Continuing with CDs?

Hertz is a measure of frequency, pitch is how we mentally perceive the frequency of sound waves. So the higher the frequency of a sound wave, the higher we will perceive its pitch being. Sound is waves of pressure propagating through a medium (like air). Humans can hear sounds between about 20Hz to 20,000Hz, but the upper end of this range diminishes with age and/or exposure to loud noise. Teenagers can hear sounds with frequencies up in the 17.5kHz-20.0kHz range, but by the time you're in your forties or fifties (even without attending hundreds of live shows) your upper range diminishes, being able to only perceive sounds around an upper limit of 14.0-16.0kHz. That's on average... some people can still hear high frequency sounds in middle age (like my office mate, who is in his late 40s and easily heard the 17.5kHz tone I was generating).

Radio waves also have frequencies, so are also measured in Hertz, but they are electromagnetic waves.

this thread has recently turned into more of a general audiophile/stereo discussion thread, and even the audiophile snake oil thread started to make fun of audiophile shit is now halfway an audiophile/stereo discussion thread

basically i think people want a thread to talk about this stuff but no one wants to be the dork who starts an audiophile thread on ilm

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, February 22, 2022 5:41 PM (one hour ago)

sort of feels like if we're having to justify using a dead medium like CDs sooner or later the discussion will turns towards audiophilic qualities of why said dead format is superior to streaming

you can borrow my copy of 20kHz Jazz Funk Greats on CD if you want, I think it's defective

> Wikipedia only has an entry for "Hertz".

Wikipedia is often its own worst enemy for things like this, gets far too deep too quickly. there needs to be a kid's version, almost.

thought the 440Hz thing was the kind of general knowledge that happens on (bbc2) quiz shows and that musicians would know it from, say, guitar tuners, but i guess not.

when i went to see the bloke about my tinnitus he singled out Brixton Academy by name where, yes, i'd seen the Rollercoaster tour, albeit decades earlier.

I'm grateful to the people who have provided information about the concept of 'khz' and 'sound waves'. Though these technical matters are entirely unfamiliar to me, I actually think that those posters (Assert and Jaime Pressly) explained them about as clearly as they could have.

Koogs: I think there *is* a simple version of Wikipedia? But you'd know better.

How about this?
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

I have watched UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE for almost 30 years and I don't remember your 440Hz statement coming up.

I don't have a guitar tuner - except, technically, I think, on a computer (in Garageband I suppose?). I've never owned a free-standing gadget to do that. I usually tune a guitar from a piano. (You may well say: but is the piano in tune?)

a useless piece of trivia, but in the USA the dial tones on landline phones are at something approximating 440 hz. so if you needed a guitar tuner it would do in a pinch.

The CD Revival properly reaches the Guardian!

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/23/music-streaming-cds-spotify

"proof of a revival for CDs may come merely in the shape of comment pieces wondering if CDs are due a revival"

This article is a pretty good summary of the state of affairs and the various ideas and directions often mentioned above (before discussion here mainly became about "khz").

I'd also missed this report:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/feb/04/they-just-worked-reports-of-cds-demise-inspires-wave-of-support

A comment in that last report fairly typical of the inanity of much of this public debate:

But, he added, it was unlikely to match the vinyl revival of recent years. “There is not the same romance, the magic of dropping a needle on to vinyl. The plastic cases cracked easily. I remember listening to Nirvana’s Nevermind on the school bus and every time that the bus went over a bump, your CD would skip.”

Yes ... it was better to take a record player on the school bus. Much more romance.

In the 90s I used to regularly take a bus journey that took about 10 hours, I’d take my plain jane Discman and a wallet of 20 CDs, a set of 4 AAs would get me there. Some of the purest pleasure I’ve had listening to music, at times.

Similar experience here! Only very occasional bumps. Plus dedicated wired-in vehicular players are a thing innit. Not sure I've heard mine skip a beat in a decade.

It's almost like a certain strain of vinyl enthusiast *wants* to be mocked.

The plastic cases cracked easily.

Whereas vinyl records are celebrated for their imperviousness to physical damage.

I have LPs from the 1940s that sound good, still play, obviously people have 78s from the 20s. CDs are superficially more durable, but damage on a CD basically goes from 0 to 100 pretty quickly, one of the CDs I just checked out from the library doesn't have that much scratching but it's enough to render it unplayable halfway through, it gets stuck on a song and won't progress. You can sometimes skip ahead to the next song, sometimes not

we won't know until there are 80 year old CDs

For digital formats, there's already tons of obsolete formats, (realplayer etc) who knows what the future is for MP3s.

