Adele 21

steve hoffman's website forums usually talk about such quality.  It's a shame, Adele has some pipes !

I bought Elvis Costello's latest on vinyl, he said the recording was made with vinyl in mind, but when I played it on the old Scottish gramophone it sounded like ass.

Long live 45 rpm LP re-issues !

The Vinyl of Adell's newest recording  sounds just fine !

I listened to Duffy's newest then Adell 21.
Like night and day.
Adelle has a definite future.
Duffy , perhaps not so much.

i have 19 and the quality is limp.

will get 21 soon.

If you want to hear her sing live in a fantastic session you want to go to:

npr.org

then music

then tiny desk concerts

then adelle

an amazing performance her voice, keyboard and acoustic guitar.

also the other tiny desk concerts are woth watching

David

David, I thought it might help others with direct links.

The excellent Adelle Tiny Desk Concert is here http://www.npr.org/2011/02/25/...le-tiny-desk-concert 



If you want to get ahead of the curve, subscribe to the Podcasts.

http://www.npr.org/series/tiny-desk-concerts/

If you wish to explore other 'live' (45 minute) sessions (and subscribe to Podcasts) then try...

 KCRW - Morning Becomes Eclectic http://www.kcrw.com/music/programs/mb 

...where I stumbled upon Adelle, performing on 25 Feb 2011

 http://www.kcrw.com/music/programs/mb/mb110225adele 



Coming Soon... Lykke Li

I'm afraid I can't hear what all the fuss is about, I find her very ordinary and as for the estuary accent or mockney accent, jeez.

Don't get Duffy either a Welsh Lulu.

thanks Dennis. I am a bit dumb with computers.

David

Devon, if you have the receipt, take the album back to the shop, and tell them exactly why you are returning it. The album has almost certainly been mastered for MP3 sales, and paying extra for a hard copy is a rip off.

Buy the MP3s, or since the record company have tried to rip you off, rip it off to MP3s or wav yourself.

I would not recommend doing that for an album that has been mastered properly, but in the case of the current fad for overly compressed releases the record company do not deserve to have their copyright respected.

I posted these pics a couple of weeks ago regarding the compression on Adele's 21 CD ,even on the Black you hear it a little more than I would like.

Or the radio

I thought about returning the cd but I'm sure they would look at me like I was crazy. I've bought plenty of bad recorded cd's but this one takes the cake. It managed to make my Naim/Harbeth system into a boombox. I know with the talent of this girl, some of you would buy this cd. I thought I better warn potential buyers.
  It seems Columbia Records is one of the worst offenders of high compressed c.d.'s. I've been burned by this label other times. You would think there would be some guy in quality control saying "Stop the press, this sounds like crap". It's too bad that Naim label or Linn records isn't big enough to sign acts like this girl because they know how to put out a quality product.

Devon, you could phone the shop rather than dealing with a sales assistant who might just take it as a joke and try to make you look small.

Alternatively you could send the CD to the record company and complain about the quality.

Perhaps another option might be to write to a programme like Watchdog (or whatever consumer programme exists like that) show them the images of the waveform.

I would still go for it, if a product is not up to the standard you expect for the money then as far as I know it is your right to return it, let them know that without opening it you could not have discovered how substandard it was if they say the seal has been broken.

We all must have taken back scratched records in our time, well all of us old enough to have bought records, this is the same, only this is like a deliberately scratched record.

This is a really irksome Bête noire of mine, as some of you will know. It's a waste of time complaining to the record companies - a handful of audiophiles are not going to trouble or alter their marketing strategy.

Historically, radio stations simply applied their own compression for practical transmission reasons, but today, the Lo-Fi mp3 file is King, and that is what's driving the popular music business.

This phenomena of excessive compression is a really significant negative development for audiophiles. Never before has the source quality been compromised to this extent with popular music.

There are fortunately some refreshing examples of new CDs sounding great - but they seem of late to be the exception, rather than the norm.

John.

Thanks for the link Denis.

Devon,

I can't speak to the quality of the cd but the vinyl is not bad on this one.

Regards
Matt

I think if I want higher standards, I should try vinyl. I just didn't want to go down that money pit of the turntable. If Charlie Sheen had bought this cd, he would not be winning.

Out of interest how does Adele 19 compare to the later 21 album? I have the former on CD and vinyl.  There appears heavy master compression  on 19 and it is exceedingly close microphoned for most tracks which is almost certainly why the recording engineer as had to compress her voice aggressively and even then you can hear it clipping occasionally within the mix. It sounds ok on CD with my CDS3, but some of it sounds a mess in the  car CD and car mp3....... Also the vinyl pressing of 19 is poor with excessive sibilance on certain tracks that's not there on CD. I have heard others mention this as well.



My biggest issue after a while I find her voice irritating, and the fact it is mostly close microphoned puts a question mark over her real vocal talents in my mind...however I do enjoy her lyrics



Simon

       




That's some waveform. Very much like the Clapton Winwood MSG album.

got the album today.

put it on thr ole stereo.

Not very scientific this.

Ears approx 3m from speakers at listening position. Set the amp to a reasonable listening level.

Play track 11 Someone Like You.

The dynamic swing was from a low of 68db c weighting to a high of 88db c weighting. This is an apparent 20 db swing. This was at 3m.

the quirt bit was very quiet keyboard, the loud was vocals and guitars and keyboard.

Mind you a 20db swing still requires the amp to swing from 1w at 68db to 100w at 88db as sound pressure is logarithmic. But the loudspeaker efficiency affects the power used anyway so the power values i gave are advisory not accurate.

Still not a great quality recording a bit thin and harsh and you can hear the compression at times.

Ho Hum

david

........add to that the track list on Amazon shows 12 tracks, my CD arrived with only 11 tracks. Now THAT IS "compression"!!