What's the state of the art in terms of recorded music these days

[Beedster]

Excuse my ignorance here folks. In the 70s/early 80's, I was really into listening to music for hours and very much into my hi-fi. I used to own a huge LP collection, and I played this on an Acoustic Research turntable and through very high quality amps and speakers etc. In the mid 80's I bought a stupidly expensive CD player, and although it originally went through good gear, I've noticed that since the switch to CD, over the years the quality of my speakers, amp etc has declined (almost as if the quality of the recording medium didn't warrant decent gear). Recently, I opened an iTunes account and now I've found myself listening to mp3s from a memory stick though a £100 Hitachi system! I have however got a bloody nice pair of hi-fi speakers and amp that I've been using in the studio but which I'd like to use at home. So, am I going to notice a drop in quality from CD to mp3 in the same way I think I notice one from LP to CD? If so, does the quality of modern CDs warrant investing in a decent CD player (and if so, how much should I spend)? Alternatively, are there any online sources where you can buy better quality music files than iTunes?

Chris

[bartelby]

If you were into your hi-fi and want to listen to music in the best quality possible, forget mp3s. Just stick to CD.

iTunes stuff is 256kbps and even on a dodgy old jvc mini system I can easily hear compression artefacts.

Edited August 15, 2011 by bartelby

[BigRedX]

Personally I think the dedicated CD player is on the way out. The problem is that it is essentially an opto-mechanical device for retrieving digital information and the two don't really go well together. Also it pretty much locks you into the 16bit 44.1kHz digital format. My advice would be to get a computer for running iTunes or some other music cataloguing application on and rip your existing CDs as uncompressed AIFFs or WAVs (depending on the platform). You'll also be able to take advantage of better quality digital formats as they become more widespread.

Spend your money on the best sounding D-A convertor you can afford and connect this to your favourite amp and speakers.

[cytania]

Yes, you'll certainly notice the drop from CD to MP3. AIFFs and WAVS are another matter but you'll need a huge hard disk to get any decent CD collection ripped in it's entirety. Also hard disks have a habit of dying so you'll need a back up device (or taking the CDs out of storage and re-ripping them becomes a chore every 6 or 7 years).

The good news is a cheap CD player today is on a par with the high end a decade or so back. The bad news is there are fewer and fewer in the mid to budget marketplace.

Download services often have some very poor versions of songs available. Some are clearly from 'hits collection' masters. Whilst some 'digital version's are HARSH eg. Snow Patrol 'Eyes Open' on iTunes. You'll also find that ripping from your own CD to MP3 gives some odd results, some mixes just seem to get screwed by the codec. Raw, gritty 60s tracks can become mushy mud. But there's no predictable pattern.

I say we aren't there yet. Give it some years and maybe they'll come up with a format intended for music not ripped of a 90's movie encoding codec.

Edited August 15, 2011 by cytania

[wateroftyne]

I think Neil Young nailed it years ago. His general view was:

We used to [i]listen[/i] to music... get involved in it, in the dynamic, warmth and amazing detail analogue provided.

Now, we're generally reduced to listening to a flat facsimile of the original performance.

It's depressing, but I think I agree with him.

Edited August 15, 2011 by wateroftyne

[BigRedX]

Storage for full-fat digital audio files is hardly a problem these days. You can get a pair (one for you audio files and the other as a backup) of 2TB drives for just over £100 including VAT and delivery.

[simwells]

I would agree with using a pc rather than CD player for music now and running lossless from it, invest the money in a good DAC rather than CD player.

[EdwardHimself]

I am another one who would say hook up the thing to your computer. A decent sound card will make it sound great. You ought to buy a professional audio soundcard since they are superior in terms of sound quality to consumer sound cards like creative.

[Beedster]

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='1341212' date='Aug 15 2011, 09:37 PM']I think Neil Young nailed it years ago. His general view was:

We used to [i]listen[/i] to music... get involved in it, in the dynamic, warmth and amazing detail analogue provided.

Now, we're generally reduced to listening to a flat facsimile of the original performance.

