When HI-RES AUDIO stops making sense...
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ส.ค. 2024
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Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense
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Stop Making Sense 2023 movie trailer
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DR Loudness database
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The Loudness Wars: Why Music Sounds Worse
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Sony PCM-3324 (as used to record SMS's sound digitally)
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As someone that remembers listening to Talking Heads on cassette, with the headphones that came with my Walkman, while mowing the lawn, pretty much everything sounds better now.
If you had have listened without mowing the lawn pretty much everything would have sounded better then too
If you're nostalgic for that time, check out the koss KPH 40. They may look cheap but they sit right next to my $300 headphones, Plus they scale well on amplifiers.
I've got a copy of TNOTBITH on cassette and it sounds incredible. Actually my favorite TH album.
@@asherfilms923 I second your opinion . Koss kph30i sound bloody good. They teleport me back to 90s. I was forever hunting for “THAT “ sound and have various mid-fi (read below $500) cans and none sound as engaging and musical as these do
I feel like this is the definitive case study on why vinyl or bit rate alone will not guarantee the best audio quality. Bravo!
Au contraire...😂
@@eespinosa64 🤣
It’s a bizarre history. One of CD’s selling points upon introduction was its greater dynamic range. Then the loudness wars started, and this was completely forgotten. Then after that, the vinyl revival started, but still as a bit of a niche product for those with refined tastes, and guess what? The *less* dynamically compressed masterings were now relegated to vinyl. So I’m actually curious what the DR rating of this album’s vinyl version is, because of this one is just as compressed as the new digital versions, we will be able to conclude that vinyl is fully back in the mainstream again. 😝
It's hardware that's gonna get you the desired result, forget the formats it's all in the hardware...
@@jerryscanassomeone didn’t watch the video 🙄
And you may ask yourself: “What is the dynamic range like?”
I see what you did there...
DR is the current elephant in the room and 800 pound gorilla. When overly compressed it ruins everything regardless of production, engineering, format or hi-fi system.
This loudness war is a plague … fueled by the adoption of crappy Bluetooth mono speakers and crappy in ear headphones …
The elephant in the room that wasn’t mentioned is that the original mix was from a Sony PCM-3324 DASH recorder, which has a maximum resolution of 48k 16bit. Any version claiming higher resolution than that has been upsampled
Exactly 👏 exactly 👏 exactly 👏 thank you. Came here to say just this.
My older brother and his friend rented Stop Making Sense on VHS back in 1987. They were cool enuff to let me watch with them. My 14 yr old brain was blown away. I remember hopping on the bus and buying Fear of Music and Speaking in Tongues on LP later that week. I still have them. What a trip to discover and work through Talking Heads' catalogue at that age. Life-long fan ever since.
HUGE thing to also note is that Talking Heads have had quite the good track record as far as new mixes on new formats go, more so than most artists. The surround mixes are superb!
It should be pointed out that a track being "high dynamic range" is not necessarily a universal good. It's great in a quiet listening environment, but in a car or a bus, you end up turning up the volume to hear the quiet sections, and then get your head blown off by the loud sections. It's almost like there need to be separate masters, labeled as such, depending on the use case.
John - this is the most IMPORTANT and REVELATORY video you've ever made!
I couldn't understand why my original CD's sounded better than my supposed new 'Remastered' CD's and Hi Rez file downloads. It's like when we were duped into believing that digital was always better than analog in the '80's.
I'm off to buy up all the cheap, original early NON remastered CD versions!
Yep. Will be Rosetta Stones of playback never to be heard via streamingm and without vinyl pink noise and mastering format constraints. Good luck finding them mind.
As a recording artist and studio producer, I enjoyed this quite a lot. Compression is a tool to be used delicately. It is necessary to balance dynamics between sole tracks so that they balance each other in the mix. But overall dynamic range compression can be a terrible thing if done without sensitivity. It's a testament to the engineers that recorded it and later mastered it that a live recording back in the 80s was recorded so well. Because it's usually live recordings that suffer badly under the compression tool as a producer tries to account for live variables. Anyway, it's great to watch that live Blu-ray. We forget how brilliant and innovative Talking Heads were. My fav band... Prince's Sign of the Times. Another brilliant live concert movie....❤
excellent !
my friends made me believe that “ THAT SOUND” you are not able to find in new hi res music is purely nostalgia , but I was convinced that my CDs from early 90s actually sounded better
We need more videos like this John. A fascinating discussion on the merits of good mastering vs, bit rate and audio format. The more people realise this the sooner we can move away from remastered dynamically compressed releases.
