I was reorganizing my music library and came across a double album (two rips of the same record).
 
one was ripped to .wav files, the other to .flac files. these were not my rips. I cannot remember for sure how or where I got them from, which means I don't have the CDs.
 
anyway, as I was going to discard one, I gave both album a listen just to make sure they sounded fine. to my surprise they sounded different. quite a difference.
 
I doubt this has to do with the different format. I included the back covers of each CD within the zip file. if you notice they're different form one another, also at the beginning of one song there's a count of one to four; on the other there isn't.
 
I'm assuming the CDs were mastered by different studios, and possibly at different times. I don't know. if that's the case it's pretty shocking that a mastering studio can have such an influence on the sound of the original recording.
 
maybe someone here has an explanation for this.
 
 
 
[edit: album in question]
 

lenni said:

I'm assuming the CDs were mastered by different studios, and possibly at different times. I don't know. if that's the case it's pretty shocking that a mastering studio can have such an influence on the sound of the original recording.

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That's nothing new. File B has more dynamic range than file A. File A is louder than file B.

Be careful, distributing copyrighted music like that is illegal and could get you into trouble...

thanks for the warning... I'll take heed. if they'll sue me, I'll sue them back for selling me a CD where the recording was clearly modified, and nowhere in the CD was mentioned.
 
alas, it's nothing new. I heard about "the loudness war" before, but I never bothered reading further, or following the topic. my bad.
 
after reading few articles I'm still not sure weather the compression is as bad as people make it to be.
 
looks like I might have to consider a vinyl rig after all, and use it to rip digital files... damn it.
 
thanks for the heads up.

Well you've already gotten busted it looks like.
 
You'll have to post 30 second clips or something if you want them to stay up. But like HeadFiend said making new masters isn't anything new, that's surely it.

[edit] sorry, wrong choice of host.

Quote:

lenni said:

thanks for the warning... I'll take heed. if they'll sue me, I'll sue them back for selling me a CD where the recording was clearly modified, and nowhere in the CD was mentioned.
 
alas, it's nothing new. I heard about "the loudness war" before, but I never bothered reading further, or following the topic. my bad.
 
after reading few articles I'm still not sure weather the compression is as bad as people make it to be.
 
looks like I might have to consider a vinyl rig after all, and use it to rip digital files... damn it.
 
thanks for the heads up.

Click to expand...

Compression and limiting can be horrible, but it's also highly variable.  There's absolutely nothing standardized, it's the producer's choice.
 
If you read about the loudness war you'll find a link to a DR (Dynamic Range) meter you can use on your own files to see how bad it got squashed.  You'll find squash amounts tend to generally follow genre.  Jazz is usually un-squashed, pop and country is smacked but good.  
 
A vinyl rig for ripping is no guarantee of better sound quality. There are way to many issues with vinyl.  (OK, I know I'm going to get shot at for that one!)

Many things!!
Different masters used/Different pressing plants. Horrible remasters. etc...  I might get " the fanboy" title but the best pressings usually come from Japan.
I really don't listen to much "New" music so anything before say before 1995 the Japan pressings 99% of the time sound better.
There are very few titles that have been "Remastered" that are actually better then the originals.  There are a few that make the cut. But those are really very few.

the worrying part for me is that I actually like the wav record best, which is supposed to be the modified, compressed one, heh.

Quote:

lenni said:

the worrying part for me is that I actually like the wav record best, which is supposed to be the modified, compressed one, heh.

Click to expand...

 
The same recently happened in a 192 vs 320 mp3 test.