Do You Still Play Compact Discs?

[jeromelang]

Why? I really don't understand.

In this time and age, why do the same recordings on CDs made in different countries/continents still continue to sound so different in quality?

In hindsight I should have known better, but I was too eager to secure a copy before it was completely sold out that I didn't stick to my usual practice of buying music media only from the country/continent where the copyright holder resides. I only realised after the Guns & Roses' Appetite For Destruction Remastered boxset had arrived from Germany that it was manufactured in the EU. So, no choice, I had to search up the version that was made in the USA.

Conclusion after listening to both: buy only the copy made where the copyright holder reside!!!

The differences in sonic qualities is so fucking laughable, I just can't get my head around it.

And I'm just using the Sony UDP-X1100ES's analogue output going into the Yamaha WXC-50 streamer/pre-amp, which no doubt converts its analogue input into digital.

Why?

Why is the soundstaging height on the EU copy so much lower? (Nearly 1.5 meter down compared to the USA copy)

What is also surprising is that the soundstaging of the 96kHz/24bit audio on the Blu-ray Audio disc is much smaller compared to the 44.1kHz/16bit red book CD (both USA versions).

When I play the 96kHz/24bit LPCM 2.0 track on the bluray audio disc, through the UDP-X1100ES, the TV display shows that the audio transmitted via the HDMI to the TV is downsampled to 48kHz. Had this also affect the analogue audio output as well?

.

 

[jeromelang]

Way back in 2008, a friend of mine, who worked in the speaker design department of Sony, invited me to his house for a listening session. It was in one of those quaint little suburbs in Tokyo, which one has to change trains a couple of times to get there. I wouldn't been able to find it on my own. well, rather excitedly, he wanted to share with me the sonic merits of the SHM CDs (from Universal Music).

Motoyuki Sugiura holding a piece of Hokkaido Birchwood material used on the Sony SS-AR1 speakers



One of the many universal SHM discs he played was the Keith Jarrett's Koln concert (originally recorded in analogue under the ECM label). We compared it against an earlier German pressing disc he bought while he was stationed in Germany many years ago.

I let Sugiura (He prefers to be called "Yuki") use the conventional methods first (just hit the play button on the remote). and our first impression was - the SHM disc sounded fuller-bodied, compared to the earlier German pressing, which was more distanced.

Both discs have constricted soundstaging - the height barely reached the speakers' tweeter position, and imaging was upfront, forward of the speaker baffles. The piano tone on both discs sounded clangy and very dry, and as i didn't know it any better then, since it was my first exposure to Keith Jarrett, I would have said that he was playing an electronic keyboard. Either that, the piano might have been so closely mic'ed, that there was no chance for the venue's reverberations to blossom naturally.

I noticed that this German disc have the aluminium silver area covered very close to the spindle hole area (unlike most discs nowadays you see which has a wider band of clear plastic area around the spindle hole). From my experience buying 1st print West Germany made CDs on ebay, i instinctively knew that it wasn't a first print, since the spindle hole area wasn't entirely covered in silver. There was still a 2mm gap of clear plastic around the spindle area. Nevertheless i suggested that my friend sit back and let me do the cueing up (using my special procedure)for the rematch.

What I did was - remove the disc. Shut down the player. After about 10 secs, I power it up again. Letting the player read TOC, display the "no disc" sign and settled Then I loaded the disc, and close the drawer, and let it read TOC and settle on "0", as most disc player do. Then 1 finger each on the FORWARD button and the PLAY button, I press them in that order in quick succession.

The result - the SHM disc still remained constricted in soundstaging and upfront, and the piano still sound clangy. But the German disc then sounded totally transformed. instead of sounding "distanced", we heard the piano performance receeding further back into the soundstage, very distinct from the huge swathes of reverberation that recreated the feeling that this performance was recorded in a very large space, the height of which we could make out to be close to the ceiling of the listening room, the width extended beyond the boundary of the 3 walls that cocooned around the speaker system.

