Member Disc Rating System

With the onset of SACD which with it will bring (we hope) a slew of new re-masters AWA new material, is there any way that a disc rating posting system could be set up. It could be similar to the polls we already have but maybe have a forum of its own.

A standard template could be used where members could 'plug in' the name of a disc and it could be rated by everyone with a few standard radio button choices. Of course a post could be added for a more in depth analysis. This would give a valuable consensus helping in a decision whether to purchase this disc or not. I think a lot more input would be gathered even from people who don't have the inclination or time to write a regular post.

I don't know if this is practical but this doesn't seem to vary to much from the poll concept.

Any thoughts on this?

 

Well, I think it's a GREAT idea! HZ?

Anyone of us could just post an album, new or old, and set up a point or star system. Anyone of us could do this right now, if they wanted. Just pick one, anything widely available, set up a poll, and let it go!

 

Well, I was just about to pick one until I realized something, what are we going to vote on, sound quality or performance? Both? OK, I'll try one out just to get a feel for it.

 

Since you're comparing remasters and formats, it should deal with sound quality only.

 

We shouldn't limit it to just re-masters but the actual plug-in part with choices should be limited to sound quality an objective thing. If I'm interested in a re-master or new disc that I haven't heard, I already probably know the music/artist and just want to find out how good the sound is before I run out and buy it. As far as subjective opinion about the performance, there can be the posts attached for those with the time/inclination to post & read them. That's the whole beauty of the system, that is most people will at least take the time to click on a few buttons.

This would provide a great data base and after a while, a good look at what we the consumer, value most consistantly about recordings.

In time, this could be the or, one of the most valued music resources on the net.

 

This was also posted under Grant's "test poll" so we could keep talking about it in one place:

As I mentioned in the other thread maybe we should limit the actual pole to just the sound quality. The choices might include things like, harsh or smooth, resolution, and a final overall sound rating of * = poor to
***** = excellent.

Any other suggestions?

The actual review of musical merit requires more so therefore people can post below as always.

PS W'ere really going to need a seperate forum for this one

 

Hey Khorn,

Dave B and I tried starting something similiar to this about 3 months ago. Everyone thought it a great idea, but when it came time to actually participate in a thread, it consistently sank with little discussion.

It was run like this:

First a there was discussion about all the different masterings available of a given title. Then when we felt we had all that info collected, a poll about which was the best sounding. The result was placed in a "best of the best" forum for easy reference.

I realize this is a little bit different, so if you think it would fly this time around, I suggest running it in Music Corner (which is where 90% of the action is anyways) in an ad hoc manner using the normal poll system. If after several weeks it's shown itself to be a hit, then we can discuss creating another forum and writing code to support it - which I admit, I'm not exactly excited about doing myself: for one thing, I'd have to learn PHP. Blech!. Khorn, maybe you know something about vBulletin templates that I don't?

Cheers!

HZ

 

HZ,

Wish I could help with the code part but, there must be someone on the board who can.

I think the whole strength of this idea is the poll section. As you are already aware, that when a poll is conducted here, the number of people that reply & vote just in the pole itself usually far, far, outnumber written commetary attachments.
That's the beauty of the poll, many who wouldn't/won't/can't take the time to write a post for whatever reason, will find it easy to click on a few buttons and will tend to do so more often. It's the strenght of the 'consensus data base' built for each individual title that is the real value here.

As far as what to vote on I firmly believe it should just be an objective thing like sound quality. Why? because individual musical tastes vary too greatly. this can be easily pointed out in a couple of postings that I made recently.
When I posted about 'Harlem Nocturn' I was blown away by the answers I got. I know this as a laid back 'Jazz' piece, usually done by tenor sax or vibes and the like at a rather slow tempo. The versions that were picked on this forum were totaly alien to me and of a whole different ilk.
Same goes when I asked about Jay McShann's 'Big Apple Bash' IMHO an utterly fantastic session that unfortunately is not on CD now. I think it's a WEA property anway. Point is the reaction to the post was total indifference. I'ts just that we all have such varied musical tastes, what I love you might hate, therfore the suggestion to leave any subjective musical criticism to a posting done by the member if desired at the time of filling in the pole.

Hey let's leave this 'fly' until we give all the regulars a chance to pipe up as this is a very long weekend and some won't be able to reply until the beginning of next week.

People, let's get some input here. This could really be useful to us and others in the music community in the long run.

 

Also, I suggest that the originator should make the first post of the thread/poll an introductory one where he/she would list the title, artist, format (SACD/DVD-A/CD/etc), label and specifically the label number. There are so many different releses out there that this would be necessary info.

A rundown of any special features or out-of-the-ordinaries would be in order too (like special musical artist appearences).

I agree with Khorn, perfomance could be left fo the posters to discuss.

 

Maybe, If we are going to rate the sound quality it can be broken down into a number of 'Attributes' each having a one out of five * rating. The average of the total of these woud be the * rating for that particular disc post. The total disc average would be the sum result of the final average of all poll results for that particular title.

The poll could consist of one to five stars for each of the following:
in each case one star = very poor to five stars=excellent


1) Musicality

2) Definition

3) Harshness

4) Brightness

5) Sonic Faults ( sibilance and dropouts and the like)


The above are suggestions only, if you have other choices you think may be more suitable let us know.

Notice we're NOT talking about subjective musical criticism here, just objective sound quality.

the quote from MagicAlex below is a good suggestion:

 

I agree this would be great to have a library of masterings for all different juandra's of music. The push-button poll is a great idea as I know myself that it saves a lot of time especially for our more busy members.