Analog tape is by far the most reliable format, people are still able to remix/remaster/etc from analog tape, or pull from newly discovered tape (cfe the new Coltrane Love Supreme Live thing)

so yes vinyl is somewhat fragile but in its way very durable. I certainly have 70s rock records that were put through the wringer by stoners and there is more surface noise than you'd like but they are still listenable.

and there's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

That Wiki article doesn't provide any information on how common bit rot is, though. I've got hundreds of CDs, some dating back to the late '80s, and I can think of only one that became unplayable. Actually, its companion disc (from a Jane Siberry compilation) also stopped working. Must have been a bad day at the factory.

I don't know how common it is, I'm sure manufacturing errors. my first cd was fear of a black planet and that's still working i think

that's not my main point thought, see the post above. also, let's give these late 80s CDS another 50 years.

but I shouldn't have posted the disc rot thing if that's going to be the focus, it's a side point.

and I'm not saying CDs are bad, I like CDs. and they are durable in a way compared to vinyl, in that scratches are benign...until they aren't

it's not a simple this is more durable than that

"Surface noise," warp, sibilance, pops, "warmth" (that just means artifacts the artist didn't intend)--I never understood the "romance' of vinyl. The "ritual" of placing the needle, flipping the record--all these things just distracted from the music as the artist recorded it. And all the kids who would talk up how it sounded better than CDs, while using their parents 8-track-LP-radio-combo unit from 1977 with a cartridge to match.

Even on the relatively cheap gear I could afford as a kid, CDs just sounded... like whatever music was put on them. Lo-fi punk sounded lo-fi, high-end classical recordings sounded pretty high-end and polished, and everything in between.

I doubt whether I could tell a 320kbps mp3 from a "better-than-CD" FLAC in an A/B test on my $300 headphones, so I guess I don't have golden ears. But from 1992 until storage space and ripping speeds made at least 320kbps mp3s of large libraries feasible, CDs just *worked* for me. I didn't end up with the level of nostalgia (Stockholm syndrome?) people seem to feel for LPs (or cassettes, yech). But I think that's because CDs encouraged me to focus on the music itself, rather than the artifact or the "rituals". Which in turn encouraged me to listen voraciously and widely, to new-to-me music from any time and any place in recorded musiical history. So I guess I love and am thankful for the ways in which CDs are "boring".

The only nostalgic memory I have for vinyl, actually, is being 7 years old or so, and rolling up a sheet of notebook paper into a funnel and taping a sewing needle to the small end, and being amazed that some sound would eminate from that dead-simple mechanism (as we were presumably destroying the Moody Blues or whatever record we were torturing from my Dad's collection).

ha yeah i cringe at the memory of being the same age & doing that, except using playing cards.

i got to be on the flipside of that recently when I played some 78s on a victrola for my 10y/o nephew (yeah thats right, i'm nonstop fun as an uncle), and he was completely fascinated and amazed that music was coming out of the place where the needle touched the record, couldnt stop trying to figure it out

I grew up w/vinyl (and tapes, and later CDs), but never felt the “romance” of vinyl; I’ve wondered if a lot of that is people from slightly later generations, for whom it has a sort of mystique…

Soundslike is completely otm. Having to worry about the quality of your LP pressing? Screw that!

The young folks I know into vinyl like the physicality of it and enjoy having a "thing" that represents what they like. But typically they listen to their records on Spotify.

I have a couple of contemporaries who are into vinyl. One has always been so and, while it's his preferred format, he happily buys CDs as well. The other friend sold almost all his CDs and switched to vinyl. I think he secretly wanted to do so because his interest in new music has dwindled and it gave him something to keep collecting. But he'll say it's also due to the ritual, warmth, yadda yadda.

"Surface noise," warp, sibilance, pops, "warmth" (that just means artifacts the artist didn't intend)--I never understood the "romance' of vinyl.

That John Peel quote in defense of vinyl over CDs -- "Listen, mate, life has surface noise!" -- always bugged me. Yes, life has surface noise...so why add more?

