[nor_spoon]

Do not know if this is the place to start this thread, but here goes:

Been hearing "a lot" of it lately. While the records I have been rotating is of generally excellent quality, some have digital distortion at places. Especially womens voices seem to be troublesome.

A couple of examples:

Diana Krall - "Stepping Out"
In the song "Body And Soul" there is lots of distortion present when she sings at the most powerful. It breaks up through the whole song, but there is a lot when she sings "gladly surrender" at 4:57 in the end.

Diana Krall - "The Girl In The Other Room"
In the song "Almost Blue" at 1:23 when she sings "I see in his too" it breaks up at the word "I" in the beginning.

This could of course be many things, but I am starting to wonder if there is a problem with my system. The distortion is so prominent that I have a hard time thinking the recording engineers would let it pass, since her recordings seem to be done at a very high level.

Can anyone else hear the distortion in the examples above?

Thank you, and happy listening!

 

[nor_spoon]

Anyone?

 

[Uncle Erik]

Is this with all of your headphones? Have you tried switching up to see if it's specific to one or you hear it with all of them?

I use some of the same equipment as you, but I'm not home yet and can't try out my Diana Krall discs to see if I have it, too.

The only thing I can think of is that the Zana got a little wonky when a 6SL7 was on the way out. It perked right up with a fresh tube and the old one tested bad, so that was the only issue. If you have a spare tube or two, try swapping them and see what happens.

Hopefully, someone will come in with other suggestions. I'll keep an eye on this thread - I'd like to know if something will head off trouble or improve my rig.

 

[nor_spoon]

Uncle Eric, thanks for your reply. Would be nice if you are able to check the Diana Krall songs mentioned.

Same thing if I switch to other cans, so they can be ruled out. I also know it is not the driver tube, as I have tested with different.

The distortion is there at both low and high volume. It sounds typically of digital distortion of the recordings. I am no engineer, but could it be the 6C33C-B's running out of juice or something, although it does not sound likely either.

I am going to swap to another pair of 6C33C-B's later today to see if the distortion is still there.

 

[SiriuslyCold]

if there's distortion at low volume I'd guess it's in the recording, but with your choice of music one wouldn't expect there to be (pop/rock recordings perhaps)

can you run the songs thru Audacity and do a screen capture?

 

[LFF]

I need to pull out those CD's, but IIRC, most Diana Krall CD's are not well mastered.

Regardless, I'll check and get back to you.

 

[LFF]

Yup - I do recall correctly!

Here is a picture of the Body and Soul part. As you can see, the waveform has been maximized past 0db. This results in a square waveform aka clipping. The distortion you are hearing is in the actual recording. Blame the mastering engineer!

 

[nor_spoon]

Looks like there are more clipping going on than what I first thougth.

If I take a sampling test from each of her albums, they all seem to have more or less clipping according to Audacity. Actually, most of the songs from different albums I tested have some, not just Diana Krall.

What I find a bit strange, is that everytime it occurs, It seems I notice in my left ear. Maybe my hearing is a bit skewed.

Swapped the 6C33C-B's, but that did not change anything. I guess I might have my answer in the pictures below:

Almost Blue

Almost Blue (show clipping)

Body And Soul

Body And Soul (show clipping)

 

[nor_spoon]

Thank you for your help.

Yes, there really seems to be horrendously many bad recordings out there. Can it be that hard to make a recording without them clipping? Even the CD (vinyl master) of Mudcrutch, which should have been especially made without any digital compression has clipping if I look at it in Audacity (thanks for the program advice by the way!)

Took a look at Miles Davis' "Kind Of Blue" and the album is far below any danger zone it seems, and to me it sounds excellent.

So What

Flamenco Sketches

 

[LFF]

There are so many great recordings that have been mastered very badly. IMHO, even Kind of Blue has it's problems. *Sigh* But what can you do?

In some fairness to the ME, the Diana Krall album is VERY dynamic and most people don't like that. The ME just maximized incorrectly or maybe it was just some mic overload. IMHO, it was the ME's fault.

 

[SiriuslyCold]

anyone have a copy of Death Magnetic, just for comparison?

 

[LFF]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SiriuslyCold /img/forum/go_quote.gif anyone have a copy of Death Magnetic, just for comparison?

I do.

 

[nor_spoon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SiriuslyCold /img/forum/go_quote.gif anyone have a copy of Death Magnetic, just for comparison?

The songs I loaded into Audacity did not show any clipping. Must have been double mastered/compressed or something. All I know is that I only managed through the first two songs of the album, and probably will never finish it.

 

[LFF]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nor_spoon /img/forum/go_quote.gif The songs I loaded into Audacity did not show any clipping. Must have been double mastered/compressed or something. All I know is that I only managed through the first two songs of the album, and probably will never finish it.

What?! Maybe Death Magnetic broke Audacity!

It's by far among the worst crap I have ever heard.