[audiofrk]

Music on average these days has between 6 and 12 dB's of dynamic range. 96 dB's are available with 16 bit audio (not taking into account dithering). 24 vs 16 bit has no relevance as far as the "loudness wars" or clipping.

correct the loudness wars can still exist in high rez audio files.  The belief tends to go that due to the limitations of early dacs and peoples listening choices studios began to change their mastering of music.  The versions in higher res audio tend not to have so much compression being done to them.  It is said that songs now a days are being mastered to sound best on apple earbuds.  The hope is that if higher res versions are offered and Neil Young can pull of the "returning the soul to our music" that mastering process will change.  We have already seen this start to take effect.  Trent Reznor has released 2 masters of the latest NIN album one for audiophiles the other for ipod earbuds.

 

[Achmedisdead]

 
 Trent Reznor has released 2 masters of the latest NIN album one for audiophiles the other for ipod earbuds.

 
How much difference was there between the two?

 

[audiofrk]

   
How much difference was there between the two?

I'll be honest haven't heard it.  It is on my to do list on music but current going thru a 60s psychedelic rock phase.  If you want to know what the effects of  compression on music watch this youtube video using smells like teen spirit as the example
 
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/-v6ML2DsBfA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
music is the same but symbols are cut off kurt cobains voice looses some of its coarseness, and the guitar has next to no bass extension.  the loudness wars effect on music ends up being that music sounds off.  Not as engaging, you know somethings not right but can't place your finger on it.  In essence music sounds not real.

 

[AmberOzL]

From Wiki:
 
"The Audiophile Mastered Version of the album has been the subject of discussion on several audio-related websites which claim that its "audiophile" credentials are debatable since its dynamic range is not much higher than the standard version due to audio compression."

 

[fenderf4i]

http://productionadvice.co.uk/nine-inch-nails/

 

[miceblue]

Music on average these days has between 6 and 12 dB's of dynamic range. 96 dB's are available with 16 bit audio (not taking into account dithering). 24 vs 16 bit has no relevance as far as the "loudness wars" or clipping.

correct the loudness wars can still exist in high rez audio files.  The belief tends to go that due to the limitations of early dacs and peoples listening choices studios began to change their mastering of music.  The versions in higher res audio tend not to have so much compression being done to them.  It is said that songs now a days are being mastered to sound best on apple earbuds.  The hope is that if higher res versions are offered and Neil Young can pull of the "returning the soul to our music" that mastering process will change.  We have already seen this start to take effect.  Trent Reznor has released 2 masters of the latest NIN album one for audiophiles the other for ipod earbuds.

I've been watching the anime JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and the ending song of the first two parts are "Roundabout" from Yes.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPB6MHlyBa4[/video]



I've been looking at the local library databases for the album (Fragile) and apparently it was remastered five times since the analog tape. The first one in 1990, another in 1994, and again in 2003, and two more in 2006 that were "audiophile" versions.
Ironically the more recent masters actually have less dynamic range. Yay audiophile!



Apparently I checked out the 1994 remaster. I'll check to see what its DR values are shortly. DR11 for the album, DR13 for the maximum, DR10 for the minimum.

Wow. Much loudness war.
http://www.justiceforaudio.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=473
1990 CD master:

2003 remaster:

 

[audiofrk]

I've been watching the anime JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and the ending song of the first two parts are "Roundabout" from Yes.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPB6MHlyBa4[/video]



I've been looking at the local library databases for the album (Fragile) and apparently it was remastered five times since the analog tape. The first one in 1990, another in 1994, and again in 2003, and two more in 2006 that were "audiophile" versions.
Ironically the more recent masters actually have less dynamic range. Yay audiophile!



Apparently I checked out the 1994 remaster. I'll check to see what its DR values are shortly. DR11 for the album, DR13 for the maximum, DR10 for the minimum.

Wow. Much loudness war.
http://www.justiceforaudio.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=473
1990 CD master:

2003 remaster:

Yeah same thing happen to me when I went looking for some jimmy Hendrix. Newer releases were louder regardless what bit rate they were done at. It's annoying there some much snake oil in the hifi market for instance the audiophile version of Becks new album contains 2 songs that are just upsampled from the mp3 downloads. there might be honor amungst head fiers but not in the music industry

 

[miceblue]

This is a very interesting read:
http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=2906

Today’s conference call was among a small group (maybe 12-15 people) of engineers. It was the P&E Wing’s second call to discuss high-resolution audio. I missed the first call because I was doing demos at the AXPONA show. But I did receive the minutes and read them with interest. Here’s a summary.

It turns out that virtually all artists, engineers, producers and label folks have no clue what high-resolution music is. And they can’t care about something that they aren’t aware of. And even if they do know what the current trends are for better delivery specifications (remember Mastered for iTunes), within their day-to-day engineering challenges they can’t concern themselves with ensuring that everything is done according to “best practices”.

 

[AmberOzL]

This is a very interesting read:
http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=2906

So we stick to the good old mp3 320 kbps? More capacity, yay!

 

[meat01]

320k mp3s would be fine with me. I would prefer better recordings of stuff my ears can actually hear, rather than high resolution crap.

 

[depaor]

320k mp3s would be fine with me. I would prefer better recordings of stuff my ears can actually hear, rather than high resolution crap.

Good for you. There are others who differ in their opinions, and don't feel the need to be unpleasant to say so.

 

[jlbrach]

I listen to FLAC recordings of as many well mastered recordings as i can find.I do definitely notice the difference between lossy and lossless and am only interested in lossless well recorded music

 

[Canaudio]

  I listen to FLAC recordings of as many well mastered recordings as i can find.I do definitely notice the difference between lossy and lossless and am only interested in lossless well recorded music

I notice huge quality differences based on the care taken in recording and mastering.  I notice less difference between 44.1 - 16 bit versus 96 or 192 - 24 bit files.  A well recorded and mastered CD can sound every bit as good as a 192 khz 24 bit flac album and often better.  I'm happy with the quality of many CDs ripped to flac. There's a lot of half assed 24 bit stuff being flogged these days.

 

[Sam Edwards]

I find it reassuring to take doubts out of the equation. Higher bit rates clearly don't hurt the SQ. I often switch to Rhapsody on my home systems and wonder if tracks are really that badly recorded. 

 

[shockdoc]

I get the whole bitrate argument and find that to some degree it is valid but honestly I think how a song is mastered outweighs bitrate for ultimate SQ. Just bought a CD quality rip from HD Tracks of a fav song that I have in 128kbs and on that particular track there isn't a trememdous difference. On other songs the difference between 128 and 256 is HUGE! To me it's similar to when I was an early adopter of SACD. Some discs sounded not much different than the CD that I also owned. Others sounded almost like an entirely different song. Dark Side of The Moon was one that I found to be significantly better (more of just about everything we look for in our recorded music). I'm still keeping an open mind to NY's little project.