Has the age of the 'big rock release' album died?

[coltrane2]

Good point well made and I'm not denying it as I've heard the difference (e.g high end system I mentioned listening to Zeppelin on). I've sold my soul to convenience, whilst reserving the right to play my 320kbps downloads through a quality Onkyo system and let the sound carry me away.

I'll have you know that I've ended up buying Point of Know Return by Kansas, following the mere mention of Leftoverture in your post yesterday.

And THREE Blackfoot albums, following a thread on Blackfoot vs Marshall Tucker Band elsewhere on the forum. Great stuff.

 

[LG]

^^All my rips are in FLAC on my hard drive Coltrane...

I like the convenience as well but draw the line when it overwhelms all other consideration, not at the personal level but the corporate one. Give us choice please after all you can always compress a file to whatever size you want, but you cannot expand a lossy format to it's original size without integrity loss.

Glad you are enjoying Kansas, I love them myself.

Magic is a Huge Blackfoot fan, that's the only reason I have a few of their albums now.

 

[joe]

Is there such a thing as an environment involving a hi fi system that isn't artificial?

I agree that there is a massive slew of sycophants who think that the choice of cable between an amp and source significantly alters the aural experience. Between the two extremes is the truth. £50 hi fi systems hurt my ears and they sound like shit: Fact. Anything north of £200 - £400 buys you a system that sounds plausibly hi-fi. Above that, it's diminishing returns.

Vinyl is overrated though. I get the warmth point and as I said to LG I'm sure it's technically the truest representation of the music (since it is the actual music etched into vinyl, rather than a range of digital "0"s and "1"s) but it still sounds like someone is cooking up fries in the background, interpolated with a range of unscheduled pops and crackles. Also, of course, from the minute you put the record on the groove, the quality is immediately deteriorating as good old dirt builds up on the needle.

I'll swap you four albums of your choice for the snake oil!

The devil is in the details. I'm not going to ramble on with technical and grandliqount language to try and impress the membership here. Most of the members, if not all, know I'm an arrogant SOB anyway.

BTW, I just got a new shipment of snake oil from China. I'll let you and LG have first dibs. The bidding starts at $15,000.



I just got a new arrival of premium snake oil from China. Would you and LG like to purchase

 

[Fever]

^^All my rips are in FLAC on my hard drive Coltrane...

I like the convenience as well but draw the line when it overwhelms all other consideration, not at the personal level but the corporate one. Give us choice please after all you can always compress a file to whatever size you want, but you cannot expand a lossy format to it's original size without integrity loss.

Glad you are enjoying Kansas, I love them myself.

Magic is a Huge Blackfoot fan, that's the only reason I have a few of their albums now.

I am a huge Blackfoot fan too

 

[joe]

....nope I have to disagree 320kbs are okay but they are put to shame by some fantastic "amateur" rips I have collected over the last few months.

When I play DSTOM ripped to Blu-Ray specs from the Original first UK pressing it is stunning, comes in around 8,000kbs. There is simply no comparison.

Crunching the numbers I came up with the conclusion that ^ was coded at 20bits @ 192KHz the datarate would be 7,680kbs as compared to 24 bits x 192KHz = 9,216kbs, so this would be too high. Do you think you could hear the difference between from your forementioned rip at 20 bits @ 192KHz than at 20 bits @ 96KHz?

You should take this test LG:

The Emperor’s New Sampling Rate -- Are CDs Actually Good Enough?

Audiophiles and sound engineers did a little better than the "average joe" listener but really shouldn't they have done a whole hell of alot better? I would give the sound engineers and audiophiles a failing grade as they should of been able to hear difference 100% of time.

Heads or tails LG?

 

[coltrane2]

Let's not forget that a hell of a lot of this is down to the recording standards and spec of the original source master tapes. Try listening to Duke Ellington's 1940's Blanton-Webster band recordings (arguably the most highly regarded big band music in history, alongside maybe Count Basie) and it sounds lo-fi on any system, so there's little point in concerning yourself with the bit rate or whether it's on vinyl, CD or Mp3/ AAC.