Despite being mostly a vinyl guy I'll admit that the people who praise the "physical ritual" of vinyl vs CDs have always confused me because, unless someone invents some kind of thought-activated music player, every format has some amount of proscribed physical activities that lead up to you hearing the music - taking the CD out of the case, opening the tray, hitting play, etc. They can like the particular physical ritual of vinyl listening, but its not like that one format has a monopoly on physicality.

I feel like people are responding to arguments not being made in this thread

I don't know any collector who likes surface noise, I've never heard anyone irl or on discogs do anything but complain about it

I will say that if you handle your records like a normal human being, have a decent needle and use a brush from time to time, you'll experience very little to no surface noise. it's often only noticeable between songs

as for warmth I think there are quirks to how vinyl rolls off certain frequencies that sounds very appealing and non fatiguing, I read someone say "the sound of vinyl is a series of happy accidents"

but CDs can sound great too, especially modern reissues done with care. streaming can sound great too with a good DAC. reel to reel tape sounds great. Spotify on earbuds doesn't sound great, but it's million more times better sounding than a Walkman and frankly with a decent pair of Bluetooth speakers comparable or better to an average home setup from the 70s or 80s

but I maintain a great vinyl pressing through a good setup is an amazing thing

UMS OTM. I'm format agnostic: whatever format makes most sense for a particular release (though I try to avoid cassettes as much as possible). Vinyl problems way overstated by the naysayers. Ritual applies to CDs over streaming as well.

the only thing that nags me is I wish I could turn however many thousands of CDs I have from the 90s and 00 into vinyl so I could sell them for shitloads of money

I think it's neat to enjoy music in the format in which it was most widely consumed at the time. highway 61 revisited sounds good on CD but sounds great on vinyl! says someone who was born in the 80s. that's sort of been my philosophy - buy music from 80s and before on vinyl if you can find it, 90s onward on CD. I grew up with Substance on CD but the BLT 12" sounds absolutely fantastic on my system!

i have memories of buying 80s music on CD that quite frankly sounded like shit (for some reason the early metallic albums stand out in my head - particularly kill 'em all). I'd bet the same release on vinyl was killer! I know this is because nobody knew how to master, and I'm sure scik mouthy will show up to talk about loudness wars and how a really flat CD is actually great because just turn up the volume, etc. etc. - still, no thanks!

for me the "ritual" is *about* focusing on the music - i'm consciously putting stuff on, i'm consciously keeping a loose queue of shit i wanna listen to soon. i'm more aware that i'm listening to something and i really enjoy that.

to be clear, it's streaming and before that MP3s that (for me) really failed at this. it's like vinyl >> CDs >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the other options. i also overwhelmingly listen to older stuff, so "as the artist intended" has to include things like "this song is meant to close out side A with a full stop afterwards."

with longer sets, this can break down but also be helpful. all the side changes CAN be a pain, so double and triple LP releases have to really be all-killer no-filler or i will ultimately let them go from my collection. i've recently purged some 90s/00s hip-hop releases which are great albums but (between the wide bassy grooves and a preponderance of skits) have like 3 songs per side. that's a little too much ritual for me, and single CDs would legit make a lot more sense here. OTOH with, like, a 3-disc box set of some 60s singles artist, the side changes do keep me paying attention, and encourage me to listen in more manageable batches. one huge disc or playlist and i might never actually get to the last third!

this is just all about personal styles of listening and how we relate to stuff; i'm not trying to convert anybody, but to make it clear that vinyl enthusiasm does include things beyond material fetishism, nostalgia, and anecdotal accounts of subjective aural phenomena.

OTM x2

xp That's a really good rule of thumb. Ofc a lot of 12" singles from after 1990 sound great but one could say that's how those particular mixes were supposed to be consumed.

in many ways, we are in a golden age of hifi. the market forced a lot of higher end companies to make entry level stuff, components got cheaper, streaming as a convenient/portable format compared to cassette...not even a contest. there are great turntable options around 250-300 that are fantastic, quality DACs are super affordable, new CDs that are done right sound better than ever, hi-rez streaming is mainstream... it's never been easier or more affordable

for me the "ritual" is *about* focusing on the music - i'm consciously putting stuff on, i'm consciously keeping a loose queue of shit i wanna listen to soon. i'm more aware that i'm listening to something and i really enjoy that.

to be clear, it's streaming and before that MP3s that (for me) really failed at this. it's like vinyl >> CDs >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the other options.

yeah this is very otm for how i relate to this stuff. a big part of my turn back to CDs in the last 5 years was coming to grips with realizing how streaming & mp3 were not as convenient as I had convinced myself they were.