Also what is startling is that we then heard distinctively, the fundamental (basic)notes being hammered, then followed by myriad harmonics of the resonating strings interacting and modulating against each other, and then blosooming into a magical sonic cushion of sound in a large cavenous hall, as 3 separate and distinct entities. As we tried each discs again back and forth (using my specific procedure), it became very clear that the SHM disc sounded hard and lifeless. loud climaxes sounded constricted, while fundamental notes, the harmonics and subsequent reverberation don't quite "separate" as they should. This is something the SHM CD has failed to do and something my friend didn't realised until he heard an earlier CD pressing, albiet a subsequent pressing, but made and released by the original German label compared against it.

I also tried playing the german disc again using the conventional cueing method. When i did that, the piano started to sound clangy again, the soundstage collasped, and the individual notes and reverberation no longer sound as separate entities. Cueing the disc using conventional method to play in this way made the german disc sound as lifeless as the SHM CD.

Jump to march 2010, I went back for a rematch. This time, armed with the true first pressing, West Germany made CD that I managed to find on ebay. This original first pressing have the spindle hole area covered entirely in silver. The disc track listing also differs from subsequent pressing and SHM CD in that it contains only 3 tracks. The last track, which is available on the other 2 later CD discs, and also available on the 2-disc gatefold LP, had been omitted from this first pressing CD disc. We compared all 3 CD disc, again using the above mentioned procedure. Needless to say, the sense of the separation is even more vivid on this first pressing disc.

However, when we played the first pressing disc a second time (exact same track cueing method), the piano, while still sounding deep into the cavenous, reverberant stage, now has more focus, more palpable weightage, surrounded by a rich tapestries of sound moulded by the interplay of the resonating strings using the pedals and holding down the keys. For the whole of 25 minutes as we sat fixated, listening to the first track of this first pressing disc, a profound and transcendant drama unfolded as we savour the grandeur and sweep of Jarrett's playing in his prime. The sound from CD discs somehow benefited from having the laser shined over its surface a second time!

Back to the topic - playing1st print CDs, erasing player's memory and using direct-access method of cueing will reward the listener with unprecedented qualities like these:
- imaging has more defined outlines.
- there is a palpable solidity to the centre-fill image that leaps out from the woodwork.
- can perceive a full figure body with the centre-fill vocal image
- top-end is airy and well extended.
- clear separation between the reverbs from the main vocals and instruments
(thus NOT smearing the timbre of voices and instruments)
- there is an effortless ease to the musical flow

 

[jespera]

Way back in 2008, a friend of mine, who worked in the speaker design department of Sony, invited me to his house for a listening session. It was in one of those quaint little suburbs in Tokyo, which one has to change trains a couple of times to get there. I wouldn't been able to find it on my own. well, rather excitedly, he wanted to share with me the sonic merits of the SHM CDs (from Universal Music).

Motoyuki Sugiura holding a piece of Hokkaido Birchwood material used on the Sony SS-AR1 speakers



One of the many universal SHM discs he played was the Keith Jarrett's Koln concert (originally recorded in analogue under the ECM label). We compared it against an earlier German pressing disc he bought while he was stationed in Germany many years ago.

I let Sugiura (He prefers to be called "Yuki") use the conventional methods first (just hit the play button on the remote). and our first impression was - the SHM disc sounded fuller-bodied, compared to the earlier German pressing, which was more distanced.

Both discs have constricted soundstaging - the height barely reached the speakers' tweeter position, and imaging was upfront, forward of the speaker baffles. The piano tone on both discs sounded clangy and very dry, and as i didn't know it any better then, since it was my first exposure to Keith Jarrett, I would have said that he was playing an electronic keyboard. Either that, the piano might have been so closely mic'ed, that there was no chance for the venue's reverberations to blossom naturally.

