Question about "pre-emphasis" for Abbey Road (Black Triangle)

I'm sure this has been answered a thousand times already, but I'm having difficulty locating the answer using search.

If an original Black Triangle Abbey Road is ripped, do the wav files then have to be burned using a pre-emphasis cue sheet to get the max benefit, or are the wav files good enough as they are?

 

When reburning you'll have to enable the pre-emphasis flag in the cue sheet or else the resulting CDR will play back very treble-y.

Two threads that I know of:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=26460

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=10981&page=1&pp=20

(2nd link skip to middle of 2nd page)

 

Yeah, basically you have two options. One is to burn those wav files with a pre-emphasis cue sheet, just as you said. The resulting copy should sound right on most systems, though occasionally you'll find one that doesn't know how to de-emphasize. The redbook standard says all CD players should know how to do it, but I've found that some newer/cheaper players don't.

Though actually, that's been my experience with the Toshiba Abbey Road itself. A copy made with a pre-emphasis cue sheet should be easier for those newer/cheaper players to detect. The reason is that on the Toshiba Abbey Road, there's pre-emphasis, but it isn't flagged in the disc's Table Of Contents like it should be, and like your copy will be. That's why some players miss it.

Anyway, the other option is to de-emphasize the wavs digitally. In theory, this won't sound quite as good as having your CD player de-emphasize in the analog domain, though someone else will have to explain exactly why. In practice, the difference is probably imperceptible. Anyway, the advantage of this option is that you can listen to the wavs on your computer, iPod, etc.

Two programs that can be used to de-emphasize digitally are iTunes and a program called Sox. I haven't tried iTunes, but apparently if you use it to rip in the first place, it'll pick up on the pre-emphasis and de-emphasize automatically. Not sure if it could be used on wavs you've already got.

I made my de-emphasized wavs using Sox, which is just a simple executable file that you can get here. You download the Windows binary, unzip the executable, put it in the same directory as the wavs, go to Start>Run, type "cmd," and then the command is "sox input.wav output.wav deemph," obviously naming the files whatever you like.

Listening to my de-emphasized files right now, and they do sound awful nice...

 

If You haven't got a sound editing software (Adobe Auditiio, Goldwave etc) here's a stand alone tool for getting rid of pre-emphasis . If You're using WinXP, take care of post #11.

If You have a sound editor with a FFT-filter, try this.

 

Hi,

iTunes can rip pre-emphazised discs correctly. Just set it up for uncompressed 44.1/16 bit. Free too!

 

I still have to find a CD player that de-emphasizes a disc correctly where the data contains pre-emphasis but the flag is not set in the TOC.

Which CD players are capable of that?

Is there any software which will tell you what is written in the TOC (i.e. where you can see the pre-emphasis flag)?

I know that EAC displays pre-emphasis, but I also heard it is sometimes unreliable. Is EAC using the flag from the TOC?

 

Can anyone post EAC peak levels for this disc please?

Here is my log: does this match with others'?

EAC extraction logfile from 27. October 2006, 21:12 for CD
Unknown Artist / Unknown Title

Used drive : _NEC DVD_RW ND-3520A Adapter: 0 ID: 2
Read mode : Secure with C2, accurate stream, NO disable cache
Combined read/write offset correction : 0
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No

Used output format : Microsoft PCM Converter
44.100 kHz, 16 Bit, Stereo

Other options :
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000


Track 1
Filename G:\Track01.wav

Peak level 79.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 959FC622
Copy OK

Track 2
Filename G:\Track02.wav

Peak level 59.4 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 46338658
Copy OK

Track 3
Filename G:\Track03.wav

Peak level 76.3 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 97020C77
Copy OK

Track 4
Filename G:\Track04.wav

Peak level 62.6 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC CEA5A3E0
Copy OK

Track 5
Filename G:\Track05.wav

Peak level 66.6 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 4FF66D7A
Copy OK

Track 6
Filename G:\Track06.wav

Peak level 62.8 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 06687694
Copy OK

Track 7
Filename G:\Track07.wav

Peak level 87.1 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 5802C6B3
Copy OK

Track 8
Filename G:\Track08.wav

Peak level 41.8 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 1D6D2E8B
Copy OK

Track 9
Filename G:\Track09.wav

Peak level 56.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 0E7DA358
Copy OK

Track 10
Filename G:\Track10.wav

Peak level 40.4 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 03B0860D
Copy OK

Track 11
Filename G:\Track11.wav

Peak level 71.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 6FEFB5A6
Copy OK

Track 12
Filename G:\Track12.wav

Peak level 70.7 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC A5C93AD8
Copy OK

Track 13
Filename G:\Track13.wav

Peak level 71.5 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 6F68B946
Copy OK

Track 14
Filename G:\Track14.wav

Peak level 64.1 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 8A316C07
Copy OK

Track 15
Filename G:\Track15.wav

Peak level 60.6 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 9CB27892
Copy OK

Track 16
Filename G:\Track16.wav

Peak level 79.1 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC B883699E
Copy OK

Track 17
Filename G:\Track17.wav

Peak level 42.5 %
Track quality 99.1 %
Test CRC 902D8B07
Copy OK

No errors occured


End of status report

 

portisphish, my Toshiba Abbey Road has the exact same peak levels.

