An interesting misconception about sound quality

Thanks for backing me up (though that wasn't your intent, i'm sure!).

 

and thanks for backing me up too Grant!

EDIT - to clarify my Hunky Dory post a little more, I'm basically saying that the supposed 24 bit remaster, isn't technically a 24 bit remaster at all.

 

You mean how the engineer chooses to dither down (or not dither down), correct? That and the converters used are the only things one can screw up relating to bit rates.

 

You can't tell a 24-bit remaster by loading a CD into Wavelab or any other program. Every CD in the world is 16-bit.

You CAN tell if it's a new remaster by all the usual methods (new transfer, different EQ, etc.), but you can't determine the original bit rate and sampling rate from an already dithered CD master, unless you're in the mastering room at the time.

 

nevermind - wrong button!

 

Which is really what I was getting at too. Dither does makes a difference, but not as much as what you describe.

 

I know that every CD is 16 bit - this is why we have dither.

No, what I'm saying that whatever was fed into a 24 bit convertor, it sure wasn't the analogue master tape of Hunky Dory. The source originated from the digital tape made in 1990. Was that tape 24 bit? In 1990, the answer would definately be no. 20 bit? Hmmm .. not sure .. but definately not 24 bit.

Taking a 16 or 20 bit tape that everybody bought previous time round, then feeding it through no noise at 24 bit, doesn't bring any advantage - at least not to these ears.

 

True. But sometimes in the 90s, some rather unsavory record company-types would slap a "24-bit remastered" onto a 16-bit transfer, change the EQ a bit and ship it out the door. But what you describe, no, there's no benefit.

Engineers have different opinions about upsampling generally. But keep in mind that for recent recordings, most of which are done digitally (with no analog backup), upsampling might be the only way to go in the future. Hell, some 1980s CD source tapes only exist on DAT today!

 

It was never my intention to imply there was anything wrong with 24 bit in itself.

 

I respectfully disagree, and I also disagree with Grant's statement that "it's all subjective." I'd go further and say that I don't think anyone on this Forum really thinks evaluating sound quality is all subjective, or that your ears are always the final judge. Let me explain.

Haven't any of you run across someone who knows nothing about high-quality recording/playback who listened to a DCC disc or any well-mastered CD and said something like, "that's too soft," or "that's not as dynamic as my latest remaster," or "yuck, there's tape hiss on there"? Aren't they "trusting their ears" when they say that? (They're sure not measuring a waveform. ) What makes their subjective assessment of the sound quality any different from ours, or Steve's? If everything's subjective, whenever we complain about a bad remastering job, we're not saying it's really "bad," we're just saying we don't like it.

But I don't think any of us would be satisfied with that explanation. We'd try to teach our friend what to listen for. (And we'd assume that "what to listen for" is not just a matter of getting them to agree with our preferences.) We'd talk about colorations and distortions, bad EQ and maximized levels, not just about how we prefer unclipped signals while someone else might prefer clipped signals. In other words, we'd assume there's a standard out there that's at least partially independent of a subjective evaluation, a standard that we've all worked to "tune" our own subjectivity toward.

Take the Steely Dan remasters as a good example. The latest remasters are compressed, no-noised, and much brighter than the earlier masterings. At first listen, many people who just "trust their ears" might think "hey, these sound open and clear and have more punch--nice job!" But the educated ear, once it's learned some standards of evaluation, would probably say the latest remaster is not better but worse than earlier masterings. This is not a random example. My ears were fooled by the remasters, until I had learned a better way to listen from Steve and this Forum.

To put this another way: if all we have to do is "trust our ears," we're assuming that our ears are always trustworthy--a big assumption.

If you really want to argue that it's all subjective, then you can never, ever say that something has been badly mastered, because "badly" will just mean "mastered in a way I didn't like." Are we really prepared to give up the idea that there's bad mastering and good mastering and great mastering and that we can tell them apart and educate others to do the same?

 

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I bought several Elvis and Beatle titles that were "24-bit/96KHz". Needless to say, I was dissapointed in the audio quality.

 

Exactly what I described in my example.... which is why I originally said it wasn't a 16 bit remaster!!

EDIT - Wooops, make that 24 bit.

I don't think anyone on this thread has assumed otherwise I think Steve's post was just a summing up.

 

In response to Gardo's post (which was very good), I must say I disagree. I still believe it is subjective matter regarding what is "good". It is not a subjective matter as to what is loud, soft, hard, harsh, or any other characteristic that can be measured by a waveform. However one can not look at a waveform and have it be "good" because that is only good to them. If someone likes EQ-ed noise reductioned stuff, and HAS heard the alternatives and has been educated, what can you say, "you are wrong"? I don't think that holds any weight. Some aural properties CAN be right and wrong, but I don't think plain goodness or badness can be.