You know, modern sound engineers must deeply consider the way people listen to music. Mono playback on cell phones and Bluetooth speakers adds the risk of phase cancellation which can compromise audio quality. Of course, this is not an excuse for poor audio mastering on a vinyl record.
Perhaps a blind audition of the same song from this album and see who can distinguish the different compression rates. In the end more than 90% is still decided by the music.
After this video I am considering to create 1000 accounts to subscribe again with each one of them. Your Channel and work is like an oasis inside the hottest desert. Thanks for this darko. Kudos from Athens Greece
As I've said before, it's not about the format, it's about the music.
In my case I have many LPs which never came out on CD - and now in 2023 I have many CDs that aren't available on LP.
I think loudness wars did enormous damage to the CD format's reputation.
At my age I have a pretty big collection, and for music that I really love I usually have several CD editions, often the LP as well. For me, in pretty well 90% of cases, it's the pre-loudness war CDs which come out on top and get played the most.
In recent years, I've kind of developed a new hifi mentality - that my system is there to "serve my collection". As I can't have all the music I love in perfect sound then I need that can handle just about everything.
Excellent discussion! There are very few remasters that are better than the original as most modern sound engineers appear to be idiots now.
I remember the day I first got my hands on Sony’s Minidisc. Handheld & automotive derived. That was a step up from ordinary CD’s in the late 90’s. Then i heard an SA-CD in a local hi-fi shop.
Damn that was like hearing the instruments live in your ear..
Great episode 👍
Sad that SACD was never adopted as the new industry standard from CDs like DVD to Blu Ray was 🙁
Those SACDs that were released were always sold as luxury products requiring very expensive niche market players 🙄
Great video. With all the technical advancements I hoped that the loudness wars would be well and truly over by now. At the very least there could be two versions: the highly compressed version and what I call the musical version.
Outstanding. Mature foundational audiophile knowledge. Thanks.
Reggae, Funk & Brass 🔈🔉🔊
I am doing the laundry and I had to pause and give you a huge HUG because this is VERY important stuff that no one seems to care about these days..back to laundry.
John airs the record industry dirty drawers-we do our,uh..laundry.
I try to avoid re-masters if possible, as it's as you say, a fancy way of saying "made louder". The best sounding CDs are generally the ones made in the 80s and early 90's, after that it's pot luck on how good a job they have done. It's why vinyl often sounds better than CD, because they have to master it differently so it works on vinyl. Great video JD. Music first, mastering second, format last.
... and aren't lots of modern vinyl pressings done from masters produced for CDs in years gone by? that's what i've often heard and read.
@@yobgolI understand this is because the original analogue oxide tape masters are in such poor condition.
I saw the movie in Ann Arbor in a theater when it came out. Nobody was in their seats, everyone up and dancing. We were all high as kites.
John, this is a superb and much needed explanation of the ultimate importance of mastering and of dynamic range. There is one significant omission that I would urge you to clarify, if possible, which is the difference between dynamic range compression and file compression of a digital format recording. Understanding that distinction is essential for understanding your overall argument.
Great article. Please do more like this. I ripped the Blue ray using "DVD Audio Extractor" and measure a DR of 14 on my 24 bit rip, not the 13 you mention.
Paul from PS Audio discussed this same topic in his video today...very helpful!!
Perfect, John. You nailed it. 'Brick-Walled' digitally mastered recordings that are massively compressed have been, sadly, ubiquitous for a good number of years now. I'm a 40-yr. plus audio engineer/musician/producer and will always go for the original 'red book' mastered CD, as I'm less likely to get an album that comes up, when analyzed, as almost a complete black audio wave graph w/ the very occasional 'peak' which usually ends up being untethered sibilance. (Same goes for the vinyl version - give me, in most instances - the first pressing w/ original mastering).