It's depressing, but I think I agree with him.[/quote]

That's pretty much why I started this thread. We were listening to some great music on mp3 last night (through decent gear) and it sounded dull and lifeless, yet I seem to remember the same album having incredible dynamics back in the day, even on CD.

[quote name='cytania' post='1341203' date='Aug 15 2011, 09:29 PM']Download services often have some very poor versions of songs available. Some are clearly from 'hits collection' masters. Whilst some 'digital version's are HARSH eg. Snow Patrol 'Eyes Open' on iTunes. You'll also find that ripping from your own CD to MP3 gives some odd results, some mixes just seem to get screwed by the codec. Raw, gritty 60s tracks can become mushy mud. But there's no predictable pattern.[/quote]

I've only been on iTunes for two weeks but I'm starting to come to the same conclusion

[quote name='BigRedX' post='1341106' date='Aug 15 2011, 08:27 PM']Personally I think the dedicated CD player is on the way out.... My advice would be to get a computer for running iTunes or some other music cataloguing application on and rip your existing CDs as uncompressed AIFFs or WAVs (depending on the platform). You'll also be able to take advantage of better quality digital formats as they become more widespread.

Spend your money on the best sounding D-A convertor you can afford and connect this to your favourite amp and speakers.[/quote]

[quote name='simwells' post='1341229' date='Aug 15 2011, 09:55 PM']I would agree with using a pc rather than CD player for music now and running lossless from it, invest the money in a good DAC rather than CD player.[/quote]

I'm really keen to look into this idea (computer plus good DAC), but is the DAC not dependent on the source format (that is, will it make a file from iTunes sound better than it does at present)? The reason I got an iTunes account was that I had to learn a track at short notice and simply couldn't find one online retailer who stocked it on CD anymore. Until then I'd been single-handedly keeping my local HMV's CD section in business for the last few years. They told me today that its stock is going to be even further restricted from now on, so I'm guessing that, one way or another, the CD format is on it's way out and it makes sense to try and get the best out of the early stages of the new rather than try to flog a dead horse?

So, given I have a huge CD collection, I could either buy a quality CD player and stick to listening to music available on CD, or find the best format for copying existing CDs and running them alongside downloaded music (using a good DAC) from my computer or memory stick?

[simwells]

The DAC is dependent upon the source format yes, but will make improvements though it will tend to make compression artifacts more obvious same as using higher end kit in general.

Yes you could indeed do it that way and it minimises wear on the actual discs as well as technically a lossless file is superior to CD purely due to inaccuracies inevitable in the reading process with a moving disc though I'm pretty sure no one could say they could hear that difference. Personally format wise my choice would be FLAC and that's what I use myself.

[BigRedX]

The best format for copying CDs onto your computer is no compression which means either AIFF for Macs or WAV for Windows boxes. At 16 bit 44.1kHz it's essentially a bit-for-bit copy of the audio on the CD plus slightly more error correction. Unless you have a lot of music that isn't pop/rock and therefore has a wide dynamic audio range don't bother with any of the lossless codecs (Apple Lossless or FLAC) as the hard disk space savings will be minimal when weighed against the increased processing required to encode and decode and the added potential for digital errors to creep in.

[flyfisher]

[quote name='Beedster' post='1341247' date='Aug 15 2011, 10:11 PM']So, given I have a huge CD collection, I could either buy a quality CD player and stick to listening to music available on CD, or find the best format for copying existing CDs and running them alongside downloaded music (using a good DAC) from my computer or memory stick?[/quote]

Unfortunately, the music-buying masses seemed to have voted for convenience of playback and storage over sound quality and for this reason I'm not holding my breath for anything better than the CD format. The SACD format has existed for years but never really caught on commercially, which says quite a lot really.

I refuse to buy any music online; it's inferior to CD and DRM interferes with my listening choices. I've continued buying all my music in CD format since I bought my 1st generation iPod, but I no longer use a CD player. Instead, I rip the CD to a high-bitrate MP3 (320kbps VBR), although I'm considering just ripping the raw data into a wav file, which is functionally equivalent to the CD itself.

