KVR Audio

arkmabat · Post by **arkmabat** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 7:09 am

Do the newer iPods have some sort of master limiter / compressor / exciter that it applies to all outgoing audio? I recall a friend and I in '09 realizing that his newer itouch sounded way more full than my older iPod mini. That's always bugged me- that a digital copy of a song in the same exact format and bitrate (afaik) sounded different on different players. I guess even my car cd player has a "loudness" button that compresses the output though. Hmm...

hibidy · Post by **hibidy** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 7:33 am

I love CD's, buy 'em all!

Or vinyl.... buy 'em all!

cron · Post by **cron** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 7:47 am

arkmabat wrote:Do the newer iPods have some sort of master limiter / compressor / exciter that it applies to all outgoing audio? I recall a friend and I in '09 realizing that his newer itouch sounded way more full than my older iPod mini. That's always bugged me- that a digital copy of a song in the same exact format and bitrate (afaik) sounded different on different players. I guess even my car cd player has a "loudness" button that compresses the output though. Hmm...

The iPod Touch does have a built in EQ, but you can of course switch it off. There is (was?) a nasty bug in it actually. I don't normally use EQ on playback with anything, but my usual set of headphones had broken and I found myself on a noisy train with those old style pack-in earbuds that came with the iPod. The ones which sit outside the ear so far as to be entirely bassless. Rather than destroy my hearing by cranking the volume, I tried the bass boost EQ preset and was astonished to hear the audio very clearly clipping. It seemed the processor hadn't left itself enough headroom to do it's thing! Turning the volume up or down made no difference. There simply wasn't enough headroom for the EQ to work however you laid it out. Shocker. Real schoolboy error. Couldn't tell you if that's been fixed beyond iOS 3 as nothing later is compatible with my first gen model, such is the speed at which Apple obsoletes its products.

cron · Post by **cron** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 8:11 am

As for the actual topic of the thread

, I never buy CDs any more. I haven't since high quality mp3 downloads from independent labels became a viable option circa 2005. In the UK at least, CDs became insanely expensive around the turn of the century. It wasn't unusual to pay £16.99 for a new release at a high street outlet, and this is in 2001 money. Download just allowed me to experience much more music at a more reasonable price in a more than acceptable sound quality. I've never had any attachment to packaging on music. The advent of download and a lot of my peers attitudes toward it made me develop pretty strong views about it actually. A lot of people started saying (again, this is a while back) how they'd never pay for downloads because they 'aren't real', as though the music was the least important part of the equation, worthless (both culturally and monetarily) unless there was some packaging that went with it to form what we call a product, a box you can hold.

I usually go for flac these days because storage is so cheap, but I'm more than happy to pay for V2+ quality mp3. The thing is, unfashionable as it is to say so, properly encoded MP3 retains outstanding sound quality. If you think otherwise, rip some tunes to V0 mp3, ABX your files (the Foobar player, among others, supports this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABX_test) and you'll almost certainly be surprised. I love mp3! Its sound quality is IMO superior to cassette, mini-disc and, if we're talking transparency to the source, vinyl. All formats I've lived and loved at one point. Don't get me wrong, I think all those formats have their own charm, and a huge visible music collection always makes a superb centrepiece that can make mp3 junkies like myself green with envy. I just don't get the thinking that mp3 is A Bad Thing.

jacqueslacouth · Post by **jacqueslacouth** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 8:52 am

metamorphosis · Post by **metamorphosis** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 9:07 am

Vinyl sounds great on a great system... on a clean disc... for the first quarter of the side.... then the sound deteriorates as you get closer to the center. This was a great summary I felt:

http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/quest ... usic-files

I keep my cds... like to have a physical backup that is a bit more stable than DVD or hard drives...

Bonteburg · Post by **Bonteburg** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 10:44 am

I grew up on cassettes, the occasional audio play on vinyl, then later CDs, mixtapes. That was in the 1980/90s.

I ripped all my CDs to mp3 seven years ago and haven't looked back (never had more than a 100 or so at a time). It was a last ditch effort to save my music collection because I'm infamously careless with such stuff (hence 'more than a 100 or so at a time'...)

These days I get most of my music from youtube etc. and I never even download anything.

The truth is that less tangible products = less energy/ressource use/waste = good. ...Unless a nasty thing named rebound effect comes in and makes us buy a new smartphone every six months, but - other story. I'd rather be confronted with a choice about how many gadgets I buy than with having to buy CDs/LPs/etc.

Bottom line: I fully embrace non tangible formats.