I think, like Khorn, that we should just stick to sound quality, as that's the bottom line for the majority of us here.

It's a great idea, and if Grant were ever to become ill, god forbid, how the heck would any of us know about Soul and 45 and Mono mixes.

 

I think four stars would be more user-friendly. Category 4 really makes a lot of sense.

 

I agree, four stars makes sense.

Anybody have other suggestions for catagories?

 

I do think this is a great idea...it is something that many of us have been looking for - a definitive steer on what is generally considered to sound good. I say generally considered because there will be those that hold a different view..but that adds to the fun IMHO!

I would recommend keeping things as simple as possible and then interest is more likely to be sustained over time.

A four star sound quality rating sounds good to me...please just keep it simple! Even as simple as Excellent, Good, Average/OK, Poor....

 

MUSICALITY:

I guess the best way to define this would be "sounding more like real music sounds" as compared to sounding more obviously like an elecro-mechanical reproduction.

The above definition could be made using various terminoligy but I think most of you get the drift.

4 OR 5 STARS:

A 4 star system: 1 poor 2 average 3 good 4 excellent

A 5 star system: 1 very poor 2 poor 3 average 4 good 5 excellent

I think that the 4 star system resoution will suffice for our purposes for a couple of reasons:

1) None of us would really want anything below a "good" rating unless we had no choice eg: there were NO other versions available and we just have to have that particular music.

2) I guess a four star rating would be easier to set up ??

Lets have some more input on this point.

BRIGHTNESS & HARSHNESS:

I think we tend to confuse these two terms in relation to recorded music reproduction.

A disc could sound BRIGHT eg: DETAILED and 'AIRY' on the mid and upper end while still being SMOOTH and very LISTENABLE, as compared to MUTED or DULL sounding and lacking "APPARENT" detail.

A HARSH disc is one that emphasizes certain frequencies to the point that it is 'UNPLEASANT TO LISTEN TO' you know the stuff that makes you grit your teeth and say "ouch this hurts my head".

NOTE: This is part of the reason for setting up the 'MEMBERS SYSTEMS' that is being discussed in the 'Forum Business' section. It will give us a guage to understand what "kind of picture" a member might be getting through his/her system.

THE OVERALL RATING SYSTEM

Let's say we have five catagories to vote on. The AVERAGE RATING of all five IN EACH POLL POST will give a rating for that members post on that particular disc.
The total of all the AVERAGE RATINGS of all the posts on that particular disc will give the OVERALL RATING for that disc.

'Common members, let's have some more input here. We really want to get this thing off the ground.

 

4* Everything you could ask for
3* Close
2* Good
1* Bad

... then add comments/explanation.

 

What About?

Friends,

What about:

Dynamic Range, Impact, Sound Stage and Mastering as rating criteria?

Bob

 

I think that a very simple voting scheme would be in order. If we break it down into all of the different sound adjectives then I believe that the whole purpose of a quick rating for reference will disect the music too much. We could however leave our sound quality elaborations for the descriptive texts of our posts. The overall rating is going to be collective of all who vote and if its a good recording that should be represented in this kind of simplistic approach.

I'm glad that this is being put together. I think it's a wonderful idea!

 

Re: What About?

Bob,

These are good suggestions perhaps we need about 7 to 10 buttons in the poll.

1) Musicality

2) Definition

3) Harshness

4) Brightness

5) Dynamic Range

6) Sonic Faults ( sibilance and dropouts and the like)

7) Sound Stage

The above aren't necessarily in the final choices or order.

As far as Mastering goes would'nt that really be what the sum total of the above criteria amount to?

My take on impact is that it is more of a subjective evaluation and therefore should be left to the posting portion if people want to explain and expand on how they voted. (If I'm getting this wrong, let me know)

I think we will have to establish a way of determining an agreement as to what to include.
Maybe we could conduct a poll to see which of the above (or any other suggestions) should be included.
I don't know at what point we should start that.

 

Khorn,

You are correct, of course! I was thinking about the overall impression of mastering style. The differences that we hear by mastering Engineer that cannot be fully explained by other rating criteria. Steve has a distinct sound, Bill Inglot has a distinct sound, Bob Ludwig has a distinct sound, etc., etc. but, I am flexible. Thanks for adding some the criteria that I suggested.

Bob

 

I've taken to rating everything I listen to and entering it into a Word chart (acts like a database). Artist, Title, Rating, Comment.

For example, this past weekend I listened to Rod Stewart's Never a Dull Moment LPZ-2010.

4, Everything I could ask for
great soundstage, good feel to the instruments
tracks (2/1,2,5) attracted my attention

I rate the sound, comment on it, and note interesting things about the music.

 

Oooooh, oooooh (ala Joe E. Ross), can we include stereo/mono while we're at it? It's nice to know what's under the hood since Both Sides Now stopped its newsletter - that way we can have Grant vs. Luke Rock 'em Sock 'em fisticuffs, too! I'm for both mixes being available, although my ears like twin guns a' blazin' stereo - I gots two big old ears and two mighty fine speakers to crank things up on...

 

Well, I have nothing to add except that the rating system should be easy to use. I'll just let you guys haggle it all out. there should be a way for each poster to show an individual rating along with an overall tally. I just want to get this thing going.

 

Just a simple mention of whether a disc/track is in stereo or mono. No need to fight over personal preferences in a review. A recording should be reviewed and judged on it's individual merits, not by how superior or inferior it is because of stereo/mono.