speedle wrote: > Ok then. With all the wisdom that has been posted here in the last few > days, 99% of which is way beyond me, what are some of us to do about > it? Put more broadly perhaps, just WHAT is "digititus", and is THAT > why my (and almost EVERY one I've ever heard in the average home)sounds > consistently grainy, grungy, and gritty? (to ME that is) When all I > really want is grrreat!
Then play vinyl. "digititus" is a broad and vague term that describes why many CDs sound lousy. The real reason "why" is that very few people give a damn about the sound quality. This starts with the artist, goes to the recording engineer, then mastering engineer -- all this before the CD is even made. The first few years of CDs had many problems, most associated with people not understanding how to record for CDs. It is quite different than recording on 2" mag tape for vinyl. One simple example: if you overdrive a professional mag tape, it compresses the sound, and many people like that as an effect. On CDs, if you overdrive the PCM limit, it hard clips, and that always sounds like gross distortion, which is it. In recent years, most pop music has been cursed with 'volume wars' which drives professional recording and mastering engineers nuts. The theory is that radio will play the loudest songs, and so the way to make money is to record loud songs. So the labels and artists tell the engineers to make it louder than everyone else's album. A small amount of thinking will show that in about 6 months, the limit is reached. No album can be louder, since they are all in the same loudness race. And they all sound terrible, because dymanics are what make music be music. It is the contract between loud and soft that makes the emotion. Also in recent years, the price of 'professional' recording equipment has come down, so lots of folks use "pro-audio" equipment. Until recently, the low end stuff recorded at CD rates, 44.1 kHz and 16 bit PCM. Recording at those rates is not all that bad, but then they add effects and mix it. In order to properly mix music, you have to work with at least 24 bit recordings, which you dither to 16 bits for CDs. And most folks who care about sound quality, record at 88.1 kHz or higher at 24 bits, and then down sample after they are done mixing. Once you get the CD home, you need a good way to get the bits off of the CD, a good DAC, good amp, good speakers, and good room treatment. Then a CD can sound pretty damn good. -- Pat http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
