I knew it wasn't just my ears. The general quality of music recordings was probably at its highest in the 80s.
Very interesting programme though.
www.bbc.co.uk/radio/programmes/a-z/by/compression%20versus%20art/player
Years ago I ripped all my CDs to mp3 at 256KBps and started playing them from an ipod, for convenience, through the same amp and speakers attached to the CD player. But it just sounds so dull, dull, dull and I often get the better CDs out and play them properly.
I might experiment with recording them losslessly and at 320KBps and keeping them somewhere other than the ipod, which is probably doing something appley to them as well.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06tvgp1
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I can recommend one of these.
www.brennan.co.uk/
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You will notice the difference with lossless formats - although it will depend somewhat on your musical taste. If you're a Rihanna fan, you probably shouldn't bother as it will already have been mixed and its dynamics squashed to sound tolerable on phone speakers and cheap headphones. But if you're missing the textures and dynamic contrasts of a Haydn mass, FLAC will give you something much more like your CDs - depending on how you stream and convert it, of course.
I've mentioned here that these days I listen mostly to FLAC streams from Deezer Elite, pulled by a Sonos Connect playing through my regular amp and speakers. The Connect may not be a top-notch streamer - that's mostly to do with its on-board DAC, which can be bypassed if you've got a better one; I haven't - but it's good enough for most purposes and has left my CD player almost untouched.
The Deezer streams are noticeably better than the 320k files I have in my ITunes library. The Connect can play those too but I seldom bother because they're really for playing on the move, mostly in the car where FLAC is overkill and Overkill sounds fine at 320k.
I have half an idea that I'll retire the CD player altogether, buy a proper ripping NAS and a Naim streamer and have my entire (non-LP) collection under my thumb. But it seems like a lot of work when Deezer can do most of it for me. They have the Beatles now too, you know. Terribly modern.
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I have my entire music collection lossless on the PC. I typically have it at 320k for most mobile uses and I don't hear a difference.
I don't doubt there is a difference, but I don't hear it unless I compare them side by side.
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Most of mine gets listened to in the car, regardless of what system you have, on the move fidelity of source is not a great issue.
Despite the sales and marketing guys trumpeting otherwise.there is a very strange general trend of lowering media quality On the Radio, media players, TV, cinema. Sound and vision is not as good as it was.
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Whilst I agree that sound quality is lamentable on broadcast TV (illustrated recently by putting a DVD on with the home cinema set to its usual TV volume and nearly deafening the lot of us), picture quality for home viewing is surely 1000x better than it was in 1988.
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>> deafening the lot of us), picture quality for home viewing is surely 1000x better than
>> it was in 1988.
You'd hope so wouldn't you, but check out the pixelation and compression artefacts seen on dark or night scenes (usually seen as light grey areas appearing)
And cinema screens? rubbish, pure rubbish. 70mm cinemascope with real film was much better
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Dunno much about cinema, rarely go.
But TVs. I enjoy watching my 50" Panasonic plasma a whole load more than the 28" JVC CRT it replaced (which is now in the bedroom), whatever is being shown.
Wouldn't put the CRT back in the living room, anyway.
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>>picture quality for home viewing is surely 1000x better than it was in 1988.
It is better. Quite a lot better.
Though a lot of the potential for improvement was used elsewhere.
e.g.
a better picture using the same bandwidth of the same picture using less bandwidth?
More channels or higher resolution channels?
More efficient error correction or a few extra radio channels?
Also, its subject to local, well defined effects such as pixelation, whereas years ago it would more likely suffer a general overall degradation - correspondingly less noticeable..
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>> >>picture quality for home viewing is surely 1000x better than it was in 1988.
>>
>> It is better. Quite a lot better.
>>
>> Though a lot of the potential for improvement was used elsewhere.
Indeed and therein lies the problem. It could have been fantastic. Its not.
What should have happened is large chunks of bandwidth should have been use for quality as intended, because with smart teles internet streaming can now serve the catchups, the +1s, the gays, the religious nutters, the shopping con merchants, and all the other crap that has stripped out bandwidth. It should still happen.
4K tele? over the air? NFC
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The requirement was for more channels. They could be sold for tons of money and there was great demand for them. Only the BBC remained even nominally focussed on quality.
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By the way, the shopping channels have phenomenally good business models. You would be amazed.
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>> By the way, the shopping channels have phenomenally good business models. You would be amazed.
>>
I know, so I'm not
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>> on the move fidelity of source is not a great issue.
Especially in a shonky old Lancer.
;-)
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>>
>> >> on the move fidelity of source is not a great issue.
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>> Especially in a shonky old Lancer.
>>
>> ;-)
To be fair, the ICE is worth more than the car.
