Pre-Emphasis help

Here's a thread where I do a walk-through on using CUETools and SoX to apply deemphasis to ripped files: Ripping CDs with Pre-emphasis Properly

 

I did it again and my findings are very similar to yours. My BEFORE DR reading is exactly the same as yours. My AFTER DR reading is very similar except for a decimal point here or there:
DR11 -8.65 dB -22.52 dB 01 Speak to Me - Breathe In the Air.wav
DR10 -8.33 dB -23.33 dB 02 On the Run.wav
DR9 -8.14 dB -20.56 dB 03 Time.wav
DR9 -7.45 dB -21.91 dB 04 The Great Gig in the Sky.wav
DR11 -5.03 dB -20.02 dB 05 Money.wav
DR10 -8.31 dB -22.41 dB 06 Us and Them.wav
DR12 -5.96 dB -19.70 dB 07 Any Colour You Like.wav
DR11 -6.95 dB -22.81 dB 08 Brain Damage.wav
DR9 -5.59 dB -19.08 dB 09 Eclipse.wav
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of Files: 9
Official DR Value: DR10


The songs "Time" dropping from a 13 to a 9 seems very significant although it does sound noticeably better.

 

The exact decimal values for Peak and RMS aren't important. The values can change due to different offsets for different pressings of the CD. Especially on a CD like DSOTM where the tracks are gapless. Change the offset and a few samples from the end of one song now become the beginning of the next song. And that can end up changing the Peak values.

The exact values for DR for each track can also change by plus or minus one due to rounding when calculating DR. For example, JRiver Media Center is able to calculate DR values but can sometimes be off by one from the values calculated by the Foobar plugin. The Foobar plugin is the standard and the DR number(s) that should be compared against. Comparing DR numbers from Foobar against DR numbers calculated by a different program or tool can sometimes be off by one. Which is just due to rounding errors and the way computers do math.

 

Ham, are you sure that's the grail?
My TO J (PE=SUBQ)
DR matches yours, before EQ'd.

 

It's mastering #1 at the pink floyd archives.

Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon CD - Mysteries of the CD Masterings
1) Mastering Number 1 – Sony (Japan) Mastering
Track Peak Levels: 39.9 / 43.3 / 70.1 / 55.2 / 72.3 / 44.5 / 53.9 / 54.6 / 61.2

 

So my Toshiba carries the non Toshiba Grail? I'm confused

 

Whenever someone mentions the holy grail for DSOTM or WYWH it makes me want to crank those two up Not tonight though, currently enjoying a very nice pianistic interpretation of the Goldbergs.

 

Anybody know if the Rush CD Power Windows has pre-emphasis? I have the Mercury 826 098-2. I can't find it on the wiki list and it doesn't say so in EAC, but a couple of web sites say the "Polygram Made In USA" CD does. They don't list a catalog number so I can't be sure.
Anyone know for sure?

 

To my ears - no, it has not But it sounds tinny compared to the 2015 remaster.

 

This title does not have Pre. More than likely it uses the WG mastering as Polygram US liked to use their Euro counterpart.
Normally pre-emphasis is carried over from a different manufacture for US. It wouldn't make sense that a US would have it and the world not to.
What web site stated this?

 

Cd med pre-emphasis?

 

Thanks.
That member is from Oslo West, if he has a Euro it does not contain pre-emphasis. I checked my WG #01 this morning. No tag, TOC or SUBQ.
He may have done a copy & paste without actually testing it.

 

Out of curiosity, why is it that EAC had to have the pre-emphasis detection removed but cuetools was able to retain it? Makes the workflow more difficult when there’s a disc I suspect has PE, and there are bound to be a few missed ones that I was totally unaware of…

 

From what I read it was a 'cease and desist' issue as it's located where the CP is located. SUBQ
Cuetools may have never received it or they added the detection later. eac095pb3 is pretty old.

 

Yeah, not a fan of running the older EAC that much. My current workflow is to rip in EAC as normal, and if I suspect the disc has PE, create another cue sheet with CueRipper.

Oddly enough sometimes this results in some discrepancies between the 2 cue sheets when it comes to gap/index placement (no idea why) so it’s annoying to have to manually compare them, but in the event they’re the same and some/all tracks have a PRE flag, I just keep the new cue sheet. Otherwise, I appropriately add the PRE flags to the old one, or alter the index timings of the new one to match the one created by EAC. Whichever’s easier.

 

The current version of EAC (1.3 from 2016) can still detect pre-emphasis as long as it is flagged in the disc's Table Of Contents. Only the ability to manually detect pre-emphasis from the disc's subcode was removed:

Exact Audio Copy - Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase

"EAC 0.9 beta 1 (21 Jan 2001) through 0.95 prebeta 3 (11 May 2003) had manual TOC detection as an option, useful if a CD is defective and displays wrong track positions or data tracks instead of audio; EAC will try to detect the CD structure by analysis. This could also be used to detect pre-emphasis and copyright flags in the subcode, since they're sometimes missing from the TOC. The manual TOC detection feature was removed in 0.95 prebeta 4 (9 Nov 2003) due to European legislation which would outlaw software capable of circumventing a certain type of CD copy protection involving erroneous TOC data."

 

Its too bad that they removed that feature. But its not worth it to revert to an older version to get it.

So far I have identified a sum total of either 4 or 5 CDs with pre-emphasis inside of my collection of over 2000 redbook CDs. So its not like these are exactly common.

 

Sadly most PE flags are in the subcode and not the TOC. So when I suspect it, I pretty much have no choice but to check/confirm with other software. And invariably there will be some that I miss due to this.

Don’t know how active the developer is with EAC but maybe they can issue a “Euro” build (identical to the current build, which they can promptly ignore/stop updating) and a “rest of the world” build hosted on US servers where legality wouldn’t be an issue. I am not a lawyer, but just an idea! I’m sure they didn’t want to remove the feature and would prefer their otherwise flawless software to feature this.


Ability to read and extract data from the subcode could have its other uses too. Ripping CD+G discs for example.

 

Ok, I must plead ignorance on this one. What is CD+G?

 

CD+Graphics, commonly used for Karaoke discs, but there are some other innovative uses for it as well. All that data is stored in the subcode. It’s basically a standard CD that has primitive visual content when played on the right player.


Here’s a 1989 RCA release that pairs up classic Hollywood fanfares/themes with animated graphics that you could dub in to your home video projects.
Various Artists* - The Home Video Album

 

It is a PIA. Since eac095pb3 is an executable, on a suspect SUB I just do a quick scan, if it does I rip with foobar, otherwise I just use dBpoweramp.

 

Information Society's debut, 1988 had it. Kinda neat. I had an older JVC player that did CD+G, every song had it's own little section. Think there were some recipes thrown in too
Here's one-

 

The newest EAC version was released in 2016, so it's not in active development anymore. But according to this chart, there are three other CD rippers which can detect pre-emphasis in a disc's subcode:

Comparison of CD rippers - Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase

 

It hasn’t been unlike the dev to go several years without issuing an update, so I wouldn’t say they’ve abandoned the project but I’m sure it’s not their main priority at the moment. There’s always a chance they could update it again, or even open-source the entire thing.