Brickwalled sound

[mkrzych]

Hello,

I have some question about the recent CD sound quality issues.

 

1. I can easily can find really nice content like for instance "Paolo

Fresu - Desertico" album which to me is brickwalled and I can hear the

distortions over the headphones listning to it. My question is if the

mastering engineers are deaf? Why good album suffer from such kind of

misperfection - especially the jazz genre?

Even the content is in so called Hi Def (88kHz) I can hear the same

distortions time to time.

 

2. I can see on some sinewaves that even it seems that sound is

brickwalled, I cannot hear that kind of harsh distortions. Wondering

why?

 

3. All above is really disturbing, if your headphones are truthfull,

like my Grado for instance. What do you think?

 

4. Even some Telarc releases, like Al Di Meola Flesh on Flesh for me

sounds too hot - no distortions, but damn, can it be less 5-6dB?

[Julf]

Hi,

 

1. I can easily can find really nice content like for instance "Paolo

Fresu - Desertico" album which to me is brickwalled and I can hear the

distortions over the headphones listning to it.

 

The term "brickwall" is mostly used to describe a really sharp filter cut-off rather than clipping or compression.

 

Clipping is just what the name says - cutting off the top of the waveform, and usually audible as distortion. Compression, on the other hand, is a softer non-linearity, where higher amplitudes are attenuated instead of just cut off, allowing the overall average level to be increased.

 

2. I can see on some sinewaves that even it seems that sound is

brickwalled, I cannot hear that kind of harsh distortions. Wondering

why?

 

So what precisely are you seeing?

 

4. Even some Telarc releases, like Al Di Meola Flesh on Flesh for me

sounds too hot - no distortions, but damn, can it be less 5-6dB?

 

To most record company executives, "louder is better", unfortunately.

[mkrzych]

What I am seeing, is that some recording have the top of the sinewave cut off, but I dont hear too much distortions, but some are really harsh! Also it doesnt have to be at 0db level, some are -6db but still cut off.

[Julf]

What I am seeing, is that some recording have the top of the sinewave cut off, but I dont hear too much distortions, but some are really harsh! Also it doesnt have to be at 0db level, some are -6db but still cut off.

 

Right, if it is at a level below 0 dBFS, then the clipping has happened earlier in the mastering process. And it doesn't have to sound bad - remember that the clipping effect is used really heavily in electric guitar amplifiers as part of their characteristic sound.

[mkrzych]

This issue drive me crazy, because some contents are very nice, but sonics are screwed up. Grado cans have very transparent sound and if something welrd was done in the mastering I am able to hear it! BTW, dont they have better headphones than me in the studio? Suppose they have, are they deaf?