Continuing with CDs?

I have… they just sound worse! :( It’s like a “clarity” thing… idk

Granted, some of these are “mid-fi” indie-rock albums; but others are big-budget studio recordings (…and for comparison, today’s indie-rock albums can sound great, anyway; like the last Big Thief album, that CD sounds terrific).

name some albums that sound bad?

Yeah, I’d say CDs started sounding bad in general around 1995 and got worse for about a decade, and have been improving since. (A very general statement— exceptions abound.) Pre-loudness-wars discs often sound sublime; I’ve never been tempted to buy Daniel Lanois’ Wynona on vinyl, and a remastered version wouldn’t tempt me, because I can’t imagine anything sounding better than the original CD. On the other hand, Sam Roberts’ We Were Born In a Flame is so poorly mastered that it literally hurts my ears to listen to, even at low volumes, and the LP is a huge improvement. Brickwall was/is a bitch.

There was an interview with Stephen Street where he said that, in the late 80s / early 90s, mastering engineers often filtered the bottom end and reduced the stereo field. Neither of those changes sound like they'd be for the better and he seemed as mystified as anyone else why they'd do that.

Reducing the stereo field & filtering out the bottom end is important for vinyl mastering.

Hilarious that this post was started over 16 years ago.

name some albums that sound bad?

10,000 Maniacs - Our Time in Eden
Bought this when it came out, was a big fan, listened to it a lot... recently got back into it on streaming; sounds so great & lush. Dug out the old CD... does not sound lush!

The Sugarcubes - Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week!
Bought this sealed on eBay (a new "record club" pressing, from back in the day)... I won't say it sounds "bad," but it's fairly harsh and tiring on the ears. Very "CD" sounding, in that way that CDs used to have.

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Another one I bought on release day, and have listened to a lot over the years. I bought the 2011 remaster a few years back; it sounds so much better! (this one may be a matter of a taste; I won't be the one to say that the original SD mastering is "bad")

Liz Phair - Whitechocolatespaceegg
Yet another I used to love, and dug back out recently... it just sounds muddy! Unpleasant to listen to, compared with streaming the same tracks.

Built to Spill - There's Nothing Wrong with Love
Probably the worst offender here. I got way into this album recently (via streaming), and dug out my old copy from college. Could barely make it through the disc! It sounds so harsh and shrill. And I know it's a Sub Pop album by an indie rock band, we're not talking Fleetwood Mac... but it made in the studio w/Phil Ek, it's not like it was recorded on a tape deck.

The two Use Your Illusion reissues are another case of the remaster sounding a lot better to me than the ‘90s originals… as with Siamese Dream, I A/B’d them (and keep in mind, this isn’t always the case when we’re talking about multiple remasters of older recordings).

do you have any thoughts on the REM Monster remaster, I’m listening to the original CD right now and don’t think I would want it to be smiley face EQd or whatever, it sounds like a purring engine

That’s another good example, I’ll have to pull out both versions and compare…

The original disc sounds very good… this is not a CD I would complain about! I’m not even ready to stop listening for the A/B…

OK, so I do think the remaster sounds better… every instrument is more clear, the drums sound more like drums, the bass has more presence, etc.

So even though the original CD isn’t a good illustration of this phenomenon, the remaster does illustrate what I’m talking about… and it’s not just a matter of brickwalling, like in the way the 2010 remaster of Exile on Main Street sounds awful compared to the one from the 1994 disc.

Yeah, the 1994 Virgin Records remaster of Exile is the one to have.

wait morrisp - siamese dream, for example, only the 2011 remaster appears to be on spotify. so you’re saying the 2011 remaster sounds better when streamed than the 1993 original cd? not really an apples to apples comparison

No no, I’m comparing the actual CDs…!

My comments re: streaming related to some of those other albums (that haven’t been remastered); I’m comparing how they sound on Amazon Music versus how the old CDs sound.

(and those are not being heard through the same system or speakers, so that is definitely not an apples to apples comparison; just a point of reference)

oh well if you’re comparing a remaster cd to the original cd of course it’s gonna sound different?

same with comparing a cd on one sound system to a digital stream on another. maybe you just don’t like your cd player sound system anymore?

Well, the new CDs sound great in it... that's my main point, the streaming & remasters are more a distraction / "how I came to notice it" (it's true that if I tried multiple ways of listening, maybe the old ones would sound different)

which of these 2 do you prefer, morrisp?

https://mega.nz/folder/t2xByYwC#Z9eC7fNnra3dXuRuyi36gw

Uhhh is that link safe to click(?) lol

it's just 2 untagged FLAC files, track 1 of SD from the 1993 and 2011 CD masters, loudness normalised

Cool, thx, I'll check it out

Ok, so I'd say the remastered version sounds just as much "better" to me as it does on CD – the guitars are crunchier, vocals are clearer, drums are punchier (when played at the exact same volume.) It's like there's a thin layer of gauze over everything in the 1993 version, that's been pulled away in the remaster.

The difference isn't dramatic – and the OG CD isn't one I'd complain too much about! – but I have a definite preference.

(...Watch you now tell me that you pulled a switcheroo, and "b" is actually 1993!)