People really underestimate dynamic range. That's why I hunt old unremastered CD.
I have the Blu ray and it is one of my best sounding concert Blu rays. Possibly the best. Pink floyds delicate sound of thunder is pretty high up there too
Hi John, your videos are always great, but this one was outstanding! Please more of these!
It's common for mastering engineers to create different masters for vinyl releases that don't feature the heavy compression techniques used for CD's or downloads. Your vinyl edition of the 2023 album might very well have more dynamic range than the hi-res files. It would be an interesting check if you can be arsed to rip the vinyl of course! Great video , thanks.
I'd bet my house on it.
Roon also analyses dynamic range and can display this information for each album, so no need for additional software or expense
Roons display of dynamic range is crap. They use the wrong algorythm.
THANK YOU!!! Garbage in = garbage out.
The only other thing I'd mention, that will drive you crazy, is that sometimes you can have a recording that shows greater dynamic range not because it is less compressed but because it's been messed with, maybe resampled or high or low pass filtered or something else, which has caused what are called "overshoots." They don't improve the actual dynamics, they just push the average volume of everything down because of these very transient spikes.
These often are coming from copies of copies of master tapes... meaning that it may register as greater dynamic range, but have more tape hiss.
...Then again, NO tape hiss may indicate aggressive noise reduction has been used, which can dull the highs...
I love this hobby, and I hate it, all at the same time. I wish record labels would release absolutely flat dumps of their master tapes and let US choose to "remaster" them ourselves if we wanted.
Yes, yes, YES!! I’ve been proclaiming this for years, that it’s not the format, but the mastering that you are really hearing. Compression does bring forth more details, like a magnifying glass, but at a great loss of dynamics and is fatiguing. Sadly I have SACDs where the audio wavetops are flatlined and audibly distorted. It’s a crime that I cannot get my money back on what is a clearly defective hi-res product. I love this episode! I only wish you had recorded the vinyl and measured the DR.
Depeche Mode Sacd's. Dynamically destroyed mid 2000s horror shows. A QED.
In 1983, I was the Production Coordinator for a Mattel commercial being filmed at Hollywood Center Studios' lot. (formerly Coppola's old Zoetrope Studios) The Director of the commercial was Jordan Cronenweth who was also the DP. At that point Jordan was best known as the DP for the pivotal Blade Runner movie. Early afternoon of each day, we would wrap for the day and run over to the Pantages to join the other cameramen, Grips and Gaffers who had been prelighting all day in anticipation of that night's performance which was shot for the three nights. Being on that stage with Demme, Jordan and Byrne who was a part of the visuals and creative, was one of the highlights of my career. Being a huge talking Heads fan, I had already purchased tickets for two of the three shows. Being in the audience to see those shows after a couple of pops at the nearby Frolic room was sublime. Looking forward to buying the new 4k, Dolby Atmos DVD.
God damn, John. Sometimes you post a video that just resonates with the nerd me, and this is a great example. Thanks for taking us down the DR rabbit hole. Amazing. Thank you.
Die Zeit, die man verschwendet, über das „richtige“ Format zu diskutieren, fehlt am Ende zum Musik hören. 😂 Good vid again. 🎶
I seen stop making sense in the theatre 1984 in a small rural town. It was electric, the projectionist turned the movie off at one point and lectured everyone to sit down and stop dancing
Lucky me I have plenty of CDs from the 80th and 90th.Nice clip you going back to the basics and that is Music and how it's recorded! That was always my first priority and the HiFi system came afterwards. If you had good recorded Music then even a mediocre system sounded good. Some people forget that and chase the holy grail!
Sometimes I think that John forgot more about audio than I will ever know. I really enjoy these audio knowledge drops and learning something new.
Amazingly informative. I love this album and cherish my original CD
I normally always give a thumb button for your videos John. But just had to slam the button for the mention/nod to good old VHS and the absolute legend that was Laserdisc! Love that format
Your conclusion will hopefully reach a huge number of people and prevent arguments over which format is best etc. Compressing the dynamic range just makes for fatiguing listening.
Great video. Your best.
