Sound quality of subscription services...

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Ed Witles

Active DJ
Nov 6, 2008
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Gang -
Having pretty much every CD from RPM since 1992 and TMC since 2002, the tracks have been variable in quality.

The early RPMs had volume issues whereas some tracks started at a certain volume level just to increase or decrease.

TMC started out w/ very low gain tracks.

Now to their defense, these are tracks provided by the labels and may be from a 128kb MP3 or studio master source.

For the longest time, while using CDs, I would keep thinking I was hearing things like artifacts or excessive bass to point of distortion. Yet the studio CDs always sounded decent and would put my ears at ease.

So in a nutshell, we (folks with these CDs) have an awesome collection of tracks that are more than worth the store CDs would be but at questionable quality.

This did not go away w/ the advent of converting to MP3/FLAC.

Hero by Enrique comes to mind along with Miss A Thing by Aeromsith.

Has anyone else actually noticed this? What I might have been chalking to ear fatigue might in fact over compressed low bitrate source files.

I was actually thinking of buying - either thru Amazon or from a CD itself some of my 'staple tracks' that sound horrendous.

The Sean Paul (I think Temperature) has warbling in it on both the weekly and what gets played on the radio.

Thoughts?
 
I have not been impressed with Amazon's MP3s. They claim to be 256kb but many are vbr. Some are 256kb cbr and do mathematically measure as being 256Kb. Most of them sound like 160kb. I have also noticed that some of them seem to be ripped at low gain, as much as 6-8db low.

iTunes 256kb AAC songs seem to be great quality. I convert them to CBR MP3's and they are comparable in quality to all of the ripped CD's that I did myself with audiograbber at 320kb.



Scott
 
scharris_99 said:
I have not been impressed with Amazon's MP3s. They claim to be 256kb but many are vbr.
Click to expand...

I get lots from Amazon -- so far, every single one has analyzed out to VBR.

I'm not a fan of VBR, but the quality has been exceptional to date (probably because I listen to cool music Scott) :sqwink: :sqlaugh:

The big reason I don't like VBR, is because it incurs much more overhead on a decoder. Not every frame is the same size or quality, so the decoder has to work much harder, when it transitions frames.

If you use a streaming decoder (Rockit is a good example), you will find issues with seeking within a song using VBR (because of all that extra work it needs to do). You will also sometimes find speed variances throughout the song -- that will depend on how much the frames have been manipulated by the encoder. For example, if a frame was encoded at say 64 bps, and the next frame is 320 bps, there will be a difference in the decode/playback speed, due to the processing of those two frames back to back.


I have no idea why I just typed all that, but that's how it works in simplified form. If given the option, rip yer own CDs in CBR -- it will play good in anything :)
 
scharris_99 said:
I have not been impressed with Amazon's MP3s. They claim to be 256kb but many are vbr. Some are 256kb cbr and do mathematically measure as being 256Kb. Most of them sound like 160kb. I have also noticed that some of them seem to be ripped at low gain, as much as 6-8db low.

Scott
Click to expand...

Hmm...really? I have found all Amazon tracks to be very good quality. I am very conscious about bitrate and 192 sounds bad to me (only use it if I have to)...I like to think I can tell 256 & 320 are much better and AMZ MP3 sound good to me....full quality.
 
I do not have other source material to compare to the Amazon purchased MP3s. If I did, I wouldn't have bought it from Amazon. :sqrolleyes: The difference is not dramatic and I can not hear it over PA speakers, but in a quiet house I can hear it through my home system and over headphones. The thing that annoys me the most is a clean sustained note, instrument or vocal, seems to tremble. I have not way of knowing that the original source was clean, but it sounds like a digital artifact in a medium quality rip to me. I could be wrong, I was once, well at least I was told I was..... :sqbiggrin:

Scott
 
A note "trembling"? I think I'd have to hear it to know what you're talking about. That is very odd. A straight rip from original source to CD or 192 (and above) MP3 should not have any discernible difference from the original aside from that caused by compression.

