CD quality going downhill? - Axiom Message Boards

Thought this community might be interested in this article.

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/33549

Excellent little video and thanks for posting.

This is something we've discussed before (not that we shouldn't discuss it again!). Rush is a particularly egregious example, unfortunately. I have heard that the latest album is much, much better.

Sting-Sacred Love is probably the loudest I have in my collection. Really annoying.

Yeah Jonah, some of those comments might not be precise in describing the problem, but a similar pattern of making the dynamic range narrower and having the maximum level at or sometimes beyond the digital clipping limit has been going on for years. This is primarily a problem with many pop discs and doesn't affect the classical CDs that I listen to. The CD format itself is fine, of course, and provides for a frequency response(22,050Hz)beyond human needs and a theoretical dynamic range(6.02n+1.76dB or 98dB)beyond practical home requirements(almost nothing is available with more than about a 60dB range); the problem is the drive to have the loudest disc, and almost uniformly so, for commercial purposes.

I think some CDs are already AT the bottom of the hill.

I have posted about this subject, many times here.......I also remember several here disagreeing with me, when I tried to explain in my post, about the increased "loudness" of many of the re-mastered CDs.
The example you posted, would seem to support my position.
I wish I had more time to expound on this subject, I find it interesting.

We should start a petition. Who would we send it to?

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We should start a petition. Who would we send it to?

Address it to "The Man" I think he lives in California somewhere. haha.

I have an example of a poorly recorded cd. It is poor because it was recorded too LOW and it sounds muddled. It is Collective Souls first album. Great music but sounds like crap.

Interresting read. I had to go test this. I popped in the first CD I ever bought, Dire Straights Brothers in Arms, the very first DDD album in my collection and found a volume setting to achieve ~78 dB with peaks at 80/81 dB. Then I put in Dixie Chicks Wide Open Spaces CD and at the same volume setting I was now at 88 dB with peaks to 91/92 dB. Then I pu in my newest CD, the latest Rascal Flats offering and had to dive for the remote. It was now at 94 dB with peaks to 98 dB! Guess I should have shut the hall door, cause I woke up my oldest boy sleeping at the far end of the house (~100 feet away)!

Scott

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Interresting read. I had to go test this. I popped in the first CD I ever bought, Dire Straights Brothers in Arms, the very first DDD album in my collection and found a volume setting to achieve ~78 dB with peaks at 80/81 dB. Then I put in Dixie Chicks Wide Open Spaces CD and at the same volume setting I was now at 88 dB with peaks to 91/92 dB. Then I pu in my newest CD, the latest Rascal Flats offering and had to dive for the remote. It was now at 94 dB with peaks to 98 dB! Guess I should have shut the hall door, cause I woke up my oldest boy sleeping at the far end of the house (~100 feet away)!

Scott

interesting.....did you notice the quality difference at those loud volumes?

The Dire Straits CD had the best clarity of the three, but all sound pretty good on the Axioms, in fact I've had the Chick's album cranked to 125+ dB without any noticeable distortion [over lower volume settings]. All three are original releases and I don't have any with a matching re-mastered version for a direct comparison which would really be helpful for this experiment. As it is it's comparing apples and oranges, but the test that newer albums are louder than older was proven. Dire Straits was produced in 1985, Chicks's was in 1998 and Flats in 2006.
I've thought about getting the SACD version of the Brothers in Arms album 'cause I don't have any SACD's yet.

Scott

I can highly recommend the Brothers in Arms SACD. The tracks "Ride Across the River" and "Your Latest Trick" are songs that I play when demoing my system to others.

When I play "Ride across the River" in stereo on my system, people immediately comment how great my 5.1 sounds

Dire Straits is awesome. So is Depech Mode and the new Kofler CD. The Allison Krause SACD is good as well. Not only is it so crystal clear that you can hear her breathing it is set up so that the music comes out of the front speakers and the audience noises from the rears...its like you are there.