[wtaylorbasil]

Quote:

 
 
Wow that is going back a bit. DBX despite its technical promise never really caught on with many mainstream listeners. I've never seen any actual measurements of the system in use just the Popular Mechanics article from 79 and variations . Nobody I knew ever had one of those and as it coincided with the growth of digital recording and soon after CD it arrived too late really and Dolby was everywhere for cassettes already. If it had been around and cheap in 1984 I might have stuck with vinyl longer.The literature talks about potential 90 - 100db dynamic range but what was actually put down on vinyl - who knows ? But the idea of noiseless vinyl is intriguing...I'm not sure if analog reel to reel tape back then really had 100db dynamic range to start with ? I thought it was about 80db with Dolby. From what I can gather recording above +3db on analog tape tended to lead to distortion so while you might theoretically get 100db some caution would be involved in the recording and most likely your theoretical max would be nearer 90 which is still a lot for vinyl ! In practical terms outside of some classical recordings even that is more than you would really expect.on a recording. I've never had a CD with more than about 65db (Mahler 1, Solti/CSO) 
 
 
Here is an interesting site
 
http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/

Yes it goes back a bit. In the 80s I too jumped at the idea of digital music, how convenient the silver disc was etc and abandoned the vinyl. I feel now ( and hope those who still feel analogue was a "good" thing), that DBX encode/decode was a wortwhile technologt to have been preserved and analogue would be still around with a decent DR and FR recordings. The link provided was what I discovered few years ago and also http://productionadvice.co.uk/how-to-avoid-over-compressing-your-mix/ which made me say "fight the loudness war" in my signature. I had a quick look at my digitised music database and found that a standard vinyl LP of 1977 Simple Dreams by Linda Ronstadt manages a DR14 while a 180gm vinyl LP of 2007 Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss manages a poor DR9.
Will reading the facts on http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html or similar materials dissuade us from going with our human tendency of perception rather than fact?

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

 
Will reading the facts on http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html or similar materials dissuade us from going with our human tendency of perception rather than fact?

 
My background is in Psychology. the short answer is some folks will be persuaded by the arguments there if they are backed up with empirical evidence and others will not. 

 

[edstrelow]

Quote:

Yes it goes back a bit. In the 80s I too jumped at the idea of digital music, how convenient the silver disc was etc and abandoned the vinyl. I feel now ( and hope those who still feel analogue was a "good" thing), that DBX encode/decode was a wortwhile technologt to have been preserved and analogue would be still around with a decent DR and FR recordings. The link provided was what I discovered few years ago and also http://productionadvice.co.uk/how-to-avoid-over-compressing-your-mix/ which made me say "fight the loudness war" in my signature. I had a quick look at my digitised music database and found that a standard vinyl LP of 1977 Simple Dreams by Linda Ronstadt manages a DR14 while a 180gm vinyl LP of 2007 Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss manages a poor DR9.
Will reading the facts on http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html or similar materials dissuade us from going with our human tendency of perception rather than fact?

I still have a dBx decoder sitting in the garage.  It was a interim technology as digital was getting underway and I have about 10 dBx lps.  The sound is great with just a hint of  noise whoshing when listening through headphones.   I have a ton of conventional lp's The worst problem with them is that you hear noise with headphone listening.  Loudpseaker listening   is less critical in that regard.

 

[ElmersEAR]

Aaahh! DBX. I was seriously into it for a while back then. I still have a few LPs stashed in the basement. I even purchased a few Panasonic DBX chips and built a decoder for my Walkman. I wore out a Panasonic DBX portable cassette player...also wore out a Technics DBX cassette recorder and bought a spare and broke it. They are both out of commission right now but repairable.
 
The sound of most DBX encoded LPs was excellent. Sure you could hear a bit of noise pumping on piano notes if you wore good headphones or sat too close to the speakers, but they sounded so good compared to normal LPs I didn't care that much.
 
Aaaaaahhhhh DBX! Thanks for a few blessed nostalgic moments.

 

[wtaylorbasil]

Quote:

I still have a few LPs stashed in the basement.
 

If you are not interested in keeping the LPs, would you be willing to part with them?
PM me and I would like to talk about it.
Regards

 

[p a t r i c k]

Quote:

Hi I cant stand CD clipping but CD's are easier to maintain, while vinyl sounded great but it does some gating, needs cleaning & are big llike 7 inch, what can I do, I tried Googleing on CD reviews that will tell if an album is cliped how heavily but to no avail, what to do?

 
I think you need to resolve the "CD clipping" issue and then get on and enjoy your CDs. I don't know what you mean by "CD clipping" but whatever it is, I think, a fault with your setup.
 
I started listening to music through Hi Fi in the late 70s and I have been doing so consistently since that time. I have set up many many turntables in my time and I have 1000s of LPs.
 
In my opinion in practice CDs are a superior recording medium in every respect to LPs.
 
