Audio Chain Bottleneck

[Byrd]

Seeing as though Andrew has tried his hand at some stirring in the forum recently, thought I would add my own 2c here.

This was brought on after becoming extremely agitated listening to a few disks today, and noticing terrible mxing. Why can they just leave it Au-Natural?

What is your biggest problem with the audio chain?

[Shonver]

I would have voted bad studio mixing, but that's not part of my system, and I don't listen to very bad discs, anyway. I couldn't tolerate them.

[skinnyfat]

I HAVE voted studio mixing regardless of the fact that we have no control over it.

However what isn't listed here is often what happens to many of us, 'the pursuit of perfection'

[Hennie]

I've voted studio mixing too. While speakers and room acoustics are also very important, I feel that recording quality is the bottleneck if you don't use audiophile discs exclusively. And most people don't, because the most interesting music is not available in an "audiophile edition".

It is very interesting excercise to examine your music in a free editor such as Audacity. There's a lot more clipping and hypercompression going on than I ever suspected. Spectral analysis often reveals unnatural HF spectrum content, indicating overzealous EQ.

On the other hand, many classical recordings are recorded at a very low level and are not scaled correctly to make full use of 16 bits. Some are closer to 14 bits, maybe that's where the grainy sound comes from.

[alanB]

A few years ago I had a brain wave and tried out a popular professional studio amplifier thinking that if that was what most recording studios used when they recorded the music then having the identical amp at home would result in the best reproduction of the original.

I was amazed how bad the thing sounded (we are talking a balanced 250 watt RMS reasonably hi priced unit that according to my research was used in many studio's, regarded as a good solid unit in the industry, cant remember what brand it was).  It had some sort of weird tonal problem in which the entire frequency range sounded shifted to the high end of the scale as if it had tone controls (which it didnt) and someone had turned the treble up to max and the bass to min.  It was also VERY rough and peaky making any music sound jagged and strident.  I didnt bother listening for more than a few minutes, it was that bad.  The guy who brought it to my place (he was a "recording technician" himself) explained that these amps were always used in conjunction with a mixing desk and so their "native" sound was never heard.  It also means that the sound you hear in any recording has been "set" by some person according to his/her judgement (there is no reliable "pure" or "as is" standard setting in recording).

If you combine this with the fact that many muso's and sound technicians have hearing damage from years of high volume sound (to many muso's, their music can never be played loud enough, go to any pub or club and they will always set the volume levels to just past distortion levels if they can) which normally results in them losing their higher frequency hearing to some extent. This often means that they over compensate the treble levels especially in music genre's that are traditionally played loud (and hence the people involved all have hearing damaged from too much exposure).

So yes, bad recordings are the most frequent bottleneck, I agree

my 2c's

[Family_Dog]

Bad mixing it is!


-F_D

[RR]

Have to agree with all here. It is frustrating how studio mixes are somehow F..ed up somewhere along the line.

I for instance used to love Enya, but since her CD's are nearly unlistenable on my hifi, I have to stick to listening it in the car. That's a pity.

It is no excuse for studio engineers to do such a poor job. I have some superb studio recordings, Micheal Buble, Vannesa Williams, Jennifer Warnes to name but a few. It can be done.

I am no expert on recording and the process involved, I am merely basing my opinion on the fact that if some can do it, why not everyone?

[skinnyfat]

Come to think of it, who do you blame for the bad mixing and over-compressed recordings ?

You kinda have to blame the general public that demands this type of compressed recording so they can thrash out the choonz on their boom-boxes or shake, ratle and roll car audio 'mine's louder than yours' systems

...... or am I just ranting again ?

[RR]

Exactly skinnyfat!

So I understand that the highly commercialised market for popular music has this problem. I guess even someone like Enya has this commercial issue about how the recording should sound. I guess on a mini hifi with 'bass boost' this kind of stuff sound excellent.