Tidal used to have original and remastered versions of a lot of stuff. Universally, the originals were better even with background noise. Now it’s usually only the remasters, which have quite heavy noise reduction. They generally sound less engaging.
I can’t stress enough how extremely well explained is the issue here. I can’t wait for the continuation!
I think you only have to look at how the vast majority of people consume music today.
Either cheap ear buds, car stereos or Bluetooth speakers. If music was not heavily compressed, then it would not work well on these devices as they can’t reproduce the full dynamic range.
The Bluray of the film is most probably going to be played on a sound system that has decent speakers and probably as sub, so will benefit for a higher range.
Who knows maybe one day in the future we can have variable dynamic range to optimise to our listening equipment and environment.
Very true. Although pop music singles are all about shifting units on what ever format.
Streaming has compounded that ability for top selling artists at the expense of less commercial yet more creative ones 🙁
@Darko Audio 100% agree.
The recording and the master are the most important factors for the final quality, much more than the format.
In the other side, regarding the dynamic range, the vinyl is the physical format more limited.
Really enjoyed this one. It is about time someone started talking about mastering and dynamic range. It is a travesty that for all advancements made most music (IMO at least) sounds worse now than it is did 30 years ago.
I cannot imagine record labels stopping the 'Make it louder' request so maybe the best we can hope for is an additional mastering? Kind of surprised that artists are not on this, surely they would want their music to sound as good as it possibly could?
Majority of artists make most of their money through concerts now. New albums are often concert promos....
Thank you so much for clarifying on the most important aspect of sound quality!
Great video and reminder - I agree 100%. Recording and mastering quality and choices can absolutely have a greater impact than delivery format. In my library I can think of an album stored as MP3 (MP3 was all that was offered of this particular title) that sounds better in terms of sound quality, compression be damned, than some other albums I own presented via FLAC.
It could sound even better - you've got a big piece of lint on our stylus!
Lint is one of the humbling things about vinyl. Take a great pressing, great cartridge (properly aligned), great turntable, et cetera, and one tiny piece of lint will make the sound all distorted and fuzzy.
I gotta hand it to ya man. I'm not always into some of the equipment you reviw; but, gosh darnit, it's videos like these that keep me coming back for more. In a hot and stuffy room, you are the rush of cool, fresh air that comes through when I feel like I'm about to pass out. Thanks to you and your team for all the work you put in on these vids! Always appreciate them!
Excellent set of examples. Also helps me understand why my original LPs of Pink Floyd from the 1970s sound better than the recent vinyl remasters. Off loaded a new copy of DSOTM to my brother to play on his Rega TT, phono stage and Naim Muso with its digital amp as it’s not up to my pure analogue vinyl set up.
What a great video. Really enjoyed watching this and the journey and explanation of this album.
You've summed up what I've been doing for the last few years or so...buying old non remastered CDs because they don't make my ears bleed. Of course music from around 1998 onwards is mastered very loud
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a remastered album that sounds better than the original.
❤🙌 A gem of a video, this is!
The master mix is KING. You can not get better audio, regardless of format, than what is on the mix. I am a firm believer that a standard CD is more than good enough. Most of the bad rep of CD audio was due to bad master mixes being used.
High quality mastering blows delivery formats out of the water.
There were analog cassette versions released in 1984 in the US with pretty good dynamic range, one with the LP tracks, and a special edition with "extended" (i.e., not edited) tracks.
Fantastic example of how mastering is so much more important than format. It's always the source material that is the most important, regardless of platform.
Excellent video John. This one really made me think as well as being informative. 🙂
So after seeing this vlog I searched my dvd’s and found the copy of Stop making Sense with 16 songs on it. It features also the 2.0 stereo option! I will start listening to it again, thanks to you. Special mentioning for my late Dog who seemed to like this dvd too because he tore the outside apart. Makes it a special ripped edition for me.
I have the original DVD of, Fleetwood mac. The dance. I pop the disc in just to listen to, Gypsy in pcm. It sounds much better than the version on, Tidal.
I've had the disc for about 30 years. It was the first DVD i bought.
