I'm going to sound like a hipster, but you should only buy music on vinyl

[Ichinisan]

Compression also refers to the method of flattening soundwaves during mastering so the music sounds louder.

Ah. Gotcha.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Modern music is brickwalled. That's the problem. Listen to an old CD from back before the loudness wars. You can actually hear individual instruments and there is actually a soundstage.

I have allman brothers CDs that are recorded amazingly well.

 

[master_shake_]

ever since toms hardware did that comparison of a high end 2k dac an x hundred dollar sound card and a 2 dollar realtek chip and not one person could hear the difference, i've come to the understanding that audiophiles are full of crap and have too much bloody money.

link in case you haven't read it.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/high-end-pc-audio,3733.html

 

[NutBucket]

Modern music is brickwalled. That's the problem. Listen to an old CD from back before the loudness wars. You can actually hear individual instruments and there is actually a soundstage.

I have allman brothers CDs that are recorded amazingly well.

I think it also depends on the artist. I recently bought the latest Tom Petty and Eric Clapton albums. The mix is not a problem.

 

[SSSnail]

I actually bought a CD recently and it must be compressed more than normal because I don't remember CDs sounding this bad.

Quit buying Beiber CDs.

ever since toms hardware did that comparison of a high end 2k dac an x hundred dollar sound card and a 2 dollar realtek chip and not one person could hear the difference, i've come to the understanding that audiophiles are full of crap and have too much bloody money.

link in case you haven't read it.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/high-end-pc-audio,3733.html

Yup. And the "warmth" that they're hearing, is just muffled static.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Trolling? Or uncompressed CD audio came from a compressed source?

How the fuck do I know? I bought it on Amazon.com... and it sounds like shit. I'm not fucking trolling.

 

[BUTCH1]

Probably the Vinyl sounded good because of the ever-needed space and the compression that goes along with it, I quit XM radio because of it, I hardly would describe an '05 Malibu's sound system as beyond fair at best but even on this type of system the flanging, muddy bass, distorted high-end were unbearable for me, I was certainly not expecting CD quality but damm, it was really, really bad.

 

[master_shake_]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0bMI2JB-vY#t=116.

heres an interesting video

 

[Squisher]

Clean your vinyl with wood glue

 

[JulesMaximus]

I actually have quite a few vinyl records but no way to play them. I have a decent set of speakers but my receiver doesn't have an analog input nor do I have a turntable. I may have to remedy that. I have a lot of fond memories listening to music played on a turntable.

 

[master_shake_]

Clean your vinyl with wood glue

looks like a how to on record piracy...

reported

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDmu594fM88

hahahahaha

 

[Turbonium]

Isn't it true that for the longest time now, all audio CDs/albums you get are mastered in such a way as to max out the volume of everything? As in there is no tonal range and variance or whatnot. It's just loud and unsophisticated and downright horrid.

That might be the difference you're detecting.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Isn't it true that for the longest time now, all audio CDs/albums you get are mastered in such a way as to max out the volume of everything? As in there is no tonal range and variance or whatnot. It's just loud and unsophisticated and downright horrid.

That might be the difference you're detecting.

If a few shitty Metallica and RHCP albums and a few more bad remasters = all albums, then sure

 

[Carson Dyle]

Isn't it true that for the longest time now, all audio CDs/albums you get are mastered in such a way as to max out the volume of everything? As in there is no tonal range and variance or whatnot. It's just loud and unsophisticated and downright horrid.

That might be the difference you're detecting.

Not all, but certainly most CDs today are badly mastered. Compression is applied to pretty much every major label CD released today, but to different degrees. It's not tonal range that suffers - for the mos part, tonal accuracy is maintained. It's dynamic range (loudness) that suffers, and this has the net effect of sucking the life out of the music, as well as masking many of the smaller details that you would otherwise hear if everything in the mix weren't trying to achieve the same loudness.