Vinyl record players in practice produce euphony and time domain distortion (smearing) on a huge scale compared with CDs.
 
When you listen to vinyl recordings you are also listening to the sound of your record player.
 
So, if you wish to listen to music and not the sounds created by the record player then use a CD player.
 
I have seen so much nonsense written about record players over the years. That they sound "more natural" etc. They don't. In practice they are poor at timbre, tonality etc because of the euphony.
 
 
 

 

[stv014]

Quote:

Originally Posted by p a t r i c k /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
I don't know what you mean by "CD clipping" but whatever it is, I think, a fault with your setup.

 
I guess something like this, which is how modern CDs are often mastered, although it is not the fault of the format:

It has nothing to do with the setup, the dynamic compression and clipping will be there regardless of whether a $50 or $5000 amplifier and/or DAC is being used.

 

[stv014]

Quote:

Really if you hear a great set up vinyl rig they may seem little more natural. Vinyl has better bass and Redbook is more compressed.

 
The CD format has no problem audibly "perfectly" reproducing bass or even DC. It is actually vinyl that has trouble with loud sub-bass, or bass with high channel separation. Generally, if the CD really sounds worse, it is usually because of bad production (see above for an example), or the various distortions of vinyl giving an "euphonic" effect.

 

[p a t r i c k]

Quote:

Try to get a drive in one of the 911 variants that was described as a bad handling car. It's a killer on a wet road. Not until the late 80's did we start to see a 911 that was a bit more user friendly. It is one of the most preferred cars because of its ability to land a date. I live in London and just 15 minutes away from a Porsche and Ferrari dealer. Most drivers that I see are older men in their late 40's and above. The young guys are more interested in other cars.

 
The Porsche 911's ability to land a date pales into insignificance compared with my trusty steed.
 

 
 

 

[p a t r i c k]

Quote:

 
I guess something like this, which is how modern CDs are often mastered, although it is not the fault of the format:

It has nothing to do with the setup, the dynamic compression and clipping will be there regardless of whether a $50 or $5000 amplifier and/or DAC is being used.

 
This must be CDs in pop/rock music I guess. I buy classical CDs frequently which are new recordings and they do not have this kind of mastering.
 
The quality of recording of classical CDs today is often truly wonderful, I must add.
 

 

[StudioSound]

I guess something like this, which is how modern CDs are often mastered, although it is not the fault of the format:


It has nothing to do with the setup, the dynamic compression and clipping will be there regardless of whether a $50 or $5000 amplifier and/or DAC is being used.

That is compression - not necessarily clipping. And if you use something like JRiver Media Center, it will at least normalize the volume level of a track like that so it plays at the same level as other albums, rather than being significantly louder. (the whole reason they mastered tracks like that)

Music can be compressed and have the volume boosted to -0.1 dB like that without introducing clipping.
And that's not a limitation of the format - it's a result of the master used. Modern records often come from the same master as the CD.

 

[p a t r i c k]

Quote:

And that's not a limitation of the format - it's a result of the master used. Modern records often come from the same master as the CD.

 
I see people saying that contemporary LP releases are mastered differently from the CDs.
 
However the term "remastered" can often mean very little but be used as a tool to help sell the LP.
 
 

 

[akash neagi]

I hit the Pink Floyd jackpot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Went to a shop in Kolkata, India......
The shop is on the street but the guy has a warehouse where he keeps his LP's......
I started chatting with him and he said he had a few LP's which no one would buy................
Turns out they its a Pink Floyd collection.........
He says no one wants them in Kolkata so I offer to buy them..........
I got all 14 studio albums.......
All 2 live ones in LP and one in cassette......
and 5 of the Compilation albums...............
and the best thing is i got them at RS. 50 a pop which is less than $1.........
and he gave me the cassette for free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[stv014]

Quote:

That is compression - not necessarily clipping.

Music can be compressed and have the volume boosted to -0.1 dB like that without introducing clipping.

 
Regardless of what you call it, the distortion is there, even if it is not "clipping" by the strictest definition, the audible effect of intermodulation distortion is similar once the compression is made fast enough (clipping is basically "infinitely" fast peak limiting). Here is a zoomed in section of the same file as above, which indeed shows what for practical purposes looks and sounds like clipping:

 
Quote:

And if you use something like JRiver Media Center, it will at least normalize the volume level of a track like that so it plays at the same level as other albums, rather than being significantly louder.

 
That does not fix the degraded sound quality.

 

[stv014]

Quote:

I see people saying that contemporary LP releases are mastered differently from the CDs.
 
 

 
Vinyl tends to be mastered differently because of marketing reasons (i.e. those who buy it usually expect higher quality, even though the medium itself is technically inferior), and because it does not handle the very loud recordings as well. The latter is ironical, since an advantage of the CD format is abused to make the sound worse.