The Death of High Fidelity

[ReCycled]

Interesting article on how the over-use of Compression and other things has worsened the quality of today's music.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity

[Whirlingdervish]

Been watching the decline for years now, ever since the first mp3 rippers turned tracks off of CDs into shittier lowfi copies for napster distribution.

I will be buying CDs till they stop selling them and I refuse to get mp3s off of itunes because it really is not worth 99 cents to get a shitty copy of the song you want that will sound pitiful through a real sound system.

The only mp3s I even listen to are 'free' stuff that I liberated off of the interwebs, and then if I like what I'm hearing I'll usually just go buy the CD.

Perhaps the music industry could actually sell more CDs and make money these days if they hadn't abandoned the format in favor of catering to the lowest common denominator of music listeners. They used to actually sell the whole "CD Quality" ideal, back when they moved from casettes to CDs, and now it's like they stopped giving a shit about quality and they're all about quantity of sales and how quick some pimply faced numbskull can download the track off of itunes.

[|iR|Focalor]

Well if the majority of MP3 files are compressed/normalized/whatever, I can't really tell anyway seeing as how I'm more than 50% deaf in my right ear, and probably 30% deaf in the other. I used to have tons and tons of ear infections as a kid, I even had tubes put into my ears, which I STILL REMEMBER HAVING THE RIGHT ONE REMOVED. It felt like someone was pulling my left ear drum out of my right ear with a pair of rusty old pliers. Hurt like HELL. Anyway... if most of these CD audio to MP3 rippers are ripping the songs while adding shitloads of compression, I can't really tell. I usually do any "quality" music listening in my truck, and I turn the volume way up. Not necessarily because I like to blast my music to where everyone else has to hear it, but because I can't really hear the subtle nuances going on unless it's pretty loud.

Looks kinda like a less ugly Donald Fagan of Steely Dan.

[haunted]

Or most of the rock bands of today suck at recording.. this guy isn't being totally accurate although he's correct. He acts as if every band in the genre does that being that it has 'worsened' the quality of today's music.

I spend money to have the leetest sound quality. My computer speakers have literally the best sound quality i've ever heard, rivaled only by some speakers by digital design that i've heard. I also drop 100$+ on headphones usually. I'm also very familiar with what good sound quality is, to the point that if I hear a random metal band, and it's actually recorded well, I can probably guess who did the recording.

I remember when I heard Killswitch's cd that made them big 6 years ago (not a fan) 'The end of heartache'. Although I'm not into this band I couldn't help but notice it was recorded very well. Then a year later or so Unearth came out with 'the oncoming storm' and I was like damn... this is particularly recorded well like that KSE album.... I looked it up, and sure enough, it was recorded/mastered by the same person. this is what initially got me interested in who and how the albums I listen to were being recorded.

I agree though, I miss the late 90's into the 2000's where each year meant tremendous leaps in the sound quality of albums. Now it has greatly slowed down, even working backwards in some cases...

[sinner]

Sound doesnt matter too much since a lot of the music that comes out these days is total shit lol 

 

[quadz]

I will be buying CDs till they stop selling them and I refuse to get mp3s off of itunes because it really is not worth 99 cents to get a shitty copy of the song you want that will sound pitiful through a real sound system.

Unfortunately, the CDs themselves are being mastered with sound levels compressed and maximized to the point of distortion.

Example, all of the following were ripped from my own CDs, at highest quality MP3 (320 kbits stereo)

I purchased the CDs at roughly the following times:

1. Malmsteen / Rising Force / purchased 1988
2. Pearl Jam / Vs. / purchased 1993
3. Nevermore / This Godless Endeavor / purchased 2008



Pretty easy to spot the trend... 

Frankly, I'm amazed the Nevermore CD sounds as good as it does. My impression is that there was some real skill involved in being able to push the levels to that degree and still have the overall sound seem very crisp and seemingly dynamic.  But, that said, there is also audible distortion resulting from the process of squashing the sound like that.  I would prefer to be able to purchase an uncompressed mix and instead let my amplifier provide the extra db's cleanly.


Regards,

[reaper]

I feel like overall the artisic qualities of movies on music have decreased in favor of cheap gimmicks, and explosions to make a buck.  And it seems there is less quality even after filtering out all the junk.

Take a look at video games, I'll go play NES and have more fun because so many of the games are quality, even compared to today's newer games..

[Whirlingdervish]

I kinda wonder if the stuff from the 90s is remastered when they burn the CDs now..

I have a copy of Pantera's 'Cowboys From Hell' that I got back then, and one that I bought 2 years ago when the other got a scratch in the middle of "The Sleep" right around the best guitar solo on the album..

I may have to rip a track from both and compare.


It would be pretty lame if they took music that was mastered in higher quality and mangled it for no good reason since then.
It's not like the kiddies today can even tell you who was in Pantera..

