Why is it that some CDs seem to have been engineered (produced?) with sooooo much output gain? I'm not even talking about modern pop, R 'n' B or Rock discs - I have classical titles going back to 1991 which seem to output to the point of distortion through headphones (less noticeable through speakers, admittedly).

Would a high-end system (decent CD player, amp, speakers, cans, etc) prevent this 'clipping'? Or is it simply a case of 'garbage in, garbage out'?

It's so infuriating.

[per-Sony-fied]

Originally Posted by shadowritten

Why is it that some CDs seem to have been engineered (produced?) with sooooo much output gain?

Eh? I been thinking about this. A CD AFAIK cannot be produced with different gains it's digital... I.E just a load of pits and grooves that go to make up the signature of that disc that the laser then picks up and then gets amplified through electronics to a CD standard o/p level which was/is 2V which some manufacurers have deviated from slightly to get the edge in demo's, so 2.2V or maybe a wee bit more is not uncommon.

It's possible that the process taken to produce that disc has used electronics that allow it to have a lower noise floor and therefore more dynamic range.

Originally Posted by shadowritten

Would a high-end system (decent CD player, amp, speakers, cans, etc) prevent this 'clipping'? Or is it simply a case of 'garbage in, garbage out'?

It's so infuriating.

Never noticed it being a problem. CD's actually have more distortion at lower levels than they do higher levels.


All very complicated this subject, I must admit a bit (oops a pun) out of my depth. So maybe I'm wrong regarding the level you can get on a disc.

Thanks for the reply.

I'll be first to admit I'm probably talking out of my bottom, but it seems that some CDs output with this awful scratchiness at the top end (and even in the deep bass at times), whereas others - in equally 'loud bits', if you'll pardon further ignorance! - reproduce with no distorting or clipping or any other sonic annoyances! Does seem to be some of my older CDs that are to blame, but I know a few modern ones have a similar curious problem.

I've tried several sets of headphones, and the problem occurs whichever pair I'm wearing, leading me to conclude it must be something up with the discs themselves (used several different CD players, too). EQ set to flat in each case, so I'm pretty stumped ...

[per-Sony-fied]

Originally Posted by shadowritten

Thanks for the reply.

I'll be first to admit I'm probably talking out of my bottom, but it seems that some CDs output with this awful scratchiness at the top end (and even in the deep bass at times), whereas others - in equally 'loud bits', if you'll pardon further ignorance! - reproduce with no distorting or clipping or any other sonic annoyances! Does seem to be some of my older CDs that are to blame, but I know a few modern ones have a similar curious problem.

I've tried several sets of headphones, and the problem occurs whichever pair I'm wearing, leading me to conclude it must be something up with the discs themselves (used several different CD players, too). EQ set to flat in each case, so I'm pretty stumped ...

Perhaps what you are hearing is inadequacies in the design of the headphone o/p stage. Those with a great dynamism are causing the electronics to clip due to a lack of headroom in the design. Which is likely to be caused by an inadequate power supply. Most headphone o/p's are designed around a specific headphone impedance which in all honesty can vary quite widely. Many headphone o/p's are also just an "after thought" on standalone equipment and as such rarely designed to be of good quality (although probably don't sound to bad). Severe limitations come into play at higher listening levels and the acceptance of level on a headphone also has it's limit. Pushing a headphone at higher levels with a disc with high dynamic range can soon push it over it's power handling range and cause those undesirable effects.

Another phenomenon with CD's is the ability for them to "ring" or shout in the upper registers which is well documented in a fairly recent edition of Hi-Fi News. Something not everyone hears but those who do it is very undesirable and again maybe this is something that you are hearing.

Thank you for that. Very interesting, and certainly probably what I'm experiencing with some discs.

A friend of mine is promising to buy me something expensive when an insurance claim of his pays out, so I've told him he can get me a pair of AKG K501 cans - apparently excellent for 'audio purists' and 'classical lovers' (so says the company's marketing puff, anyway). If I get these, and bearing in mind the limitations of my VERY entry-level set up, I'll test certain discs again and see what I can hear.

[FeisalK]

we are not alone

http://www.johnvestman.com/disease.htm

http://georgegraham.com/compress.html

[Kenny Glasgow]

What you need is a set of attenuated leads which cuts the output from your CD player to your amp by 2dB.


http://www.russandrews.com/product.a...YKTPDLHWWXXZMC

[dynamic turtle]

Yeah, I've noticed this on some cd's as well - and it IS the cd, not the player that causes the problem IME. Some I play at 20-25, others at 25-30, SACD's usually at 30-35 (on the 100-step digital display on the Pathos).

Must be something do with the noise floor that its mastered/recorded at, or somefink teknikal that I dun't get?

DT

[Kenny Glasgow]

Yes different discs will be mastered differently, some far better than others.

A lot of the time thought it is the player's "fault" and these attenuated cables do work. You can also buy plugs that you put your phonos into but that may degrade the sound in other ways

Originally Posted by dynamic turtle

Yeah, I've noticed this on some cd's as well - and it IS the cd, not the player that causes the problem IME. Some I play at 20-25, others at 25-30, SACD's usually at 30-35 (on the 100-step digital display on the Pathos).

Must be something do with the noise floor that its mastered/recorded at, or somefink teknikal that I dun't get?

