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They have murdered "Tears for Fears" ... digitally!

Is this an outrage?


  • Total voters
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MRC01

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The inherent limitations of LP's prevent the very worst compression from being used.... if too loud/ compressed the stylus won't stay in the groove. It is also not completely accurate to compare the DR of and LP and digital recording... LP's will tend to score higher DR than they really are.
Yep. In other words, if it were possible to cut this abomination of mastering to LP, they would. They didn't hold back out of respect for the music, or of themselves, but only due to the physical limitations of the LP medium.
 

dadregga

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It's unfortunate this digital mastering is bad, and it's fortunate that not all (or even most) digital masterings are bad.
 
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TheBatsEar

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I wasn't able to get this to work for me, but using JRiver Media Center, it reports the DR level is 13 for the above track:

View attachment 191302

I used t14_meter:

Code:
> Scan Dir: /snapraid/d05/music_todo/Tears For Fears - The Tipping Point (2022) [24 Bit Hi-Res] FLAC [PMEDIA] ⭐️

04. Break The Man.flac:          DR 5
02. The Tipping Point.flac:      DR 5
03. Long, Long, Long Time.flac:          DR 5
01. No Small Thing.flac:         DR 5
07. Please Be Happy.flac:        DR 6
05. My Demons.flac:      DR 5
08. Master Plan.flac:    DR 6
06. Rivers Of Mercy.flac:        DR 5
09. End Of Night.flac:   DR 4
10. Stay.flac:   DR 6
DR = 5

Hunting for a BluRay rip now ...
 
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TheBatsEar

TheBatsEar

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"Sensecionalistic"?
I believe he meant to write sensationalism.

here is ED1 and ED3 in Audacity both braught to -14Lufs. dynamics don't seam to differ, it basicly just limiting, not compressing
I do see cut peaks. Call it limited, call it compressed, call it clipping. I call it murder.
 

Sal1950

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Word has it the Steven Wilson mastered bluray will have a DR in the two digit range,
Time will tell but knowing Steven I'm confident it will be great
 

Sal1950

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Hunting for a BluRay rip now ...
Far as I know it hasn't shipped yet.
There are a few Atmos tracks streaming on Apple but I have no idea how to measure the DR from a stream.
It does sound great.
 
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TheBatsEar

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Word has it the Steven Wilson mastered bluray will have a DR in the two digit range,
Time will tell but knowing Steven I'm confident it will be great
@mongobot said JRiver Media Center reported DR13 for the first BluRay track.

2000 BluRays pressed, all sold out, all bought by scalpers as evidenced in the still shrink wrapped BluRay on Ebay for 100€ to 300€.

For me it's piracy or nothing.:oops:
 
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TheBatsEar

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There are a few Atmos tracks streaming on Apple but I have no idea how to measure the DR from a stream.
You probably could record on the analog side and feed that to the t14_meter python script. It's a bit of a hacking adventure i guess.
 

Sal1950

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2000 BluRays pressed, all sold out, all bought by scalpers as evidenced in the still shrink wrapped BluRay on Ebay for 100€ to 300€.

I don't understand that but ???
Maybe the plan is to release downloads after the BD disc comes out?
In any case we all know a week after the release there'll be 2 million rips in the wild.
 
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TheBatsEar

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I don't understand that but ???
Maybe the plan is to release downloads after the BD disc comes out.
In any case we all know a week after the release there'll be 2 million rips in the wild.
The release has happened. It's sold out. Not sure what else i can tell you ... except that i feel betrayed by the world and wish to be alone.
1641580808589.jpg
 

charleski

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Name and shame.
The mastering engineers credited for this on Wikipedia are Ted Jensen for the first 10 and Justin Shturtz for the bonus tracks (which apparently sound much better). Ted Jensen has had a long and fairly illustrious career, including mastering Hotel California and Norah Jones' Come Away With Me, an audiophile favourite. So what happened, he's 67, is this an example of extreme age-related hearing dysfunction?
 

Sal1950

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Sal1950

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So what happened, he's 67, is this an example of extreme age-related hearing dysfunction?
Record company pressure.
I think they may feel the heat over this one.
TFT has a big audiophile following and folks are not happy.
 

charleski

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Record company pressure.
I'm sure there was some, but I don't buy that as an excuse. For a professional, when you put your name on something, you own it. Ted Jensen screwed up, and it's safe to say he knew perfectly well that he was screwing up.
"Just following orders" isn't a protection.
 

Liya

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Check this out:

ALL the existing digital formats are screwed! The compression, the clipping!

Quoting my buddy Danny:
"The sound engineers should be shot.
Out of a cannon.
Into the sun."

LP (DR10):
View attachment 191229

HiRez (DR5):
View attachment 191230
Good website. Thank you.
 

Robin L

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I find that unconvincing and vague.
Right, sum bass to mono, try not to cut too close to the last inch of deadwax, pray that the pressing is not off-center, know that the upper dynamic limitation is determined by limitations of the cutting head, thus preventing some dynamics from being audible, distortion inevitably increases as the stylus approaches the deadwax, there's always the potential of a warped record, surface noise, but yeah, other than that, digital sucks.
 

Sal1950

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I'm sure there was some, but I don't buy that as an excuse. For a professional, when you put your name on something, you own it. Ted Jensen screwed up, and it's safe to say he knew perfectly well that he was screwing up.
"Just following orders" isn't a protection.
Naw, that's just the way it is.
I believe it was Mark Waldrep that told the story of doing a master for X company and they sent it back to him 3 times with the instruction to "make it louder".
You either do it or you don't work.
The only way around it is to have your own label.
 

Robin L

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Naw, that's just the way it is.
I believe it was Mark Waldrep that told the story of doing a master for X company and they sent it back to him 3 times with the instruction to "make it louder".
You either do it or you don't work.
The only way around it is to have your own label.
And even then some client is guaranteed to say: make it louder.
 
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