The Loudness Wars has invaded the streaming services.

[dasdoing]

1988 CD Release:
View attachment 105439

Qobuz 96khz 24bit:
View attachment 105440

you need to bring both to the same LUFS level and plot the same vertical range to compare.
also have a listen at both at the same LUFS level to compare. Did the audible dynamic realy change?

 

[Willem]

But let's be clear: none of this has anything to do with streaming as such. Buy a current CD and you have the same problem. What you could do is put pressure on streaming companies to demand original high dynamic range masters from the labels.

 

[levimax]

The problem is that the vast majority of people listening to music in the environments they usually listen (earbuds outside, in the car, etc.) will actually prefer highly compressed music. The loudness wars are "lost" for those wanting to listen to popular high quality and dynamic recorded music. This was made very clear to me the other day when I was listening to a variety of my favorite music from the 1950's through the 1990's (from my collection of ripped older original CD's) and then put on Paul McCartney's new album. If was a jarring shock how loud is was (DR 7) .... after turning down the volume it sounded "OK" (clear, quiet, no distortion) but the lack of dynamics made it much less interesting to listen to than even recordings from the 1950's even though the music it's self was good. If Paul McCartney, who at this point in his career can have his music mastered any way he wants, choses to release a dynamically crushed DR7 album you know the loudness wars are over.... at least for pop / mainstream recorded music.

 

[Willem]

It is a pity there never seems to have been a movement to have an industry standard compression option for car radio etc., where compression does indeed serve a purpose.

 

[mhardy6647]

Except that physical media degrades, either spontaneously over time or due to typical use.

It’s a losing battle honestly.

danged thermodynamics.

All of the media here are doin' fine, so far -- although I'll grant you that none is more than about 70 years old.

The problem is that the vast majority of people listening to music in the environments they usually listen (earbuds outside, in the car, etc.) will actually prefer highly compressed music.

That dates way, way back -- which is why so much of the pop music of our yoots sounds the way it does -- and why studios had Horrortones in them for decades (heck, maybe many still do, for all I know).

 

[dasdoing]

why studios had Horrortones in them for decades (heck, maybe many still do, for all I know).

the porpouse of those things was to focus on the mid-range while mixing while avoiding phase distorsion of a crossover. If Jones/Swedien used them, it must have worked for them.
they are still popular, they even made a new edition and Behringer did one, too

 

[mSpot]

I say this again (for the n'th time on all forums) a true audiophile streaming service would curate the good masters for us to enjoy .
But that entails manual work and research which costs money .
Do any streaming actually covering their costs these days ? at all ?

All of the streaming music services are losing money. They operate on investor funding, or supported by parent companies (Apple, Amazon, Google) that want music as part of their ecosystem.

I see a possibility for curation in player software such as Roon, Audirvana, etc. The streaming services themselves are little more than generic utilities that license music and provide delivery to consumers.

 

[MattHooper]

So that's why may of the vinyl albums I play sound more dynamic than my Tidal music library.

That's a bummer actually. Ah well, for digital I pretty much listened to my old CD collection to death over many years, so I'll often stream
stuff on Tidal to hear new stuff. The world wasn't made for audiophiles.

 

[mhardy6647]

... The world wasn't made for audiophiles.

Nor for left-handed people.
Trust me on this.
... but I digress...

 

[RichB]

While I was listening to music on tidal I noticed this one track sounded louder than usually. The track was "every rose has its thorn" by poison. I directly downloaded the songs from Qobuz and Tidal to compare. I will be using the DR Tool with Foobar2000. Yes I do own this specific song.

Original 1988 CD Release:
View attachment 105435

Hard + Heavy CD Set Release:
View attachment 105436

Tidal MQA (No decode):
View attachment 105437

Qobuz 96khz 24bit:
View attachment 105438

1988 CD Release:
View attachment 105439

Qobuz 96khz 24bit:
View attachment 105440

My conclusion: I expect songs on this services to be actually high quality, free from increased volume. I was gonna thinking about getting a mqa dac for my main setup but theres no point. I shouldn't have to there download files to see if its high quality or not. Its sad how the qobuz and tidal versions is comparable to $5 walmart cds. DR of 6 to 7 is expected for pop modern songs not 80s rock music. If Spotify was like this I wouldn't care too much about it, its $10 a month after all but when you charge $5 to $10 more, I expect something better. I would rather listen to walmart cd mp3s then some walmart cd flacs. Its better to pay for old cds than to shell out your money for a service that has collection of walmart-quality flacs.

Once again, MQA adds no value. It certainly does not insure quality audio.

- Rich

 

[dasdoing]

I don't have a program that can match levels on different frequencies files but I can compare against 44.1k files equally.

1988 release:
View attachment 105864

https://tidal.com/browse/album/87355414 release:
View attachment 105865

hard to compare when there is clearly a gain diference. there isn't even red and orange in the upper one.
on the other hand I am not sure a loudness leveled pair of graphs would be more usefull. one realy has to compare by hearing

 

[tvrgeek]

One more reason I will continue to buy CD's, spool to my SSD and keep them in my closet for an archive.
I remember all the CD rot hype when they first came out. Well, that was 1982, 40 years ago. None of mine have any issues.

