for the recommendations sdifox and soulassassin. especially adding the mini reviews. ill definetly make it a point to check out some of those recommendations, especially the miles, coltrane and queen and also the lp for the speaker workout. ministry and clapton/king would be interesting also. and fox, i have the rl. spidey07 is the one with dvd-a in his tl.

Do they actually have different head units? I would imagine them sharing the head unit. I highly recommend vocals, as in actual singers who knows how to sing, they'll be spectacular on DVDA. I am quite astonished by the clarity of Elvis's voice on the DVDA.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: Juddog

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: TwiceOver

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: ViRGE
I can understand wanting songs produced at a higher sampling rate and/or bit-depth, but I don't get the desire for 5.1 sound. The band is in front of you, what's going to fill the rear channels?

Properly setup surround audio is very nice. Problem is, most people don't have properly setup surround sound.

Most of the DVD-A stuff I have listened to just duplicates the channels to the rears and kinda just fills up the room. The only exception that I have heard is Tool where in standard Tool fashion they spend the entire album fucking with your hearing.

At the very minimum it expands the soundstage, so even for 1 person standing centre stage, the read channels add the reverbs in, assuming it was mixed properly. Also, most people have smaller surround sound speakers and it just doesn't quite work if they are not up to par.

Ideal setup for surround audio is 5 identical speakers + slave subs, but that is a bit impractical. I got 2 subs and my surrounds are smaller main speakers (1 model down from my front).

It feels great to be massaged by sound 🙂

Besides, DVD-As have both 2 channel and 6 channel. You want 2 channel, you got 2 channel. For vocals, I prefer 2 channel, for louder stuff, bring out all the speakers!

2 channel DVD audio goes to 24 bit at 192 kHz, whereas surround maxes at 96 Khz/16 bit or 48 Khz /24 bit in 5.1. 9.6 Megabits per second is the maximum bitrate that you can hit with DVD-audio, thus the limits.

For reference, CD is 16-bit, 44.1 kHz.

Good suggestions listed above on music to sample out.

One of the other problems with DVD-audio is that the technology is moving so fast, that many of the early adopters have already moved on to Blu-ray which supports TrueHD - 8 discrete channels at 24 bit / 96 Khz or 6 channels at 24 bit / 192 Khz. The first Blu-ray to offer TrueHD was the Phantom of the Opera.

Those are just specs, the disks themselves are often lower bitrate. Silverline was basically the only guys trying to push the limit on DVDA.

I have not heard anything about releasing music on BRD. I would like that. At least there will be a replacement standard for SACD and DVDA.

Instrumentals and vocals on DVDA are awesome.

I think I have around 60 DVDAs

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Onceler
I for one want high def audio and surround sound from my music discs

surround sound is worthless for music. It's recorded in two channels. Stereo is considered Hi-Fi at the music level.

super-bit CDs have existed for a long time, and are quite good.

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: yinan
iPod. All a DVD gives you is more storage space. There is nothing inherent in the format that makes music sound better.

wow. that is unbelievably wrong.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: Onceler
I for one want high def audio and surround sound from my music discs

surround sound is worthless for music. It's recorded in two channels. Stereo is considered Hi-Fi at the music level.

super-bit CDs have existed for a long time, and are quite good.

I disagree, surround is useless for 2 channel music 🙂 But if your music is not 2 channel? It is far easier to create an envelope of sound with 5 speakers than 2.