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Lies about vinyl vs digital


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2 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Here is an example of a completed song...  It might need one more iteration, but this is damned close to correct.

It cannot get much better (in fact, a DolbyA HW cannot do this good.)  This has detail that has probably not been exposed since the recording.  YOU WILL HEAR RECORDING DEFECTS THAT HAVEN"T BEEN HEARD -- EVER!!!  If anything, I might need ot do a slight cut of -1.0 dB at 14.75kHz and -1.0dB at 15kHz with Q=0.50,

which will soften the highs a little.  Earlier decode attempts had those pre-decoding EQ, but that EQ is needed before decoding, another Hr away!!!   (The defect is that there is an 'edge' in the vocals -- and beleive it or not, a cut at 15kHz makes a HUGE difference, even in the vocal range -- it is all related to the behavior of DolbyA decoding.)

 

EDIT:  I decided to do ONE MORE attempt tonight with the 15kHz fix, it makes a REALLY GOOD improvement.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t903c51qb781htg/Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - 11. Gold Dust Woman.flac?dl=0

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0n0zi6iwp8d5omo/Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - 03. Never Going Back Again.flac?dl=0

Had a casual listen and these sound v good! Can you  re do Dreams the same way? 

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5 minutes ago, Rexp said:

Had a casual listen and these sound v good! Can you  re do Dreams the same way? 

 

 John is currently implementing a minor change in the decode of Rumours, and hopes to have a new version ready  tomorrow. 

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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1 hour ago, fas42 said:

Tried the Second Hand News track, and there are issues - cymbal crashes are not right, so far.

 

 With your setup you probably need a Dolby A encoder for it to sound right 😊

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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1 hour ago, fas42 said:

Tried the Second Hand News track, and there are issues - cymbal crashes are not right, so far.

I agree, but think it is very good otherwise.  Try a 2 db shelf down at 6 khz and above. See what you think then.

And always keep in mind: Cognitive biases, like seeing optical illusions are a sign of a normally functioning brain. We all have them, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but it is something that affects our objective evaluation of reality. 

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19 minutes ago, esldude said:

I agree, but think it is very good otherwise.  Try a 2 db shelf down at 6 khz and above. See what you think then.

 

See #2527

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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9 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Enjoy what you have!!!   Do give the new attempt a listen -- it is most likely better (but no guarantee!!!)

 

The big difference is that I am not changing things dynamically, and being careful to FOLLOW RULES, and FIX BUGS, not do artistic modifications  Sometimes material just sounds strange, and that needs 'fixing bugs', not doing complex tone control.

 

A good example is stereo image.  Believe it or not, the frequency response balance can change the stereo image.  Sometimes things can be strange, yet fixed with maybe 0.25dB here or there.  That kind of thing  -- yes, i'll do.  However, making substantive changes outside of apparent artists intent, then I ask for feedback.  Also, the stereo image needs to be modified before decoding -- how much of a change i needed?   Answer:  I listen for expander surging, and when I find it, I fix the problem.

 

Sometimes poeple want a tone control -- the listener has a tone control.  if I make a change JUST FOR MY TASTE, then I always get in trouble...   I don't make changes for taste, I do changes for bug correction.

 

 

John

 

 

Remastering is not just about dynamics & loudness. Changes in frequency resp/EQ, stereo image or depth also count as remastering.  Any audible change, for that matter, is remastering.

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The last two most recent links (Gold dust woman and Never Going Back) are still valid, but have new files backing them.  They are MUCH better now, the midrange now supports the highs correctly.

These are full quality 88.2/24 bits and don't sound weird.   Give these a try, I'll ahve to disappear them by the EOD today though.

I added a third one...   The PM group has all of them.

 

(Like usual, I am embarassed by the previous ones -- after a friend shared snippets from the LP, I paniced.  The LP had missing highs, so I had to rebalance to the point where the highs were just barely supported by the midrange -- it is a technical choice, not by taste.   Such a correction MUST be done before decoding, or it won't really help.  I could turn the highs down by perhaps another 0.25 to 0.5dB before decoding, but the numbers I used are the typical rounded values like 0.75, 1.0, 1.5, 3.0 dB steps.   They seemed to have used such values for the EQ and is the reason why I have settled on it.  The next step would be+- 0.75dB BEFORE decoding, which would be very severe, it makes HUGE changes in the sound -- sounds worse than 3dB error after decoding!!!)

