Am I wrong? It seems like there's one significant thing left that could improve audio playback for everyone

[beeface]

Apologies in advance if this post is meandering or unconcise, as if I need an editor, I'm going to try and write this quickly so I don't waste too much time!!!

I sometimes think about "what's next" for the advancement of audio playback and my mind keeps going back to one thing.

First, let me get this out of the way: I think that hardware is at a reasonable place. Yes, I know that transducers and electronics can and will continue to improve. Hopefully, good performance will be had for less money and more convenience in the future.

The thing that I keep thinking about is the source - as in the actual recordings. I know that this isn't a groundbreaking suggestion.
Most of us here know about the "loudness wars".
There's been a million (conservative estimate) circular arguments online that go "digital measures better", "but the vinyl masters are better", "the vinyl pressing masters have been the same as the digital masters for the last 30 or whatever years except with the bass taken out", etc.

Since the introduction of red book CD-DA we've seen plenty of new takes on digital audio:

• Hi-Res
• SACD
• DVD-Audio
• DSD
• DXD
• MQA
• Apple Spatial Audio
• Dolby Atmos
• etc

I'm sure some will disagree with me, but I've written off a lot of above for various reasons: not enough media supported, gimmicky, proprietary hardware or software required, the implementation of the media is questionable, etc.

All of this is to finally bring me to the point I'm trying to make:

I'm beginning to increasingly feel like this hobby is a futile exercise.
We could spend thousands of dollars on the newest and greatest gear.
But to play what? Our poorly mastered records?
Tidal and Apple espouse their new fancy formats that we never wanted or asked for. I get it - the formats can be used as a marketing tool for their streaming platforms, so there's actually a financial impetus there.
The labels don't want to pay money to remaster the compressed records that people are happily buying and streaming. Fair enough.
But why should I spend my money for increasingly incremental improvements when the record labels are the ones with the ability to make the biggest improvements to fidelity?

To those who actually enjoy "audiophile music" and audiophile recordings exclusively: I envy you.

Me? I'm forfeiting my audiophile membership card until there's media that incentivises me to join the club again. I'll stay on the forums tho, that's still fun.

I wrote this while listening to the following record on Spotify through my Bose QuietComfort 35. AAC Bluetooth. No EQ.

 

[alex-z]

The "Loudness Wars" have gradually lessened, that is not the sole reason for poor dynamic range.

For every artist recording in a commercial studio, there are 9 others doing their drums and vocals in a living room. There is also the talent consideration, a singer who moves just a little too far from the mic, or a drummer who hits a cymbal just a little too hard, or a guitarist who has the amp feedback too high.

If you leave the music "raw" those little flaws will creep through, irritating both the average person and people with high-end setups. If you judge pop music on dynamic range instead of catchy lyrics and beat, it rather defeats the purpose of pop music.

 

[Chrispy]

No matter the media I've always looked to the better recordings for more enjoyment without worrying about the gear involved. I still would like competent gear to take advantage of such, but I don't obsess about the smallest details much either.

 

[Prana Ferox]

Clicked thread title hoping the answer was "better music" and this wasn't exactly what I'm looking for but I'll take it. Now we just need an AI that can make freaky seven-fingered clones of Alan Parsons

 

[JaMaSt]

Bluetooth IEMs (currently) sound better with loud, highly compressed recordings. Billions of inexpensive Bluetooth IEMs have been sold to people who listen to music streamed on their smartphones. That's the reality of the market in which we live and the one which recording engineers are targeting.

 

[beeface]

Clicked thread title hoping the answer was "better music" and this wasn't exactly what I'm looking for but I'll take it. Now we just need an AI that can make freaky seven-fingered clones of Alan Parsons

You know what? You’re right.

Musicians: you’re on notice!

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

Bluetooth IEMs (currently) sound better with loud, highly compressed recordings. Billions of inexpensive Bluetooth IEMs have been sold to people who listen to music streamed on their smartphones. That's the reality of the market in which we live and the one which recording engineers are targeting.

