Neil Young's PonoPlayer: The Emperor Has No Clothes

[machinesworking]

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not saying there is NO DIFFERENCE. I am saying that after 30 years of CD and how blown away "sound quality" wise it was vs cassette or vinyl, it's safe to say that "they" DIDN'T get the algorithms wrong.

At 44.1k and 16 bits, it's pretty f**king awesome. So, there is that..........

I think what threw me right away as a kid with CD's was the first batch where they didn't bother remastering them for CD. Those sounded like tinfoil! all that excess high end that vinyl and cassettes would slice off, and lack of low end for LP skipping safety...

[hibidy]

Yeah, in 83 when we listened to CD it was tinfoil. It didn't completely BLOW AWAY the other formats or give good sound in any way matter or form. Poor algorithms, just not there yet. Thank god for pono.

[ericj23]

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not saying there is NO DIFFERENCE. I am saying that after 30 years of CD and how blown away "sound quality" wise it was vs cassette or vinyl, it's safe to say that "they" DIDN'T get the algorithms wrong.

At 44.1k and 16 bits, it's pretty f**king awesome. So, there is that..........

I think what threw me right away as a kid with CD's was the first batch where they didn't bother remastering them for CD. Those sounded like tinfoil! all that excess high end that vinyl and cassettes would slice off, and lack of low end for LP skipping safety...

I swear this is the root of the notion that CD is worse than vinyl - basically that music was recorded with an awareness of the limits of the media, and when transferred to one that hasn't got those limits it sounds different. People prefer the sound of the original and understandably so, but it doesn't mean the medium is better. It isn't.

Having said that I have loads of hi-res recordings and many of them do sound "better" than the equivalent CD, but I am pretty convinced that is due to a different approach to mastering.

The plan appears to be Smash the limiter for CD, leave it alone for Hi-res, as anyone listening to that will have a decent system, so 12 db of extra volume is easily attained!

[cron]

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not saying there is NO DIFFERENCE. I am saying that after 30 years of CD and how blown away "sound quality" wise it was vs cassette or vinyl, it's safe to say that "they" DIDN'T get the algorithms wrong.

At 44.1k and 16 bits, it's pretty f**king awesome. So, there is that..........

I think what threw me right away as a kid with CD's was the first batch where they didn't bother remastering them for CD. Those sounded like tinfoil! all that excess high end that vinyl and cassettes would slice off, and lack of low end for LP skipping safety...

I swear this is the root of the notion that CD is worse than vinyl - basically that music was recorded with an awareness of the limits of the media, and when transferred to one that hasn't got those limits it sounds different. People prefer the sound of the original and understandably so, but it doesn't mean the medium is better. It isn't.

Having said that I have loads of hi-res recordings and many of them do sound "better" than the equivalent CD, but I am pretty convinced that is due to a different approach to mastering.

The plan appears to be Smash the limiter for CD, leave it alone for Hi-res, as anyone listening to that will have a decent system, so 12 db of extra volume is easily attained!

This is pretty much what I said when the first Pono thread appeared. If they were selling exclusive masters (even in lossy compressed versions) in the Pono shop then they really could have been on to something. The choice of a non-proprietary format like FLAC was a cool move on their part, but it does rule out the 'walled garden' aspect they'd need to make the hardware successful. All moot as it seems they aren't selling appreciably different masters anyway.

[zerocrossing]

Yeah, in 83 when we listened to CD it was tinfoil. It didn't completely BLOW AWAY the other formats or give good sound in any way matter or form. Poor algorithms, just not there yet. Thank god for pono.

That's not true. I worked in a consumer electronics/music store (CRAZY EDDIE'S! HIS PRICES ARE INSANE!) around that time and while it's true the cheaper stuff at the time did not sound so great, there were higher end players that if you put the right CD in (Not all were mastered that well. The first Beatles CDs sounded horrible) they did blow vinyl right out of the water, especially in terms of signal to noise ratio. Trust me, I did plenty of A/B tests. Around the same time I also worked on a movie by Laurie Anderson that was totally recorded digitally and from that end the tech did sound really good. If memory serves we were using a 32 track Mitsubishi.

But, that's not why the CD killed the vinyl record. It was because CDs were much smaller and easier to stock. Plain and simple. Retailers pushed them because you could have the same selection, or better in 1/3 the space. When you're paying rent for that space, it makes a lot of sense.

Also, from a consumer stand point, CDs are remarkably durable compared to vinyl. Not indestructible, but if you took a fair degree of care, they played the same the 1000th time you listened as they did the first.