DT

It isn't anything technical. When mastering a CD (after applying all the compression, EQing, level balancing, etc etc tools to each instrument) all you should need to do is normalise the wave so the highest peak comes to 0db. However record companies don't like to do that, they just want their CDs to be the loudest possible, regardless of the negative effect this has on sound quality. They use compression/limiting to reduce the highest peaks and then can have the rest of the CD louder. Do this too much and the distortion is present on the disc, nothing you can do about it.

What we need really is for record companies to agree on a standard average playback level (like replaygain for mp3s). They obviously can't be trusted to just play nicely with each other.

SACDs are usually even quieter as some inherent property of the DSD format causes problems when compression/limiting are applied to keep the level constantly high. Ironically this turns out to be a good things though, the mastering engineer has a choice of either compressing/limiting the disc to get the same sound as the CD but normalising a couple of db lower or just letting the disc have some actual dynamic range. Luckily they seem to often choose the latter.

This issue really rats me off, I find a lot of modern CDs very tiring to listen to and is one of the main reasons why I decided to get into classical music instead, classical record companies don't lower themselves to such stupid behaviour.

Originally Posted by shadowritten

Why is it that some CDs seem to have been engineered (produced?) with sooooo much output gain?

It is done to make the recordings *appear* to sound better on less than great replay equipment. Record companies insist on CD levels being cooked and compressed so that their recordings sound louder (therefore, supposedly, 'better') on the radio. Of course, because nearly all companies now do it, it's now turned into a case of making sure their recordings don't sound any quieter than everybody elses.

Producers, engineers and mastering houses are well aware of this and so often just cook everything rather than have their work rejected as 'too quiet', so you end up with classical discs also being cooked.

BTW, you are likely to find the problem becomes even more noticeable if/when you get your superior quality headphones.

Originally Posted by lucem

Producers, engineers and mastering houses are well aware of this and so often just cook everything rather than have their work rejected as 'too quiet', so you end up with classical discs also being cooked.

Can you actually give any examples of classical titles being compressed/limited? I've never come across one.

LISZT Piano Concerto No. 2 in A. 1 SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in a. 2 WEBER Konzertstück in f 3 Claudio Arrau, (pn); Dimitri Mitrpoloulos, cond; 1 New York PO; 1 Victor De Sabata, cond; 2 New York PO; 2 Erich Kleiber, cond; 3 NBC SO 3 ? Music & Arts 1174 (70:25)

Originally Posted by lucem

LISZT Piano Concerto No. 2 in A. 1 SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in a. 2 WEBER Konzertstück in f 3 Claudio Arrau, (pn); Dimitri Mitrpoloulos, cond; 1 New York PO; 1 Victor De Sabata, cond; 2 New York PO; 2 Erich Kleiber, cond; 3 NBC SO 3 ? Music & Arts 1174 (70:25)

The recording dates here might explain this:
Liszt: 5 September 1943
Weber: 20 December 1947
Schumann: 18 March 1951

Without knowing the quality of the original recordings or the condition of the masters it's hard to draw any conclusions. The chances are, the original masters had limited dynamic range and/or saturated the tape on loud passages.

Mandel, how do we account for the clipping in, say, Mozart's Requiem on Naxos - the version recorded in 1989? It occurs in the higher registers on and off throughout sections of the Sequentia (forget precisely where now). Just a case of poor recording/engineering?

[per-Sony-fied]

Originally Posted by Mandel

It isn't anything technical. When mastering a CD (after applying all the compression, EQing, level balancing, etc etc tools to each instrument) all you should need to do is normalise the wave so the highest peak comes to 0db. However record companies don't like to do that, they just want their CDs to be the loudest possible, regardless of the negative effect this has on sound quality. They use compression/limiting to reduce the highest peaks and then can have the rest of the CD louder. Do this too much and the distortion is present on the disc, nothing you can do about it.

This sounds typical..... engineers design better recording and playback systems and all recording companies can do is defeat all their years of hard work. Try to take a leap forward and you end up taking steps back.

Originally Posted by Mandel

What we need really is for record companies to agree on a standard average playback level (like replaygain for mp3s). They obviously can't be trusted to just play nicely with each other.

Thank god for specialist recording companies who painstakingly try to get it right.... I guess if it were not for bad recordings in the first place then these boys would not be so much in the game.

Wonders which is the worst scenario.....

Originally Posted by Mandel

This issue really rats me off, I find a lot of modern CDs very tiring to listen to and is one of the main reasons why I decided to get into classical music instead, classical record companies don't lower themselves to such stupid behaviour.

CD's are certainly of a different nature to analogue and many systems, mainly down to players can make them sound hard etched and some have ringing in the treble. Bass whilst very punchy and tight lacks some analogue bounce and freedom..... however on the plus side dynamics are a world apart, noise is non exsistant and detail for me is superior, unless you chuck huge amounts at a turntable system.

Can you quote a few CD's you have found hard to get on with (not classical)?

You never know I may have 1 or 2 and can listen for myself. Not the greatest CD fan but I have to say my turntable is rusting as it's seen that little use of late.

Originally Posted by shadowritten

Mandel, how do we account for the clipping in, say, Mozart's Requiem on Naxos - the version recorded in 1989? It occurs in the higher registers on and off throughout sections of the Sequentia (forget precisely where now). Just a case of poor recording/engineering?

I haven't heard that disc, but I've regularly heard that Naxos's recording standards didn't used to be that great. They probably had a microphone or a digital channel overloading somewhere. They've improved a lot in recent years though, some of their new discs are pretty damn good. (See their 2004 recording of Pendereckis Polish Requiem for a good example)