CD compression killing music

Just to back up what Grant said -- information is lost, it is impossible to get all the information back accurately.

Think about what compression is -- it captures the current peak level information, and changes the attenuation, then repeats. There is a perpetual, slight delay, and different rates of change, depending on the incoming level. The outgoing levels are all the same, so that particular parameter is gone.

As he said, you can come close, but unless the information is not lost (I.E. compression is an option, not on the final mastered recording), there's no way you'll ever get it back completely.

 

I agree with Rachael Bee, Drifter and Barry Diament - take the compression out of the software but give us loudness/compression switches on the players. Especially in the car a loudness button would come in handy. Yesterday I was playing a CD-R of the Paul Simon LP Greatest Hits Etc. in my car and noticed it didn't sound too good: soft and thin, but if I turned it up - harsh. The same CD-R sounds fine on my home stereo.

 

Hi dsclar,

If you were to look at the phase response of a signal that underwent one of these, particularly DBX, the picture would not be so pretty. And of course, it doesn't take a long audition (in a good monitoring environment) to hear the sonic damage wrought upon the poor music signal. To my ears, the effect is much like rubbing one's hand across a still wet photo print. The result is a smear and audibly this can be quite discomforting in the upper midrange. Low frequencies too seem to suffer beyond repair. And the top end? MIA.

In my view, "satisfied" users would be either folks who concentrated on the noise and not on the signal or folks with inadequate monitoring.

That's my take on it anyway.

Happy Listening!
Barry
www.barrydiamentaudio.com
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

 

and will continue to do so around here Barry.

 

Barry,

I agree with all you have said. My point was that the dynamic range could be fairly accurately restored and the restored waveform would look pretty much like the original. Phase response is another matter all together. You'll get no argument from me that dbx an dolby cause 'smear'. OTOH, many beloved records have used these processes and unless one is trained to spot them, they are often undetected.

I was involved in the production of 'Street Player' by Rufus to name just one. A few members have mentioned that they thought this record sounded pretty good, but it definitely had DBX noise reduction on the A80 multitrack. Of course there is no indication of that on the record or cd. Only one that was involved or one that recognizes the sounds of DBX would know for sure. Our studio and signal paths were pretty pristine and that is no doubt why some thought it sounded so good. OTOH, once one learns to recognize the sound of a NR'd recording it is fairly easy to spot.

Btw, this was a Roy Halee production and his second engineer wanted me to set the tape up at +6. I tried to tell him that when using DBX one should not record at such elevated levels. Tape saturation just doesn't work well with DBX. We got into a heated argument about this and Roy finally sided with me. That difference was not insignificant.

 

Hi Doug,

Understood.

Barry
www.barrydiamentaudio.com
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com