[Numanoid]

There's Neil standing in the middle of 10 to 20 thousand watts of foldback getting off scot free and bitching about audio quality....right.

+1

So will Trans become a masterpiece album, when listened to on PP ?

[machinesworking]

Yeah, in 83 when we listened to CD it was tinfoil. It didn't completely BLOW AWAY the other formats or give good sound in any way matter or form. Poor algorithms, just not there yet. Thank god for pono.

That's not true. I worked in a consumer electronics/music store (CRAZY EDDIE'S! HIS PRICES ARE INSANE!) around that time and while it's true the cheaper stuff at the time did not sound so great, there were higher end players that if you put the right CD in (Not all were mastered that well. The first Beatles CDs sounded horrible) they did blow vinyl right out of the water, especially in terms of signal to noise ratio. Trust me, I did plenty of A/B tests. Around the same time I also worked on a movie by Laurie Anderson that was totally recorded digitally and from that end the tech did sound really good. If memory serves we were using a 32 track Mitsubishi.

But, that's not why the CD killed the vinyl record. It was because CDs were much smaller and easier to stock. Plain and simple. Retailers pushed them because you could have the same selection, or better in 1/3 the space. When you're paying rent for that space, it makes a lot of sense.

Also, from a consumer stand point, CDs are remarkably durable compared to vinyl. Not indestructible, but if you took a fair degree of care, they played the same the 1000th time you listened as they did the first.

For my part in this, I was talking about the mastering process and how recordings mastered for vinyl where being tossed at us, which resulted in ear fatiguing high end mixes.... hibidity was being sarcastic.. so you kinda replied in defense to two commenters who aren't disagreeing with you. Interwebs..

[hibidy]

Well actually, I remember being blown away by the sound Not that the convenience of not having hiss and not wearing out were not great selling points.

[machinesworking]

Well actually, I remember being blown away by the sound Not that the convenience of not having hiss and not wearing out were not great selling points.

I thought they sounded good too, but the first thin I heard was a metal record obviously not remaster for CD, and it sounded awful, but like zero crossing mentioned, something like Laurie Anderson who mastered with CDs in mind sounded flawless.

The real big drawback is the lack of room for crazy album cover art... a smaller impression is a smaller impression.

[CrystalWizard]

first CD pressing of Yes Relayer was so tinny, brittle, nasty sounding. They obviously just took the original tapes and transferred to digital.

when CDs first came out there was a Huge difference in D/A converters. most consumer gear i (and many friends) thought sounded crap. surely the lack of artifacts was awesome as well as the increased dynamic range but the sound of high pitches at low volume such as cymbals in a fade out was horrible. D/A converters have come a loooong way since then. i still prefer 24bit recordings over 16. and when i did some field recordings in Costa Rica of birds my friends and i could discern the difference between 44.1K and 96K fairly easily and we didn't expect to.

[Numanoid]

A friend of mine thought remasters was done from the first CD issue, and I used to think that guy had a clue

It's interesting to listen to CD's and hear the occasional vinyl crackle, meaning they have copied the audio directly from the vinyl...

[bluedad]

When I was on my third copy of Rubber Soul vinyl, the kids running through the house made the arm of the phono skip and scratched the pristine surface of my favorite album..So I was very happy to catch the first wave of Beatle cds..
Kids made up for it years later by buying the remastered versions for me.

[jancivil]

The Zappa album 'You Are What You Is' was known for its mastering, known for its phat sound. They played around with the speed and radical EQ'ing really going for A SOUND, and it is a wonderful-sounding LP on vinyl. The first CD of it, they had no clue, probably just knocked it out automatically, and it is an horribly thin, nasty, brittle piece of work.
Somewhat later, and while my recollection is typically fuzzy, I think this was in the 90s, it was remastered for CD and this one really paid off.

I don't think I ever really listened to a CD before 1992.

[Deep Purple]

Didn't Zappa himself oversee remastering of his back catalog for CD? I seem to recall he made a lot of changes which included getting some of the original musicians to re-record some parts.

I think current CDs are a mix of the original albums and some of the re-recorded or re-sequenced tracks.

I have a copy of Läther on CD - I don't think that ever saw the light of day on vinyl in the way Zappa imagined it, although the tracks were all previously released on vinyl.

[Numanoid]

Didn't Zappa himself oversee remastering of his back catalog for CD? I seem to recall he made a lot of changes which included getting some of the original musicians to re-record some parts.

That's a no go, revisionism.

At least then include the original album alongside the remix.