 

I see your point, but let's say that "someone" is a mastering engineer (not a far-fetched example, as we all know), and you have a chance to go one-on-one in a last-chance impassioned debate to get him to change his ways and master, let's say, a major recording artist's catalog differently. If you can't say "you're wrong, this other way sounds better," then how can you hope to change his mind? He'll just say "ah, that sounds better to you because you're an audiophile and you've been trained to prefer a certain sound."

Wouldn't you want to be able to say, "no, this isn't about preferences, it's about mediocre mastering vs. excellent mastering"?

Believe me, when I took my complaints about the Rhino CTA remaster to the Chicago fan board (before I discovered this place), most folks there made the following points during the discussion:

--I had a 30K stereo rig. One said "you must have a stereo that cost more than your house." (Would that it were true! Alas, no. Mid-fi all the way.)
--if it sounds great in the car, it sounds great, period.
--if you can "hear things you never heard before," that's an infallible sign that the remaster has improved the sound.
--new remastering techniques are always better than old techiques, and new mastering equipment has a magical way of making the recording sound better than ever.
--if the source is the original master tape, that tells you all you need to know about the quality of the CD.
--I wasn't a true Chicago fan if I complained about a remaster that was supervised by a member of the group.

Without some standard outside subjectivity and ear-trust, how can one argue with these points?

 

In fact, dither and sample rate conversion has gotten so transparent with today's converters and dither schemes, it is virtually a non-issue.

 

The new mastering GEAR is certainly better today, but the problem is what they DO with that gear. It does have the ability to make the music sound better than ever. But, there is NO magic in what the newer equipment does or how it does it.

Perhaps we all should converge on their forum and teach them a few things! Pthhhh, I could hear the differences in my lowly factory-installed car stereo!

 

Not entirely. For consumers it's a non-issue, because most will never hear it. For engineers who know better, it's definitely not transparent when it's done wrong. It IS partly why 24-bit remasters don't sound as good as they should (in addition to the other ways bad MEs abuse the music). A good ME these days has to know how to dither and SRC properly (and especially how NOT to do it). Otherwise it adds up throughout the chain, and then the detail and ambience that those extra 8 bits add is gone.

A self-styled "professional mastering engineer" with a Pro Tools rig in his basement and no real experience likely isn't going to know or care about it. And THAT'S the sad part.

 

Very nice points again, but -- I think one can still say it is good or bad mastering IF a particular end result was desired...heck, if a compressed EQ'd result is what someone wants then Beatles 1 is superb mastering. I doubt however that's how it should sound, in relation to the original tapes, so therefore it can be called "poor mastering", but if someone still likes it, then it can still be "good sound". I think we're really much closer on this subject than our posts show...

Am i making any sense?

 

For me, the ear-opening moment was when I first got the Polygram remasters of the Van Morrison Warner Brothers catalog (excluding the first three). The Warner Brothers CDs were among my favorites, featuring a nice tonal balance and smooth sound. By the usual standards, the Polygram remasters were even better -- there was more detail, and I could follow individual instruments better -- but I just didn't enjoy listening to them as much. I suspect I reacted to all the newfound treble that some engineer considered "detail." I had a similar reaction to the MCA/Chess remasters of Bobby Bland, which were more detailed, but less listenable than the old MFSL aluminum two-fer.

Naturally, I sold old discs back as soon as I read the "From The Vaults" announcement in ICE; my favorite used CD store was quick to decline old editions. So I was stuck with editions I didn't like as well as what I had.

Lesson learned, I've been careful to check the "new and improved" disc before unloading a favorite title. I smartly held on to my Right Stuff Al Green titles, and the Warner Brothers TUSK will stay in my collection until I hear the pending remaster. And I'm pursuing old remasters (like the Rhino reissues of the original Sam & Dave albums) before someone decides to improve these, as well.

 

Exactly the point of my own post above. Seems like 24/96 is getting a partial bum rap here when it's not the cause of the problem. All it takes is one doofus engineer running it through the digital shredders (no-noise, compression, etc.) to ruin a perfectly good signal.

If the mass market CD buying public likes it, the ones who buy the copies who don't know any better, then we are just small potatoes.

 

Remember the sound samples I put up for an LP and CD version of a Nat King Cole track? I put the same comparison on A&M Corner, and I had more remarks that the CD sounded better. I'm still aghast. The track I picked is very difficult to listen to, it sounds so choked off. Some even remarked the LP sounded a little "cooler" because it had more reverb, but the CD sounded more natural.

*sigh*

The average listener can't hear the difference...or they don't give a sh!t. I'm now convinced of that. I'm plotting another comparison as I write this--I'm taking Alpert's "A Taste of Honey" and purposely mangling it in Sound Forge, overusing the noise reduction, EQ, compression, etc. to make what i think a "modern" remastering would sound like. If anyone thinks this abomination I've done sounds good, then... *sigh*