LP12 50: If Jony Ive made record players...

[Spannko]

Personally, I’ve never been able to correlate musical enjoyment with DR rating. Some high DR recordings are enjoyable and some less so.

Here’s a low DR album I quite enjoy https://open.spotify.com/album/16J9NCa ... EGbeCke_Kw



Here’s an album not listed in the DR database, but it’s reported to not have any compression on the vocals https://open.spotify.com/album/4jZU9Ma ... MJ_xnSfS6A

[lejonklou]

Personally, I’ve never been able to correlate musical enjoyment with DR rating.

I agree. Another attempt to make things simple that just doesn’t work.

There are those in mixing and production who know what they’re doing and those that do not. The only way I have been able to tell them apart is by listening. I haven’t found any numbers or specific techniques to be a short cut to the answer.

[lindsayt]

Personally, I’ve never been able to correlate musical enjoyment with DR rating. Some high DR recordings are enjoyable and some less so.

Here’s a low DR album I quite enjoy https://open.spotify.com/album/16J9NCa ... EGbeCke_Kw



Here’s an album not listed in the DR database, but it’s reported to not have any compression on the vocals https://open.spotify.com/album/4jZU9Ma ... MJ_xnSfS6A

I don't have spotify.

The only albums with dark green DR ratings that I find unenjoyable are the extreme avant garde type stuff. The sort of music that I find totally lacking in melody.The sort of "music" that I wouldn't stick around to listen to if I heard it live.

Apart from that I'm pretty much the opposite to you. Preservation of dynamics in the recording and the system are what I crave - joint mostly - from my time spent listening to music at home.

[Spannko]

Here’s a good example of why apparently “better” measurements don’t necessarily relate to a “better”, or more enjoyable, recording.

Just over half way down this page https://www.masteringthemix.com/pages/ ... rrency=GBP is a graphical comparison of two recordings, one with a loudness range of 9.7 loudness units (LU) and one with a loudness range of 3.4 LU. Naturally, we would expect a recording with nearly three times the loudness range to be of a higher quality, and maybe even more enjoyable to listen to. However, if we look at the waveforms, we can see that both recordings are severely clipped and although the choruses are less compressed/clipped, we’re unlikely to enjoy listening to the 9.7 LU recording any more than the 3.4LU recording.

As has been said, the only way of determining the quality of a recording is by listening to it. Just by chance, I stumbled across a website a couple of days ago that does just that. They listen to different versions of the same recording in order to find the best sounding. I’ll post a link in the music section.

[lindsayt]

I would enjoy listening to the 9.7 more than the 3.4. Both versions have ridiculous amounts of clipping.
The contrast between the quieter bits and the louder bits on the 9.7 is significantly greater on the 9.7. Resulting in that sounding less bad.
A better sounding version would have no clipping and no (deliberate) dynamic compression.

It's by listening to thousands of albums that I've arrived at a state where I yearn for uncompressed music and feel let down when presented with yet another over-compressed recording.

[Spannko]

Here’s the two clips with the choruses removed. They’re identical.

0E0428C4-A55D-47E0-9997-692D2E31C35C.jpeg

[matthias]

There are those in mixing and production who know what they’re doing and those that do not. The only way I have been able to tell them apart is by listening. I haven’t found any numbers or specific techniques to be a short cut to the answer.

I fully agree.

I am just curious how the musical result would be if a gifted recording/mastering engineer makes two versions of a recording/master:
One with compression applied and the other without.......

[lindsayt]

There are those in mixing and production who know what they’re doing and those that do not. The only way I have been able to tell them apart is by listening. I haven’t found any numbers or specific techniques to be a short cut to the answer.

I fully agree.

I am just curious how the musical result would be if a gifted recording/mastering engineer makes two versions of a recording/master:
One with compression applied and the other without.......

The one without compression would always sound better.