I noticed that this German disc have the aluminium silver area covered very close to the spindle hole area (unlike most discs nowadays you see which has a wider band of clear plastic area around the spindle hole). From my experience buying 1st print West Germany made CDs on ebay, i instinctively knew that it wasn't a first print, since the spindle hole area wasn't entirely covered in silver. There was still a 2mm gap of clear plastic around the spindle area. Nevertheless i suggested that my friend sit back and let me do the cueing up (using my special procedure)for the rematch.

What I did was - remove the disc. Shut down the player. After about 10 secs, I power it up again. Letting the player read TOC, display the "no disc" sign and settled Then I loaded the disc, and close the drawer, and let it read TOC and settle on "0", as most disc player do. Then 1 finger each on the FORWARD button and the PLAY button, I press them in that order in quick succession.

The result - the SHM disc still remained constricted in soundstaging and upfront, and the piano still sound clangy. But the German disc then sounded totally transformed. instead of sounding "distanced", we heard the piano performance receeding further back into the soundstage, very distinct from the huge swathes of reverberation that recreated the feeling that this performance was recorded in a very large space, the height of which we could make out to be close to the ceiling of the listening room, the width extended beyond the boundary of the 3 walls that cocooned around the speaker system.

Also what is startling is that we then heard distinctively, the fundamental (basic)notes being hammered, then followed by myriad harmonics of the resonating strings interacting and modulating against each other, and then blosooming into a magical sonic cushion of sound in a large cavenous hall, as 3 separate and distinct entities. As we tried each discs again back and forth (using my specific procedure), it became very clear that the SHM disc sounded hard and lifeless. loud climaxes sounded constricted, while fundamental notes, the harmonics and subsequent reverberation don't quite "separate" as they should. This is something the SHM CD has failed to do and something my friend didn't realised until he heard an earlier CD pressing, albiet a subsequent pressing, but made and released by the original German label compared against it.

I also tried playing the german disc again using the conventional cueing method. When i did that, the piano started to sound clangy again, the soundstage collasped, and the individual notes and reverberation no longer sound as separate entities. Cueing the disc using conventional method to play in this way made the german disc sound as lifeless as the SHM CD.

Jump to march 2010, I went back for a rematch. This time, armed with the true first pressing, West Germany made CD that I managed to find on ebay. This original first pressing have the spindle hole area covered entirely in silver. The disc track listing also differs from subsequent pressing and SHM CD in that it contains only 3 tracks. The last track, which is available on the other 2 later CD discs, and also available on the 2-disc gatefold LP, had been omitted from this first pressing CD disc. We compared all 3 CD disc, again using the above mentioned procedure. Needless to say, the sense of the separation is even more vivid on this first pressing disc.

However, when we played the first pressing disc a second time (exact same track cueing method), the piano, while still sounding deep into the cavenous, reverberant stage, now has more focus, more palpable weightage, surrounded by a rich tapestries of sound moulded by the interplay of the resonating strings using the pedals and holding down the keys. For the whole of 25 minutes as we sat fixated, listening to the first track of this first pressing disc, a profound and transcendant drama unfolded as we savour the grandeur and sweep of Jarrett's playing in his prime. The sound from CD discs somehow benefited from having the laser shined over its surface a second time!

Back to the topic - playing1st print CDs, erasing player's memory and using direct-access method of cueing will reward the listener with unprecedented qualities like these:
- imaging has more defined outlines.
- there is a palpable solidity to the centre-fill image that leaps out from the woodwork.
- can perceive a full figure body with the centre-fill vocal image
- top-end is airy and well extended.
- clear separation between the reverbs from the main vocals and instruments
(thus NOT smearing the timbre of voices and instruments)
- there is an effortless ease to the musical flow

... you got tricks for making computers sound good too?

 

[thedudeabides]

Yes I still play CDs.

I prefer vinyl of course, but a lot of classical music has only been available on CD (or latterly streaming) since the 90s or so, so CDs it has to be.

I stick with CDs not becase they are so great, but because file-based replay or streaming from online services totally sucks, for the following reasons:

CD's not so great? You only play CD's because streaming sound sucks? You prefer vinyl of course.

