Rip It Lo-Fi
Posted by: J.N. on 18 May 2015
Some of you will be aware of my bÊte noir with regard to the trend toward optimising the mastering of a lot of new popular music for digital radio, the mp3 player, and lo-fi applications. One such example is the new (and excellent) Steve Rothery album 'The Ghosts of Pripyat'. The CD comes in a lovely digi tri-pack. If only as much time and effort had gone into making it sound any good!
Anyroad; the iTunes samples sounded pretty good, so I tried ripping my CD in AAC 256k, and lo; the perceived fidelity is higher. Try it.
Presumably this is not possible with the Naim Uniti-Serve and the like; being committed to making a full-fat .wav rip?
John.
I have tried the mp3 rip with a modern recording after you mentioned it here before. I have to say I agree the mp3 did sound a little clearer but overall the actual quality was pretty poor with both compared with an old analogue recording. I guess the saying you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear still holds true.
Looking forward to meeting up with you, and the others, on Saturday John.
Some of you will be aware of my bête noir with regard to the trend toward optimising the mastering of a lot of new popular music for digital radio, the mp3 player, and lo-fi applications. One such example is the new (and excellent) Steve Rothery album 'The Ghosts of Pripyat'. The CD comes in a lovely digi tri-pack. If only as much time and effort had gone into making it sound any good!
Anyroad; the iTunes samples sounded pretty good, so I tried ripping my CD in AAC 256k, and lo; the perceived fidelity is higher. Try it.
Presumably this is not possible with the Naim Uniti-Serve and the like; being committed to making a full-fat .wav rip?
John.
No so, John. The UnitiServe will rip to lossless wav or flac, or lossy mp3 (of various bitrates), at the user's selection.
Bart is correct. We can go the whole hog, and store 8kbps mp3!
... the trend toward optimising the mastering of a lot of new popular music for digital radio, the mp3 player, and lo-fi applications. One such example is the new (and excellent) Steve Rothery album 'The Ghosts of Pripyat'. The CD comes in a lovely digi tri-pack. If only as much time and effort had gone into making it sound any good!
It's weird as I would not have thought that album would be aimed at the 'mp3' or airplay market, still, for other reasons I decided to remove it from my wantlists (not made of money!) as I am currently buying a high proportion of 'modern' prog (North Atlantic Oscillations, Steve Hackett, Porcupine Tree, Henry Fool etc) If it is as good as the samples I heard, please invite me to re-add it to my list, cheers!
Here's a question. Do these everything-louder-than-everything-else type recordings really sound better on low-fi. I actually suspect not. Even from childhood, when listening on my crappy cassette radio, the recordings I thought sounded best on it, are still among those I really like now, and likewise the ones that sounded awful. still sound, by comparison at least, awful. Same is still true today when I listen to low-fi systems, or much less capable systems than the one I am fortunate enough to own. Good recordings still sound better to me, and bad ones still sound worse, on any system from a clock radio upwards, If the aim of this compression BS is to make it sound good on low-fi, they're failing miserably their too in my view, and still ruining for us loons that really care. For why?
Here's a question. Do these everything-louder-than-everything-else type recordings really sound better on low-fi. I actually suspect not. Even from childhood, when listening on my crappy cassette radio, the recordings I thought sounded best on it, are still among those I really like now, and likewise the ones that sounded awful. still sound, by comparison at least, awful. Same is still true today when I listen to low-fi systems, or much less capable systems than the one I am fortunate enough to own. Good recordings still sound better to me, and bad ones still sound worse, on any system from a clock radio upwards, If the aim of this compression BS is to make it sound good on low-fi, they're failing miserably their too in my view, and still ruining for us loons that really care. For why?
I agree; a good recording can often sound better on a mp3 player, so I don't get what this type of mastering is trying to achieve.
It beggars belief that someone involved in the production of this sonic disaster doesn't have a half-decent sound system at home and hears what we hear.
Reducing the bit-rate only makes the best of a bad job (at source) to these ears. Akin to applying a graphic equaliser to a poor recording.
John.
Here's a question. Do these everything-louder-than-everything-else type recordings really sound better on low-fi. I actually suspect not. Even from childhood, when listening on my crappy cassette radio, the recordings I thought sounded best on it, are still among those I really like now, and likewise the ones that sounded awful. still sound, by comparison at least, awful. Same is still true today when I listen to low-fi systems, or much less capable systems than the one I am fortunate enough to own. Good recordings still sound better to me, and bad ones still sound worse, on any system from a clock radio upwards, If the aim of this compression BS is to make it sound good on low-fi, they're failing miserably their too in my view, and still ruining for us loons that really care. For why?
I agree; a good recording can often sound better on a mp3 player, so I don't get what this type of mastering is trying to achieve.
It beggars belief that someone involved in the production of this sonic disaster doesn't have a half-decent sound system at home and hears what we hear.
Reducing the bit-rate only makes the best of a bad job (at source) to these ears. Akin to applying a graphic equaliser to a poor recording.
John.
Is it a worry isn't it? I am sure engineers spend hours messing around on the mixing desk with these masters, but to win over who exactly? Even the current trend of re-mastering everything only seems to make the new release just slightly less enjoyable than the original, or much worse in some cases. There are exceptions though, an album I quite liked in my teenage years was Real Life by Simple Minds. However, it sounded awful, on Cassette, and equally bad on CD, but I tolerated it. There is a remaster from 2002 I discovered, and while not perfect, it so so much better than the original, you have to wonder what drugs the original engineer was on. Or if they were even awake.
Bart is correct. We can go the whole hog, and store 8kbps mp3!
Just imagine how many albums one could store on a 2tb hdd at 8kbps!
Bart is correct. We can go the whole hog, and store 8kbps mp3!
Just imagine how many albums one could store on a 2tb hdd at 8kbps!
and imagine how much spare time you would have when you couldn't bring yourself to listen to any of it.