CD aint a bad format!

[DSJR]

I agree completely with you on that. Since 1999, a bad-sounding CD is unacceptable. It means the mastering was a slaughter made by an idiot.

Absolutely..

I've been asked to compose an article regarding my observations and past perspectives on LP cutting and CD mastering and I shall when I have time. Analogue era master tapes for LP cutting were often eq'd toppy and thin and often edits were rough in the knowledge that the LP as pressed and played on granny's old BSR groove-grinder would mask these flaws. Transcribe "flat" to digital and these flaws are magnified if anything, or at least, starkly shown up.

Good mastering engineers given free reign can make wonderful silk-like purses from these old tapes and if the artist is involved as well, then often wondrous things can be accomplished. All too often, economies of scale take over, together with sucked-out B&W 801's used as monitors, in Europe at any rate..

I have a suspicion that the pressing plants may be partly to blame for icky sounding CD's, but it seems to me that sorted CD players of old and a good few modern ones seem to be able to handle "difficult or jittery" CD's better...

The only thing "wrong" with red-book digital is the audible effects of the post 20KHz filtering, although other concerns of truncated bits lower in level is perhaps misleading when the 16 bit system supposedly gives us 96db s/n and our ears work on a 50db range on a sliding scale. Most "analogue" tape his is around minus 70 to 80 db I reckon and vinyl roar is minus 40db in the midrange at best, although substantially better at high frequencies.

So much to chat about over several pints

P.S. The jitter spectrum of CDR's, certainly in the early days of CD burning, appeared to be "smoother" in terms of "sidebands" as I remember and this helped the DAC to switch on-and-off more precicely (or summat). Often, CDR's made a slower speeds from CD originals could sometimes sound "better"

[Rare Bird]

Can i just add it's a good idea to use the best CD-r you can, for obvious reasons some players have an hard time reading them..The best CD-r you can get are Taiyo Yuden 'Master Grade'..

[Haselsh1]

This reminds me of years ago when a certain Cranberries album came out. The CD pressing was a complete bloody mess but the vinyl had been completely remastered for vinyl and sounded truly amazing. The CD was brash, loud and compressed. The vinyl had all of the hallmarks one associates with vinyl, depth, precise stereo focus and refinement.

[anthonyTD]

But your bypassing the purpose of the experiment. Just Disregard how CD's are mastered etc for a sec. What i found was the record directly copied onto CD-r was virtually of the same sound as per original vinyl record, which proves the CD itself is not at fault & gets unfairly slagged orf.. I'm tring to say that it's the studio work of these recording converted to digital through which ever means they use, that is destroying the sound hence giving the format a bad name.

quite agree with you there andre,
i too think that most of what we relate to as bad about CD's is down to the sound engineer, and the equipment used to convert it to digital format!
A...

[The Vinyl Adventure]

this lot is way to confusing for my liking.. if i was boss of the world id make all cds sound as good as they could.. the fact that some dont, when they could, is down right stupid!