Many folks, like myself, have no desire to have a vinyl based systems for the obvious non-user friendly reasons. Having vinyl is no guarantee that it's sound will be superior to CD's. That depends on a myriad of factors. And I have no interest in streaming.

Generalizations are typically wrong because "details matter "and are so important to come to an informed decision as to what media is preferable for each individual.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Yes we do

 

[montesquieu]

CD's not so great? You only play CD's because streaming sound sucks? You prefer vinyl of course.

Many folks, like myself, have no desire to have a vinyl based systems for the obvious non-user friendly reasons. Having vinyl is no guarantee that it's sound will be superior to CD's. That depends on a myriad of factors. And I have no interest in streaming.

Generalizations are typically wrong because "details matter "and are so important to come to an informed decision as to what media is preferable for each individual.

If you can't be bothered with the complexity and expense of vinyl that's fine (if I didn't have a collection going back over 40 years, or had sold up in 1990 in a fit of madness, I might not be so keen to get into it either), but I'm not clear on the rest of your point. Are you asserting that CD is better in absolute terms, or simply best 'for you'?

 

[microstrip]

If you can't be bothered with the complexity and expense of vinyl (...)

IMHO this is a myth. We can have excellent vinyl playback that is simple and non-expensive. If we choose an adequate system cartridge/tonearm set up can be a simple geometrical exercise following a recipe. Surely if we want to use a cartridge that needs exactly 2.13 g down-force , a tilt of .05degree and SRA of 73.45 degree we will have trouble.

Curious that no one is referring to the 20-25 minutes typical LP continuous playtime - one of my objections to vinyl. Real music usually only has breaks at much longer periods.

 

[montesquieu]

IMHO this is a myth. We can have excellent vinyl playback that is simple and non-expensive. If we choose an adequate system cartridge/tonearm set up can be a simple geometrical exercise following a recipe. Surely if we want to use a cartridge that needs exactly 2.13 g down-force , a tilt of .05degree and SRA of 73.45 degree we will have trouble.

Curious that no one is referring to the 20-25 minutes typical LP continuous playtime - one of my objections to vinyl. Real music usually only has breaks at much longer periods.

The typical set length at a classical concert is around an hour. However there's no doubt that attention span is heightened at a formal concert and I would say 20-25 minutes per side is ideal when sitting at home, with a house's worth of distractions at at arms length.

I know when I'm playing music for my own pleasure (on piano, harpsichord, organ, guitar or lute) I can focus for far longer but a break of some sort of 20-25 minutes (even if just turning a record over) is bang on if simply consuming someone else's performance on a hifi system. Indeed one of my objections to modern compact disks is that I'm often thoroughly bored 50 minutes in with 15 or 20 to to go. Less is more in these situations.

Good for you if you are happy with a basic vinyl setup but it's kind of well established (unfortunately) that viny replay is pretty much infinitely improvable if you have the ££££.

 

[PeterA]

Curious that no one is referring to the 20-25 minutes typical LP continuous playtime - one of my objections to vinyl. Real music usually only has breaks at much longer periods.

One can not select specific tracks either by jumping around pushing a button on a remote or glass screen when listening to real music.

 

[thedudeabides]

Are you asserting that CD is better in absolute terms, or simply best 'for you'?

I don't believe there is a "best" in anything audio because, in the end, it's all subjective. "Absolute terms" is just another subjective phrase in an attempt to find an objective consensus. And yes, I prefer CD's for many reasons over other alternative choices and it's my personal preference for music listening. Hope that helps.

 

[montesquieu]

I don't believe there is a "best" in anything audio because it's all subjective. "Absolute terms" is just another subjective term in an attempt to find an objective consensus. Hope that helps.

Cop-out. Politician's answer.

 

[andromedaaudio]

I have a lot of house music i like and its only available on CD ( digital )

I have 6 versions of Deep purple/ Child in time , 2 on LP , 2 on CD and 2 different Tape versions
1 tape version is the best

 

[microstrip]

One can not select specific tracks either by jumping around pushing a button on a remote or glass screen when listening to real music.