Well, great for all the upcoming music lovers who own such systems, I envy you in some funny way...

Yes, the strive for perfection and the ultra critical ear one acquires in the process in sometimes a pain in the butt....although mostly it gives great joy!

[skinnyfat]

, I envy you in some funny way...

With YOUR set-up, that's just sick

[RR]

hehe.   

those moments of envy is short lived.....

Actually the point is just that some CD's due to compression etc are really unlistenable on a revealing system. However, once you're there, there is no going back.

SACD provides a welome alternative, where one is virtually guaranteed of musical reproduction that is free from compression or digitalism. I wish the format could expand even more.

Btw, when I speak of SACD and how nice it is, it is aimed at stereo SACD's. I don't see the point of multichannel SACD's. In home theatre you can afford to have big front speakers and center channel, and have smaller surrounds, but not in multichannel SACD, where you need five/seven indentical high quality speakers and power amps in your listening room. Ito high end speakers, lets say i.e. Kef 207's, B&W802, 801, 800, Revel Ultima's, Sonus Extrema's etc, that can amount to ridiculous amounts of money. In addition, I'll bet that anyone who does actually have that kind of money would rather buy a stereo set of the ultimate speakers+amps, lets say Wilson's or perhaps B&W Nautlilus with Reference amps by ML or Halcro.

Thats just my opinion of it, dwelling quite a bit of the topic, but hey......

[Byrd]

Well glad to hear I was not the only one

I agree about enya. It is such a disappointment. You might also enjoy Marie Bonne, some better recordings to. Gaelic is very close to the scandanavian langauges.

On the other hand I have heard some really good recordings from places you would not expect to hear them. Bloodhound gang and sisters of mercy.

This problem seems to simply be getting worse. I think these vinyl guys may be onto something

[Hennie]

This problem seems to simply be getting worse.

You're right it is getting worse year after year, with compression levels increasing and more albums subjected to hypercompression.

I think these vinyl guys may be onto something.

Maybe more care is taken with vinyl releases because it is a specialist market?

[Byrd]

Maybe more care is taken with vinyl releases because it is a specialist market?

Most certainly agreed. Seems to maintain good quality you need to be "exclusive". Maybe the snobby hi-fi toffs have a point. Don't let guys in shorts into your shops!

[Gliding Dutchman]

Audio mastering/mixage...

You get albums that are brilliantly mastered and then you get albums that is really k@k to listen to... I guess it is all up to the guy sitting at the controls.

On the other end of the spectrum you get "audiophile" records that sound amazing but when you see the gear listing you cannot believe - one such album is "Naim - True Stereo - Unprocessed Analogue Recordings". It was recorded using a two-track NAGRA tape machine with two AKG condenser microphones placed to pick up the sound in a natuaral way. The sound and staging is amazing! Full, lush sound as nature intended.

Jennifer Warnes - The Hunter is one "heavy mixed" album that sounds breathtaking as opposed to the stuff of Enya.

It is not the actual recording of music pre sè that makes it sound good or bad - it is the mixage of the final 2-channel album. This is were modern vinyl comes into favour of the audiophile. Great care is taken when down-mixing an album for vinyl and this is why there is so many people going ga-ga over vinyl.

Much compression is used on commercial albums today to make it listenable in cars and in noisy enviroments like clubs and on personal audio systems (a la iPod etc)... try listening to a good "audiophile" album in a car whilst driving - you just cant!! You'll get tired of constantly adjusting the volume - up and down etc... one such album is Chris Jones' - Roadhouses & Automobiles (Stockfisch Records). Best enjoyed at home on a decent system as they didnt use compression or limiters on that album.

Yup - that is the curse of "music for the masses"... "LOUDNESS" - yuk!!

Luckly there is loads of good records/albums "out there" if you know where to look!  Cetainly no Musica or L&L...

Ja - it is a bummer having a super audiophile system but no good music to play on it....   

GD