 

[firedog]

All of the streaming music services are losing money. They operate on investor funding, or supported by parent companies (Apple, Amazon, Google) that want music as part of their ecosystem.

I see a possibility for curation in player software such as Roon, Audirvana, etc. The streaming services themselves are little more than generic utilities that license music and provide delivery to consumers.

You just forgot that the record labels are also invested in them in a big way. I think they are happy to lose money (give financing) there as long as the profits/royalties from streaming come in. For them it's just a matter of how you account for profits from one pocket vs. losses from another.

 

[somebodyelse]

I remember all the CD rot hype when they first came out. Well, that was 1982, 40 years ago. None of mine have any issues.

You mean when it was feared to be a general issue, before finding it was a manufacturing process issue at a few plants like PDO Blackburn?

 

[mhardy6647]

You mean when it was feared to be a general issue, before finding it was a manufacturing process issue at a few plants like PDO Blackburn?

Strictly anecdotal but offered "as-is" and FWIW: The only CDs or CD-Rs I've lost to date have been due to scratches or (in the latter case) some DIY glued-on labels that, after ca. 20 years, did odd things to the reflectivity of the back side (label side) of the disc.

 

[L5730]

I say this again (for the n'th time on all forums) a true audiophile streaming service would curate the good masters for us to enjoy .
But that entails manual work and research which costs money .
Do any streaming actually covering their costs these days ? at all ?

Labels admit that there are differences and that some are inferior in some way - that ain't gonna happen.
Makes me wonder why there are just so many remasters of material. Isn't the job of mastering, or remastering, to make something the best compromise it can be for the intended medium and target audience? Do we need yet another version of DSotM when the 2003 SACD was supposed to be 'the best yet' or the MFSL 'premium audiophile' version exists? That album has something like 15 different 16/44.1 versions and counting!

Much of the good stuff has long gone, out of print ages ago. Quite a few of the 'definitive' (most probably the best they'll ever be) versions/masterings were limited runs too (eg. Audio Fidelity, DCC, MFSL). Can't see those making their way into a collection for public access.

I don't think there are so many CDs appearing now. My thoughts on the labels were that they just remaster/repackage/resell the same 'big' albums over and over every few years to con folks into buying it yet again hoping for an improvement, or to snag a younger customer who doesn't yet have it.

 

[somebodyelse]

Strictly anecdotal but offered "as-is" and FWIW: The only CDs or CD-Rs I've lost to date have been due to scratches or (in the latter case) some DIY glued-on labels that, after ca. 20 years, did odd things to the reflectivity of the back side (label side) of the disc.

Congratulations - like me you didn't have any manufactured at the offending plants in the right (wrong?) timeframe, or they haven't deteriorated far enough to be a problem yet. I've seen them in other people's collections though. The wikipedia article is reasonably well referenced.

Have you tried leaving a CD-R in the sun for an extended period (months rather than hours)? The dye layer fades out until the disc becomes unreadable.

 

[Sal1950]

The world wasn't made for audiophiles.

That's a fact, Jack. We've been fighting a losing battle there for the last few decades.
We were doing pretty good from the days of 78's thru Mono LP's, into Stereo LP's and the many improvements of LP playback along the line. Then came the CD, "perfect sound forever" was the claim, and awfully dang close to the truth it's proven to be. So then the really smart people in the industry, the marketers, the high end print and web media guys could see the writing on the wall and got scared, real scared. How were they going to increase the sales drive if new gear wasn't going to get ever improved sonically? Easy, LIE. Digital sounds bad, it cuts music up into a staircase that can't be put back together. Analog and vinyl still sounds better. Make claims every "issue" of a new DAC breakthru that sounds more analog like and make them expensive, very expensive. At the same time turn the review media into a propaganda machine that kneels at the shrine of the LP. Ignore the fact the LP is garbage in every measurable parameter you can test. They can hear things we can't measure, the magic dust sprinkled on the pressings takes them to a paranormal place where only the human ear can be trusted to evaluate the SQ of the final products. And then came the snake-oil peddlers, everything from power-cables to magic dots and bricks, green pens, so much more. Blah, Blah, Blah.
Is anyone else here embarrassed to call themselves an "audiophile" ? I am and have been for quite some time. I can remember back when it was KOOL to have a really awesome HiFi in the living room, now we get lumped into a group lunnies that spend the kids college money on worthless products.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

 

[oursmagenta]

Adding my 2 cents.

Should we worry that non-compressed (in a loudness sense, and not in the file size sense) masters get irremediably lost ?

I mean, the moment all those old CDs (approximately pre-loudness war era) get worn out.
How we can guarantee that the original material that was the basis of the dynamic and compressed master will be conserved.

Is the original material always digitized, and then mastered (in a dynamic or compressed way) ?

 

[somebodyelse]

Having heard tales of archiving failures and media degradation it's a valid concern. Time to start brushing up on the ripping process for CD archival, and protection against bit-rot via encoding redundancy and periodic repair, at either the file or filesystem level. You can at least make sure you've preserved the content of the CDs you have.