[uelover]

Quote:

BTW, has anyone else noticed just how many recordings are digitally clipping?  
 
With my current rig, I can really hear that a lot of rock/pop recordings are clipping.  It's quite distracting.  I hear it with every player, and finally Pure Music showed just how many discs were hitting "red" on the peak meter.  It's not their upsampling, either, this is showing the raw data...
 
You'd think mastering processes would have evolved to say "hey, that's clipping" and dial down the gain on the ADC. 
 
The downside of unbelievable resolution is hearing how many mistakes exist in what should be great recordings, at a point in the process where there's just no excuse...

Hmm many modern album recordings use dynamic range compression to increase the real and perceived loudness. From my Amarra I too can see many modern album hitting the red zone but they stopped short of clipping.
 
I don't really encounter songs that clip though.
 
 

 

[mrspeakers]

I can hear it quite distinctly on some albums.  It's a surprise to me, as I would have expected that this would be just a basic "no no" in mastering the CD.  I mean seriously, clipping?  
 
On Aimee Mann's "Bachelor #2" it happens all over the place on some really nice tracks.  It really detracts from the album once you hear it.  Even the newly remastered Fleetwood Mac Rumours does it in a few spots.  
 
Maybe the studio guys should upgrade their cans to some LCD-2's or mod their Fostex's a bit.
 
 

 
 

 

[turimbar1]

Quote:

I can hear it quite distinctly on some albums.  It's a surprise to me, as I would have expected that this would be just a basic "no no" in mastering the CD.  I mean seriously, clipping?  
 
On Aimee Mann's "Bachelor #2" it happens all over the place on some really nice tracks.  It really detracts from the album once you hear it.  Even the newly remastered Fleetwood Mac Rumours does it in a few spots.  
 
Maybe the studio guys should upgrade their cans to some LCD-2's or mod their Fostex's a bit.
 
 

 
 

ive started noticing it on certain albums too, quite disappointed. Also it would be awesome if the industry recognized the obvious superiority of orthos  (cue electrostat rant) 

 

 

[kwkarth]

The thing is, that with properly calibrated metering, an engineer could / should avoid any clipping just by keeping an eye on the meters.  In analog days, a slight clip here or there was a real drag, but it was a constant battle to balance best signal to noise ratio with actively managing dynamic range.  We were constantly cramming 10lbs into a 5lb bag.
 
In the digital age, it should NEVER, NEVER happen.  There is no excuse and it is a complete disaster.  Maybe the trash you're hearing isn't digital clipping, because that's REALLY ugly, but artifacts/trash from analog compressors and limiters instead.  If the equipment is properly calibrated and monitored, such trash should NEVER end up in the mix no matter what its origin..

 

[turimbar1]

yeah the albums I am talking about are late 80s early 90s albums, some vinnie moore and marty friedman, not recent stuff, so that explains it
 
ps Mrspeakers and kwkarth, I know this is off topic (about audio players) but I am interested in learning about sound engineering, I was just wondering if you or any of the other members have any advice for me. Thanks in advance 

 

[kwkarth]

Quote:

yeah the albums I am talking about are late 80s early 90s albums, some vinnie moore and marty friedman, not recent stuff, so that explains it
 
ps Mrspeakers and kwkarth, I know this is off topic (about audio players) but I am interested in learning about sound engineering, I was just wondering if you or any of the other members have any advice for me. Thanks in advance 

I can't give you much current advice, but you might want to spend some time at some of the excellent web sites that abound these days.  Such as: http://www.prosoundweb.com/studyhall/lastudyhall/slm/slm.shtml
 
Depending your current level of experience and interests, decide which direction in sound engineering you want to go.  Sound system engineering, acoustical engineering, recording engineering, etc.  Then go to school and hit the books.   Take advantage of all the internships you can.  Good luck!
 
Another good link: http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/what_can_go_wrong_seven_habits_that_can_ruin_your_career_in_audio/
 
 

 

[K_19]

I've finally decided to just go back to foobar when I install bootcamp Windows 7 (not just for music reasons though; I need to install it anyway). Although many of these osx players sound good, they all seem to have little glitches and most of all, I've become too used to foobar interface that I've used for the past 7 years.
 