Compression should not cause what you are describing...

I wonder if you could redownload the tracks or contact Amazon about the quality?

When you are paying $.99 for a 256 bitrate MP3 it should be indistinguishable from a CD...
 
I've found it to be very subjective Scott...

Let's face it -- I listen to tube gear mostly at home. I do use Solid State for the work on the software though, because that's what you folks use.

If you take a WAV rip, and send it through tubes, you will mostly get the same thing as from a CD player (unless using a tube CD player -- which has much more headroom and warmth).

Bottom line though -- does it really matter for a DJ rig?

Your noise floor at a gig, is much higher than the noise floor in yer quiet room. People dancing, people talking, etc. One has to consider the end result to the audience, and not just the end result to the DJ's ears...
 
Ed Witles said:
Now to their defense, these are tracks provided by the labels and may be from a 128kb MP3 or studio master source.

For the longest time, while using CDs, I would keep thinking I was hearing things like artifacts or excessive bass to point of distortion. Yet the studio CDs always sounded decent and would put my ears at ease.
Click to expand...

What does "the studio CDs" mean? Store bought, not from subscription services, or something else?

Ed Witles said:
Hero by Enrique comes to mind along with Miss A Thing by Aeromsith.

Has anyone else actually noticed this? What I might have been chalking to ear fatigue might in fact over compressed low bitrate source files.

I was actually thinking of buying - either thru Amazon or from a CD itself some of my 'staple tracks' that sound horrendous.
Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I haven't noticed this. On the other hand, I don't like either of these songs, nor do I consider them "staples" of my collection.

If you buy them, I'd recommend from CD, so you can then take and rip yourself at various bitrates and see if the problems you've found remain or go away, versus the subscription discs. If you do so, please let us know what you find. My guess is: you don't like the production and/or mastering of some songs, and you'll be just as unhappy with them from the CDs you buy - but I could be wrong.
 
scharris_99 said:
Thankfully I have never owned a tube amp!

Scott
Click to expand...

You don't know what yer missing dude :)

The band is literally in front of you! You can hear every voice, every instrument -- and exactly where it comes from.

Whole different world :)


But, it is expensive, and requires lots of maintenance. I just ordered two new speaker cables -- 8 footers. You don't even want to know the price... :sqerr:


On the lighter side -- some people spend more on crack a month, then my cables -- which will last a 100 years :)
 
For anyone interested, here's a description of how our discs are produced directly from our head engineer:

1. The music programmer delivers a track list and various CD sources for compilation.
2. I digitally load (record) each track real-time into the computer so that I can listen for quality control.
3. After each track is loaded I “fix” any anomalies that I noticed during the loading process. Normal occurrences are foul language (sometimes I need to go cleaner than the original radio edit provided), mouth clicks and digital glitches. On the rare occasion, a song intro and/or outro might need to be fixed/created.
This happens when a source provided was taken from an album of continuous material where the song before/and or after it on the original album was blended from track to track without a definable break. On the very rare occasion, some de-hissing might be needed. Hiss is usually created if the song was recorded and/or mixed on analog tape, which is very rare these days.
4. Once the editing is done, I normalize each individual track. Normalization is the process of raising the volume up to digital zero. Since the recording and mastering process is different for each source we receive, the volumes of each usually varies. For this reason, normalization is important to bring each song up to the same volume level. After normalization, I will decrease the volume of each track by 1 db to ensure there is no digital distortion caused by peak overages.
5. Then I place the track marks and burn the master disc.
6. Once the master disc is done, I briefly check it in the CD player for any glitches that might have occurred in the burn process. I also get intro times of each song and check to make sure the CD-Text is there.
7. Then I turn the master over to duplication.

These things that we do are in no way “coloring” or “sweetening” the sound in relation to the overall original mix of the song. We NEVER use compression or equalization on any HitDisc or GoldDisc material. All we do is fix any anomalies that normally would not be there and make sure song volumes and content are consistent with radio standards.
Click to expand...
 
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