When hi-res audio stops making sense…

[CN211276]

The "artists wanting it louder" is so daft. Because of volume controls.

Anyone can turn the DR14 version up so it's a little bit louder than the DR9 version.

The whole music biz industry is using the 11 logic from Spinal Tap.

Noel Galagher is the worst offender I have come across. He insists on loudness and puts a big damper on some good songs. Suppose he is a product of the 90s when the loudness wars really started with CD taking over.

[CN211276]

I'm playing the 1980s CD after listening to the Qobuz 192 hi-res download of the 2001 remaster. The CD walks all over it. The hi-res version is flat and bland, in comparison.

[karatestu]

It is easy to forget that we are very much in a minority.

I would go as far as saying (in the best possible taste) that most audio snobs are in need of some therapy.

[Fretless]

They're coming to take me away .....

[Lindsayt]

It is easy to forget that we are very much in a minority.

I would go as far as saying (in the best possible taste) that most audio snobs are in need of some therapy.

In the same way that people that appreciate fresh over frozen food are food snobs?

[CN211276]

https://darko.audio/2023/08/when-hi-res ... ith-vinyl/

More from Darko

[CN211276]

This thread prompted me to make comparisons between Flac rips of CDs I bought in the 80s (prior to the loudness wars) with Qobuz streams which have been remastered in the past ten years. I played selected favourite tracks and in each instance the Qobuz stream was superior to these ears. I was unable to detect any real difference in dynamic range but the remasters sounded more transparent with greater resolution. I was only able to trace a DR for one of the CDs and it was very good. Don't know what the Qobuz DR is, but for a download listed it was poor.

This is my experience and it could be that in recent years dynamic range is receiving more attention in the remastering process, I have read things to this effect, or the CDs I bought in the 80s were poorly mastered. The format was still in its infancy.

[CN211276]

80's CDs were, in general, poor-sounding. I updated my discs from the likes of King Crimson, Tangerine Dream, Genesis and Mike Oldfield with every remastered edition and every time there were noticeable improvements in playback quality as mastering techniques improved.

Along the way I also went through a series of different codecs for storing my CD's as computer files: WMA, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, ALAC, FLAC and WAV.

I'm very satisfied with the standard of playback I am getting with CD's ripped to WAV files using Exact Audio Copy and then upsampled to 352.8 KHz / 24bit by Volumio.

The likes of Tidal and Qobuz will probably be using the most recently remastered versions of albums at CD quality - and one has to wonder where any higher-than-CD-resolution streaming files are sourced.

[Grumpytim]

The likes of Tidal and Qobuz will probably be using the most recently remastered versions of albums at CD quality - and one has to wonder where any higher-than-CD-resolution streaming files are sourced.

Something I often wonder, when someone like the Zappa Trust release the whole catalogue in hi res formats I'm inclined to believe that they are the real deal, and they do sound rather good to these Motorhead/Clash/Neubaten pummeled ears. Other 'hi res' offerings though I'm not so convinced about. Basically if the 'new' versions can trace some lineage back to the artist I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[CN211276]

I have found that the Squeezer app gives a good indication of the dynamic range of an album although it is labelled volume adjustment. The higher the number the greater the amount of compression. I have found that if the number is above 11 sound quality is seriously compromised no matter how good the mastering. Below 8 I find DR to be good, but SQ can still be compromised by the mastering.