hughesmr Posted November 19, 2014 Share Posted November 19, 2014 A CD either plays correctly or it doesn't. What "sorta kinda not quite right" have you experienced with CDs? See my immediate post above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjeffeory Posted November 19, 2014 Share Posted November 19, 2014 CD is a physical medium, and as such is susceptible to flaws in the physical product in manufacture of the disc. I've seen CDs from major labels with visible pinholes through the metal layer. You gonna tell me I haven't? If CDs are flawless, why does every CD player manufactured have error-correction circuitry? Not just to help handle fingerprints, scratches, etc, but also errors introduced by variation in the quality of the materials and conditions during manufacture. (Of course, none of this is relevant to a discussion of decisions made at the mastering stage ... ) Well, I didn't say that there can't be errors on a CDs, now did I? If those errors on a CD were great enough, you'd hear drops and blips in the sound, or maybe the CD wouldn't play at all, but that's not going to manifest as "this CD has more sound on the left channel than the right channel because of scratches". If it was a record, then yes, this something that would be a problem. So as I said if it plays, then it's an exact copy of the master. It's going to produce the same sounds from CD to CD. I don't get what the problem in understanding this concept. I never said CD are flawless and can not have damage to them. I said that they're exact copies of the master. Of course I'm starting from the premise that the CDs aren't damaged as that's a reasonable thing to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drumcat Posted November 19, 2014 Share Posted November 19, 2014 Hey guys, Long time no see... Can I make a suggestion? If you want to statistically prove this, you can. Do an analysis such that you take the left and right channel individual -dB root mean square average. If it is "off", you'll see that the channels will vary by more than 4dB in summary. I don't have them, or I'd check. The mastering is subjective to a degree, but this would be an objective deal. It's not an impossibility... I think it was 2002, but one disc many moons ago did in fact average the whole disc 3.5dB lower on RMS Average. Of course, this wasn't a single channel or single performance; it was simply a disc change... you could just turn the volume knob a hair on that one and no big deal. If you want to get super-nerdy, analyze a section where they're parallel in drill, as close to symmetric as possible around mid-field. It would be pretty obvious. Also, you can't go vis a vis with DVD/BR audio because it's intentionally mastered differently. Even if you do find that one channel is lower, take a wave editor, and do a single channel limiter with a gain of about 80% of the "missing" volume, with -0.1db headroom. Piece of cake DIYM. :) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drangin Posted November 19, 2014 Author Share Posted November 19, 2014 What I'm talking about isn't that technical, it's mostly a function of putting the balance knob in the right place. Not root-mean-square, not pits in the aluminum reflective surface, not even plasma televisions. Just find a quiet spot in the ambience of the recording, or a few seconds of applause, and reverse the channels. If much of the sound shifts from one channel to the other, move the balance control until it doesn't shift. Now you've found what the proper balance should be between the two channels. Where a particular bunch of buglers ends up on the field is not my concern. Once the ambient sound is evened out, the recording of the drummers and buglers is what may be considered "balanced" because it accurately represents where the musicians are on the field. Half of the tracks on the 2014 Finals CD set are out of balance. Lame! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjeffeory Posted November 19, 2014 Share Posted November 19, 2014 What I'm talking about isn't that technical, it's mostly a function of putting the balance knob in the right place. Not root-mean-square, not pits in the aluminum reflective surface, not even plasma televisions. Just find a quiet spot in the ambience of the recording, or a few seconds of applause, and reverse the channels. If much of the sound shifts from one channel to the other, move the balance control until it doesn't shift. Now you've found what the proper balance should be between the two channels. Where a particular bunch of buglers ends up on the field is not my concern. Once the ambient sound is evened out, the recording of the drummers and buglers is what may be considered "balanced" because it accurately represents where the musicians are on the field. Half of the tracks on the 2014 Finals CD set are out of balance. Lame! Sounds scary. I'm only getting the Blurays, and I don't care so much. Last CDs I order were a LONG time ago. Long than I care to admit. I rip sound off of the DVDs and Blurays now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drangin Posted November 19, 2014 Author Share Posted November 19, 2014 Sounds scary. I'm only getting the Blurays, and I don't care so much. Last CDs I order were a LONG time ago. Long than I care to admit. I rip sound off of the DVDs and Blurays now... I bought the Blu-ray last year and did that, but I found that I prefer to watch the videos on FN. I'm more interested in the audio recordings than the videos. Until just a few years ago, the sound quality on the videos was not near as good as the CDs, very compressed as if they were just using automatic level control. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjeffeory Posted November 19, 2014 Share Posted November 19, 2014 I bought the Blu-ray last year and did that, but I found that I prefer to watch the videos on FN. I'm more interested in the audio recordings than the videos. Until just a few years ago, the sound quality on the videos was not near as good as the CDs, very compressed as if they were just using automatic level control. You're probably correct. I would think that the people working on this stuff would put more effort into the audio aspects of the audio CDs and split their energies equally between the audio and video on the DVDs. The Blurays would be a different mix as well. Interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sideways Posted November 19, 2014 Share Posted November 19, 2014 Upon further review the Cadets ending would have been far more effective with a reprise of VK's closer from '88. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightyonepointthree Posted December 26, 2014 Share Posted December 26, 2014 Got the CDs for xmas. Listened to Crown and Bluecoats on my bose headphones. Definitely a balance or filtering issue with the left side of the Bluecoats track. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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