Humans can perceive tones down to around 16 Hz. 20 Hz is just a nice round number to pair with 20 kHz.

Generally I don't give a shit what format music is in. Digital is most convenient, but I'll take CDs, vinyl, cassette, 8-track, open reel, and shellac. If there were many wire recordings, I'd get a player for that too.

Generally I don't give a shit what format music is in.

Exactly. Also, formats that are cheap/affordable and available, which is why i've felt soured on buying vinyl recently and been back to buying used CDs and, to my surprise, even new cassettes (Angel Bat Dawid and Poison Ruïn). I'm old enough to have been buying new records at KMart or wherever as a child, and then also bought tapes and then CDs as I had players for them. But in the late 80s/early 90s when I found thrift stores and used record stores (as opposed to the mall's Sam Goody), vinyl was cheap and plentiful. And digging for it was exciting, in being able to find known things and spend little money to take a chance on unknown things. The last few years, it has felt rare to dig and find a deal. More often than not I'm thinking "do I want to drop $25/$40 on some used record anymore?" And I've missed so many new records by not jumping on an order the day it's announced. Or it's a shitty pressing. My teenager is now into thrift stores, and while there has been zilch in terms of anything worth buying on vinyl I've been able to find great CDs for $1. I'm continuing with everything I guess. I'll still buy new records as I can (direct or through bandcamp) to support the artists though.

I think it's neat to enjoy music in the format in which it was most widely consumed at the time. highway 61 revisited sounds good on CD but sounds great on vinyl! says someone who was born in the 80s. that's sort of been my philosophy - buy music from 80s and before on vinyl if you can find it, 90s onward on CD. I grew up with Substance on CD but the BLT 12" sounds absolutely fantastic on my system!

yes, from 1988 to 1990 I bought all the new Fall albums on cassette because they had more tracks

Humans can perceive tones down to around 16 Hz. 20 Hz is just a nice round number to pair with 20 kHz.

This may be more a question for "Not continuing with CDs" – but why is it that when streaming from Amazon Music through my new Sonos speaker, "Ultra HD" (24-bit) FLAC sounds so much better than "HD" (16-bit)? In other words, 16-bit may be "CD-quality," but those tracks definitely do not sound as good as CDs to my ears (granted, I have not hooked up an actual CD player to the speaker, to see how CDs sound when played through it).

likely intentional to upsell you the "UHD" versions but who knows, could be any number of variables:

are they even derived from the same master? if so, are they volume matched?

can you download the raw "UHD" and "HD" tracks to your PC to properly ABX them?
if you can, can you ABX them after volume-matching and up-converting the 16-bit one to 24-bit?
it you still can, what about only the "UHD" track against a 24 -> 16 -> 24-bit version of itself?

Well, these are different albums altogether... newer releases tend to be UHD, maybe they are taken from a more "direct" source/master than legacy (HD) albums? They all just sound noticeably better, brighter, clearer, etc.

(There's no "upsell" involved, fwiw... Amazon Music Unlimited includes both HD & UHD)

Cassettes were the best-selling format in the '80s and in some ways were a privileged one (they had extended versions and extra tracks before CDs did).

― eatandoph (Neue Jesse Schule), Thursday, February 24, 2022 1:52 PM (four hours ago)

fair enough! maybe I'd say instead, the most widely consumed format for audiophilic consumption :) since I'm guessing a large part of the popularity of cassettes was driven by introduction of the walkman / it being the first truly portable format...

I just sniped a Dr. John CD, first time I’ve done that in ages. Got it for $1.05, so shipping was triple.

xxxp to myself – now listening to a brand-new (just released) r&b track that's only "HD" quality, and it sounds similarly not-great to the older HD ones. So there may be something more to it than newness/source.

without full disclosure of the technical specs used for the streaming audio, it's all just speculation. maybe they rip the originals at a higher bitrate for the UHD, who knows.

that being said, a separate thread for streaming audio quality actually seems like a good idea? I would follow even tho my interest is minimal.

Yeah - there was a little of that in the Continuing with Spotify thread (ppl wondering why Qobuz sounds “better” than others, etc.)