Your Kickstarter Sucks just alerted me to the HOTT CD player: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/553318161/hott-cd-player-rediscover-the-soul-of-music

A stand-up version of the wall player design! lol. Looks technically better than the Muji knockoffs. Headphone jack, optical port, etc.

― maf you one two (maffew12), Thursday, August 31, 2023 1:47 AM (four months ago)

(...Watch you now tell me that you pulled a switcheroo, and "b" is actually 1993!)

i didn't make a note of which was which but i checked and you're correct, b is the 2011 remaster indeed

for science, one more test if you're up for it? albeit not one of your examples this time, it's running up that hill, 85 vs 97
https://mega.nz/folder/Mm4SDRLJ#K2B-leqHjMFI1QG7KC0Qvw

Thanks, this is fun... in this case, it is (b) that sounds more "muffled" and less dynamic than (a). I would guess that (b) is the 1985 version, and (a) the later remaster?

B is the louder 97 remaster, i agree that A sounds better btw, which is why i picked this track to test. trivially noticeable at around the 3 minute mark

this is how i'd expect most comparisons to turn out but as you've seen, remastering isn't necessarily a loudness boost only and some remasters can be an improvement despite also being louder for no good reason.
merely comparing ReplayGain figures or DR meter scores without actually listening to the different versions is a fool's errand. if it sounds good, it is good, etc

(despite all that, unless told otherwise i'm biased to pick the older, quieter masters as a lazy rule of thumb)

i'm biased to pick the older, quieter masters as a lazy rule of thumb

100% agree, unless I hear or experience otherwise e.g. the Stereolab reissues

Interesting – yeah, they made it worse in this case for sure.

sometimes looking at those botched remasters in a WAV editor shows the most insane brickwalling, tens of thousands of clips per song.

is there some "pro" reasoning behind this? even as someone who is only a dabbler in home recording it seems like that would be something to avoid from a listener POV, "Loudness war" attention-grab-at-low-volume issues aside

btw chihuahuau thank you for all yr posts here, very educational

I want more A/Bs... lol

^^Sounds like a new thread idea...

I can’t figure out why CDs from the ‘90s, including old favorites, sounds so muddy to me now, in comparison to modern discs (when played in the same player). Are they mastered differently now?

Late to this, but yes, mastering is different, and I think it comes down to a matter of taste. I have the opposite experience where I think most pop music is now mastered with a grating top end and upper midrange. When I burned a compilation of "singles" from the 2010s (basically stuff from albums or even artists I don't like that much beyond the one song), I ended up re-EQing the top end and upper midrange the same way across the board, taking out several decibels in almost every case. I think this kind of boost was becoming more prevalent around the mid-'90s and it was especially bad during the end of the '90s through the mid-'00s. It also seemed to coincide with brickwall compression. All of those things aren't quite as bad anymore but it's still there on most music today. I don't like it because I think it's unnatural - to me, it blatantly sounds like someone spiking the treble and I find it irritating. As soon as I smooth out that top end, it's no longer grating and it typically brings out the vocals - voices sound more natural and I even have an easier time making out the song's lyrics.

I think there's a common notion that boosting the treble brings out "more detail," but it's pretty deceptive. Crank up the "sharpness" feature on your television - some people say that's more detail too, but the picture looks unnatural and terrible to me.

Part of me also wonders if the problem is compounded by iPods/phones and ear buds becoming so prevalent over the past 20 years - I hear this all the time from otolaryngologists and neurotologists, but it's stunning how hearing problems have become much more common with even teenagers having the kind of issues you'd expect from someone much, much older. When your hearing is damaged, the first thing that goes is the upper frequencies, and there's even a running joke of sorts among engineers that there's a "sweet spot" they can boost that older clients will approve because that's where they've lost their hearing after years of performing without ear protection.

Perfect example cited here, published just 5 months ago:

“Compared to 10 or 20 years ago, the biggest thing related to hearing is the amount of noise exposure in the world today,” said Yu-Tung Wong, MD, an otolaryngologist and neurotologist at Cedars-Sinai. “Everybody grows up with a set of earbuds in their ears.”

“Listening to loud music with earbuds or headphones can cause damage, because they’re in your ear canal or adjacent to your ear,” said Abhita Reddy, MD, a pediatric otolaryngologist at Cedars-Sinai. “And concerts expose patients to loud noises for long periods of time.”

An estimated 17% of teenagers and 19% of people in their 20s have signs of noise-induced hearing loss, according to research. And more than 1 billion young adults worldwide are at risk of permanent, avoidable hearing loss that’s caused by unsafe listening practices, according to the World Health Organization.

“Permanent hearing loss related to noise lasts a lifetime, and it sets you up for problems like tinnitus—ringing in the ears—and difficulty hearing when there’s background noise,” said Mia Miller, MD, an otolaryngologist and neurotologist at Cedars-Sinai. “Once you recognize a problem, do something about it.”