Back in the 80s, a pretty huge portion of the music-listening public was enjoying their music on walkman cassette players and boom boxes. I know I was. Compared to modern IEMs with music sourced digitally from modern devices (yes, even via bluetooth) those cassette machines were a joke. Really...they simply were. Wow, flutter, loss of high frequencies...cassette tapes/players were shit. I get enormously better sound from a $20 pair of earbuds (yes, earbuds...not iems) and my Iphone now than I got from any of the walkmans I owned in the 80s. So if the problem with current recording is that it's being made to sound good on current bluetooth IEMs, then I'd hate to think of what was being done to recordings in the 80s...or 70s or 60s to make them sound good on that equipment.

 

[abdo123]

Tidal and Apple espouse their new fancy formats that we never wanted or asked for.

Looks like someone hasn't been paying attention? Dolby Atmos has like -18 LUFS loudness limit on the encoder. buy an Apple TV and an AVR if you're interested in these mixes.

 

[Norcal]

Looks like someone hasn't been paying attention? Dolby Atmos has like -18 LUFS loudness limit on the encoder. buy an Apple TV and an AVR if you're interested in these mixes.

View attachment 267057

Where do those DR numbers come from? Is that a Spotify thing? Presumably those can be used to easily show what recordings have the most/least compression?

 

[abdo123]

Where do those DR numbers come from? Is that a Spotify thing? Presumably those can be used to easily show what recordings have the most/least compression?

It’s an Apple music thing on Apple devices with supported hardware.

The DR numbers come from people ripping the music and then running it through the program.

 

[Sined]

We could spend thousands of dollars on the newest and greatest gear.
But to play what? Our poorly mastered records?

Agree so much!
Depending on what record I'm listening, my experience can be rated from "OH WOW" to "ISSHHH"... A clear demonstration of the "garbage in, garbage out" rule. No ultra high end system can fix that, except maybe if you buy high end cables! (joking of course..). As I use to say, now that the audio gear is almost to a perfect state, it is the recording and mastering techniques that are not up to the quality level of the audio equipment. So sad... "All dressed up, but nowhere to go".

I'm flabbergasted to observe how the quality of recording can be so different, even sometimes on the same album, not all the tracks are equal. I have been caught in the Dr. Tool "circle of confusion" for a while, trying to find my system's weakness until I concluded that, when fed with high quality recordings, my system is absolutely great and there is absolutely no need to upgrade anything: the problem is in the studio, not in my listening room. Unfortunately, high quality recordings are more than ever a very scarce ressource

 

[raindance]

Clicked thread title hoping the answer was "better music" and this wasn't exactly what I'm looking for but I'll take it. Now we just need an AI that can make freaky seven-fingered clones of Alan Parsons

Recent Alan Parsons offerings are ghastly sounding loudness war victims also...

 

[stalepie2]

Does remastering really improve old recordings? I thought a remaster meant "tweak the EQ a little here and there, bump up the overall volume, increase the price by 15%, include a bonus track for the customers who see through this scheme." Would rather just have the original.

 

[StaresyJ]

I am a big fan of Noel Gallagher - but I cannot listen to his albums on my (relatively speaking) high end separates. They are flat, soulless, and no amount of EQ will make them sound enjoyable. This type of production is aimed at and best suited to bluetooth/wifi speakers the like of which most "music" fans have purchased over the years. I save my separates system for albums with high production values - that way, I get the best of both worlds.

 

[DVDdoug]

Does remastering really improve old recordings?

It can... Especially with recordings from the 1950s or earlier. They wouldn't do it if they didn't think they were making an improvement.

I'd say most CDs from 1960s sound remarkably good... Much better than the "original" vinyl, even with early CDs before remastering" became "a thing", or at least before anybody was talking about remastering.

If they are just adding more compression & limiting to make it "louder", I guess some people (or most people?) consider that an improvement. (Or again, they wouldn't do it.) But I'm pretty sure that's not the ONLY thing they are doing... That's just the one thing that's messing-up the sound (for people like me that enjoy dynamics).

Noise reduction probably "never hurts" with analog originals. Vinyl mastering usually involves cutting the deep bass (and sometimes the highs) and that can be "restored" by making a new master from the original tapes and possibly to some extent with EQ if the original isn't available.

