cusebassman
Freakin' sweet
Anything I've ever listened to that the Raspberries recorded. Love their songs, but thanks to outrageously excessive compression, the material is nearly unlistenable.
Isn't that the one that came out in 97? I read about it, something like -4 RMS. I think the first CD to get that Ballpark was Death Magnetic, 11 years later.
Yeah, its not quite as bad as that, more like -3, but still fucking atrocious. When you think about it, it was really a pioneering record... just in all the wrong ways.
What does -4 RMS mean?
I spent my entire adult life thinking the same thing. Then in a fit of "blaaaaaargh modern recordings sound so bad!" I went out and got high-end turntable with a nice moving magnet cartridge and preamp so I could own the best versions of 70's and 80's stuff (I heard rumors that early CDs were often sourced from the wrong tapes). For kicks I bought the newest Muse album on vinyl along with some 90's stuff that I already owned on CD and held in high regard sonically (Nevermind, Mazzy Star).Vinyl is overrated. A great sounding CD is a great sounding record.
I may get flak for this but I think Blizzard of Ozz sounds like total ass. It sounds like worn out tape to me. Where is the EQ on that one? Plus the bass is flat and muddy. Yuck! Go ahead and pull out Crazy Train and tell me I'm wrong.
It took one listen. The vinyl was better. It makes zero sense that a format that old is actually better. Logic kept telling me the entire fuss was manufactured by hipsters and nostalgia freaks. But there it was right in front of me. It really sounds better...if you spend some $$$. Sadly with analog the dropoff is huge when you deal with the "regular consumer" stuff.
SACD...I couldn't tell you. But there's no point in wondering because 99.9% of anything you'd want to hear is on vinyl. SACD...good luck finding an album you give a damn about. Comparing the latest Muse release on vinyl to an empty disc tray on SACD, the vinyl wins pretty easily.Yeah that's why I say overrated (emphasis in bold). And yeah, maybe you're right with the high end turntable and playback gear. But that's looooads of money right there. I wonder if you got similar results with CD's if you got really high end CD players or SACD players with really good D/A converters?
I guess you and I are about the only fans on earth of that album.
It always sounded to me like it was recorded off the mixing board with crowd noises dubbed in later, but Buck Dharma's guitar playing made all the shitty sound irrelevant to me.
When I first bought CDs that I had had on vinyl, back in the 90s, I have to say that I thought the sound was, what I used to call "brittle". It was thin and weedy and I could see why the digital/analogue debates raged. Funnilly, I never really engaged in the debates because whatever I've had, be it vinyl, CD or pre recorded cassette, I've always put them onto cassette and listened to that. Still do.And I really do mean great sound for cheap. I'm not going to lie and say there is no great digital sound.
Vinyl leaves a ton of detail stuck behind on the disk and introduces all kinds of noise if you just grab the first convenient affordable turntable off the shelf at Target. Then the records themselves are frighteningly delicate. Touch pizza, grab your record the wrong way, and you've added a click/pop to the song forever.
But...Put in the time and money and analog "great" is better than digital "great".
If CD really did deliver the sonic goods the debate would be over by now instead of being hotter than ever. Think of it this way when jet air liners replaced piston engined airliners the jet was the clear winner and that industry never looked back. So worst sounding CD's? Take your pick!
By "in part" I hope you mean "entirely"! Ain't nothin' else goin' on aside from needle wiggles gettin' turned into electricity.I'm not a huge fan of vinyl as I believe because vinyl relies in part on a mechanical energy transfer into electrical energy and the potential for what can get lost in the translation seems big to me.
These days the only place to even hear real tape is in a studio... I mean, even if you own a player, what are you going to play on it? But the scant few times I have heard it...yeah, it is amazing.However analog tape is an entirely different thing and anyone who remembers first class analog tape (read reel to reel) will know that with regards to CD sound the emperor still isn't wearing any clothes
CD has everything on vinyl EXCEPT the sound. CD sells because it is physically lighter and smaller (ever try to move a record collection?), much more durable, plays in your car/on the beach/in your office, can be backed up, can rip to a play list, can be automated to play in any order, can operate from a remote control, and can display track length/time remaining. Sound has nothing to do with it.I mean, look at it this way - you say that if CDs really were superior to vinyl then the debate would be over instead of still raging. The flip side however is also true - if vinyl really was superior to CD, then no one would be buying CDs anymore and everyone would be buying vinyl. Clearly, it's a very subjective question and the verdict's still out, but CD has at least proven itself good enough to compete.
By "in part" I hope you mean "entirely"! Ain't nothin' else goin' on aside from needle wiggles gettin' turned into electricity.
These days the only place to even hear real tape is in a studio... I mean, even if you own a player, what are you going to play on it? But the scant few times I have heard it...yeah, it is amazing.
....except how something "sounds" is a subjective aesthetic decision, while how quickly a jet can get from point A to point B is pretty objective. Add to that a lot of placebo effect sort of retro-minded snobbery (and probably a fair amount of technophile snobbery as well, to be fair), and the waters become VERY cloudy.
I can see it both ways - a worthy anecdote is the introduction of solid state amps in the guitar world, which offered a far more efficient, transparent reproduction of the sound of an electric guitar, vs tubes which had all these inefficiencies that were coloring the frequency and dynamic response. Solid state diodes were the theoretically "correct" answer... except everyone quickly realized that everything imperfect about a tube amplifier was exactly what made it sound so awesome. At the same time, I like CDs, think a well recorded CD can sound awesome, think digital recording is making a lot of things possible that were never dreamed of before, and think that a good engineer matters way more than vinyl vs CD.
I mean, look at it this way - you say that if CDs really were superior to vinyl then the debate would be over instead of still raging. The flip side however is also true - if vinyl really was superior to CD, then no one would be buying CDs anymore and everyone would be buying vinyl. Clearly, it's a very subjective question and the verdict's still out, but CD has at least proven itself good enough to compete.
Sound quality is why vinyl remains.
Personally I welcomed and embraced the CD when it came out. I believed the positive press of the day. However my opinion of CD didn't change until I began buying CD copies of records I had in vinyl so I could play them on my portable CD player when working. Little by little I began to realize that what I was hearing in the CD versions was less than what I knew those very same albums to sound like on tape and vinyl. The clincher came when I set up the Columbia pre recorded RTR version of Dylan's Blonde On Blonde. This tape has been played perhaps a dozen times since 1966 and is in essentially pristine condition. The "presence" that the RTR tape possesses was enough to sway me well and truly out of the CD camp once and for all.
The clincher came when I set up the Columbia pre recorded RTR version of Dylan's Blonde On Blonde. This tape has been played perhaps a dozen times since 1966 and is in essentially pristine condition. The "presence" that the RTR tape possesses was enough to sway me well and truly out of the CD camp once and for all. This is of course not to say that digital will ever give way to analog again, it won't. But it sure confirms that CD is hardly the last word in sound quality and something of a step away from sound quality.