What is the point?

 

[PeterA]

What is the point?

You expressed your surprise that people don’t discuss the 20 minute play time of an LP side relating it to live music. My comment is in direct response to your quote and comment about the distance of the LP side from the real music listening experience. The way I see people listen to digital is similarly removed from the experience of listening to live music Because they often skip from track to track and don’t listen to the CD continuously from the beginning to end. There are certainly exceptions like Al M. who listens to the music in order as it was conceived I think. In my opinion of course.

 

[microstrip]

The typical set length at a classical concert is around an hour. However there's no doubt that attention span is heightened at a formal concert and I would say 20-25 minutes per side is ideal when sitting at home, with a house's worth of distractions at at arms length.

Probably - many times I also listen to shorter periods. And IMHO we have the house distractions we want to have. Sometimes my problem is the reverse - I become involved in the music distractions and the house tasks are forgotten ... The type of music I mainly listen needs typically more than 20 minutes uninterrupted.

I know when I'm playing music for my own pleasure (on piano, harpsichord, organ, guitar or lute) I can focus for far longer but a break of some sort of 20-25 minutes (even if just turning a record over) is bang on if simply consuming someone else's performance on a hifi system. Indeed one of my objections to modern compact disks is that I'm often thoroughly bored 50 minutes in with 15 or 20 to to go. Less is more in these situations.

One nice thing of computer audio is that we can pick exactly what we want to listen.

Good for you if you are happy with a basic vinyl setup but it's kind of well established (unfortunately) that viny replay is pretty much infinitely improvable if you have the ££££.

I was mainly addressing complexity , not cost. I can set up a cartridge in the Graham /TechDas in five minutes. Everything is simple in this arm.

 

[microstrip]

You expressed your surprise that people don’t discuss the 20 minute play time of an LP side relating it to live music. My comment is in direct response to your quote and comment about the distance of the LP side from the real music listening experience. The way I see people listen to digital is similarly removed from the experience of listening to live music Because they often skip from track to track and don’t listen to the CD continuously from the beginning to end. There are certainly exceptions like Al M. who listens to the music in order as it was conceived I think. In my opinion of course.

My views were on physical facts of LP playback , not on the listening habits of people. My findings are on what I listen in my system, not on guesses about other listeners listening habits.
IMHO there is nothing in the order different musical pieces are presented in a CD or file in common with real music sequence. On the contrary, most of the time. Unless you tell me that in general digital listeners listen to the Beethoven symphony movements in reverse order - with the exception of Al. M, surely - I can't see any argument in your sentence.

The often referred initial indecision and irresolution of newcomers to computer audio is a common thing, quickly overtaken. It happened to me the first time I went to the famous HMV record shop in London, in my late teens. Faced with so many LPs I started jumping form section to section, coveting most of them, but not being able to select anything to buy. Fortunately I was able to go there next day ...

 

[thedudeabides]

Cop-out. Politician's answer.

Not. I'm not in a position to tell anyone what is best. Too many factors and too judgmental in my view. If you want to and feel you are qualified to do so, that's your choice.

 

[dcathro]

Not. I'm not in a position to tell anyone what is best. Too many factors and too judgmental in my view. If you want to and feel you are qualified to do so, that's your choice.

I totally agree. To state what is best, you would have to have heard all the best turntables/arms/carts/phonos/cd players/DACs/streamers. Then it would just be your opinion, and many others hearing the same would disagree.

I like my CD player, but I haven't heard most of the best vinyl replay setups.

 

[rbbert]

I totally agree. To state what is best, you would have to have heard all the best turntables/arms/carts/phonos/cd players/DACs/streamers. Then it would just be your opinion, and many others hearing the same would disagree.

I like my CD player, but I haven't heard most of the best vinyl replay setups.

And there would be considerable disagreement over which are the best vinyl replay setups

 

[PeterA]

And there would be considerable disagreement over which are the best vinyl replay setups

As there are with digital replay setups.