The Resurgence of the CD?

[Scott65]

Like it or not, there are hundreds of millions of CDs still in circulation and in personal collections. They will continue to be spun on CD/Universal players and will be around for a very long time, certainly longer than I will be when my curtain comes down.[/QUOTE]

I have never stopped buying cds and don't intend to unless they are no longer available. Given that SACDs often (mostly?) have a cd layer most of us here are still buying them.

 

[4-earredwonder]

Had SONY/PHILIPS perhaps waited another year or so to launch their RBCD format and bumped the bit rate/sampling rate to 20/88.2, it would have been a more amenable format to even the more discerning audio snobs. Even in beta testing, I'm sure it's deficiencies were perceived by all who heard it. Coupled with very mediocre players which were $1K at the time, its reception was lukewarm and within a year the audio mags and critics were comparing it unfavorably to vinyl, which to their ears sounded warmer and more 'musical.'

I guess the failure of QUAD only a few years earlier failed to inform the hardware manufacturers and record conglomerates that not ready for prime time formats can be a tough sell.

I'm sure we all have RBCDs in our collection which are so damn good they can fool you into believing they're higher def........but those discs, unfortunately, are the exception to the rule.

A well mastered DVD~A, SACD, BD~A remaster, even in stereo, can very comfortably eclipse the 16/44.1 RBCD in almost every parameter.

And the irony: 98% of the general population could care less!

 

[mattB2]

I certainly buy fewer CDs than I used to but that's primarily down to the brick-walling that's applied to most CDs by current artists. I would love to buy more but there is no point if I can't listen to, or enjoy, the music. On the other hand I'm certainly buying more vinyl than I have since the early 80s - mainly because it's included in box sets with other discs that I want on CD, DVD or Blu-ray. It's nice to know that I am contributing to the resurgence in vinyl sales even though I don't have a record deck (and don't intend to get one).

 

[LuvMyQuad]

I too have over 1000 cds. I must admit to selling losers over the years, but only absolute losers.
I'm not buying many new ones, not because of the music, but I can't stand the brickwalling on most new releases.

I remember the earliest CD releases were mastered too bright compared to the vinyl versions. It took a couple of years of transition to get the mastering right. I think the loudness wars started 10-12 years ago maybe? so that would make for about 20 years worth of relatively decent sounding CDs.

My first CD player was a Magnavox. I believe the DAC was only 14 bit !!!!

 

[jimfisheye]

Resurgence eh?

Which CD generation?

There are the earlier generation CDs that are sometimes still the best available copies (with newer 'remasters' being degraded). For originally analog program, these might suffer from early generation ADC's and not be as sharp and pristine as a modern 24 bit HD master if done correctly but they better all the volume war remasters that followed (and sometimes the odd HD master in worst cases).

Then we have the heavy limited and boosted and often extreme high end brightened generation. This is the formula that seems to endure to this day.

Or the last few years which saw a handful of releases that were more straight flat transfers of the masters without the destructive hype (and that revealed that SD sample rate and even 16 bit resolution are MUCH more minor players in the sound than early generation CD's suggested).

So will this "resurgence" be about stating SD and 16 bit are just fine if you don't do destructive practices in mastering and advocate throwing data (ie the 24 bit masters) away even though modern storage and formats makes it a moot point? Or is this nostalgia (which isn't quite the right word since this practice is still current in some corners) for the volume war limiting/boosting and the ear bleeding treble boost? Or is this celebrating the sound and artifacts of early DAC's?

I know! Let's get the kids nostalgic for pictogram "recordings"! (The earliest form of "recording" that made waveform drawings.) Then we can bring the fax machine back along with this and everyone can fax pictograms back and forth. The quality degradation possible should satisfy the most stubborn mp3 and lo-fi listeners out there as being bad enough.

 

[edisonbaggins]

Here's some anecdotal data. I occasionally sell surround discs and CDs on eBay.
Lately, the CDs are returning more value, compared to my investment. Unless the title is fairly popular, I tend to barely break even or take a loss on the surroumd discs.

 

[Clint Eastwood]

Here's some anecdotal data. I occasionally sell surround discs and CDs on eBay.
Lately, the CDs are returning more value, compared to my investment. Unless the title is fairly popular, I tend to barely break even or take a loss on the surroumd discs.

Unfortunately another sign of how small the surround community is...and for those of us(like me)that search for certain CDs with good dynamic range numbers...the prices on some of those CDs fetch pretty good money

 

[edisonbaggins]

Unfortunately another sign of how small the surround community is...and for those of us(like me)that search for certain CDs with good dynamic range numbers...the prices on some of those CDs fetch pretty good money

Dude, it takes me forever to find a reasonable price on some CDs I want.
Kind of a tangent, but I wouldn't mind a resurgence of DTS-CD. I almost put out Disturbing the Universe that way, but found someone who could author LPCM to Blu-ray before finding someone who could convert to DTS (I know Jon did for use in his car).

 

[karlkastner]

I have almost all CDs. I am/will systematically replace most with SACDs if/when available.
Then there are extreme cases when I love a particular recording...

 

[4-earredwonder]

I have almost all CDs. I am/will systematically replace most with SACDs if/when available.
Then there are extreme cases when I love a particular recording...View attachment 34324

Of all your Muddy Water 'Folk Singer' acquisitions, which to your ears SOUNDS THE BEST?

 

[Clint Eastwood]

Of all your Muddy Water 'Folk Singer' acquisitions, which to your ears SOUNDS THE BEST?

Good question Ralphie..I was going to ask the same thing..

 

[4-earredwonder]

I don't think there is so much of a 'resurgence' in RBCD as the quality certainly hasn't improved. It has more to do with availability. Unless you're strictly into buying vinyl or downloading, most new RBCDs are readily available for $10~12.