 

[ZolaIII]

Looks like someone hasn't been paying attention? Dolby Atmos has like -18 LUFS loudness limit on the encoder. buy an Apple TV and an AVR if you're interested in these mixes.

View attachment 267057

It's just integrated abomination of ReplayGain v 2.0 that all the streaming services are adopting quickly.
I said abomination as it's based on cut down EBU R128/ITU BS.1770 standard to - 18 LUFS (from - 23 LUFS).

 

[Sal1950]

But to play what? Our poorly mastered records?
Tidal and Apple espouse their new fancy formats that we never wanted or asked for. I get it - the formats can be used as a marketing tool for their streaming platforms, so there's actually a financial impetus there.

You couldn't be more wrong.
The explosion of Atmos music on various formats is an answer to the prayers of multich enthusiasts that goes back
50 years to the first quad wave. Your right in saying the labels are happy with yet another way to package existing recordings, but completely wrong in saying no body wanted it. Audiophiles are finally learning that multich is miles
ahead of anything 2ch can offer in music reproduction and well worth the investment.

I wrote this while listening to the following record on Spotify through my Bose QuietComfort 35. AAC Bluetooth. No EQ.

Why would you listen to such garbage? I can only say you can't blame anyone but the artists for these types
of recordings, that's the way they want them to sound. Not the results of any loudness war or anything else.

Recent Alan Parsons offerings are ghastly sounding loudness war victims also...

Such as?

 

[sarumbear]

I'm forfeiting my audiophile membership card until there's media that incentivises me to join the club again. I'll stay on the forums tho, that's still fun.

I think you need a dictionary.

 

[symphara]

Apologies in advance if this post is meandering or unconcise, as if I need an editor, I'm going to try and write this quickly so I don't waste too much time!!!

I sometimes think about "what's next" for the advancement of audio playback and my mind keeps going back to one thing.

First, let me get this out of the way: I think that hardware is at a reasonable place. Yes, I know that transducers and electronics can and will continue to improve. Hopefully, good performance will be had for less money and more convenience in the future.

The thing that I keep thinking about is the source - as in the actual recordings. I know that this isn't a groundbreaking suggestion.
Most of us here know about the "loudness wars".
There's been a million (conservative estimate) circular arguments online that go "digital measures better", "but the vinyl masters are better", "the vinyl pressing masters have been the same as the digital masters for the last 30 or whatever years except with the bass taken out", etc.

Since the introduction of red book CD-DA we've seen plenty of new takes on digital audio:

• Hi-Res
• SACD
• DVD-Audio
• DSD
• DXD
• MQA
• Apple Spatial Audio
• Dolby Atmos
• etc

I'm sure some will disagree with me, but I've written off a lot of above for various reasons: not enough media supported, gimmicky, proprietary hardware or software required, the implementation of the media is questionable, etc.

All of this is to finally bring me to the point I'm trying to make:

I'm beginning to increasingly feel like this hobby is a futile exercise.
We could spend thousands of dollars on the newest and greatest gear.
But to play what? Our poorly mastered records?
Tidal and Apple espouse their new fancy formats that we never wanted or asked for. I get it - the formats can be used as a marketing tool for their streaming platforms, so there's actually a financial impetus there.
The labels don't want to pay money to remaster the compressed records that people are happily buying and streaming. Fair enough.
But why should I spend my money for increasingly incremental improvements when the record labels are the ones with the ability to make the biggest improvements to fidelity?

To those who actually enjoy "audiophile music" and audiophile recordings exclusively: I envy you.

Me? I'm forfeiting my audiophile membership card until there's media that incentivises me to join the club again. I'll stay on the forums tho, that's still fun.

I wrote this while listening to the following record on Spotify through my Bose QuietComfort 35. AAC Bluetooth. No EQ.

View attachment 266987

Not sure what you mean by "enjoying "audiophile music" and audiophile recordings exclusively", you need to define your terms. If "Vroom Vroom" is your cup of tea, I'm at a loss. I mostly go with jazz.

 

[raindance]

Such as?

The Secret.