And as for the 9.7lu:


It's the blanks from Spannko's edited images that are important. When the blanks are refilled in, they are clearly different. It's the differences where the blanks are that would make the 9.7 better to listen to than the 3.4.
It's also where the clipping occurs in both the 9.7 and the 3.4 that makes the 9.7 a long way from being the best possible master. A 21 (or whatever) zero clipped and non dynamically compressed version of that track would sound better.

[lejonklou]

The one without compression would always sound better.

I don’t agree.

I have a very high respect for the producers of an album. I also consider the final version of an album to be THE work of art for the audience to enjoy, applaud or criticise. Therefore I also consider the practice of making different mixes for different media an abomination. There should be ONE work of art that we are relating to. Everything outside that ONE work of art is for the small group of true fans only - and although perhaps interesting, it will usually be musically worse.

I have heard raw mixes of bands performing live in the studio and compared them with what the producer decided was the final version. The raw mixes, uncompressed and surely more dynamic if measured, did not convey the message of the music any better, rather the opposite. The job of the producer is to capture the message and distill it to its optimum, using all the available tools.

[lindsayt]

The one without compression would always sound better.

I don’t agree.

I have a very high respect for the producers of an album. I also consider the final version of an album to be THE work of art for the audience to enjoy, applaud or criticise. Therefore I also consider the practice of making different mixes for different media an abomination. There should be ONE work of art that we are relating to. Everything outside is that ONE work of art is for the small group of true fans only - and although perhaps interesting, it will usually be musically worse.

I have heard raw mixes of bands performing live in the studio and compared them with what the producer decided was the final version. The raw mixes, uncompressed and surely more dynamic if measured, did not convey the message of the music any better, rather the opposite. The job of the producer is to capture the message and distill it to its optimum, using all the available tools.

Mixing can be done without the dynamic compression.
Dynamic compression happens when the recording is passed through a compression machine. Or where tracks of the recording or the whole recording are given too much amplification, resulting in clipping.

All the music biz has to do is to mix as they normally would and then have 1 version that's been passed through the compression machine and 1 version that hasn't. And also for them to watch their volume settings so that they avoid clipping. If they were to do that, the uncompressed version would always sound better - when listened to via hi-fi systems at home.

I have no respect whatsoever for the producers of albums in the 21st century. Almost all of them have been sucked into the Loudness Wars. History will look back on this period and see it as time of group-think. Where there was a daft fashion that was de rigeur.

The more that we, as consumers, scream for uncompressed versions of modern music releases, the more likely it is that these will be offered for sale.

The message of the music is always diluted when it's dynamically compressed. Because real music made by real musicians with real instruments does not sound dynamically compressed.

Music Biz producers are not trying to produce the best work of art they can for owners of hi-fi systems. They are trying to produce something where the quiet bits of the track don't get drowned out by background noise when someone is listening to their car radio whilst driving along the motorway. They are trying to produce something that doesn't sound quieter than the competition when played over the PA system in a noisy factory.

[HansW]

The one without compression would always sound better.

I also consider the final version of an album to be THE work of art for the audience to enjoy, applaud or criticise. Therefore I also consider the practice of making different mixes for different media an abomination. There should be ONE work of art that we are relating to.

Many audiophiles have this view; and that it therefore is the systems task of reproducing as closely as possible what the engineers hear in the recording studio. I do not think there is a definite view one can have on this subject but in general I think the work of art is the performance by the artists. This would elevate the engineer or producer to being the primary artists which I think is wrong headed (although their contributions can be sometimes be large). The engineers task is to capture the performance well as possible in a way that enables the the music to be appreciated by the ultimate listeners through their systems. For this reason it may be valid for different decisions to be made depending on whether the mix is meant for vinyl, digital; for a hifi-system, earphones or FM radio. When Phil Spector made his famous recordings in the 60’s, his ultimate test before approving a mix was to replay the tape through a cheap portable radio like the one most of the audience was going to hear it.

For me personally I have found that the desire to ’balance’ instruments and create a smooth overal sound, which I think is what modern engineers often try to do, often sucks the life out of recordings. Compresssion is especially ’good ’ at this. The best recordings are often live recordings or simple studio recordings like the jazz recordings from the late 50’s and early 60’s.