Marco

The_Hidden_Goose · Post by **The_Hidden_Goose** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:09 am

I buy vinyl for the covers. Thinking about those Roger Dean covers for the 70's Yes albums and the like. I also like the warm sound quality that seems to prevail on the format. Pops & crackles are also fine by me as long as the record isn't so scratches and scuffed as to be unlistenable.

I buy cassettes because some labels only produce cassettes (particularly some of the underground psychedelic labels in the U.S., although more of them are appearing on bandcamp these days).

I buy CD's mostly because many of the labels I'm into produce them, and I want those labels to continue to put out great music (although a few of them are also starting to put out Vinyl as well lately). Sometimes there are interesting extras (like a dvd with vids or something) which is extra push to buy the CD version. I recently bought Orla Wren's latest album on CD and so glad I did, as the presentation is beuatiful and there's a disc with some interesting vids on it. Seems the label took a lot of time ad effort ot make it so, and I'm all for supporting that. Another example would be Time Released Sound (a label from California, U.S.) who I pay well over the odds to get them shipped over to the UK because the presentation is simply wonderful and unique for each release - with unusual boxes and artwork that is oftyen unique to the copy you bought. I like that, even though sonically CD's are probably my least favourite physical format.

I prefer to buy digital/downloadable as it's convenient, cheaper, and it's ultimately how I consume music.

It's all good to me

Plus, I don't think ANY of the above will be impossible to play/use in my lifetime (and I'm not that old...mid thirties), and you can't take it with you when you're dead!

bluedad · Post by **bluedad** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:23 am

I honestly can't remember the last cd I bought (Tweaker 2nd lp 2004?) prior to buying one last week and I only bought it because it came with an immediate mp3 download. I thought, well I can listen to the cd in the truck. That's when I discovered the cd player doesn't work anymore..so I listen to the mp3 hooked up to the cassette player in the truck instead.
Btw, I listened to an old cassette, and it sounded like shit!

olepro · Post by **olepro** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 12:37 pm

elxsound wrote:I would stop buying CD's if lossless formats were available to purchase as downloads (DRM free of course).

Same here.
If i buy a CD, the first thing i do is to put it on the harddisc and forget all about it.
After i bought Albumplayer http://www.albumplayer.com/ i listen to MUCH more music because i can SEE my music on the screen and not as cd's put away in boxes. (I have around 900 cd's)

I don't get why we still can't buy all our music as lossless download.

The_Hidden_Goose · Post by **The_Hidden_Goose** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 12:53 pm

There are still many artists (and probably a few labels) that don't like the digital download thing.

I remember a few years ago I emailed a german band called Electric Orange asking if there was anywhere I could legally get some of their older stuff on mp3, and one of the band members emailed back saying NEVER! (or many words to that effect, with some extra ones to mention how they hates mp3s), and even went on to state that if they could get away with it, they wouldn't release on digital at all (including CD).

So there are some format-purists out there still!

kritikon · Post by **kritikon** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 1:39 pm

Its sound quality is IMO superior to cassette, mini-disc and, if we're talking transparency to the source, vinyl.

I totally agree, which is why I don't wax nostalgic about either vinyl or cassette (cassette quality was generally extremely poor). However MP3 is (to me) noticeably worse than CDs, which is why I still prefer CDs. Recording quality has improved each time a new format comes along, and that's why I've generally updated my music to the new formats. But MP3 is the 1st consumer format that has decreased quality. No way it's as good as CD. I'll quite happily get into downloads when the consumer format is CD or above. Not good enough at present IMO.

bluedad · Post by **bluedad** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 1:55 pm

The_Hidden_Goose wrote:There are still many artists (and probably a few labels) that don't like the digital download thing.
So there are some format-purists out there still!

Yeah, good luck finding any way to buy King Crimson on mp3

arkmabat · Post by **arkmabat** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 2:46 pm

@Cron

My ranting goes back to me buying cds becase they sound more uniform across systems / present the recordings in their intended playback order and are more compatible for me still. I buy both but cd if it is cheap for sure.

Ja.x · Post by **Ja.x** » Fri Oct 25, 2013 2:51 pm

I never bought anything "digital" (as if a CD was analogic), and in the last 5-6 years only bought CD's, directly to musicians, in concerts - try to sell your "digital" music in concerts. More than that, just downloaded stuff from netlabels, often much more interesting than the commercial crap; and save it to CD, by the way. In case of really good commercial releases, if it happened and I would feel like buying, would only buy on physical media, anyway.

Should I quit buying cd's?