Another thing - I have a relative who now has major hearing loss, and he's been stubborn about getting hearing aids. It's been a huge pain in the ass getting him to just go to the doctor and get some made for him. The big point that's being made to him now is that if he continues to forgo a hearing aid, the risk of dementia becomes much higher. That's really troubling to me - I've always taken care of my hearing far more than others thanks to a jr. high classmate who was already partially deaf from hearing damage, but I think most people are very cavalier about potential hearing damage. I've had two relatives who had bad dementia, and if there's a strong connection to hearing loss, that's definitely not something I want to mess around with.

Yeah there certainly is a large relative risk increase for dementia, and hearing aids reduce that risk significantly. There’s debate about why they’re correlated, but the correlation is very clear.

But Fritz hit the off switch on the Krells. And Kurt delivered the words the two of them could never come back from.

“I need you to die slow, m-----f-----,” he told his father. “Die slow.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/interactive/2024/ken-fritz-greatest-stereo-auction-cost/?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b2IOOhJmxw

I want more A/Bs... lol

― Wooly Bully (2005 Remaster) (morrisp), Saturday, January 13, 2024 1:29 AM bookmarkflaglink

i can prepare others if you have any track suggestions and if i can torrentlegally source cd rips of the relevant masters somewhere

but in the spirit of "teaching someone to fish", it's easy to do loudness normalised A/B tests of arbitrary audio files with any ReplayGain compatible audio player, like foobar2000 for example.
it's a matter of enabling RG normalisation during playback in the player (using track gain as source), (re-)scanning both A and B and (re-)tagging them with the track gain value, and comparing

I’d be interested in hearing comparisons of the original Bob Dylan CDs with the remasters that came out in the 2000s… I think I bought a few of those and Did Not Like, sold them back; the sound was too “sweetened” and weird (in the case of Street-Legal, I think the album was also remixed… and yeesh, not for me).

The 2003 remasters? I think they've been mostly superseded by MFSL's SACD's, which for a while could be had for like $15 a pop (maybe even less if you were able to use Music Direct's coupons before they stopped applying them to those titles).

The old CD's were a really mixed bag - some were done from inferior tapes (especially Highway 61 Revisited, Nashville Skyline), some were digitally remixed (Bringing It All Back Home, Blonde on Blonde, John Wesley Harding)...the only old CD's I hung on to (for vinyl-era albums) were Street-Legal, Slow Train Coming, Shot of Love and Oh Mercy. Street-Legal I may dump if I ever get the remaster from the 2013 Complete Albums box set - that's also from the original mix and the newer mastering is an improvement. (The 2003 remaster used the 1999 remix.) The old Slow Train Coming CD was done by Joe Gastwirt back when he was mastering CD's for CBS and Shot of Love was done by Vic Anesini. Those albums are not exactly favorites, but the old CD's are dirt cheap and the mastering for Slow Train Coming has not been bettered on CD. With Shot of Love, the 2013 box set may be better, but I haven't checked. (The 2013 box set simply recycles the 2003 remaster which is a little grating in the upper midrange.) The original Oh Mercy CD is a straight transfer of the digital master. That album was digitally mixed down to a standard PCM master tape, so you can't go wrong with a CD that's essentially a clone.

*(The 2013 box set simply recycles the 2003 remaster for Slow Train Coming which is a little grating in the upper midrange.)

Thanks for the info… I’d like to hear that 2013 Street-Legal.

Planet Waves (my favorite) is another one where I bought the remaster, and couldn’t deal. I think I have Blonde on Blonde, or one of the other early ones. Honestly, I have BoB on several formats, I don’t think I really love any of them.

(I have a mono vinyl reissue, on Sundazed maybe?, that sounds like #%*)

y'know a lot of these problems can be solved by listening to the original LPs ;)

I mean a good copy of an original US stereo Planet Waves LP is probably $20 these days but I bet it sounds better than any of these CD options

that's disappointing about the Sundazed vinyl reissue though, I expect better from them. my mono reissue of the 13th Floor Elevators debut that they did totally rules.

sorry I know this is the CD thread, carry on (the only Dylan I have on CD is the complete Basement Tapes and an original US CD of "Love And Theft"

I am pretty happy with my OG Planet Waves CD (…I grew up w/the OG vinyl, tho!). I had bought the reissue just to see if it was “better”

Because so many songs and outtakes were left behind, one thing Dylan fans often debate or discuss is what an album SHOULD have included. Planet Waves is one of those for me, though the only thing I did was drop "You Angel You" and add "Nobody 'Cept You." So even though I bought the MFSL SACD (another $15 clearance item), I usually listen to the custom disc I made. (Also the MFSL SACD accidentally clipped off that quiet guitar opening on "Dirge" so I spliced that in from the 2003 SACD remaster with a small EQ tweak just to get it to match.)

dylan originals vs 00s:

https://mega.nz/folder/d65UkQqB#OSa1EeUGWcOLV--y3ijp4w
https://mega.nz/folder/8nwXhbxB#nWVtaqVqjLgu68grbAhweA
https://mega.nz/folder/czYyXQIQ#JQzyivel2FoeMddH7om14Q
https://mega.nz/folder/o7xnWLAK#JIjtqaqtXTLMjWtHMIHrcw

My mono Sundazed Blonde on Blonde sounds good, it’s not hotel California here