CD Sound Quality Today Is Shite, Official.

From the Guardian

Audiophile fans of Metallica shouldn't bother buying copies of their new album, Death Magnetic. According to one analyst, the record sounds better in the Guitar Hero video game.

"On purchasing our CD ... we gave the disc a spin and couldn't help wondering if our office headphones were faulty as the kick and snare drum seemed to be audibly clipping, along with some of the palm-muted guitar parts," wrote Chris Vinnecombe, guitar editor of music-making website MusicRadar.

The sound issues are a result of the "loudness war" - an ongoing industry effort to make recordings as loud as possible, so that on cursory listens tracks leap forcefully from the speakers. While any album can just have its volume turned up on your stereo, records like Death Magnetic have their audio compressed, making them inherently louder at the expense of dynamic range and sound quality.

The CD version of Death Magnetic takes this to an extreme, pushing the compression past the point of distortion. The version used on the Guitar Hero videogame, where players can solo along with James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett, has been mixed differently - with far better dynamic range. The videogame version of the record was made available last week, as an $18 (£9) download.

Mastering engineer Ian Shepherd's analysis of the two versions - shown as graphical waveforms - makes the CD version's hyper-compression acutely visible.

While there is no official response from the famously cantankerous Metallica camp, the engineer who mastered Death Magnetic is apparently as frustrated as the fans.

"I'm certainly sympathetic to your reaction," said Ted Jensen, head engineer at Sterling Sound, quoted on the Metallica forum. "I get to slam my head against that brick wall every day. In this case, the mixes were already brick-walled before they arrived at my place. Suffice to say I would never be pushed to overdrive things as far as they are here."

"Believe me I'm not proud to be associated with this one, and we can only hope that some good will come from this in some form of backlash against volume above all else."

You're not going to post pictures of waveforms are you?

No, but I could post a list of 197 remixes of Bizarre Love Triangle if you like.

Or would that just make me an irritating little twunt?

It's not the sound quality of the CD's that is the problem, just the mastering, no matter what format, over egg the mastering and it's fucked, but as long as kids can deafen themselves with their iPods, quality doesn't matter.

labels should give the option of loud mastered CD's and decently mastered CD's for people that like to listen to music rather than clipping.

edited 10 mins later, now kicking myself a bit!

joust found this on SOS forum, apparently the tracks were clipped already at mixing stage before getting to the masters, so the mixer killed the track, the master had to try to ressurect it a bit, but now wants to distance himself from it.

SOS Forum

I agree. I thought it was because of my apple headphones. I switched them out for the Sennheisers and it still sounded terrible. Then I thought it was just because I converted it to mp3. A read the review in Wired the next day.

I agree Metallica CD's do sound SHITE

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/09/does-metallicas.html

johnny wrote: You're not going to post pictures of waveforms are you?

Check this out: The "evolution" of audio compression on CDs

might have been believable if it didn't start in 1983...

violaine wrote: I agree. I thought it was because of my apple headphones. I switched them out for the Sennheisers and it still sounded terrible. Then I thought it was just because I converted it to mp3.

A read the review in Wired the next day.

Great site, magazine.

wired.com

hibster wrote: might have been believable if it didn't start in 1983...

What do you mean?

hibster wrote: might have been believable if it didn't start in 1983...

Erm, check your facts before you assume anything.

The first commercial CDs hit the market in late '82.

hardly readily available back then though were they?

What a crock of shit. Why do they do stuff like this?

CD's two biggest assests fucked over.

1. 96dB signal-noise ratio, therefore a gigantic dynamic range, untouchable by any domestic analogue format......but no, let's fuck that out the window and make sure the level never drops below -6dB....in other words 6dB dynamic range.....you may as well use cassette, or vinyl, both of which can seriously beat that, and probably more naturally, being analogue (by which I mean, that without taking avantage of the abilities of the format, why put up with the (albeit microscopic) loss of signal resolution caused by digitising).

2. Reduced distortion......no fuck that, let's master clipped wave to disc. W T Fing F???????? don't these cuntbags know what clipped waveforms can do to amps and particularly speakers (that's why hi-fi and PA loons usually advise an amp with more power than the speakers can handle. When you do it the other way around, no matter how much more intuitive it seems, you are very likely to run your small amp into the red in the belief that the speakers can handle far more power than that. While this is true, speakers HATE clipped wave, which a redlined amp will be puking out full blast. If you imagine a speaker turning a square wave (ie a "totally clipped" wave) ___---___--- the speaker is slammed back to it's back stop, and then, and this is the important bit...HELD there, the rammed forward and held, and so on. Voice coils do not appreciate this, they are not designed to hold DC voltage, especially with domed tweeters and bass reflex units, which actually "push back" against the driving EMF from the voice coil/magnet. This is SO SO SO MUCH more when digitally clipped signal is involved......Even the worst analogue clipping in an amp is still analogue, so in order for the waveform to get from flat bottom to flat top, it must pass through all points in between, BUT digital signals can litterally be at 0 one instant (1/44100th of a second for a CD) and 127 the next, with no movement from one state to the next. Speakers, oddly enough can't do this, which is a good thing for the listener as the fact they must move smoothly removes some harshness from the sound, but nonetheless the actuall power running into the speaker is attempting to get them to "teleport" from full back to full forward.....again, all sorts of nasty effects caused by this....but I've had me morning ramble now :D

Or, in human terms.......

The pig raping, sister fucking bunch of syphilitic cuntflaps have in fact found and perfected away to take pure gold and turd-plate it.