Well, first off let us not forget that even CD quality means were talking
about sample bit rates and what not. Just very high rates...
MP3 compression tends to add audible artifacts to the file that reveal
themselves upon expansion. MP3s tend to be a crunchier (for lack of a better
word) than cd's, which themselves are brighter than records because -
lets face it - from a sonic stand point (were just speaking of math here),
records suck. They're technically inferior sonically, meaning that the
spectrum of frequency response is much shorter than what you'll find on a
digital recording. Thats why records sound warmer; why the kick is fatter
and the high hats sit so well in the song. On the other hand, even though a
CD is a sampling of the frequencies of a recording, its a sampling of ALL of
them.
Plus, records have a serious problem with signal degradation as the needle
gets to the center. What this means is that by the time the record is at the
end (all records are like this) it sounds noticeably worse than it did at
tthe start. It has something to do with the angle of the groove getting
sharper.
But records are way sexier, so who cares.
> From: Erik Gaderlund <erikg@macconnect.com>
> Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 13:19:15 -0700
> To: acid-jazz@ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: [acid-jazz] The death of vinyl AND CDs?
>
> Well it's just the math. Both digital (CD) and lossy compression
> (MP3) have trouble capturing the high frequencies well, and MP3 tends
> to mangle them. It's just the nature of the medium. And, since the
> consensus is that most club systems suck, it's probably just overkill
> to be using high fidelity sources. I recently go a SACD capable DVD
> player and having just kludged together a basic surround system was
> playing the 'remastered' Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" and I can't tell
> if it is much better than the CD, mostly because the engineer was a
> bit too enthusiastic about the ability to have surround, so the
> player are all over the place, it sound wierd being in the middle of
> the band not directly in front of them.
> And, since I don't have the audio system to tell the difference, I'll
> get the music in which ever format I can get my hands on.
>
> erik g
>
> At 21:51 +0200 07/31/02, Olaf Molenveld wrote:
>> when i play CD's over loud club systems i notice that i have to turn down
>> the highs and boost the bass a few dB's to get that "vinyl"
>> characteristics....especially at loud volumes digital mediums tend to
>> transmit very much energy in the high frequencies which fatiques both the
>> soundsystem and the people on the dancefloor..... this might be the same
>> effect some people describe to MP3's over club systems....play with the high
>> EQ's to get a sound which is "smoother" at loud volumes...
>>
>> Olaf
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: _dakati _ <dakati@postmaster.co.uk>
>> To: t-bird <djtbird1@yahoo.com>
>> Cc: <acid-jazz@ucsd.edu>
>> Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 9:22 PM
>> Subject: Re: [acid-jazz] The death of vinyl AND CDs?
>>
>>
>>> Are they really that bad?
>>>
>>> When I make a cd, the mp3s burned are typically compressed at 192 --
>> uncompressed during the burning process.... that's the standard isn't it?
>> Playing in my car stereo, home stero, walkman, compared w/ the retail music,
>> I've never been able to differentiate the two...
>>>
>>> perhaps it's because I've never played an mp3 sourced compact disc in a
>> club.. or, maybe mp3s your playing are compressed at 96.... of course that's
>> gonna sound like shit.
>>>
>>> What about other compression rates? 320.. 256..? VBR -- I think that's
>> what it's called... you know, the one that alternates the bit rate as it
>> looks like the compression is flickering between 128 and 320... supposedly
>> that one has the best sound...
>>>
>>> playing right now, at an extremely high volume: trouser jazz by mr.
>> scruff, compressed at 192...
>>>
>>> sounds great!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>> MP3s may sound ok on a smaller sound system, but
>>>>> they sound for crap when
>>>>> played on a nice system, unless they have been
>>>>> ripped at a high bitrate.
>>>>
>>>> there's still some sonic funkiness because of the
>>>> compression even at the higher bitrates. i have a
>>>> friend that burns cds for gigs from a lot of d/l'ed
>>>> stuff (he's a cd dj) and he's trying to figure out how
>>>> to overcome the sound ishs.
>>>>
>>>>> Pioneer's new MP3 player is pretty cool,
>>>>> though...but I'm sticking with my
>>>>> CDJ 1000s and my Technics 1500 for now. By the way,
>>>>> that pic of "Donnie
>>>>> Darkwave" cracked me up. Sure, those Ipods can hold
>>>>> lots of songs, but what
>>>>> happens when some drunken idiot saunters over to his
>>>>> setup, yaks it up with
>>>>> our hero...and then while walking away, snags one of
>>>>> the wires, yanking
>>>>> those precious IPods to their doom? I can just see
>>>>> one of those things
>>>>> shattering into millions of pieces. Hell, one
>>>>> spilled drink could wipe out
>>>>> half his library. Technology is so fragile these
>>>>> days...
>>>>
>>>> that mixer looked like a vestax pmc 05pro. do you
>>>> think donnie works on his crab skratches?
>>>>
>>>>> The "anyone can be a DJ" line amused me as well.
>>>>> True, mixing isn't
>>>>> everything (just ask Gilles Peterson), but most
>>>>> people couldn't program a
>>>>> set to save their lives.
>>>>
>>>> even as a member of the trick(y) mixing fraternity, i
>>>> have to contend that 99% of dj'ing is in set
>>>> progression--mixing, scratching and their descendants
>>>> are for transitions, and/or personalizing the records
>>>> in the set. even w/o mixing NOT EVERYONE CAN BE A
>>>> DJ!!
>>>>
>>>>> Most "DJs" I've seen these
>>>>> days are spinning
>>>>> trance because it's (for the most part) brainless
>>>>> music and it's easy to
>>>>> mix....THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP....bah, I
>>>>> say!
>>>>> Just my humble opinion...
>>>>
>>>> while i'm no fan of trance, i think that you're being
>>>> a little unfair. deep house is easy to mix, and it's
>>>> not as fast as trance. so why do people really spin
>>>> trance? crowd response. it's the same reason that a
>>>> dj that plays all your favorite musical, underground,
>>>> groovy hiphop when you walk in the club, will at
>>>> peaktime switch to the jiggy...
>>>>
>>>> -t
>>>>
>>>> __________________________________________________
>>>> Do You Yahoo!?
>>>> Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
>>>> http://health.yahoo.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>
>
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