Variations in CD Quality from Track to Track

stretchl

Question -

Can the quality of a CD vary from track to track?

I've been listening to Peter Gabriel's "So" CD lately.

"Mercy Street" is a beautiful piece and it sounds amazing on my system.

Then comes "Big Time," and while I love the song I can't listen to the damned thing at the volume I'd like to because the highs are so shrill.

I suspect that Big Time was mastered differently, with a lot of brightness because it was a released as a single.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

F1nut

It's all in the recording and mastering.

BlueFox

Just guessing, but I suspect each track is recorded over some period of time, and at the end assembled into a CD. So, each track would be recorded differently.

naturallight

Welcome to the world of old crappy cd remasters of good analog recordings....LOL

there usually done fast and cheap, they boost the bass and treble..then compress the mess so they can sell it as single songs you can down load, for 99cents.



What may have been on the edge of bright on the analog vinyl is now brutal on the CD. The songs very, dependent on what was on the original analog tape..so if it was close to being over the top...now it's way over the top and sounds like crap.

So your choice is to deal with it, or pull out your old TT...or buy a new one and get the original Vinyl recording.

treitz3

stretchl wrote: »

Can the quality of a CD vary from track to track?

Hello, stretchl. Not only is it possible, it's rather common and a big frustration of many who care about the quality of the musical reproduction. Compilation CD's are the worst IME but even on the albums that are recorded in one studio with the same engineers and equipment, there can be vast differences in sound quality. The best kind of albums to avoid this are with live albums or you can find some of your favorite producers/mastering engineer/labels or remastering sources such as Sheffeild labs, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, First Impression Music, Mapleshade, Telarc and the like to possibly avoid this. Some artists also have reliability with tracks [not always but for the most part]. Some examples off the top of my head would be Donald Fagan, Vince Gill and Mark Knopfler.

Tom

Erik Tracy

stretchl wrote: »

Question -

Can the quality of a CD vary from track to track?

I've been listening to Peter Gabriel's "So" CD lately.

"Mercy Street" is a beautiful piece and it sounds amazing on my system.

Then comes "Big Time," and while I love the song I can't listen to the damned thing at the volume I'd like to because the highs are so shrill.

I suspect that Big Time was mastered differently, with a lot of brightness because it was a released as a single.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

You've noticed the exact same thing I have for years with this exact CD.

Big Time is a big disappointment - piercingly bright and shrill.

Sledgehammer is pretty good though.

stretchl

Thanks to everyone for the great responses.

In particular, I was hoping that someone who had listened to the CD would let me know about what they're hearing. Erik did just that. Cool!

I don't care what anyone says... this is a great group of folks! :cheesygrin:

First chance I get i'm going to take the CD up to the local hi-fi place and see how those two tracks sound on one of their gazillion dollar systems.

stretchl

Actually, this brings up another question -

I'm uploading my CDs as Apple Lossless files and playing them through a SqueezeBox Touch (soon to be Channel D's Pure Music software.)

With this method of sourcing the material, would MFSL disks still provide a higher quality experience of the music?

naturallight

Well i didn't know we were in the.."I don't care what anybody says about us" forum...LMAO



But you can take your badly EQ'd cd to where ever, play it on there 10K system, and unless there tweeters are shot...going to sound like crap.



You can upload, down load whatever junk you want....be it apple crap or not..if it's a bad remaster of old analog stuff...it's still going to sound like junk..period!

F1nut

So your choice is to deal with it, or pull out your old TT...or buy a new one and get the original Vinyl recording.

Folks that think every piece of vinyl out there equates to sonic bliss are sadly mistaken at best, disillusion at worse.

treitz3

naturallight wrote: »

What may have been on the edge of bright on the analog vinyl is now brutal on the CD. The songs very, dependent on what was on the original analog tape..so if it was close to being over the top...now it's way over the top and sounds like crap. So your choice is to deal with it, or pull out your old TT...or buy a new one and get the original Vinyl recording.

Hello and good morning to you, Jesse. While you are correct, I think what he was trying to say was that a choice you have is to get a TT setup and the vinyl album that was on the edge of bright but wasn't as brutal as the CD.

Tom

amulford

It's in the master. PG is a brilliant musician, if it sounds that way, he wanted it to. Just might not be in your or my taste, but you have to respect that...

heiney9

stretchl wrote: »

Question -

Can the quality of a CD vary from track to track?

I've been listening to Peter Gabriel's "So" CD lately.

"Mercy Street" is a beautiful piece and it sounds amazing on my system.

Then comes "Big Time," and while I love the song I can't listen to the damned thing at the volume I'd like to because the highs are so shrill.

I suspect that Big Time was mastered differently, with a lot of brightness because it was a released as a single.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Yes.

The thing is many songs could be recorded at different times and different locations. When they master the final product bringing all those elements together the engineer tries his/her best to minimize those differences but sometimes it's not possible to make it entirely seamless. The biggest area I notice this is a live recording when recorded from multiple shows on a tour vs. a single show. Listen to Rush's "Exit Stage Left". I can tell almost everytime when they switch venues by how the song(s) sound compared to the other venues they recorded at and pulled the songs from. It's subtle but after repeated listening it sticks out like a sore thumb.

H9

smglbrth

Happens with older CD's, as has already been stated. Sammy Hagar's "Standing Hampton" comes to mind. As far as live music goes I think the absolute best sounding CD I've ever owned was "Delicate Sound of Thunder". Wow, they did that one right...

naturallight

I never said Vinyl is sonic bliss. There are bad masters/remasters on any media. The worst seem to be old analog remasters to CD of old bands. The worst is the compilation CD's. Which each song can be redone by a different engineer, then mashed together by somebody else, to make a CD's worth of songs they think they can sell. In some cases the treble has been pushed to the max, as to make your ears bleed on certain songs.



If you happen to be old enough, to either have the original vinyl recording, (which is now stored away)or heard it enough, that you know the original recording dose NOT make your ears bleed. Then if you really want to hear it again, the way it was originally recorded. Maybe time to pull out the TT again.



The problem is, you can't fix badly remastered cd's, or any badly remastered media. At least correctly. If you have a treble control, well, you can try and turn it down some. It may help, but probably not.



Now i have a 32 track digital recorder. Could i fix these badly remastered CD's..NOT correctly. For that i would need the master tapes. Could i stop the ear bleeding..Maybe.

I only have control over the 2 stereo tracks, but may be able to cut down on the offending frequencies.

But this would take hours on end, i would need a real good set of monitors, and even with hours of messing, i would have to walk away, come back the next day with fresh ears, and see if really fixed the problem or not.

This is just a fake fix, at best. In the end it's not worth messing with it.