Bare with me on this but yesterday I had a visit from a representative of a hifi company who was trying out a couple of different wires in my system, I can’t say anything more on the cables in question because to do so would be in contravention of forum rules, and in any event it has no part in what comes below.
However, as often is the case on these occasions we had a brilliant listening the usual culprits Beck at Ronnie’s, Miles at Vienna, Hotel California, some Dire Straits (On Every Street), Pepper, there was only one diversion into CD and that was for the exquisite Toure/Cooder Timbuktu album and this is relevant, stick we me! And inevitably the volume was set highish, about 10 and I don’t think we adjusted it. And I listened to a pile of vinyl last night including Ford etc.
Moving to today after lunch coffee into lounge played a beautiful CD, Barbara Hendrix singing Schubert including the heavenly Ave Maria and the volume was as I left it last night, sublime. At finish turning to other stuff to do thought I’ll play Hotel but as I was on the wander on CD, pressed play and head nearly blown off, hell and even turning down to under 9 still a killer. The vinyl yesterday was light years better and I have a CDP regarded as warm and forgiving.
Takes me back to Toure/Cooder it’s clearly recorded low as I’ve noticed is Broken English by Marianne Faithfull and both CDs immensely listenable like the Hendrix/Schubert, but others which have obviously been recorded/mastered at a louder level, even when I turn the volume down still harsh. I think Knopfler is very aware on this and I know much of what happens in his Grove studios is done in the analogue domain, he has bought up lots of reel to reels and his CDs are immensely listenable.
So, next week my NDX2 and NAS arrive and ripping begins. I’m learning on this stuff but presumably Poweramp doesn’t adapt the level as you did with a cassette deck. But I conclude that at least with Digital what goes on in the studio trumps everything else?
I was wondering whether you had yet got the NDX2 - I’ll be interested to hear what you think. As for the loudness wars - I have found consistently that there is a significant difference in sound levels between CD/digital and LP. I’m not sure that the CDs that are harsh are actually louder in relation to the volume control. I think you may mean ‘compromises’ in the thread title.
Volume level differences between vinyl & CD can be due to many things - the level they’re mastered/pressed at, sure, but there’s also often a difference in the output voltages of a record deck and a CDP.
AndyR is correct in that volume levels depend on other things (cartridge outupt and phono stage gain primarily) and do not reflect sound quality differences.
The ’loudness wars’ are I think still a large culprit. Darko Audio measured the dynamic range of different iterations of Stop Making Sense (Talking Heads) and could show that each new reissue had a lower dynamic range than the previous one. I have heard from an Abbey Road engineer that they routinely master digital with more compression than the master used for vinyl.
In addition, Roon provides a dynamic range score on ripped CD’s. In my collection classical works tend to have a score of 16-18 (out of 20). Jazz most often has 12-14 while modern pop/rock often falls below 10.
Compressed recordings suck the life out of music.
It is kind of ironic that when the technology now allows for far greater dynamic range (going from 16/44.1 to 24/192) digital recordings now provide lower dynamic range than previously.
i listen to many genres but mostly classical - i wonder whether the excellent sound quality and lack of compression has something to do with that? classical of any type seems just more enjoyable than other genres - i can listen all day long while other genres seem to be limited to 1-2 hours before they become tiring.
That seems very plausible. It may also explain, at least partially, why listeners to classical music in general seem to be more positive toward digital recordings.
I have learned to switch off heavily compressed digital music mastering straight away because it just gives me a headache after a few minutes.
I think there is too frequently a mindless application of heavy compression mastering by studios and labels regardless of what the mixing engineer has done. I hope the pressure from distributors like apple who I understand reject heavily compressed music will change the culture. It is getting easier to find better mastered digital versions of older music than a few years back I think with qobuz and the like.
The last resort I find is to get vinyl as that usually doesn’t usually have the mastering compression applied due to the physics of the grooves - applying it would turn the LP into a very quiet pigs ear! It doesn’t guarantee anything though. Totally agree on classical music. I think sound engineering skill is still valued and or funded in this genre. Most classical music that I listen too is still well recorded and has little evidence of poor mastering. Whereas most modern pop artists don’t have anything like the budgets that say Thriller had and certainly can’t afford the quality of sound engineering experience and equipment that project had. And on top of that add a default marketing assumption that heavily compressed music will increase sales and digital gets a bad name. But as always it’s hard to generalise as there is still plenty of artists who learn how to record well and value it. It’s rather like pot luck I’m afraid.
The funny thing is that since the 80’s and even more in 90’s and after, vinyl records are mostly recorded from digital files… Today it is 90% of the vinyl! It reduces its interest…
It is odd though that often, but far from always, the vinyl release of a digital recording sounds better than the digital release (streamed or in CD form). A plausible explanations for this is that there is less compression applied to the master used for vinyl. Another potential explanation is that the recording engineers have access to a better digital to analog conversion. I know that Abbey Road studios use Abendrot clocks which cost approx. 45 000 pounds in the UK, not something that most of us are prepared to spend on our home systems. From personal experience I have also found that digital reproduction is very sensitive to distortion and that cabling, power supplies, switches, placement, etc has great impact on the result.
I have replaced many of my CD collection with older mastering’s due to what I would call ‘harshness’. There is most definitely a difference in volume, and as others have commented on, most older recordings tend to have a greater dynamic range due to less compression. The ‘Loudness Wars’ were a very real thing with record companies competing on the loudness of their latest release. The Dynamic Database is a great free resource and I use this when purchasing CD’s to ensure where possible, I get the least compressed version. What this doesn’t do is guarantee that the CD will be a good recording! I have found some earlier CDs to have lacked life, as mastering engineers got to grips with digital and DACs improved, later issues did in some cases benefit greatly. I would say that late 80s into early 90s CDs - pre 95 can be a ‘sweet spot’ the trend to compress and limit dynamic range had not taken hold yet and mastering engineers started to better understanding the main differences when mastering to CD and not vinyl. More recent remastering’s of certain albums do seem to be much improved on some of the horrific remasters of the past which hopefully indicates we are slowly moving away from compressing everything to the point of being unlistenable. The only real downside with most older CD releases is that your amplifier will need to take the strain as there is normally the need to crank up your amp to reveal all those extra dynamics!
I tend to use the feature in Roon for Volume leveling especially if I’m switching between genres. It’s one of their nicer features IMHO as I switch between Jazz, rock/pop etc.
I thought a lot about compression and loudness war.
4 years ago when I put my TT back where he belongs, I was blown away of the detail and warmth of the vinyl sound. I was convinced that the loudness war is the reason, that Vinyl is so much better.
All of a sudden in 2022 I bought an nd555 and … many more hifi…
Currently the streamer is more detailed and lively than my very good TT. This might change soon with new cart and aro.
Older digital recordings are mostly bad, but new music is very similar to vinyl . For example the new Peter Gabriel album is compressed but sounds very good.
New Steven Wilson - no bad compression … wonderful as digital.
I did that as well for a while but for some irrational reason convinced myself it was damanging the sound so reverted to the naim remote on my chair! But its a great feature and if I remember it was able to read the audio level of quite a lot of the qobuz tracks as well.
If I’m doing “critical” listening whatever that means then I do turn off Volume leveling. Critical listening for me is my favorite tracks and they don’t need it.
)
But its a great feature and if I remember it was able to read the audio level of quite a lot of the qobuz tracks as well.