My 2 cents

Hans

[Spannko]

The one without compression would always sound better.

I don’t agree.

I have a very high respect for the producers of an album. I also consider the final version of an album to be THE work of art for the audience to enjoy, applaud or criticise. Therefore I also consider the practice of making different mixes for different media an abomination. There should be ONE work of art that we are relating to. Everything outside that ONE work of art is for the small group of true fans only - and although perhaps interesting, it will usually be musically worse.

I have heard raw mixes of bands performing live in the studio and compared them with what the producer decided was the final version. The raw mixes, uncompressed and surely more dynamic if measured, did not convey the message of the music any better, rather the opposite. The job of the producer is to capture the message and distill it to its optimum, using all the available tools.

I totally agree. Musicians I’ve known have a very clear idea of how they want their art presented. I’ve talked to them about the “need” for a natural sound, but that’s rarely their intent. It’s like telling Monet he needed to add more detail to his paintings!

[Spannko]

Here’s a really interesting video describing how Gilad turned things around at Linn. Well, sort of!

https://youtu.be/mWylKk0Y6PU

[Ianw]

That’s so funny.

Actually, Martin guitars still use hide glue on some of their ‘Authentic Series’ and ‘Modern Deluxe’’ range.

[matthias]

Here’s a really interesting video describing how Gilad turned things around at Linn. Well, sort of!
https://youtu.be/mWylKk0Y6PU

I would say the majority of "high end" manufacturers do this.
They do bait the pride of the customers and these are happy to get this treatment.

[Charlie1]

Very funny video - thanks for sharing. As amusing as it was, the guys in the clip were for sure finding it even funnier.

[lindsayt]

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14
"To maximise the quality of music reproduction, the order of importance is (from most to least): The performance of the artist, the recording, the record/CD/file, the source component that replays the record/CD/file, the preamplifier, the power amplifier and the loudspeaker (least important). We often refer to this order of importance as Source First or The Hierarchy..."

For a given performance by a recording artist, the recording is the most important thing. More important than the hi-fi equipment that any of us own.

Some relevent phrases from this document:
https://www.lejonklou.com/wp-content/up ... Method.pdf
"When doing comparisons, you should never change more than one parameter at a time. If you do, it will be very
difficult to draw any conclusions from the outcome of your comparison...

And a system that is in tune can strongly communicate the emotional content of the music, give the listener a much more intense experience and will not cause listening fatigue...

It can easily be demonstrated that reducing the amount of information from a well performing system results in the tune
being more difficult to follow...

It can also be shown that it is far easier to follow the tune while listening to the live performance of an artist than it is when
listening to a recording of the same performance.
Our hearing is made to perceive and analyse natural sounds. The less distorted the sounds are, the easier it is for our brains to interpret the information. And the more you will enjoy the music!"

Comparing raw mixes to final versions will result in it being very difficult to draw conclusions (because multiple parameters have been changed). It would be better to compare non dynamically compressed final versions to compressed final versions (single parameter changed).

The full dynamics of a musical performance, replayed at an appropriate volume, does more strongly communicate the emotional content of music and give the listener a more intense experience.

Dynamic compression reduces the amount of information from a well performing system because part of the information in a recording is how loud the transients are compared to the inbetween transient moments.

Dynamic compression also takes the recording further away from a listening live experience.
Dynamic compression is a form of distortion. Reducing the amount of dynamic compression results in more enjoyment of the music.

This forum should be a beacon for advocating for recordings that have no conscious dynamic compression.

[John]

I agree about having separate recordings for hi-fidelity listening vs. listening when there is a higher ambient noise level like when listening in automobiles.

I enjoy my Spotify listening with Audio Normalization disabled when listening on my hi-fi system.

[ThomasOK]

Here’s a really interesting video describing how Gilad turned things around at Linn. Well, sort of!

https://youtu.be/mWylKk0Y6PU

Very amusing video!

[El Mero Mero]

Has anyone listened to a LP12 50? Or even ordered one?