Audiophile standard recordings with high DR?

Do they exist?

Is a debate or do the majority think it is possible to have a high DR and an enjoyable musical listen?

I haven't examined the DR data base to death but I would say the HDCD versions of the Roxy Music albums always sounded great to me as did Beck's Sea Change.

 

Are you of the opinion that high DR and "an enjoyable musical listen" are mutually exclusive? You seem to position it as the exception. Maybe you mean for the major labels?

 

First of all for sake of discussion what in your opinion constitutes a high DR?

 

Fair question. Is it anything in the green in the DR Database?

 

What is a high DR for you? The DR database thinks "good" starts at DR14, and DR9-13 is "transition" between bad and good.

I have checked hundreds of my CDs, most of which were released before the loudness war, and I found that many great sounding CDs "only" had DR11.

For me DR8 and less is problematic, because the dynamic compression is clearly audible, but from DR10 onwards dynamics are not a problem. It's not as if a CD with DR16 was necessarily more impressive sonically than one with DR13.

The DR measurement was conceived to detect overly compressed CDs. It wasn't about finding CDs with exceptionally high DR.

 

I don't actually think anything I was looking for opinions for those who've possibly studied it more than me.

It came about because I stated I preferred the original HDCD of Sea Change to the Mobile Fidelity one-also although I've only heard the one disc so far Roxy Music's FYP on the flat transfer from the box set seemed indeed very flat in relation to the HDCD version.

Claude thanks for the explanation above, makes sense.

 

So what is the DR value likely to be for a CD containing a flat transfer of 45 rpm single mixes with heavy analogue compression?

 

Seems the ones I like are marginal......interestingly enough Beck's new one Morning Phase does sound forced and a tad oppressive to me and the DR is lower on that......

 

From my experience, 10-ish.

 

For me personally anything lower than 9 on the DR scale sounds too compressed.

 

I think WAY too much importance is put on DR when it comes to determining sound quality. It is far from the most important factors in determining sound quality.

 

There are Cliff Richard recordings that are in that range and do sound excellent.

 

There are certainly other factors, but it is a handy tool for quickly evaluating different versions of an album.

 

The question is how would they sound given the same tapes and EQ choices with a DR, say, of 12?

 

I feel the same. DR9 is usually okay. Anything below that makes my head start hurting after a while.
That doesn't mean that I'm fine with old analog recordings being compressed to DR9. It just means that DR9 masterings usually don't sound fatiguing to me.

 

Most classical symphony works have great DR.

 

DR doesn't tell the whole story of quality.
For example:
Bob Dylan - Greatest Hits (Audio Fidelity CD) -> DR 10 albumwise
Rod Stewart - Never A Dull Moment (Audio Fidelity CD) -> DR 12 albumwise
Faces - A Nod Is As Good As A Wink...To A Blind Horse (Audio Fidelity CD) -> DR 11 albumwise

You never specified what high DR is for you, but I expect you want something higher than that..?
These are all very enjoyable recordings. Most of my CDs are in the 10-12 DR range. Depends on the type of music, too.

As a rule of thumb for me: DR 10 recordings are the limit. Albums with DR 9 are sometimes listenable, but a DR < 9 is very questionable in my opinion.
The amount of clipping is also very important for your listening pleasure. The DR database doens't tell about that, but there are offline tools that can find out
There is a weak connection between DR and the amount of clipping. I would expect an album with DR 6 to have large amount of clipping... but you always have to check for each individual recording.
Oh.. I almost forgot there is something like hard clipping and soft clipping. Hard clipping is easier to identify even without the use of tools that analyse.
If you have good (a little bit of trained) ears and good equipment you are able to analyse with your ears In the end its always your ears and music taste that decide, rather than some numbers out of a database. (But don't expect too much from DR 4 - 7 .. 8 recordings)

 

Analogue compression and digital compression are very different beasts, the former is tolerable, the latter can give you a headache.
Really though it depends on the recording itself, as loud or lo-fi music will always have a lower than average DR score.