all AC/DC catalog on I-tunes- mastered for I-tunes- complete B.S.?

I've been listening to Back in Black and Highway to Hell on Grooveshark lately. First time in decades probably.


I swear, just the other day I thought: "these guys anticipated mp3 by 30 years" because it sounded just fantastic blaring out of my laptop speakers.


When I was a kid, the Back in Black record came out the same week I bought a big new stereo amp I had been saving for. Wham!



best,
mike

batsbrew


"Four of AC/DC’s live albums and three compilation records are also available. The statement said the songs have been mastered for iTunes "with increased audio fidelity."


WTF

I'm wondering who gets the worst listening experience - me listening to mp3's on studio monitors or the average AC/DC fan listening to a regular CD on an average sound system and average hifi speakers.

Or then the millions of people who made AC/DC rich by buying and playing their vinyls and playing them until they were worn out on consumer grade sound systems. 

Because, rock and roll was music for the masses, and I do honestly believe that the spirit of rock and roll dies a bit when it becomes a thing of audiophile elitism, and when people start putting on white gloves to carefully take the vinyl out of the sleeve to have it played back on a system worth thousands of dollars.


I'm inclined to believe that in many cases, the sound quality level for the average listener potentially improved w/ MP3s compared to what it was in the old days (cd era excluded). I'm sure it beats my crappy sony walkman and the tapes we used to trade.



EDIT - Reminds me that I bought a certain someone's album on iTunes and it doesn't sound too bad. (Though I'm sure you'd much rather have me listening to the original master in all its 24 bits glory). ;)

you might be right, rain.
get it..?
right as rain?

lol

anyway, i wished i could get the catalog on something better than 16 bit/44.1khz, because i CAN hear a difference.


for mp3, i rip my own at 320kbps, have for years.......

but even then, something always sounds missing to me.

it looses it's three dimensional quality.....


 
 even on crappy systems, i can hear it.



so, i guess the real question is, what the phook can a mastering engineer do, to the original sound of the tape, that optimizes it to sound better on the itunes format?

i call BS

can't be done.

at best, all they can do is ADD stuff that is not suppose to be there....

to make up for the GUTS and glory they loose in the 'lossless' compression scheme.


i mean, i listen to 24 bit audio all the time.....

and when i listen to mp3's right after that, i always go "WHOA!"

I'm all for an option to buy music as 24 bit wav files.  Ideally, I'd even like an option to buy the un-mastered mix, because mastering seems to cause more harm than good in many cases these days.

drewfx1


There are actually quite a number of "big name" mastering engineers who are completely and utterly clueless how lossy compression works.

Of course they think they know everything. And it would never occur to them to have a discussion with a lossy compression developer or a psychoacoustics expert to see how they might get the best possible results.

So instead they remaster and try to "correct" for things that don't actually happen. But hey, who knows, perhaps they'll get lucky in the process!

I'm not arguing... but this can help:


http://www.sonnoxplugins....products/pro-codec.htmhttp://www.sonnoxplugins....products/pro-codec.htm

;-)

"clipping behaviour" = FAIL.

mike_mccue

drewfx1


There are actually quite a number of "big name" mastering engineers who are completely and utterly clueless how lossy compression works.

Of course they think they know everything. And it would never occur to them to have a discussion with a lossy compression developer or a psychoacoustics expert to see how they might get the best possible results.

So instead they remaster and try to "correct" for things that don't actually happen. But hey, who knows, perhaps they'll get lucky in the process!

I'm not arguing... but this can help:


http://www.sonnoxplugins....products/pro-codec.htmhttp://www.sonnoxplugins....products/pro-codec.htm

You must mean it can help MAKE THINGS WORSE.

Listening to a DIFF signal with a psychoacoustic codec is the single most idiotic thing you can possibly do - because the DIFF signal takes all the psychoacoustic stuff out of the, you know, psychoacoustic codec. So you hear all the missing stuff soloed that you won't ever hear in context, and then try to put it back in at the expense of stuff you will hear. You end up fighting the codec.

IOW, this thing is designed by the clueless for the clueless.

I bet they sell lots of them.

I'm surprised at your summary.

I think of this as something you can clamp on the master outs and actually hear the results of the mp3 compression as you mix.


I hadn't considered all the other aspects of it.

It seems to me that the idea of mixing through a mp3 state can seem sensible for some.

I've been thinking I'd like to try.



best regards,
mike 

So now we're arguing about A / B listening?

LOL!

Here's a thought ... maybe you can hit the DIFF button, then load up the Noise Removal plugin in Sound Forge, capture the difference, and remove it? I dunno.

I can think of a few dozen reasons why I'd want to hear the difference ...

More options are better?

Remove it and 90% of the other options and call it a Pro Channel Module and sell it exclusively through Roland?

Ey yi yi.

Hehe!

:-)

Mastered for iTunes? That's just market-speak froo-froo for Apple fanbois (there, I said it) that need to feel good about themselves dumping too much cash on yet another pocket toy.


Mastered lossy compression? What's next, mastered nose-hair trimmers?

Bub


So now we're arguing about A / B listening?

LOL!

Here's a thought ... maybe you can hit the DIFF button, then load up the Noise Removal plugin in Sound Forge, capture the difference, and remove it? I dunno.

I can think of a few dozen reasons why I'd want to hear the difference ...

More options are better?

No no no no no.

The reason it's not good to have the DIFF option is it expressly encourages people to do things that are REALLY REALLY STOOOOOOOOOPID.

As I said before, it COMPLETELY IGNORES the fact that the stuff that is taken out is taken out because of psychoacoustic masking. So it's something that sounds like a smart idea to people who don't see that when you are taking away the stuff that's doing the masking and trying to make decisions based on it, you can't hope to succeed. So it encourages people to screw things up. It's not like other places where maybe you can actually learn things from a DIFF signal - because in most cases any masking is more incidental, not THE VERY BASIS of what is included in the DIFF signal. 

And the fact that they graphing the DIFF signal also encourages dumb behavior. You often find people who want to take DIFF signals and use them to compare codecs, thinking that a codec with a smaller DIFF must be "better". But again, THIS IGNORES ALL OF THE PSYCHOACOUSTICS which is the very basis of how lossy codecs work. A codec that can throw out MORE and still be transparent is the superior one. Seeing what or how much it throws out is irrelevant. It's only the results that matter.

The big problem is it's MUCH easier for people to screw around based on the DIFF signal, because it's all right there and easy to hear, whereas when actually listening to the encoded audio people may well hear no differences. This is especially true at higher bit rates, where people (even the ones who think they are "special") are generally unable to tell encoded audio from the original in double blind or ABX testing, despite what they may believe.