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The expert on the programme was of the opinion that 320KB mp3 is equivalent to CD quality - meaning for practical purposes I assume, as it clearly isn't all there.
The Brennan is an appealing idea. I'll have to look into the quality angle.
Currently listening to Van in the background from Spotify at low rate via bluetooth to a cheap soundbar. OK for that, but if it was the Dan rather than the Van it would be driving me mad.
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We have to listen to the BBC via satellite or computer. It's enough to make you weep sometimes.
Best sound I've ever had was Fons CQ30/SME 3009/Shure V153HE (still got it) and open reel tape at 7.5ips with Dolby HX headroom extension (sadly it's just a memory but I still get broody if I come across an orphan TEAC or the like).
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No FM2R, what software do you prefer for ripping your CDs (if that's how you've got them onto the PC)?
I've been meaning to copy my CD collection onto MP3s or WMA files, which the Subaru's CD player is supposed to be able to read from CD...mostly to avoid damaging the originals when the discs are stored in the car.
Not being at all well versed in the art, a simple program that would chug away in the background to rip an entire CD into a folder "Album" containing X MP3 files "Track 1", "Track 2"...etc. on its own would be ideal.
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iTunes will do all that, and catalogue them for you. Although it's not everyone's favourite it's generally reliable and it is free.
Where it's crap is with music that doesn't fit into the neat album-track hierarchy. A disc containing two symphonies, for example, probably doesn't want to be treated as single album, but to get anything else, with track titles that are (a) meaningful and (b) readable on a small matrix display in either car, requires laborious manual adjustment. Must find something getter before I go down the full streaming route.
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Gromit,
To be honest Windows Media Player is as good as any. I've used other stuff, but WMP works for me.
IMO, you only really need to look at other stuff if you're trying to handle damaged CDs since for that there are better applications.
The quality of your DVD/CD player is also important.
The benefit from WMP comes if you make sure you have configured it correctly;
examples:
File naming convention [mine: artist - album name - track number - track name]
Directory structure [mine: album artist / album / track]
Data updates [mine: only missing data]
Format [lossless, MP3, bit rate etc.]
Automatically rip
etc. etc.
Once you have that sorted then it is just a matter of putting a new CD in every time you notice the last one has ejected.
I encourage you to rip in the highest quality possible to your computer. Its dead easy to drop the bit rate down if you want for your iPod or car or whatever, but you cannot ever increase it.
So you want to hold it in the best format possible.
I recommend you have a look at MP3Tag also. Very useful if you get into the world of downloaded music. Tags are a great way of making sure your music files and names itself how you want it to, and to allow you to readily change it in the future.
Mark.
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Worth mentioning that if you have all your tags set properly on MP3s then all you need to do in WMP is change your rip settings and it will restructure and rename your entire music library.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 7 Jan 16 at 16:11
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Oh, and iTunes is s***e. Like a s***e thing on a s***e day having a particularly s***e moment when trying to do something s***e.
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Not everyone's favourite...
}:---)
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When I got the Volvo and was vaguely interested in music in the car for a day, I tried both iTunes and Media player to do the CD ripping job. Both worked fine in terms of actually doing it, and putting it on the USB stick. However, even though the resultant files looked identical to the PC, the car was having none of it from one of them, but played the other fine.
I appreciate this is the crucial point, but I have of course entirely forgotten which was which and what settings I used, so I guess the takeaway here is "if it doesn't work using one, don't give up, use the other".
After that I realised I couldn't be doing with all the booting of the PC, Windows updates, finding a CD, doing the rip, making space on the USB, reformatting it every time in some arcane way I've also forgotten so the car would deign to read it, and probably other irritations I've forgotten, just so as once in a blue moon we could play something in the car for three minutes. If we REALLY want something we put the radio on, but not very often do we do that either.
Back on topic, it's noticeable that my thirty year old vinyl can sound scratchy, but the actual sound quality is way better on the phonograph than any "remastered last year" replacements of the same album. So - old Genesis with hisses and pops but room filling warmth, or the same album with no pops on the same kit with all settings identical but flat and tinny as a sardine container. Who knows why? You takes yer pick...
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You've probably run into the difference between AAC and AAC+. Some systems (Pure's in my experience; I don't much like Pure) can play one but not the other. The difference is in the codec your ripping tool uses, although I'd expect a subtle difference in the file suffix. A nuisance because AAC generally gives a smaller file than MP3 for equivalent quality.
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...come on man, get off the fence.......
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>> Oh, and iTunes is s***e. Like a s***e thing on a s***e day having a
>> particularly s***e moment when trying to do something s***e.
I take issue with that statement, its highly misleading.
Its worse than s***e
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BBC R4 Compression versus Art - R.P.