[ReCycled]

That "Godless Endeavour" compression is unbelievable. When you push digital music to the edge of distortion it degrades much more than analog at the same level. There has always been compression in music back to the 60's. But usually it was confined to single instuments - typically bass and sometimes vocals. If you listen to CS&N's "Carry On" from 1969,  the acoustic guitars in the opening are heavily compressed. But it was very unusual to compress a whole album. I can't think of any.
The article goes on to also to comment on the ubiquitous use of Pro Tools to correct any pitch error so everything is perfect. Lousy vocalists now sound like pros. Autocorrect makes drum tracks perfectly in sync, so everyone's a studio drummer. Then reduce all the dynamic range so every note and passage is exactly the same, loud volume and no wonder all the music sounds the same today. I still suspect that recording in digital format itself is inherently a problem. It seems to miss some of the lower and mid-bass warmth that used to be in the earlier analog recordings. What digital does capture is incredible detail in the upper ranges. However without the warmth included, it has a slightly sterile, distant sound to it. I remember buying Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" album in 84, not because I was a big fan of the group, but because CD's had just started and this was one of the first DDD albums on the market. I was impressed with the absolute quiet of the album (no vinyl or tape hiss) and then the music started with immense clearness. But I found the album cold. I think the way around that is to simply increase the sampling rate. The 16 bit - 44Khz standard set back then was seen to be so high, it would never need to be changed. Little did the realize how the approaching computer era would change things drastically.

[peewee_RotA]

Sound doesnt matter too much since a lot of the music that comes out these days is total shit lol 

 

EDIT:

As proof of this, I thought that the title of this thread was some new pop-punk band.

[|iR|Focalor]

Pretty easy to spot the trend... 

Frankly, I'm amazed the Nevermore CD sounds as good as it does. My impression is that there was some real skill involved in being able to push the levels to that degree and still have the overall sound seem very crisp and seemingly dynamic.  But, that said, there is also audible distortion resulting from the process of squashing the sound like that.  I would prefer to be able to purchase an uncompressed mix and instead let my amplifier provide the extra db's cleanly.


Regards,

HAHA!!! Holy shit!

I'd start to wonder if maybe they started doing this because the typical speaker these days are pretty crappy. Even car stereos, most of the speakers from the car manufacturer factory are pretty crappy and sound thin, especially the front mounted ones. The rear speakers of cars these days seem to be shrinking as time goes on. I guess a lot of folks don't really give a shit about ALL AROUND audio quality in their rides anymore,... just a big fat bass bazooka and some tweeters so that their gangsta rap will rattle trash cans as they pass. Midrange? HA, who needs it!

I've noticed that most headphones sold these days are ABSOLUTE SHIT! None of them have decent sized driver cones with a decent frequency range. Even the design of them are pure shit. You used to be able to go into any retail store and find a good pair of over-the-ear headphones that would be suitable for non-professional home monitoring purposes. These days, you have to go to a specialty audio or music/recording store to get that same quality of headphones for more than they used to cost. And the pro grade stuff? Holy shit, bend over and get ready. They used to print on the back of the packaging the driver size/composition as well as frequency response range, thats how I'd always pick which one I wanted. A lot of them no longer print the specifications on the package anymore. Instead, they plaster a bazillion pictures of cool looking people wearing the headphones upside down because they're so super fucking cool. A lot of them are made with nothing but puny little coils and a plastic diaphragm, which offers NO bass or accurate sound reproduction, especially once you turn up the volume a little. Some of the ones that DO use cones have holes too large on the outside of the ear covers which allows too much negative pressure to leak out, which might lead you to add too much bass into a mix if you are using them for monitoring.

[m0n0LiTh0]

http://www.amazon.com/Koss-160416-ESP-950-Electrostatic-Stereophone/dp/B000056ULH/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1255572382&sr=8-1

come gift wrapped for you.. or build your own project.

http://www.ele.tut.fi/~artoko/audio/speakers/esl.html


http://www.ele.tut.fi/~artoko/audio/speakers/headphones.html

This is a bit more informative.   

http://www.headwize.com/projects/showfile.php?file=radford1_prj.htm

[|iR|Focalor]

http://www.amazon.com/Koss-160416-ESP-950-Electrostatic-Stereophone/dp/B000056ULH/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1255572382&sr=8-1

come gift wrapped for you.. or build your own project.

http://www.ele.tut.fi/~artoko/audio/speakers/esl.html


http://www.ele.tut.fi/~artoko/audio/speakers/headphones.html

This is a bit more informative.   

http://www.headwize.com/projects/showfile.php?file=radford1_prj.htm

Hehe, COOL! Especially that last link. I may give that a try.

[haunted]

It's a slight investment and they're a little fragile, but these are by far the best pair of headphones I've ever bought for the money, and every used almost period, almost:

http://s3.gadgetreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/sony-mdr-nc6-noise-cancelling-headphones.jpg

70-80$ at wal-mart 3 years ago...

[peewee_RotA]