This is my favorite video of yours to date. Bravo on comparing the music recordings instead of component review. Love it!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Finally a video that talks about the elephant in the room. The recording quality is the all of it. All these crazy arguments about MQA ( I have MQA and like it) and other high rez wars. Many, or most modern recordings are murderously compressed, there's no audiophile quality music to be had. I finally decided I wasn't going to let recording quality dictate what I listen to musically, and that changed my perspective. I now buy equipment that has nice tone and doesn't punish me too much with bad recordings.
Recording and mastering are two different things. The recording can be stellar, then ruined by heavy handed mastering for loudness.
Oh, bolloc**. My audiophile road has just got bumpier 😂
Here here! Spot on. Dynamics really matter. Some of the worst recordings I've ever heard have close to zero dynamic range. Completely unnatural artificial just yuck.
Kudos to you! I think this is one of your best segments.
Mixing and mastering engineers are just as important to the end product as the musicians. If you want to delve further I recommend ’The Mixing Engineers Handbook’ by Bobby Owinski. He explains the tools and how engineers use them to create different audio experiences, covering instrument placement, use of space, compression, equalisation and more. The stylistic choices the mixing and mastering engineers make ultimately affect your listening experience and how you engage with the music.
John thank you for being the geek that all of us want to be but don't have time to be. 👍👍
Not only my favourite music/movie but also great technical content - perhaps my favourite video so far!
Really interesting & revealing. A more or less same discussion can be found in the digital photo camera industry about pixels . More pixels is not always (almost never?) better. Lots of marketing language and nudging. Thanks again to John using this great example from different releases of the same Talking Heads album!
This actually did make sense
I like this guy. He's more "sensible" than many others in YT audiophile space.
Bagged myself an original early UK CD. What an amazing sounding album!
Thank you for this great explanation... it cleares a lot of thing to me....
Fatiguing masters on lossless file formats will still be fatuiging.
I enjoyed the readable, shorter edition of this review and I enjoyed the video too. Joking aside, years ago I bounced a copy of the VHS to cassette and that faithfully represents the full film with intros and without song edits. I was really annoyed when the very latest came out and doesn’t offer the walk on and intro of David Byrne before playing his tape. I used to buy bootleg tapes of concerts and the best thing about those is the difference in performance, talking to the crowd and tuning before the the song. I digress. Great job as always John.
Man, that was a full geek out there John. Love it!
As usual great presentation based on solid facts. It's great to hear some good feedback around Blu-ray Audio as it really is a neglected format. Thanks for honestly assessing this new release with pure objectivity. BTW, It was also a fabulous concert too that played only once in Australia in 1984 - before the movie or soundtrack (AND you think you are getting crusty...) Cheers from Oz
Agree but Blu Ray Audio only is such a niche market now that streaming services are mass market & generate huge amounts of money in monthly subscriptions.
I have just a very few discs. Lionel Richie & Bob Marley greatest hits which do sound excellent 👍
Remasters are usually always worse.
VERY true so far there is only one remaster that I EVER Liked and it was a 90's release of Moody Blues - Days of Future Passed on CD and other that particular one all the other CD' SACD's and HiRes Releases sound TERRIBLE. Even on Vinyl most later pressing are VERY FLAT sounding and are very thin. The older thicker ones tend to sound better but I feel it is more about the mastering and not the weight or thickness itself, just that later on they started cutting costs EVERYWHERE they could and thinner = cheaper
The engineering and mastering makes it huge difference. I've heard some great recordings on vinyl EPS that sound better than the original album versions. Even when the original version is played on much more expensive turntables they don't sound as good as the EP played on lesser equipment. The dynamic range on some of the better mastered CDs from the 80s & 90 are amazing.
Thank you for illustrating dinamic range differences of different cd/vinil versions on my FAVOURITE album!
Excellent follow-up article where you found the DR of the vinyl to be 13. That's the one piece i felt you were missing in this video which is that, digitally cut or not, different masters are often used to create the vinyl. Ideally, taking into account the limitations (and strengths) of the vinyl medium. Thanks for the follow-up article acknowledging those things!
Yes agree.
Where is this follow up? I don't see it on Darkos YT channel.