As pointed out earlier, £100 buys a couple of 2TB hard drives so storage is no longer a limiting factor, though I guess it depends on the definition of 'huge music collection'. But, according to my rough calculations, a 2TB hard drive could store almost 3000 uncompressed CDs (assuming 700MB each), which is about two years of music based on one hour per CD and 6 hours listening per day.

With a conservative 10-fold compression ratio, the same hard drive could provide 6 hours of music each day for about 20 years without repeating a single song! How many of us would need any more than this?

We really are nearing the stage where we will be able to store more music on our PCs than we could actually listen to in our entire lifetime!

[obi 2 kenobi]

Here you go :

1. Buy a NAS hard drive. About £100 from Amazon. Should have RAID to avoid risk of harddrive meltdown.
2. Download EAC. Its free and is the best CD ripper out there.
3. Burn your CDs uncompressed. Hard disk space will not be a problem. Roughly 300 CDs = 200GB.
4. Buy a digital streamer, e.g Linn Sneaky
5. Connect NAS / streamer to broadband. Control with iphone, ipad or android phone.

[cytania]

Just remembered another reason for digital harshness Beedster. Watchout for iTunes' 'Sound Enhancer', hidden away under Preferences/Playback on a Mac. Initially it sounds great but after a while it just grates. AFAIK it's a software compressor, no on the file format but on the sound output, just the same as a compression pedal.

My suspicion is that alot of soundcards and playback softwares are introducing their idea of a 'sound sweetener'. Which is a long way from the 'give me the source straight' hifi philosophy.

Oh and a real sound killer is located at the back of your computer. The heat fan. CD will always sound better just because it's mechanism is quieter.

[odub]

I just got a Sonos. Connected to my NAS, last.fm and spotify. The sound can't isn't the same as hifi obviously, but its bloody convenient and\or sweet. My records and CDs are stored up in t'loft now.

Now I want one in each room.

[spongebob]

If you use MP3, use a high quality dock.

The B&W Zeppelin is superb. Had mine nearly a year, and well worth the extra £££.

I use nothing except MP3, having sold all vinyl and CD before it becomes landfill. Depressing, but I think that's where we're headed. If not, I'd have stuck with the physical stuff.

Only thing I miss is the cover art and sleevenotes, but that's a small price for the extra space.

Quality may suffer in places, but as the ears deteriorate, it'll be hard to tell the difference anyway!

[Chris2112]

[quote name='Beedster' post='1341247' date='Aug 15 2011, 10:11 PM']That's pretty much why I started this thread. We were listening to some great music on mp3 last night (through decent gear) and it sounded dull and lifeless, yet I seem to remember the same album having incredible dynamics back in the day, even on CD.[/quote]

And don't forget that a lot of music production these days is geared towards being listened to through tiny headphones, or a mobile phone speaker etc etc. So not only is the general quality of available music declining, production values are too in order to chase loudness and noticeability. This nothing new either, even the mighty RUSH were a victim of it with Vapor Trails!

If I listen to [i]Graceland[/i] by Paul Simon or [i]The Crossing[/i] by Big Country on my CD player and then put a more modern record in I'll be forced to turn it down. This records didn't have such a hot output and were dynamically much better for it.

[cytania]

I have no plans to go 'non-physical'. It strikes me that the reasons for going 'all MP3' are flawed. Ok so a house fire could take my CD collection. But wouldn't the iPod or Sonos also burn? Indeed one small electrical disaster could wipe out everything.

I was on an IT course earlier this year, most of the guys there had gone to hard drive for movies and music. When I asked most of them admitted to losing all their stuff previously due to a hard drive failure. How many now had cast iron backup? Surprisingly few.

My theory is that deep down people have grown to relish losing everything. It gives them a chance to redefine their musical tastes by the process of repurchasing. Gives them a killer collection when I still have a seven inch of the Goombay Dance Band somewhere.

At this point the hippy skinflint in me rebels. "Hey dude's why you giving all your bread to The Man? Oh and it don't sound as good neither." Don't follow the crowd, you can get the CD off Amazon cheaper than the total album download cost.