I'll keep an eye on how these softwares all develop over time though

 

[MrQ]

Quote:

yeah the albums I am talking about are late 80s early 90s albums, some vinnie moore and marty friedman, not recent stuff, so that explains it
 
ps Mrspeakers and kwkarth, I know this is off topic (about audio players) but I am interested in learning about sound engineering, I was just wondering if you or any of the other members have any advice for me. Thanks in advance 

 
A good magazine I've bough for years is Sound On Sound. It's a UK mag, but they deliver internationally and they have a version online
http://www.soundonsound.com/Contents.php
 
Back on topic. I downloaded Pure Music, Fedelia, Amarra and Audirvana. I wanted to find something that would sync with my iTunes library
Which is now getting rather large 
 
Pure Music.
After wading through the manual, it was actually quite straight forward and seems hugely customisable once you get into it. 
Downside. If you do some thing it doesn't like, it wont play the files and you have to restart both itunes and PM.
Sound wise, well it doesn't sound any worse than iTunes. But nothing leaped out at me to say it was superior.  
Integrates well with my existing library.
 
It was unable to play a couple of aiff files, both 4608 kbps / 90.000 kHz  When I emailed PM they quickly got back to me offering an
online remote session so they could see what the problem was. This I was really impressed with. It makes one feel confident to know 
that if something goes wrong they will actually respond and try to help.
 
Fedelia.
Pretty interface. Big downside for me was that it felt it necessary to recreate it's own version of my library, every time I started the program.
Which means go off and make a cup of tea while it reproduces 700GB of file data for it's own convenience. 
Sound; *again shrugs shoulders*
Interface; It seemed the most stable but was also unable to play my hires file. emailed them got a job number two days ago...
 
Amarra 
Demo'd both the mini and full version. Smooth integration with my library, until tracks started hanging and stuttering, like they had taken 
a half second sample and left it on repeat. 
I just burst out laughing switched it off and uninstalled it. Seriously, if I had payed a couple of hundred quid even for the mini version
I would not expect that right out of the box.
 
Audirvana
Appears to be more of a stand alone player and not what I wanted. There didn't seem to be any guide, unless someone knows different.
 
So Pure Music is still in my menu bar. I need to download some tunes from HD Tracks and see if it's worth keeping. But as far as playing 
standard bit/sample rates I'll stick with iTunes. It's not perfect, but it works.

 

[mrspeakers]

 
Quote:

I can't give you much current advice, but you might want to spend some time at some of the excellent web sites that abound these days.  Such as: http://www.prosoundweb.com/studyhall/lastudyhall/slm/slm.shtml
 
Depending your current level of experience and interests, decide which direction in sound engineering you want to go.  Sound system engineering, acoustical engineering, recording engineering, etc.  Then go to school and hit the books.   Take advantage of all the internships you can.  Good luck!
 
Another good link: http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/what_can_go_wrong_seven_habits_that_can_ruin_your_career_in_audio/
 
 

It's a fun field, but as kwkarth notes, there are hugely varied ways to approach it.  There's acoustics, which can go from manning sound boards to design concert halls, there's engineering, which can be digital or analog, and vary from speakers to amps to DSP.  Good luck in finding a field that suits you...

 

[Rdr. Seraphim]

This has been a sore spot of mine for some time. You'd think that with rock/pop music, levels would be pretty easy to manage since it's usually just, LOUD. Not too many dynamics to consider. Watching the metering with Pure Music is kinda revealing e.g. Norah Jones and the Malick group. Once the music begins, it's all squashed/compressed up near -3db with peaks over 0db resulting clipping. Analogue tape was much more forgiving (unless it was really overdriven and sustained), since a few instantaneous peaks into the +3db range didn't do much to alter the sound quality. However, with the advent of digital recording, the effect of clipping makes a jumbled, mangled mess of the music. It's like they squash/compress the Dicken's out of the music, ripping the life out of it. Guess it makes sense if you listen on a train, a bus or your car.  
 