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0n0zi6iwp8d5omo/Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - 03. Never Going Back Again.flac?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t903c51qb781htg/Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - 11. Gold Dust Woman.flac?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mzxp393wpedv4cf/Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - 08. You Make Loving Fun.flac?dl=0

 

John

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19 minutes ago, The_K-Man said:

 

Remastering is not just about dynamics & loudness. Changes in frequency resp/EQ, stereo image or depth also count as remastering.  Any audible change, for that matter, is remastering.

I use the term remastering as a 'choice by taste'.  I try to avoid 'choices by taste' and reserve my own changes for technical corrections.  Refer to my previous post about the highs not being supported by the midrange, therefore producing the previous weird sound.   This manifestation doesn't happen 'after' decoding so much -- the expander gets confused by the missing match between highs and midrange.   All of the recent changes have been to better match the highs and midrange.   (The weird sound is very noticeable -- I was looking in the wrong place for the problem.)

 

The technical corrections have a knifedge before decoding -- the problems are easy to hear IF LISTENING.  I wasn't listening for that specific problem, but instead went down the rabbit hole of HF EQ before decoding.   The problem wasn't really the HF EQ, even though that seemed like the problem (even to me.)  It was a gouged out upper midrange!!!   If the filters were specified, I wouldn't even have to make the filter choices at all...

 

* On severe input errors like what I previoius did, A true DolbyA would go nuts and create an edgy, almost noisy beat between the channels -- seems like a kind of harshness or distortion.  The DHNRDS says:  I won't distort, but instead, I am going to give the listener an acid trip with weird sound instead :-).  I should probably create an option to disable all of the anti-distortion mechanisms in the DHNRDS, but that would require literally 20-50 conditional 'IF' statements to nuke the avoidance methods.

 

The worst of the problem was the wrong frequency choices for the upper midrange EQ correction.  It is a well defined set of filters (I explained it elsewhere), and I simply made the wrong choice -- therefore causing a rabbit hole.   I popped out of the rabbit hole and fixed the correct problem.  (There are discrete frequencies for the filters -- must have been some kind of internal standardization for feral EQ.)

 

John

 

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16 hours ago, The_K-Man said:

 

Well, what you stated about Rumours came off as coming from someone born decades after that album released.  I guess for eight years your junior I have relatively 'old' tastes.  Or perhaps I just have tastes - period.

Maybe you're just not trying very hard to be pleasant.  It's easy to be rude online but it isn't necessary.

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On 1/17/2020 at 8:13 AM, The_K-Man said:

 

Once mastering engineers found out, by mid-'90s or so, that they didn't have to preserve every single peak from the recording sessions, and this schitt...

 

started happening on newer releases(think: Oasis 'WHAT'S THE STORY') - heavy peak-limiting combined with DRC - all bets were off. And they haven't looked back since! :(

 

 

Oasis never did anything for for me, but I was curious, and downloaded the "What's the Story" track - dear me, 🙄. Can anything be done to rescue this, hmmm? ... Looked up what the producer had done, which implied it was a fairly straightforward compression. So played with some expansion settings ... my goodness!! There's some real music in there, after all ... . About 75% there, I'll try some fine tuning to see how close I can get to hearing proper instruments, a proper band playing.

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Hey everyone -- got some good news!!!

Bottom line, I am very very close to the FeralA decoder design...


Previously (until this Rumors fiasco, I have to realize that community efforts stress me out too much), I had a rather contorted, but well thought-out set of filters that worked better than anything previous.   When having troubles getting the exact sound that I wanted (it might still need a minor pre-decoding tweak), I tried a different, simpler set of filters.   Voila -- it looks like the shape is correct, just maybe the values might still be a bit on the 'hot' side.

I tried the new, simplified filter concept (today) on Carpenters, Brasil'66, Herb Alpert & Tijuana Brass, ABBA, etc....   They all work better than ever!!!   The beauty of the new filter concept is that there are fewer modes, and mostly just a set of three parameters (I hope.)

