CD Rip Quality Variations

Posted by: Mercky on 15 December 2018

I’ve just ripped all my old cds to my Innuos, mostly from the 90’s and 00’s, listening back on my Nova the quality is really hit n miss, mostly miss! CdS that I remember to sound pretty good on a CD player back in the day sound fairly naff, I was just listening to some Talk Talk as an example and it’s really not great although I remember them as really nice sounding albums - I haven’t owned a CD player for a while. If I call the same albums up on Tidal they sound equally naff so I’m presuming the originals were actually not that great but sounded ok on mediocre systems at the time. Some do sound fine though, even old recordings so it’s a mixed bag. I don’t really buy cds anymore but recently bought a few ECM recordings such as Arve Henriksen and a few other favourites and when ripped they sound excellent and equally good on Tidal. Were cds back then actually fairly poor or was the mastering not great or have systems moved on that much that they’re just been exposed?

Posted on: 17 December 2018 by Simon-in-Suffolk

I do like the sound of Mr Paws Pimped Up Masters... where can I buy them

MQA eat your heart out....

Posted on: 17 December 2018 by Hmack

Colou

Guinnless posted:
There are two versions of "Talk Talk - Colour of Spring" on Tidal. The "MQA" version sounds flat, the other version says re-mastered in 1997 mastered and sounds fine to me, plenty of detail and dynamics. The re-mastered Album ID is 1486039.

"Colour of Spring" is maybe not a good album with which to compare MQA and non MQA versions on Tidal for two reasons. The first is that I find that the MQA version by default plays on both my systems at a much lower volume than the non MQA version, and so you have to adjust the volume quite a bit in order to make a reasonable comparison. The second reason is that the non MQA version is labelled as a 1999 re-mastered version whereas the MQA version is not, and so they might be different masters.

I have both a non MQA enabled (Linn Klimax DS/1) and an MQA enabled (Mytek Brooklyn+) DAC, and here is my observation of the first couple of the tracks from the album - MQA vs non MQA version.

When played on the Linn Klimax, the MQA version does sound just a little flat, but that may be down to either the mastering or volume levels.

When played on the Mytek Brooklyn+ with volume equalised as closely as possible, the MQA version is displayed as 24 bit, 96kHz, and although both MQA and non MQA versions both sound very good, to my ears the MQA version this time sounds just that bit better and more 'refined'.

By the way, I'm glad that you have pointed me in the direction of this album. I was never a fan of Talk Talk from their early days, and so I have never bothered to listen to any of their albums. However, I have found I really do like this album, and the sound quality on my systems is surprisingly good, so I will definitely listen to some more of their catalogue.