[ramicio]

Still all horrible music out there.  NOTHING mainstream.  Yeah most people have heard of Peter Gabriel, for one song.  All of his other stuff is just off-the-wall experimental weirdness.  Phil Collins is an idiot first much less a musician.  Indie music is pretty much off-the-wall, too.  Why can't there be any non-whiny (emo), non-satanist (stuff like Tool, Disturbed, etc.), mainstream music mastered nicely?  Just good blues-like classic rock is real music, and despite it being very popular still, it has pretty much been forgotten in the digital age.  One album I got that was completely different than CD was "Pretty. Odd." by "Panic! At the Disco".  I've listened to both CD and vinyl and it seems the songs feature different instruments, or at least different recordings of the same.

 

[infinitesymphony]

A little off-topic though it seems to be drifting this way, but it makes little sense to buy the vinyl version of an album that was recorded, mixed, and mastered digitally, and even less sense to rip it back to digital from vinyl afterward. Might as well get some tube distortion, EQ, harmonic excitation and compression plug-ins and decimate the recording yourself.

 

[germanium]

Most music does not have sufficient dynamic range to be worthy of anything more than 16 bit resolution. even well mastered classical does not use up the dynamic range of the 16 bit system & modern DACs handle 16 bit data beautifully down to about -80db before distortion become audible & that only if you crank the volume up to otherwise unplayable levels. By unplayable I mean you could actually destroy your speakers or headphones when the music returns to a more normal listening level not to mention the damage to your hearing.
 
That being said classical & some wide dynamic range foriegn music are the only ones really worthy of 24 bit audio & that only if well mastered in a way that preserves that dynamic range. Early 16 bit DACs were mostly horrible & when they came out with higher bit DACs they did sound better but only because they handled the 16 bit data better than the early 16 bit DACs hense everyone came to believe that you needed higher bits to get good sound.
 
When the 1 bit DACS came out they handled 16 bit data far better than the early 16 bit DAcs & even better than most higher bit ladder DACs of the time but mostly at the soft end of the spectrum of dynamics. Many of the early one bit DACs were too polite at the loud part of the dynamic spectrom so the came out with Hybrid DACs that contained elements of ladder DACs at the loud portion & 1 bit DACs to handle the soft end. Modern DACs that are worth anyting follow in these footsteps & are various modifications of this concept. Burr Browns best audio DACs are this type & do truely offer better than 20 bit real resolution in some of thier models. That is the limit of current analog sections as well that follow them. This is well beyond the limit of human hearing ability. You will not hear much if any difference on these DACs with identically mastered music between music released at 16 bit or 24 bit as these DACs handle both resolutions with equal ability. 

 

[googleborg]

i have some 2496 stuff and the high ends in it seem really extended, cymbals and that seem to go 'up' forever, it's actually quite unpleasant at times, but i guess that could just be my setup
 
the only way i see 2496 becoming popular is if it's used to push sales, but a 5mb mp3 is surely much cheaper to merchant than 150mb+ files when done en masse, and multichannel flacs at 300mb, etc...
 
it's not like VHS/DVD/BluRay where at each format the improvement was very, very obvious.  Still, buying mp3s is a raw deal, I will not pay for lossy files from huge companies.

 

[RTS100x5]

Ive ordered many from AMAZON and TELARC, Other obscure sites are out there but selections are very limited for SACD and my fav DVD AUDIO,,,,, If you have a fairly powerful PC, I recommend buying a copy of ADOBE AUDITION which I use to upmix many of my CDs or whatever source to STEREO 24/96k and even 5.1 WMA files at 24bit / 96k (not many programs offer this feature)   with excellent results.... gl hf 
PS a personal recommendation is ELP / BRAIN SALAD SURGERY on DVD-A....most amazing !

 

[Caphead78]

Quote:

Still all horrible music out there.  NOTHING mainstream.  Yeah most people have heard of Peter Gabriel, for one song.  All of his other stuff is just off-the-wall experimental weirdness.  Phil Collins is an idiot first much less a musician.  Indie music is pretty much off-the-wall, too.  Why can't there be any non-whiny (emo), non-satanist (stuff like Tool, Disturbed, etc.), mainstream music mastered nicely?

Wow you really didnt come here to make friends did you?

 

[googleborg]

Quote:

Quote:

Still all horrible music out there.  NOTHING mainstream.  Yeah most people have heard of Peter Gabriel, for one song.  All of his other stuff is just off-the-wall experimental weirdness.  Phil Collins is an idiot first much less a musician.  Indie music is pretty much off-the-wall, too.  Why can't there be any non-whiny (emo), non-satanist (stuff like Tool, Disturbed, etc.), mainstream music mastered nicely?

Wow you really didnt come here to make friends did you?

i have to (mostly) agree though

 

[infinitesymphony]

Here's a tip I use all the time. Find a recording in your favorite genre with what you consider to be great sound quality even if you don't like the music. Look up the recording, mixing, and mastering engineers, paying special note to the mixing engineer (who often takes on the other roles these days). Follow their work. Most of them tend to mix in a particular genre but have some outlying recordings where they felt like doing something different, had a friend request them, etc. Sooner or later you're bound to find something overlooked that sounds amazing.

 

[ramicio]

Follow Rick Rubin's name around, and 100% of the album he's worked on are clipped and compressed.  What does it take to actually be a record producer these days?  It should figure though, he looks like a total satanist kill-your-children biker goth idiot (beard, tattoos.)