Read it on your website. And also it is good to watch for a evening relaxation❤
Sat a couple rows behind you at the screening in Berlin today. I had an absolut blast, what a great piece of music and movie material.
An old sound engineer friend of mine from Olympic studios in Barnes used the term "compressed the shit of it", in this case especially for the single "Peaches" by The Stranglers. As mentioned this was meant to make it "pop", back then it was for radio more than anything else.
Great track that Peaches.
I think this guy is actually Elvis Costello's younger brother.
I originally purchased this LP shortly after it came out.
I also have the 1999 CD version.
Got to see the movie "premier" at the Terrace Theater in Minneapolis MN in 1984.
(David Byrne introduced his parents who were in the audience.)
And the original concert at Forest Hills in NYC in summer of 1983.
One of my favorite concerts...EVER.
Thank you for having the knowledge and skill to understand this stuff and taking the time to put it into words. I have been listening to music for over 40 years, but I could never explain to my friends why some older "inferior" recordings sounded better to me the "superior" new remastered ones. I could describe the loudness wars to some degree, but I didn't have any numbers to "show" people what I thought I was hearing. A big example that I know well is the difference between a cassette recording I made for myself from Rush's _Grace Under Pressure Tour_ stereo VHS release (released in 1986) vs. the remastered official CD version (released in 2006). The newer version, although cleaner, has too much low end in addition to just the compressed dynamic range. Best way for me to describe what I'm hearing is to say it sounds like, at the time of remastering, they tried as hard as they could to try to make Geddy's 1980s Steinberger bass sound like his 2005 Fender Jazz bass. Same effect on the drums, too, in that they sound more like DW drums than Tama drums -- all tone and no attack. They're kind of tubby and lack the growl I expect.
Anyway, thank you again. I'll be using the DR Loudness database to inform my future music purchases.
Wishing now I had kept all of my 8 Tracks from the 60s, who knew the bad sound could be cool again. 😮
Very, very, VERY, happy with your explanation. You put in words what I heard so often. Really interested in that list.
YES! The loudness wars are over and we all lost. I got my 1979 turntable out, assembled a system, and now I listen to my old records in the intended sound with the occasional pop and crackle, but with carful handling very little. I also have been scouring the second hand shops for older CDs and I am shopping for better quality DA converters for my system. 100% agreed.
Loudness is Cool
Great analysis of the extent different factors influence the sound of a recording. Thanks John
Excellent explanation of a a complex mix of concepts. Well done!
I consider myself an audiophile....which is the only real criteria for who is and who isn't one, if you think about it. I have some fairly high end equipment and speakers. Maybe I don't have golden ears. Probably don't. But in general the format the music comes in doesn't seem to matter to me. I like to think I can tell MP3 from CD or hi-res but I'm not sure I'd pass a blind test to prove it.
The two things that consistently make a difference to me is the quality/production/engineering of the music and the level of dynamic range compression.
I hear folks say that badly produced/recorded music can be corrected with the proper gear and set up. I call BS on that. Garbage in; garbage out.
I hear folks say the same about dynamic range compression. I call BS on that too. I do not think that it is even physically/scientifically possible.
Even with a lack of golden ears, I can easily detect and do not like overly DR compressed music unless I'm in the car or just have it playing in the background. (Of course judiciously used DR compression, especially with classical music is fine.)
Soooo, for me the quest for recordings, regardless of the format, is for those that are not overly DR compressed or that are produced/engineered better. And I don't enjoy the quest. It isn't part of the fun.
It's all in the mastering period !!!!!
90%
GREAT STUFF!!!!! Such a usefull perspective for all of us as audiophiles to consider! Thank you for sharing!
My Lou Reed - “New York”, early German CD pressing still sounds best to me than the re-issues and high res remaster..
The whole loudness wars is due to how people listen to music.
Much is on the move (car or walking, train etc). Because there is a lot of background noise in those activities you need to have everything loud In order to hear it.
Vinyl has a limited dynamic range to digital but in the early days that whole range was used and most were listened to inside so you could hear that full range.
Roon gives you the dynamic range of an album. Was worth a mention ...
You answered questions I didn’t realize I even had. Thank you.