 

[QueBert]

Vinyl sounds better to me, I bought the new Dilated People album on vinyl, my Roomie bought it on CD. I listened to both with my Grado headphones, and Vinyl clearly > to me, but that's just my ears. With that said, there's a definite sound difference between the 2, whichever you prefer. Thankfully a lot of what I listen to still gets released on vinyl. I'll buy it over a CD 10/10 times if I have the option.

 

[Broheim]

Personally I've always liked the warm sound of vinyl the most with certain types of music, plus I like the ritual of it all. It just kind of feels manly to throw a vinyl on that big heavy turn table and physically lift the pick up onto the record, compared to putting a piece of plastic inside another piece of plastic and pushing a button.

 

[Dude111]

I just put on an old Stevie Wonder album and the sound quality was way, waaaay better than compressed audio.

Of course it is...... ANALOG IS BETTER!!!!!!!

I love my records,cassettes and VHS tapes

 

[motsm]

Using 96khz for a final render is pointless, it's only use is in mastering to push aliasing out of the human hearing range above the nyquist frequency. Of course now with the growing use of oversampling, the use of 96khz is somewhat diminished even in the studio. Recording at 24bit is a must so you have the maximum noise floor to play with when the track ultimately becomes dynamically compressed, that way you don't push that noise floor into a listenable range. Once it's mixed and mastered however, 16bit is all you need unless you enjoy volumes that result in permanent hearing loss.

That said, I own some DVD-A, Blu Ray audio etc, primarily for the surround mixes, not the high resolution. On top of that, studio engineers typically give them a better mix since they know those buying them are more concerned about the best listening experience possible. The normal release will often times just be dynamically compressed to all hell so people can hear it while in their car, or jogging.

So while I consider myself an audiophile of sorts, most audiophiles come off as religious nuts, taking everything on faith and ignoring all the science or evidence that apposes their opinion. Apologies for the rant.

 

[CZroe]

How the fuck do I know? I bought it on Amazon.com... and it sounds like shit. I'm not fucking trolling.

"sounds like shit" does not automatically mean it is "compressed"

 

[Rakehellion]

If you take the exact same file, make a copy/conversion to 256kbps MP3 (assuming its not an encoder that specifically does things to enhance certain parts of the audio spectrum) and compare it to the lossless (or even uncompressed) original, most people wouldn't be able to discern the difference, even with high quality speakers. Even fewer people would be able to correctly discern which one was the "higher quality" one with any consistency.

So some people can't tell the difference. That isn't really relevant to the people who can.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

So some people can't tell the difference. That isn't really relevant to the people who can.

I would like to see a double blind experiment that showed this. Everything I've ever seen has shown that audiophiles are full of shit.

Also, Brooklyn. That explains alot.

 

[alkemyst]

I would like to see a double blind experiment that showed this. Everything I've ever seen has shown that audiophiles are full of shit.

I have tested this theory with SACD, high end DVD Audio, and high bit rate MP3.

Double blind tests fail.

However; the placebo effect may still be a factor for humans that start thinking they are hearing defects.

The best audiophiles are those that say they can tell the differences in their not so quiet cars, lol.

 

[Kadarin]

Let me guess, OP liked vinyl before it was popular. Enjoy a PBR while listening to those old Neil Diamond records...

 

[alkemyst]

Let me guess, OP liked vinyl before it was popular. Enjoy a PBR while listening to those old Neil Diamond records...

I dislike the people that claim things "back in the day I had/did/etc" when you were part of their "back in the day" and know they are full of shit.

 

[Crotulus]

I started collecting vinyl just over 10 years ago after I lost my cd collection in a fire. Mainly chose to go the vinyl route just for the hell of it. I can't remember the last time I bought a cd now. Everything I buy is either on vinyl or bd. I'm the first to admit that there is some crap vinyl pressings but over all I think it sounds better than cd. Also it's nice that most modern vinyl comes with a download code for portable listening. That's a lot easier that transferring the music myself.