Parameter 1:  the MF compensation

Parameter 2:  the lower HF compensation (3k through 6k) or (4.5k through 6k)

Parameter 3:  the upper HF compensation (9k through 12k, maybe 15k)

 

Each of the parameters is one number...   Parameter 1 is a 'mode', of a set of 6 possible modes, most likely only 2 are needed to try.

Parameter 2:  -1, -1.5, -2, -3 dB

Parameter 3:  -1, -1.5, -2, -3 dB

There is a flag for Parameter 2 that specifies whether it is 3k -> 6k or 4.5k -> 6k

Parameter 3 will almost always be 9k -> 12k, but 15k might be useful.

 

The MF compensation is non-trivial, but it appears that there are few choices.

 

One final mode would be a specific setting for each of 500Hz, 750Hz, 1kHz, 2250Hz, 2500Hz, 3kHz #1, 3kHz #2, 2750Hz, 4.25kHz, 4.5kHz, 5.75kHz, 6kHz, 8.75kHz, 9kHz, 11.75kHz, 12kHz.   Some are Bass shelves, some are Treble, but they are always one or the other!!! Normally, the individual settings are not needed, and with the current propsal above, I would never need to use the individual filters as I noted above!!!

 

-------------------------------------

Bottom line, ignoring the technical details, I can simplify the settings to the point where decoding will only need three command arguments for filters.  There are a few other modes also -- but it now seems practical after being given a few normal examples!!!

 

Before this, the filters were too complex!!!

 

John

 

 

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2 hours ago, The_K-Man said:

 

That album was considered the 'first shot fired' in the digital-era loudness war.  Yes, it used DRC primarily as a means to make the songs as loud as possible, rather than just to glue the individual elephants I mean elements! together.

 

 A little later on, increasing amounts of peak-limiting were combined with that DRC to get subsequent artist' albums even louder. Albums on CD finally sounded the way - Carly Simon once told her producer how she wanted her next(1986?) album to sound - like they did on WHTZ 100FM in New York!  Then the major labels realized they had  a problem with their legacy(pre-1990s-pre-Loudness) catalog...

 

..CD issues from before then were suddenly 'not loud enough'(compared to 'What's The Story, etc.) in the 'iPods' of that decade: domestic and car CD changers! And consumers were complaining.  And so began the most aggressive round of 'remastering' in recorded music history, with compressed or brickwall-limited CD reissues of everything from ABBA to ZZ Top. Packaged in  fancy gold- or platinum-trimmed CD cases with "DIGITALLY REMASTERED for SUPERIOR SOUND" printed on the jackets.

 

I've even had a few mastering engineers - on GearSlutz and Head-Fi, proclaim that those earlier original CD issues "weren't properly/ professionally" mastered:  That is, not hyper-compressed and/or brickwall limited all to schitt! 🤦‍♂️

 

That last part describes what is considered 'mastering', at least in the modern popular(CHR, Hip-Hop, Country) genres, nowadays.

Wow -- that little tidbit about Carly Simon's recording desires helps me to understand why some of her recordings are so difficult to make them sound really good.  There is an edginess in her vocals, some kind of manipulation around 7-9.5kHz or so -- all I know is something is wrong, and cannot put my finger on the cause of damage.  A spectogram shows that something was done oddly in the 7-9kHz range.  Her vocals can be cleaned up to some extent, but that 'distortion' takes away some quality.  I understand that she might have wanted her vocals brought out more strongly -- but please NOT LIKE HOW THEY DID.  I did find that cancelling the 8k through 9kHz band in the the 'stereo difference' channel (the M of M+S) helps noticeably.

 

John

 

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2 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Wow -- that little tidbit about Carly Simon's recording desires helps me to understand why some of her recordings are so difficult to make them sound really good.  There is an edginess in her vocals, some kind of manipulation around 7-9.5kHz or so -- all I know is something is wrong, and cannot put my finger on the cause of damage.  A spectogram shows that something was done oddly in the 7-9kHz range.  Her vocals can be cleaned up to some extent, but that 'distortion' takes away some quality.  I understand that she might have wanted her vocals brought out more strongly -- but please NOT LIKE HOW THEY DID.  I did find that cancelling the 8k through 9kHz band in the the 'stereo difference' channel (the M of M+S) helps noticeably.