    
 
Quote:

BTW, has anyone else noticed just how many recordings are digitally clipping?  
 
With my current rig, I can really hear that a lot of rock/pop recordings are clipping.  It's quite distracting.  I hear it with every player, and finally Pure Music showed just how many discs were hitting "red" on the peak meter.  It's not their upsampling, either, this is showing the raw data...
 
You'd think mastering processes would have evolved to say "hey, that's clipping" and dial down the gain on the ADC. 
 
The downside of unbelievable resolution is hearing how many mistakes exist in what should be great recordings, at a point in the process where there's just no excuse...

 

 

[middachten]

Quote:

This has been a sore spot of mine for some time. You'd thing that with rock/pop music, levels would be pretty easy to manage since it's usually just, LOUD. Not too many dynamics to consider. Watching the metering with Pure Music is kinda revealing e.g. Norah Jones and the Malick group. Once the music begins, it's all squashed/compressed up near -3db with peaks over 0db resulting clipping. Analogue tape was much more forgiving (unless it was really overdriven and sustained), since a few instantaneous peaks into the +3db range didn't do much to alter the sound quality. However, with the advent of digital recording, the effect of clipping makes a jumbled, mangled mess of the music. It's like they squash/compress the Dicken's out of the music, ripping the life out of it. Guess it makes sense if you listen on a train, a bus or your car.  
 

Welcome to the 'Loudness War'!
Its going on for decades now. Highly respected mastering engineers such as Bob Katz are fighting against this music-destroying habit of many so called 'professionals' in the audio engineering scene. 
 
Try listening to some recordings of the likes of Chesky Records and Reference Recordings and you learn how much different it can be done!
 
BTW Mr. Katz has an excellent book on this subject and a very informative website http://www.digido.com/audiofaq.html.
 
 

 

[Palantiri7]

I just wanted to thank everyone for this thread. I've settled for Decibel which I think sounds more "organic" than iTunes on my system. MacPro optical-->Audio-gd NFB-3-->Purity Audio KICAS/Little Dot II-->HD650/K701

 

[kwkarth]

Quote:

Welcome to the 'Loudness War'!
Its going on for decades now. Highly respected mastering engineers such as Bob Katz are fighting against this music-destroying habit of many so called 'professionals' in the audio engineering scene. 
 
Try listening to some recordings of the likes of Chesky Records and Reference Recordings and you learn how much different it can be done!
 
BTW Mr. Katz has an excellent book on this subject and a very informative website http://www.digido.com/audiofaq.html.

Great link!
 

 

[Rdr. Seraphim]

Interesting you should bring up Chesky! I've been a big fan of Chesky and Bob Katz, so I was pretty excited when I was able to finally download some of the very early Chesky pieces I own. After hearing Pure Music, and finding Bob Katz's endorsement of same pushed me to its purchase. Chesky has been my reference in the digital domain; Sheffield Labs has been my analogue reference. Recently, I've also been following Bill Schnee's efforts at Bravura Records. The samples on the Bravura Records site sound extremely promising. 
 
Quote:

Welcome to the 'Loudness War'!
Its going on for decades now. Highly respected mastering engineers such as Bob Katz are fighting against this music-destroying habit of many so called 'professionals' in the audio engineering scene. 
 
Try listening to some recordings of the likes of Chesky Records and Reference Recordings and you learn how much different it can be done!
 
BTW Mr. Katz has an excellent book on this subject and a very informative website http://www.digido.com/audiofaq.html.
 
 

 

 

[iVinyl]

I have only recently taken to portable and computer audio, having been playing with audio reproduction since the days of Peter Belt. I have been flicking through the 23 pages of this thread searching for a very simple answer. If I take a program like Decibel and iTunes and each case, play a lossless file, captured from a CD and use an external DAC on a Mac - are we saying that the data on the spdif is different between the two?  I had a similar question with regard to Rockbox and a iPod 5.5g and when it came down to it, with flat EQ, the answer was quits. Is that the same here. It's nice to play but if the outcome is the same,......