[Nocturnal310]

hey guys,


today after long time i listened to the ALAC rip of Minutes to midnight on my HD600 and man today for the first time i hated it.

so many flaws in the Recording, no sense of instrument separation, weird undesired artifacts in the playback (i did rip using original CD), lack of Dynamics in the overall spectrum.. Kickdrums never sounded so bland


i remember...at 160 kbps mp3 on HD555 i used to enjoy it back then when i didnt know iTunes can rip Lossless also.


So is this what HiFi is all about?

 

[scytheavatar]

Bad music is baddddddddd music... does it even matter how good/bad the recording quality is? As a whole Minutes to Midnight is one of the worst albums of 2007. I am not a big fan of Linkin Park, but I do have a soft spot for them and I did enjoy their first 2 albums at parts. Minutes to Midnight is just pure bad, unimaginative, unlistenable music, not a single song in it is good. The best songs in it is like the worst songs in Hybrid Theory and Meteora. They had essentially sold away what which makes them interesting for a more mainstream, boring sound. So don't blame HiFi, blame Linkin Park for releasing bad music. It still surprises me that people upgrade their gear so that they can listen to bad music like Minutes to Midnight.

This review sums up Minutes to Midnight:

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg...xfuxzl5ldke~T1

 

[chef8489]

I am a huge LP fan, but hated M to M. One should really get a hold of some of there earlier stuff back before they were called Linkin Park.

 

[hayste]

This is what most pop music sounds like. Heavily compressed until it's just a wall of noise. Rick Rubin also produced Metallica's Death Magnetic, which has disgraceful sound quality.

Gonna also have to jump on the 'I hate this album' train. Their early stuff is decent, but MTM is just awful.

 

[Nocturnal310]

I dont understand how they manage to screw up the placement of instruments?

and entire spectrum sounds at same volume.. .there's no sense of dynamics in the music.

i am not sure if this album is under 'loudness war' because everything sounds very flat and mono instead of digitally amped.

 

[ZephyrSapphire]

Minutes to Midnight. Worst album from LP ever. Hybrid Theory was great. Reanimation was great. Meteora was okay. But Minutes To Midnight. That's not LP anymore. They wanted to lose their metal image. But by losing that, they don't become LP anymore. Utterly disappointed with where they're going.

 

[progo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nocturnal310 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I dont understand how they manage to screw up the placement of instruments? and entire spectrum sounds at same volume.. .there's no sense of dynamics in the music. i am not sure if this album is under 'loudness war' because everything sounds very flat and mono instead of digitally amped.

It is exactly a victim of loudness war. I bolded the facts you heard already. Bad (loud) recordings sound bad but my Stax SR202s are able to perform better than HD650 as I stated in my comparative review so maybe you should have a peek at Stax if you really want to keep enjoying Linkin Park (a real feat to me) :|

 

[scytheavatar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by progo /img/forum/go_quote.gif It is exactly a victim of loudness war. I bolded the facts you heard already. Bad (loud) recordings sound bad but my Stax SR202s are able to perform better than HD650 as I stated in my comparative review so maybe you should have a peek at Stax if you really want to keep enjoying Linkin Park (a real feat to me) :|

Garbage in, garbage out. The music coming out of your headphone can only sound as good as what that's in your CD. No amount of headphone forgiveness is going to change how banal and uninspired the music in MTM is. That's why the production qualities suck. Because they don't care if the music is good or bad. Because there's no point in having good production values. The only way you can keep enjoying Linkin Park is when they produce better music next time.

There are times where you must respect someone's music, that what you do not like might be liked by others. But unless you are a Linkin Park fanboy I think there's little redeeming factor in MTM. I used to think all the Linkin Park hate is unjustified but MTM is truly one of the worst albums I have ever heard.

 

[Zarathustra19]

what I don't understand is how you didn't hear how crappy that album is through the HD 555 even at 160k.

Its one of my least favorite albums at this point.

I used to be really into this band, I'm not quite sure why now. And yes, realizing that crappy music is crappy is the gateway drug into hi-fi.

Cheers!

 

[scytheavatar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zarathustra19 /img/forum/go_quote.gif what I don't understand is how you didn't hear how crappy that album is through the HD 555 even at 160k. Its one of my least favorite albums at this point. I used to be really into this band, I'm not quite sure why now. And yes, realizing that crappy music is crappy is the gateway drug into hi-fi. Cheers!

Nah, they had some good music here and there in the past, like In The End/Papercut/Numb/Crawling/One Step Closer/the live version of By Myself. A lot of the hate they get is from the kids that think it's fun to hate something popular. I certainly wouldn't put them on the same level as something that really sucks. But Minutes to Midnight is an exceptionally bad album. Audiophiles should be listening to Pink Floyd, not that crap!

 

[rlpaul]

I dunno, like all Linkin Park albums, I like 2-3 songs on the album. Rest of the album I don't really care about.

But then, very few current artists can I stand to listen to a whole album. First two Audioslave albums, and first two APC albums are the only recent ones that come to mind from 'mainstream' music.

 

[nickdawg]

Minutes To Midnight is pretty crappy. And I'm a fan of Linkin Park. Hybrid Theory, Meteora were fantastic, ReAnimation was good and I even liked the Jay-Z/Linkin Park and Shinoda with Fort Minor . But MTM was awful. Only a few songs I liked on that one(Given Up, Shadow of the Day, What I've Done), but it sounds awful. I thought maybe it was a low bitrate files, but now, it's the recording.

Sadly LP has sold out to the loudness wars and generic, commercial, pop rock sound. The thing I liked about Linkin Park was their rap/metal sound, that was almost nonexistent on MTM.

 

[Nocturnal310]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zarathustra19 /img/forum/go_quote.gif what I don't understand is how you didn't hear how crappy that album is through the HD 555 even at 160k. Its one of my least favorite albums at this point. I used to be really into this band, I'm not quite sure why now. And yes, realizing that crappy music is crappy is the gateway drug into hi-fi. Cheers!

i kinda regret selling HD555... they were just awesome for efficiency & Gaming at cybercafe's..could hear them anywhere in the house..not like HD600 which need to be powered by a desktop amp

but i didnt have money so i had no choice.

 

[feNcheL]

Actually, I liked MTM more than Meteora, since I connect Meteora with a fest of monotonous noise. Songs sound the same, no newer elements introduced after Hybrid Theory, victim of loudness war.
Admittedly, that does not make MTM any better, but I actually liked Shadow of the Day and Hands Held High.
Hybrid Theory is still their best album though, many tracks sound absolutely great compared to the newer albums and Papercut has a nice opening.