 

John

 

 

That conversation between Simon and her producer took place in the mid-80s, well after most of my favorite part of her catalog came out - the '70s, when her stuff sounded good.

 

Z100 alone changed the sound of CHR radio forever, and to a degree, influenced the sound of recorded product.

 

 

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On 1/21/2020 at 7:35 AM, John Dyson said:

The last two most recent links (Gold dust woman and Never Going Back) are still valid, but have new files backing them.  They are MUCH better now, the midrange now supports the highs correctly.

These are full quality 88.2/24 bits and don't sound weird.   Give these a try, I'll ahve to disappear them by the EOD today though.

I added a third one...   The PM group has all of them.

 

(Like usual, I am embarassed by the previous ones -- after a friend shared snippets from the LP, I paniced.  The LP had missing highs, so I had to rebalance to the point where the highs were just barely supported by the midrange -- it is a technical choice, not by taste.   Such a correction MUST be done before decoding, or it won't really help.  I could turn the highs down by perhaps another 0.25 to 0.5dB before decoding, but the numbers I used are the typical rounded values like 0.75, 1.0, 1.5, 3.0 dB steps.   They seemed to have used such values for the EQ and is the reason why I have settled on it.  The next step would be+- 0.75dB BEFORE decoding, which would be very severe, it makes HUGE changes in the sound -- sounds worse than 3dB error after decoding!!!)

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0n0zi6iwp8d5omo/Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - 03. Never Going Back Again.flac?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t903c51qb781htg/Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - 11. Gold Dust Woman.flac?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mzxp393wpedv4cf/Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - 08. You Make Loving Fun.flac?dl=0

 

John

 

I've been listening to Gold Dust Woman since it was originally released. I DL'd these and found the sound to be very impressive. I haven't had the chance to compare this version to the 24/96 version I've had for a number of years but I suspect your version will put that one to shame. I have one question about the sound however, and that is, the clip seems really down in level. I use an Audio Research Ref 3 preamp and for attentive listening would expect the volume to be set somewhere around 50-60. Might sneak up towards 70 depending on the music and my mood. But for your cuts the volume needs to be set at a minimum of 90 and maxing out at 100 isn't anywhere too loud. That doesn't seem right somehow, at least no other music that I have is like that.

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3 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

 

I've been listening to Gold Dust Woman since it was originally released. I DL'd these and found the sound to be very impressive. I haven't had the chance to compare this version to the 24/96 version I've had for a number of years but I suspect your version will put that one to shame. I have one question about the sound however, and that is, the clip seems really down in level. I use an Audio Research Ref 3 preamp and for attentive listening would expect the volume to be set somewhere around 50-60. Might sneak up towards 70 depending on the music and my mood. But for your cuts the volume needs to be set at a minimum of 90 and maxing out at 100 isn't anywhere too loud. That doesn't seem right somehow, at least no other music that I have is like that.

 

 

You might be used to more commercial-style stuff where the volume can be set between 10-20 out of 100, and paint still peels from the walls and the windows shatter.

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32 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

 

I've been listening to Gold Dust Woman since it was originally released. I DL'd these and found the sound to be very impressive. I haven't had the chance to compare this version to the 24/96 version I've had for a number of years but I suspect your version will put that one to shame. I have one question about the sound however, and that is, the clip seems really down in level. I use an Audio Research Ref 3 preamp and for attentive listening would expect the volume to be set somewhere around 50-60. Might sneak up towards 70 depending on the music and my mood. But for your cuts the volume needs to be set at a minimum of 90 and maxing out at 100 isn't anywhere too loud. That doesn't seem right somehow, at least no other music that I have is like that.

Take a look also at the Rumors8 versioin.  It isn't 88.2/24 yet, but might even be better (tradeoffs between each version -- tryign to take the best of the early and the best of the almost-CD sound.)    I'll send you the information privately.  If you really like it, I'll make the 88.2/24 available.

