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sgt. pepper

D

David Harper

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when listening to "A Day in the Life" on CD I'm confused and underwhelmed by the crescendo at the end. The reason why is I remember what it sounded like almost 50 years ago on vinyl. It was awesome in it's power and grandeur. Now, on CD, it doesn't sound at all the same. Like the dynamics have been sucked out of it.
And the slowly rising Tuba (if that's what it is) at the very end is nothing like the way I remember it. I have to actually listen for it on the CD. On the LP 50 years ago it overwhelmed the listener in its power. Is this inferior mastering? Maybe the dynamic range is limited on the CD? Can it be that the original analog was superior in capturing the the sound? Has anyone else noticed this?
 
David Harper said:
when listening to "A Day in the Life" on CD I'm confused and underwhelmed by the crescendo at the end. The reason why is I remember what it sounded like almost 50 years ago on vinyl. It was awesome in it's power and grandeur. Now, on CD, it doesn't sound at all the same. Like the dynamics have been sucked out of it.
And the slowly rising Tuba (if that's what it is) at the very end is nothing like the way I remember it. I have to actually listen for it on the CD. On the LP 50 years ago it overwhelmed the listener in its power. Is this inferior mastering? Maybe the dynamic range is limited on the CD? Can it be that the original analog was superior in capturing the the sound? Has anyone else noticed this?
Click to expand...
When did you last listen to it on vinyl?
 
David Harper said:
About 50 years ago
Click to expand...
LOL. Auditory memory is notoriously fickle even after a few seconds. What you 'remember' from 50 years ago is almost certainly as much a fiction constructed by your brain as its an actual 'memory' ...

Sgt. Pepper sounds to me like it always has – except the new(ish) 'stereo' remixes are now more or less bearable to actally listen to.
 
Yea that could be it. Also I've got a feeling my CD version is crap. I'm going to try to find another CD with better mastering. I've read some reviews online that say some CD remasters are much better than others in the case of this particular album.
 
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http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/dr?artist=beatles&album=sgt

Actually your ears and memories may not be fooling you. According to this list the original vinyl from 1967 had a dynamic ranges of 12 db and A Day in the Life has a 13 db range while the latest remastering had a dynamic range as low as low 8 db and A Day In the Life has a 7 db range.
 
David Harper said:
Maybe the dynamic range is limited on the CD?
Click to expand...

The dynamic range of CD is much bigger than vinyl can.
Chances are:
A: You remember it incorrectly.
B: The playback system 50 years ago wasn't as accurate as the current ones and may have had more lows and subdued highs.
C: large dynamic range on LP isn't really possible so they mastered for LP and actually compressed softer sounds (make them louder) for better S/N ratio. The effect is that when the CD was an accurate transcript the softer signals are soft again and were louder (more audible) on vinyl.
D: different master (remastered)
 
Last edited:
Putter said:
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/dr?artist=beatles&album=sgt

Actually your ears and memories may not be fooling you. According to this list the original vinyl from 1967 had a dynamic ranges of 12 db and A Day in the Life has a 13 db range while the latest remastering had a dynamic range as low as low 8 db and A Day In the Life has a 7 db range.
Click to expand...
that makes sense to me. Even taking into account the aforementioned unreliability of auditory memory this Cd version sounds unbelievably lousy. I know digital is,in theory, potentially superior to analog vinyl but that doesn't mean that idiots aren't mastering the CD's.
 
Last edited:
Putter said:
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/dr?artist=beatles&album=sgt

Actually your ears and memories may not be fooling you. According to this list the original vinyl from 1967 had a dynamic ranges of 12 db and A Day in the Life has a 13 db range while the latest remastering had a dynamic range as low as low 8 db and A Day In the Life has a 7 db range.
Click to expand...

DR rating from vinyl gives incorrect (usually higher) numbers even when the exact same master is used.
 
According to the dynamic range database the original 1967 vinyl had DR of between 10 and 11 which is better than average if I'm reading it right.
Went back and looked again. It's not the original 1967 vinyl. It's a 1977 remaster from a digital file.
 
Regardless, DR from vinyl is not comparable with DR from digital recording.
 
Hang on a second - three issues are being confused and mixed up together here.

First, @solderdude and others are 100% correct that the DR Meter readings of digitized vinyl and CD cannot be compared apples to apples. If you take the identical digital source and press it on both CD and vinyl, 99.9% of the time the vinyl version will register 1 to 4dB higher on the DR meter. For the moment I won't go in to all the reasons why, but am happy to do so if there is interest or a need.

Second, @bluefuzz and others are correct that human auditory memory is poor - we can't reliably remember fine details even a few moments later, and after longer periods - to say nothing of 50 years - even basic characteristics can't necessarily be remembered reliably.

However, there is a third point. If @David Harper has by chance purchased the most recent, 50th Anniversary version of the album on CD, then it is definitely remastered and dynamically compressed as @Putter notes - and in fact, depending on precisely which version he bought, he might even be listening to the new remixed version created by Giles Martin, which has been absolutely, positively confirmed to be a more compressed mix and mastering than pretty much every previous mastering made from the original mix. In particular, that crescendo in "Day in the Life" is the main moment that has been singled out, ever since the 50th anniversary reissue came out, as the most obvious example of the impact of dynamic compression and/or peak limiting in the new version.

So in this particular case the OP's memory of the difference in dynamics is no doubt accurate, even though it's not because of the vinyl-CD difference, and even though a 50 year-old auditory memory is indeed generally not reliable.
 
A couple other possibilities to consider:
- What SPL are you listening at now v. 50 years ago - maybe you liked it/played it louder then?
- Was it newer and more exciting then?
- Was there more distortion in the chain then, making the sound thicker (if less accurate)?
- How well do your ears work now?
- When were you taking more drugs?
 
bluefuzz said:
LOL. Auditory memory is notoriously fickle even after a few seconds. What you 'remember' from 50 years ago is almost certainly as much a fiction constructed by your brain as its an actual 'memory' ...
Click to expand...

And it might not be an unreliable auditory memory fiction per se.

I think it's easy to forget that confirmation bias is not the only psychological influence that can affect perception. So can an emotional response. What the other poster described is an aesthetic experience. Our reactions to the arts can be more or less powerful at different times in our life. And certainly, when one is young, there is a newness to so many things that can make them more impactful.

So he might be remembering correctly that he very much did perceive it that way. He is just not attributing it to the right causes as to why he is perceiving it differently now.
 
I have this kind of thing happen to me all the time; my memory of how a recording 'sounded' decades ago is far better than how it sounds to me playing this exact same recording now - and its not a 'wear' thing. In fact, I sometimes cringe when playing some of these exact same recordings now and wonder if I was out of my mind back in the day or just very non-discriminating because many of them sound genuinely awful! o_O
 
To repeat myself. It's actually that the original mono master released on record and for radio was better than the stereo mix produced at the time. Because the stereo mix was produced as an afterthought. And the exact passage that they OP remembers is exactly different as he describes. This is discussed with Giles Martin along with audio clips of that passage to illustrate the difference.

https://www.npr.org/sections/allson...es-martin-the-man-behind-the-project-explains
 
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