Buying rock, hard Rock or even metal can be a crap shoot with pretty mediocre DR scores and compressed dynamics but if you're more oriented towards JAZZ, World Music or classical, it's a pretty safe bet those RBCDs won't be compressed and sound just fine.

As the players improve with upsampling and improved DACs that too can be a mixed blessing as a poorly mastered RBCD will likely sound worse.

It's a shame that in 2018 we're still stuck with a standard that cannot be ameliorated unless one opts for a more carefully remastered Japanese import or JVC K2HD version [ridiculously priced at $40] or can still purchase those MoFi or AF Gold RBCDs, some with HDCD. That 16/44.1 1980's standard, because of backward compatibility, is something we'll be stuck with, seemingly forever, as, ironically, video formats are forging ahead with easily upgradable and GREATLY improved standards.

The PROMISE of Perfect Sound forever was an oxymoron and, IMO, one of the biggest fopauxs in audio history.

 

[jimfisheye]

Of all your Muddy Water 'Folk Singer' acquisitions, which to your ears SOUNDS THE BEST?

What you can do is pull every version into a DAW app - one per track. Use the channel solo buttons to select which one to hear. (We're not getting silly and listening to all of them at once!)
Now go through them and adjust the track volumes between them to make them all the same volume. Adjust the loudest ones down! We don't want distortion. Spend some time here normalizing the overall level between them. If the eq balance between some of them is SO different, listening to a lead instrument or vocal might be the thing to cue off of.

Now flip through them and see which one sounds cleaner!

This will be pretty eye opening to what can and does happen in mastering.

Extra credit:
Convert one of your 24/96 recordings to 44.1k and then 16 bit. Then convert that 16/44.1 copy back to 24/96. Put it on a 2nd track to A/B compare to the original lossless copy. This will show the damage from downsampling. (The upsample was to be able to compare it next to the original but you can count this too if you want.)

Yeah so... probably not hearing much difference there, right? Now you know how much more a factor the mastering is in CD (lack of) sound than the format.

 

[4-earredwonder]

What you can do is pull every version into a DAW app - one per track. Use the channel solo buttons to select which one to hear. (We're not getting silly and listening to all of them at once!)
Now go through them and adjust the track volumes between them to make them all the same volume. Adjust the loudest ones down! We don't want distortion. Spend some time here normalizing the overall level between them. If the eq balance between some of them is SO different, listening to a lead instrument or vocal might be the thing to cue off of.

Now flip through them and see which one sounds cleaner!

This will be pretty eye opening to what can and does happen in mastering.

Extra credit:
Convert one of your 24/96 recordings to 44.1k and then 16 bit. Then convert that 16/44.1 copy back to 24/96. Put it on a 2nd track to A/B compare to the original lossless copy. This will show the damage from downsampling. (The upsample was to be able to compare it next to the original but you can count this too if you want.)

Yeah so... probably not hearing much difference there, right? Now you know how much more a factor the mastering is in CD (lack of) sound than the format.

TOO MUCH WORK!

 

[jimfisheye]

TOO MUCH WORK!

Sounds like more than it is written out maybe? It's free! That means no working to pay for anything. Less work!
If you want to hear what's going on between all those different copies... Well, you can just do that and hear for yourself. If you're at all interested in chasing fidelity you owe it to yourself to do a little demo like this to see what's going on in just the mastering stage. Get your CD resurgence on!

The DAW app lets you adjust those volumes easily. Trying to jump around with a single player gets confused quickly. Louder always sounds better.

 

[karlkastner]

Of all your Muddy Water 'Folk Singer' acquisitions, which to your ears SOUNDS THE BEST?

Unscientifically, I'd say the Chess and Analogue SACDs and the HDAD are tough to tell apart. Clear and airy, with booming vocals. If you really want me to take a closer listen between any, let me know.
Note: The one on the far left is new from Master Music in Germany. It features two "new/different" bonus tracks and slightly different versions of the 9 main tracks than all the others. Possibly recorded in 1964 as opposed to 1963 according to what I read about the sessions on Wiki? I had to have it, obviously.
Hoochie Coochie Man is a live acoustic set. Inexpensive and nice to have some more slow blues by Muddy. Decent sound quality.

 

[EMB]

I'm a vinyl hound (as you all know), and in my travels in the past few years, as streaming has become more common, I'm finding a lot more CD's and DVD's for practically nothing in thrifts--anywhere used anything is sold. Not that a lot of it is collectible, mind, but it's out there in a way you'd never seen five years earlier. Boom boxes are more common, too. Someone is buying up this stuff, but I only buy new CD's these days if it's something interesting like Eric's oldies reissues, or a really good resurrecting of music I'd missed or ignored for too long.

Despite claims of its demise, CD's don't seem to be going away just yet. Remember what they said about vinyl, I expect the compact disc may not be as easy to kill as the naysayers would have us believe.

ED

 

[Ninecats]

Do we have a "What 2.0 RBCDs Have You Added to Your Pile?" thread?
My latest is Kevin Gilbert's Shaming of the True. And holy dang did it take quite a while to find one at a sane price.

Not that I know of. All Kevins projects used to be pretty $$. Haven’t checked lately but I remember I had to look around quite some time to find Thud at a fair prize. Giraffe was even harder.

 

[Ranasakawa]

I have 3000 CDs. All stored now. I ripped them all to my NAS drive. Will take that to China when I live there.
I may sell all my CDs one day when they are worth it.

 

[Jeffrey Michael]

Maybe if they made a turntable style vertical CD player where you could see the disc spinning, the sales would start again. And, they could add some color to the label side.