Similarly, but at the other end of the spectrum, try Rod Stewart's Every Picture Tells A Story (Mastered on Mobile Fidelity's World-Renowned Mastering System and Pressed at RTI (The Best Plant in America) and it sounds fantastic on even the most basic of set ups.

I had a retro sound obsessed friend tell me a few years ago that the Rod disc was an example of just how far ahead vinyl was in terms of faithful sound. I had to agree with him until I heard both the CD and Mp3 versions, which retain the warmth and expanse of sound with almost no audible loss of quality. It's the original recording and master that was fantastic, not the choice of playback format.

 

[LG]

^^Yes Coltrane it all begins with the original recording, if it's skinny and rubbish then it's never going to sound very good in any format.

However, when you are talking about bandwith for instance, I equate it with looking at a painting. You can look at a small lithograph of a masterpiece and say..."Yes it's a Rembrandt and a wonderful piece of art." But then when you see the original work in all it's glory in full scale all of the details are there to be seen. I look at music/recording/formats the same.

Joe...the big argument the hard core audiophiles I know is with the 16bit CD format, they felt from the very beginning that it was not good enough to capture all the detail of a top notch analog setup. I can't fault Philips they invented both the CD and then the DVD a few years later.

The differences are very subtle between the 24-96(DVD audio) and a Blu Ray rip(24-192)if the original recording is not very good then I would be hard pressed to distinguish between them. If it's a copy of DSOTM...yes I can tell the difference on my reference system.

Even a rip done at either of those bit rates when sampled down to "Redbook" specs is usually far better than the CD you buy at the store. I have numerous examples of that.

To be fair the copy of Queensryche's "Operation Mindcrime" I have in 16-44 vinyl rip is not as good as the Japanese import CD version, but that album even though I love it is not the best produced as far as sound quality goes.

 

[Dessalines]

Killed by ITunes. Oh well....

"We're gonna kick off our shoes,
Think about the blues,
And start all over again"

The Beau Brummels.

 

[coltrane2]

^^Yes Coltrane it all begins with the original recording, if it's skinny and rubbish then it's never going to sound very good in any format.

However, when you are talking about bandwith for instance, I equate it with looking at a painting. You can look at a small lithograph of a masterpiece and say..."Yes it's a Rembrandt and a wonderful piece of art." But then when you see the original work in all it's glory in full scale all of the details are there to be seen. I look at music/recording/formats the same.

Joe...the big argument the hard core audiophiles I know is with the 16bit CD format, they felt from the very beginning that it was not good enough to capture all the detail of a top notch analog setup. I can't fault Philips they invented both the CD and then the DVD a few years later.

The differences are very subtle between the 24-96(DVD audio) and a Blu Ray rip(24-192)if the original recording is not very good then I would be hard pressed to distinguish between them. If it's a copy of DSOTM...yes I can tell the difference on my reference system.

Even a rip done at either of those bit rates when sampled down to "Redbook" specs is usually far better than the CD you buy at the store. I have numerous examples of that.

To be fair the copy of Queensryche's "Operation Mindcrime" I have in 16-44 vinyl rip is not as good as the Japanese import CD version, but that album even though I love it is not the best produced as far as sound quality goes.

Ah, Operation Mindcrime; now there's a flaming huge sounding album by any standard. Surprised you say it's not the best produced album...the guitars are akin to a razor across the ears and Suite Sister Mary sounds like it was recorded in the biggest cathedral in the world!

 

[LG]

^^I love that album Coltrane but it's just lacking a little bass and the drumkit lacks punch in my estimation. Still it is a pearler by any standard.

I want to state again, my complaint is with the transfers of the Old classic records from the 60's to the 80's, not the newer digital recordings from the 90's up to now.