Edited August 17, 2011 by cytania

[JohnR]

Linn stopped making CD players a while back and moved to digital streaming devices. Naim is also undergoing a similar transition.

I have a Linn Makik DS-I [url="http://www.linn.co.uk/digital_stream_players"]http://www.linn.co.uk/digital_stream_players[/url] which is superb.

I have ripped all of my CDs to lossless format and the convenience of having instant access to all you music cannot be understated. I can stream to the Linn or to any other computer or DLNA device in my home.

All of my music in every room at any time = bliss.

[51m0n]

FLAC is excellent

If you want to hear how good digital can sound then download a few albums in very high quality FLAC from [url="https://www.hdtracks.com/"]hdtracks[/url]

I can notice the difference from cd quality on a pair of medium quality cans

Going fully over to a media server is a perfectly good solution, and backing up large amounts of data to a seperate physical location/disk is possible (its a PIA but at least you can do it, and really quiet easily) - how many of your CDs are backed up?

[51m0n]

As for the difference in sound between the 70's 80's and now, a huge amount of the issue is the way things are mixed and mastered now. Everything is a competition for loudness and punch, even in folk music!

Its a breath of fresh air (sorry, no, its less common than rocking horse poo) when you get an artist whoi wants a mix that is all about the song and emotional content and not just being as loud as the next CD.

Blame the marketing hype, the artist, the mix engineer, the mastering engineer, radio station, but ultimately blame the stupid consumer for buying stuff more when its louder. Oh hold on, its just a fact, the human ear perceives louder as better in the short term every time. Thats a sorry but completely true fact about psychoacoustics for you. And that is ultimately what drove the horrendous loudness wars that we are still coping with now.

It is a damn shame though!

[51m0n]

Oh and another point, the commonest listening environment these days is, at least from the perspective of the industry, the car.

And in the car you have about 12dB of headroom above the noise. So if your track drops below that it cant be heard.

So you have to compress the nuts off of it to make it work in that environment.

If everyone would just go back to experiencing music at home then we could start mixing with that as the most important environment a bit more.....

I have a lot of hope for the ear bud, it has a vastly higher signal to background noise ratio than a car, and better frequency response than anything before it in terms of lightweight headgear, and should mean we can start to mix for a better environment than the automobile more often.

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='51m0n' post='1342786' date='Aug 17 2011, 09:48 AM']As for the difference in sound between the 70's 80's and now, a huge amount of the issue is the way things are mixed and mastered now. Everything is a competition for loudness and punch, even in folk music!

Its a breath of fresh air (sorry, no, its less common than rocking horse poo) when you get an artist whoi wants a mix that is all about the song and emotional content and not just being as loud as the next CD.

Blame the marketing hype, the artist, the mix engineer, the mastering engineer, radio station, but ultimately blame the stupid consumer for buying stuff more when its louder. Oh hold on, its just a fact, the human ear perceives louder as better in the short term every time. Thats a sorry but completely true fact about psychoacoustics for you. And that is ultimately what drove the horrendous loudness wars that we are still coping with now.

It is a damn shame though![/quote]
+1.

A Ry Cooder track ripped from a mid-80s CD popped up on my iPod t'other day. I was wearing headphones, and it was a bit quiet so I turned it up. When the drums kicked in on the intro - PUNCH! PUNCH! PUNCH! - I nearly fell off my chair. Bloody marvellous!

[endorka]

I like the FLAC format, but my Windows Media Player doesn't pick it up for indexing its library, which is annoying.

Not sure if ITunes does, but I'm not too keen on that software.

Any other decent media players with library functionality that will pick up FLAC files?

Jennifer

[51m0n]

[quote name='endorka' post='1342856' date='Aug 17 2011, 10:45 AM']I like the FLAC format, but my Windows Media Player doesn't pick it up for indexing its library, which is annoying.

Not sure if ITunes does, but I'm not too keen on that software.

Any other decent media players with library functionality that will pick up FLAC files?

Jennifer[/quote]

Foobar2000

free, extremely poerful and built from the ground up with audio quality being the driving concern.