SACD Listen to this.....

[Bill Park]

OK. OK, please reread my 1st post. I don't care that "the world" doesn't have a clue about sound quality. WE SHOULD!!!

No, what you said was that we should dump everything that we've got and jump on the SACD bandwagon, now. That is simply a very stupoid move for anyone in pro audio who does not have a rich backer. Half of the tools don't exist. Those that do are still out of the realm of affordability for most anyone. I have probably $300,000 tied up in my stuff. You think I'm dumping it soon? HAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!!


Sound quality? Most people could make dramatic inprovements in the sound quality of what they release if they upgraded their converters, mic pres, mics, monitors, and listening environment. These are things that you can do TODAY, and the only possible future loss in investment would be in the converters that they choose. Things like high quality monitors and amplifiers don't go out of style and generally will last the life of the studio. So will mics and mic pres. Improving the sonics of the space lasts as long as you stay in the space. All smart investments. All will improve the quality of what you record. De facto, the sound quality of what you release.

And while we're talking about it, how much have you spent on SACD? What SACD tools do you own? What is your monitoring system, playback environment? If sound quality is indeed your metric, show us how it is done, or at least, how YOU do it.

[Tim Miskimon]

It's crappy sounding to me and you but remember that kids and young adults today have only known digital. They never knew analog. We have that reference, they don't.

...and that's why we need to stand firm and educate them as to the difference between good and bad sound...otherwise we are wasting our time in our voyage for better sound.
It's truely a shame when the eyes are more important than the ears as far as music is concerned and that's how music is being judged these days.

[AudioAstronomer]

I find the idea of 'better sound" rather funny. Everytime there's a new format, the majority of people insist that's the new thing, the best thing, THE thing.

Better quality audio is great, but like mentioned the audio could get 10x better just by improving the tools we use to produce on the formats we have now. To me that's more important than what essentially is a minor improvement just by changing formats.

I think the best thing the industy could do is improve the current lossless encoding formats so that while cheap storage improves, so does the size of lossless formats. Eventually the audio world will have no reason to not produce quality audio for the consumer masses' portable digital audio devices.


I would also like to take note of some of the funny things I've seen out there. Howabout a blind listening test between original tape recordings and mp3's. The mp3's had a small amount of reverb added and 18/20 blind particpants picked that as the original due to the clarity and depth? LOL.

Do your own tests if you wish, but dont try to see if you can TELL the difference, see if you can TELL WHAT THE DIFFERENCE IS. Sure you can tell sacd and pcm and high quality mp3/ogg/wma sound different, but could you tell which one is which? Id put money that 99% of the world couldn't reliably do it, and I think that's a generous percentage.

[Tim Miskimon]

No, what you said was that we should dump everything that we've got and jump on the SACD bandwagon, now. That is simply a very stupoid move for anyone in pro audio who does not have a rich backer. Half of the tools don't exist. Those that do are still out of the realm of affordability for most anyone. I have probably $300,000 tied up in my stuff. You think I'm dumping it soon? HAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!!


Sound quality? Most people could make dramatic inprovements in the sound quality of what they release if they upgraded their converters, mic pres, mics, monitors, and listening environment. These are things that you can do TODAY, and the only possible future loss in investment would be in the converters that they choose. Things like high quality monitors and amplifiers don't go out of style and generally will last the life of the studio. So will mics and mic pres. Improving the sonics of the space lasts as long as you stay in the space. All smart investments. All will improve the quality of what you record. De facto, the sound quality of what you release.

And while we're talking about it, how much have you spent on SACD? What SACD tools do you own? What is your monitoring system, playback environment? If sound quality is indeed your metric, show us how it is done, or at least, how YOU do it.

Bill,
I agree with you about investment - I too have lots of stuff that I won't be offing anytime soon... but Spiritman is only mentioning that DSD is possibly a better medium for our music storage...and isn't it our job as engineers and musicians to keep moving forward?
I think the whole IPOD, MP3 thing is a big step backwards in quality...it robs the music of "air" & dynamics which in my opinion kills emotion in music. Maybe that's why the music business is going thru such a bad time these days...
to me - listen to MP3 files is no more exciting that listen to music in a doctors office... no dynamics = no inspiration as far as I'm concerned.
I'd rather go to the trouble of carrying around a box of cds...when I listen to music I want to enjoy the experience of listening... If I want noise in the background I'll turn on talk radio.

[mghtx]

...and that's why we need to stand firm and educate them as to the difference between good and bad sound...otherwise we are wasting our time in our voyage for better sound.

But do they care? It's one thing if you're listening to a classical piece and another if you're listening to P. Diddy. IMO. I'm sure others will have another opinion.

[Tim Miskimon]

I find the idea of 'better sound" rather funny. Everytime there's a new format, the majority of people insist that's the new thing, the best thing, THE thing.

Better quality audio is great, but like mentioned the audio could get 10x better just by improving the tools we use to produce on the formats we have now. To me that's more important than what essentially is a minor improvement just by changing formats.

I think the best thing the industy could do is improve the current lossless encoding formats so that while cheap storage improves, so does the size of lossless formats. Eventually the audio world will have no reason to not produce quality audio for the consumer masses' portable digital audio devices.


I would also like to take note of some of the funny things I've seen out there. Howabout a blind listening test between original tape recordings and mp3's. The mp3's had a small amount of reverb added and 18/20 blind particpants picked that as the original due to the clarity and depth? LOL.

Do your own tests if you wish, but dont try to see if you can TELL the difference, see if you can TELL WHAT THE DIFFERENCE IS. Sure you can tell sacd and pcm and high quality mp3/ogg/wma sound different, but could you tell which one is which? Id put money that 99% of the world couldn't reliably do it, and I think that's a generous percentage.

Not for me...I still prefer the sound of high end analog over digital so I haven't really went along with the "latest is greatest" crowd.
I am forced to hear the difference between MP3 & 24/88.2 audio every time a customer asked me to convert the stuff so they can post it on the web or dump it into their IPOD.
In my opinion it's a major degrading of the dynamics, stereo image & low level information like piano & reverb tails.
MP3s & real player files are good for one thing - demoing songs on the web for possible purchase. I don't think it should replace the better formats. That's what's happening these days and it's sad.
I own CDs & albums and for years I made copies of them to play in the car or on the beach - but they didn't take the place of the CDs & albums. Once CDs players became portable & available for cars I offed the cassettes.

[Tim Miskimon]

But do they care? It's one thing if you're listening to a classical piece and another if you're listening to P. Diddy. IMO. I'm sure others will have another opinion.

No - they don't care but we better if we want to have jobs.
As the quality of audio shrinks so will the need for high-end recordings.
Have you listened lately to how bad the quality of some pop records is today? It's scarey!
Once it's reduced down to a crappy MP3 file it all starts sounding the same...I don't know about you but that bothers me.

[AudioAstronomer]

No - they don't care but we better if we want to have jobs.
As the quality of audio shrinks so will the need for high-end recordings.
Have you listened lately to how bad the quality of some pop records is today? It's scarey!
Once it's reduced down to a crappy MP3 file it all starts sounding the same...I don't know about you but that bothers me.

Doesn't bother me.. That just means my services are more rare, and I can charge a lot more

[Tim Miskimon]

Doesn't bother me.. That just means my services are more rare, and I can charge a lot more

but who's gonna pay it when they're spending all their money on crappy IPODs & MP3 downloads....

[AudioAstronomer]

but who's gonna pay it when they're spending all their money on crappy IPODs & MP3 downloads....

Seems to be plenty of people here eh?