T-Bone Burnett's Miracle "Code!!?" - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

barmar46 · 07-04-2008, 02:47 AM

So when John Mellencamp's new T-Bone Burnett produced cd comes out in a couple of weeks or so it will include a second disc encoded to be played as a DVD and downloaded onto iTunes for use with iPods. The SQ is supposedly indistinguishable from the original master tape. The new format is called "Code" and was created by T-Bone Burnett and a team of engineers. Anyone know about this? Did I get it basically right? Is this a big deal or just a more direct way of getting a wav file?

barmar46 · 07-04-2008, 04:57 AM

Hey out there in headfi land! This could be our future? RU listening?

barmar46 · 07-04-2008, 05:09 AM

Hey out there in headfi land! This could be our future! RU listening? Agree. Dissagree. But you must have something to say about getting the master equivalants back in your iPods. All compliments of the record company!

Nick 214 · 07-04-2008, 06:04 AM

Dude, chill. I've been watching this thread, as I have no information to share, but would like to hear some...

Do note: you've posted this in a very specific sub-forum. If you get no responses after a long while, re-post in one of the other sub-forums for more readers.

fraseyboy · 07-05-2008, 05:14 AM

Try not to bump every couple of hours. This isn't a chat room.

It will be interesting to see peoples impressions for this when it comes out. Any idea how much space it takes up?

Low Fidelity · 07-05-2008, 12:30 PM

try T-Bone Burnett wiki and there's a blurb about it.

I'm not so sure its the Future of portable audio as it is a standard to which recordings must meet to get the label.

Burnett is not a big fan of the "Loud compression" that is so prevalent in recorded music today. So if Rick Ruder doesn't agree, you won't see it on the next chili peppers CD.

I don't think its revolutionary, but I do think its interesting.

tstarn06 · 07-05-2008, 01:12 PM

I'll let you know about CODE. I just pre-ordered the Mellencamp CD on Amazon for $9.99. I'm not even a Mellencamp fan, but I am curious about the sound. And I am a major T-Bone Burnett fan.

barmar46 · 07-07-2008, 05:18 AM

I ordered it too and I am also in awe of Mr.Burnett!. We'll see how novel or truly impactful this really is but I must say that when I first heard about it I could hardly wait to post and hear back from fellow headfiers. Thus my impatient and impulsively premature first bump. The second was actually an accident; a freak of a BlackBerry.malfunction.

LaBreaHead · 07-08-2008, 09:19 PM

Interesting concept ... sort of like the iPod-ready versions of movies/videos that are coming out.

Forgive my ignorance, but has someone produced single CDs with "compressed" sound on one side and "uncompressed" sound on the other (much as with DVDs that have the wide screen version on one side and the full-screen, pan and scan version on the other)? Is that too simple? Too expensive? Is it less expensive to produce two separate CDs than to put different versions on a single CD? What's the advantage of encoding the second disc as a DVD (I'm sure T-Bone Burnett knows what he's doing, though)?

Re Tstarn's comment, "I'm not even a Mellencamp fan, but I am curious about the sound. And I am a major T-Bone Burnett fan." I'm not a huge Mellencamp fan, but I like some of his stuff, and one can follow a maturation, or a more weathered, grown-up, "lived-in" sound over the years in his music. And I love what Burnett did with "Raising Sand," so this could be an especially interesting CD, sonically.

Dr. AIX · 07-19-2008, 11:44 PM

First let me state that I'm a recording engineer and label owner that has been capturing and releasing HD Audio content since 2000. I've been very curious about this particular release since the PR hype started over a month ago. I was even interviewed by another journalist who was also curious about the ΧΟΔΕ (CODE) "format" since I've been involved in this area for years.

I also picked up the CD/DVD-Video disc yesterday and have listened to the CD and the DVD in my studio (a very high end listening environment).

While I applaud the efforts the T Bone and John Mellencamp have made in promoting better quality audio with the inclusion of a DVD-Video disc...this is not a new format and it doesn't represent "a resonance, depth, and presence that is unprecedented in the digital era."

96 kHz/24-bit stereo music files have been issued on DVDs since the introduction of DVD-Video discs back in the spring of 1997. I know because I have doing it with my releases for 10 years.