 

About the signal levels -- I kept the same levels as on the original recording.  That is, I didn't normalize each song.  I have SOMETIMES found that if each song is normalized, then the perceptual levels don't match (even though the technical levels are all at -1.0dB peak, the perception is that the levels vary too much.)


So, to be conservative, I just kept the natural level that came out of the decoder.   That means that some songs might even be -10dB peak or lower.  If I really focused, I could probably do better to match the perceptual levels than just usnig whatever level they come out after decoding.

 

John

 

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1 hour ago, The_K-Man said:

 

 

You might be used to more commercial-style stuff where the volume can be set between 10-20 out of 100, and paint still peels from the walls and the windows shatter.

 

One of the various markers that one gets when replay SQ reaches a competent standard is that it always "sounds good", whether whisper quiet or running at the maximum SPLs that the system can operate at while still maintaining its integrity. The trouble with highly compressed recordings is that this subjective sense of the presentation breaks down - the average sound levels are now so high that your hearing system is overloaded very easily; you are exhausted after hearing just one track, say. Reducing the volume only partially solves the problem; the sense of aggression in the sound can be overwhelming - only a rig in absolutely optimum status could possibly allow one to listen to this material in complete comfort.

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1 hour ago, daverich4 said:

I have one question about the sound however, and that is, the clip seems really down in level. I use an Audio Research Ref 3 preamp and for attentive listening would expect the volume to be set somewhere around 50-60. Might sneak up towards 70 depending on the music and my mood. But for your cuts the volume needs to be set at a minimum of 90 and maxing out at 100 isn't anywhere too loud. That doesn't seem right somehow, at least no other music that I have is like that.

 

 I have made that point to John on a couple of recent occasions also.

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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17 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

One of the various markers that one gets when replay SQ reaches a competent standard is that it always "sounds good", whether whisper quiet or running at the maximum SPLs that the system can operate at while still maintaining its integrity. The trouble with highly compressed recordings is that this subjective sense of the presentation breaks down - the average sound levels are now so high that your hearing system is overloaded very easily; you are exhausted after hearing just one track, say. Reducing the volume only partially solves the problem; the sense of aggression in the sound can be overwhelming - only a rig in absolutely optimum status could possibly allow one to listen to this material in complete comfort.

 

Dream on ! 

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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36 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

One of the various markers that one gets when replay SQ reaches a competent standard is that it always "sounds good", whether whisper quiet or running at the maximum SPLs that the system can operate at while still maintaining its integrity. The trouble with highly compressed recordings is that this subjective sense of the presentation breaks down - the average sound levels are now so high that your hearing system is overloaded very easily; you are exhausted after hearing just one track, say. Reducing the volume only partially solves the problem; the sense of aggression in the sound can be overwhelming - only a rig in absolutely optimum status could possibly allow one to listen to this material in complete comfort.

Except, of course, a scenario when the maximum SPL the system can comfortably operate at whilst maintaining its integrity would make the listener suffer hearing loss.

Windows 11 PC, Roon, HQPlayer, Focus Fidelity convolutions, iFi Zen Stream, Paul Hynes SR4, Mutec REF10, Mutec MC3+USB, Devialet 1000Pro, KEF Blade.  Plus Pro-Ject Signature 12 TT for playing my 'legacy' vinyl collection. Desktop system; RME ADI-2 DAC fs, Meze Empyrean headphones.

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54 minutes ago, Confused said:

Except, of course, a scenario when the maximum SPL the system can comfortably operate at whilst maintaining its integrity would make the listener suffer hearing loss.

 

IME the max SPLs roughly match what living to live music is like - say, some classical piano sonatas ... I've found that often I'm searching for more gain, because the average intensity doesn't match a live experience; the particular recording is well down in its overall recording level. Again, this is not what I experience with over-compressed material - if max setting is 100, I might want no more than 50 to be OK with the listening.

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Many years from now, perhaps centuries, this thread will be the basis of many a scholarly dissertation on this very topic.  
 

We need to bring this to a conclusion for the benefit of those people, to somehow reach a consensus on what, in this brief and fleeting age truly matters. 
 

And that is....this. 
 

Good sound is good. Bad sound is not so goodly. 

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