Yeah, actually, none of the players I've tried it on detected the pre-emphasis. But my CD players are no great shakes, and I kind of got the impression that better players did a better job of it.

Regarding EAC, I'm pretty sure it's unreliable for the exact same reason, namely that it looks in the TOC for such information, and if pre-emphasis isn't flagged in the TOC, it will assume there isn't any. However, if you use the "Detect TOC Manually" command, I believe it bypasses the TOC and inspects the tracks themselves. With my version at least, it correctly detects pre-emphasis if you use that command. I expect EAC's pretty reliable, it's simply that it doesn't know what to make of a CD where the TOC itself isn't accurate.

Not sure about other programs that could help, but I'm sure they're out there...

 

I just tried Sox, but now I realized a problem: I don't know if the original wav files I have (I didn't rip them) were already deemphasized in the first place. The person I received the files from says he simply ripped the files from an original silver disc using EAC -- he's not sure about pre-emphasis (doesn't know if EAC pre-emphed the files automatically while ripping).

As an experiment, I used sox to deemph the original wav file, then deemphed the deemphed wav file: the deemphed wav files sound progressively different.

Is there a program that can detect if a wav file has been deemphed?

 

Mmm...I tried a similar experiment with iTunes a while back. The only difference for me was that I made the first copy from the original CD, and I compared both to make sure the PE flag was set properly on that first copy. I burned a CD copy of just Come Together and Something without setting PE and then I ripped a WAV file using iTunes and burned a CD of that. When I A/B'd the two, It was like night and day. The iTunes ripped files sounded just like the original copy and the other CD sounded extremely shrill.

I would suggest that you try something like that with your copy. If the two copies are the same then you know that the PE flag was resolved. Or alternatively just burn a copy of Come Together using something like Easy CD (which doesn't allow you to set the PE flag) and A/B that to the original copy.

 

No, it isn't possible for a software to detect emphasis in a wavefile because wavefiles don't contain any information (flags for example) about emphasis.

OTOH, the increased frequency (10db @ 10 kHz) is very easy to detect by the ears.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have the original CD, so I don't have a standard available for comparison.

 

You don't have to have the original CD. Just compare it to your copy.

 

But if I burn the original wav files onto a CD, then rip those files using iTunes, then burn those files onto another CD, won't the two CDs (or the two wav files) sound different no matter what? (provided that iTune ripping automatically deemphasizes wav files that are preemphasized)

 

No, that's not what I meant. Forget about iTunes for a moment, if you just want to know if the CD-R has had the PE flag resolved (or in other words PE is not an issue with this CD-R), then just take your CD-R and make a a copy of it using a program that doesn't have a way to set the PE flag. Compare the new copy with your original copy. If they sound the same, then there was no PE issue to begin with. If they sound different - and in this case the new copy should sound extremely bright - then your CD-R does have the PE flag set.

 

I only have wav files, not a CD-R. But you're saying that if I burn the wav files onto a CD-R, then rip the files from that CD-R, then make a CD-R from those wavs, then a sound difference will indicate that the original wav files I have were not deemphed? (And then I can burn the original wav files using a cue sheet with pre-emph tags, and be confident that the result will be exactly as it should be?)

 

Ah, that's different. If you only have WAV files, then there shouldn't be a PE issue. There's no way for the WAV file itself to contain a PE flag. At least not that I know of.

 

No, a wav file can't contain a PE flag. But it's possible that they could already have been deemphed (ie. the Sox program). What I don't know is whether or not EAC deemphs wav files that it rips from a pre-emped CD.

I'll try uploading some wav file profiles, in case anybody can determine the "correct" wavs from those.

 

I should have read from the beginning. That's really your problem you don't know if you need to add the PE flag or not. You should be able to hear the difference, but posting a sample should help.

 

Here's an EAC wav profile of the "Mean Mr.Mustard" wav I have:


And here's that original "Mean Mr.Mustard" wav after running it through Sox to deemph it:


It's clear that the de-emphed file has had its frequencies cut, but of course the problem is that I don't know if my original wav file had its frequencies cut, too. So, if any kind sould could rip "Mean Mr.Mustard" from their Abbey Road Black Triangle disc, and compare their own EAC wav profile to the ones above...

 

As I wrote in the other thread, Exact Audio Copy V0.95 prebeta 3 was the last version that detected pre-emphasis from the subchannels as well. The programmer was forced to remove some functions which could be used to surpass copy protection.
I found a lot of old CDs in my collection now that use pre-emphasis without the TOC flags set....

Martin

 

My guess would be that your wav files need to be demphasized. The top file looks very similar to the wav form I see when I rip the song directly, and the second one looks like the wav form I get when I rip using iTunes.

 

Thanks for checking, Another.

 

Thanks much!

 

Let me see if I have this straight.

1. If my cd player sees the pre-emphasis flags and adjusts playback accordingly then I am hearing the music as it was intended, correct?

2. The problem lies in the fact that not all cd players are doing this, and thus there is a need to get rid of the pre-emphasis on the wave files themselves before playing?

3. Ways to do this include itunes and "sox", etc., but not EAC, correct?