Can anyone comment on the harsh highs on this XTC recording from 1988?

[Soniclife]

Yes. For example, SoX can apply deemphasis.

Is it a simple filter that can be done in lots of DSP tools, or is it more complex, e.g. turns of and on with level?

 

[Chr1]

I wonder if this warrants it's own thread...

Seems this de-emphasis, or lack thereof, on CD rips might be a massive problem that lots of people are unaware of.

I would be most grateful if someone else could do this, as I don't have time today unfortunately.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Is it possible to use DSP to do deemphasis?

Yes. It's constant and not dynamic with level.

BUT, the big challenge - how do you know you need it?. If you played a 1986 CD with preemphasis in a 1987 CD player, it would read the metadata and automatically apply deemphasis. If on the other hand you have a ripped file from a CD, you won't know whether the original CD needed deemphasis, and if it did, whether the ripping software applied deemphasis or not. How it sounds is not an guaranteed indication of missing deemphasis.

 

[Chr1]

Started a new thread here...

"De-Emphesis", and/or lack thereof. Affect on sound of CD rips...

In another thread I was made aware of something that I had never heard of. "De-Emphesis". And how it relates to, and is important, in the retaining of accuracy/sound quality, when playing a rip from a CD. I would appreciate any input as to how to verify and ensure playback of CD rips is...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[kchap]

Is it a simple filter that can be done in lots of DSP tools, or is it more complex, e.g. turns of and on with level?

I'm not sure about using sox mp3, but for flac and wav files the command is

sox sourcefile.wav destinationfile.wav deemph

or

sox sourcefile.flac destinationfile.flac deemph

 

[Hayabusa]

Thank you-- it is shocking that I could have been in this hobby for forty years and still never have heard of this. So this means that the rips that the streaming services are using are from this first pressing? That's quite an oversight. It also makes me ever more skeptical of the claim that CDs sound better than anything else. The actual truth seems to be most CDs under most conditions.

if they rip cd's with pre-empahsis and do not correct for that while streaming they make a big blunder..