CD Sound Quality

Hello Comrades

I am unashamedly a lover of pop and dance music  (so smack me!)...

The downside is.. im so often disappointed by the dreadful production.. On a bad day i think, goodness, why did i buy this great sound system when it just makes the sound quality even worse by amplifying how badly a CD was produced.. Point in case Kate Ryan "Electroshock"  (a Belgian dance artist)..

Jazz sounds lovely, as does classical but dance music sounds rubbish.... is it my Beolab 9's or is it just badly produced CDS.. I presume its the later (Kylie sounds just fine..but Im over her..)

Comments? Other than start listening to some good music???!!!

 

David

Hi David!

I havn't heard the BL9s BUT i've heard many B&Os and i've also worked in dance music radio since 1995!

From experience, i'd say it's B&Os fault here. They are a flat sounding maybe as some put it 'natural' sounding manufacturer. I recognise the B&O sound it's kind of warm. It's very Radio 2!!! This sounds great as you've pointed out with jazz, classical BUT as I found a little dead. lifeless with dance. Again, this was is my kind of music too.

Their systems are refined! A bit Prince Charles like! It's a bit like when he tried to breakdance and didn't quite pull it off!

Some may argue that today's music is produced for the headphone / MP3 music. Maybe, but it still does indeed sound great!

I think Seanie would agree with me also on this. I'm not knocking the sound - it's neutral but dance music needs a little more oooooomph!  A system that's a bit more Prince Harry than Charles!

What I should emphasize though is if you love music, look beyond the production values and enjoy the music...

I would point to the CD production (and to be clear here, I mean the actual recording, not the player) - we have discussed the "loudness" war several times on this forum, very few modern music releases have natural dynamics and most are compressed (in the amplitude sense rather than the digital space saving sense) to death in order to maximise rms "volume" off the CD. The end result is a recording with no dynamics (difference between quiet and loud) and, typically, clipped to death. This can be easily seen by ripping a track into any decent audio editor.

The net result of the above is that the music is very difficult to listen to over any period of time - common adjectives describing such recordings include "harsh" and "tiring". Some producers have spoken out against it and hopefully if will go away in the future as the fashion fades and new music or reissues will again be mastered by a more sensistve pair of ears.

Your system is fine - well recorded, lively music will sound just that - a loud, distorted, flat mess will sound very poor.

 

What a pile of rubbish ..... Just kidding ,

there is no good or bad music, just personal preferences,but I have to say  (all hardcore B&O including myself - look away now! ) )

As long time AV enthusiast and back at the day DJ I wouldn't even attempt to use any of manufactured speakers for my venues and build them myself to specific requirements. Some of the aspects are down to basics of physics and limits of drivers in producing waves at given frequency (Yes we did measured perception of people to sound 20-20000Hz is out of physical reach of most humans, hence irrelevant whatsoever)  I used to work as AV instructor in HI-Fi club and designed & build many systems (speakers in particular) what with entered national competitions back then Now I'm just old grumpy man - therefore don't think that the little bands in our devices are good enough to respond to the stream of 010101 and play to our liking (is it working like that, right?)

Something like Technics RS7000 would do the job nicely and do B&O's sound "flat" yes they do and are they better speakers or systems for that matter out there - of course they are! And finally are CD's crap these days - of course they're the sound is digitalized and than again converted into electrical audio waves (obviously the quality of this process would depend on coding and decoding) = I would go as far as present if you remember reasons given for ruling out analogue TV - exceptional quality and so on - sorry but on analogue I never had bunch of pixels instead of picture and high pitch squeaky noises instead of sound, did you?

Being Music "lover" and B&O enthusiast mustn't necessarily go hand in hand and us whom collect and enjoy them do that for many different reasons & many are very happy with the sound they produce.

On personal note Paul W - your analogy to Royals may be a miss to many unaware of "break dance attempt" of certain royal ;)

Peace

bob

Paul W:

Hi David!

I havn't heard the BL9s BUT i've heard many B&Os and i've also worked in dance music radio since 1995!

From experience, i'd say it's B&Os fault here. They are a flat sounding maybe as some put it 'natural' sounding manufacturer. I recognise the B&O sound it's kind of warm. It's very Radio 2!!! This sounds great as you've pointed out with jazz, classical BUT as I found a little dead. lifeless with dance. Again, this was is my kind of music too.

Their systems are refined! A bit Prince Charles like! It's a bit like when he tried to breakdance and didn't quite pull it off!

Some may argue that today's music is produced for the headphone / MP3 music. Maybe, but it still does indeed sound great!

I think Seanie would agree with me also on this. I'm not knocking the sound - it's neutral but dance music needs a little more oooooomph!  A system that's a bit more Prince Harry than Charles!

What I should emphasize though is if you love music, look beyond the production values and enjoy the music...

 

I'm with Puncher on this one - many CDs are just badly produced and designed to be loud with little in the way of dynamics. Beolab 9s are fine speakers and I cannot ever think of them being flat. I would always make sure they are set up correctly - most seem to be set up in free space mode and then stuck in a corner! It always amuses me that people differentiate between different music types. They all use notes! The ability to reproduce good sound should not really vary on the type of music playing. What may vary is the expectation of the listener. If you want pummelling bass and shreiking highs then one probably needs a non B&O enclosure.

I'm on it with you guys - it used to be good way of checking quality of recording - called linear or direct  (if the sound from record, tape, cd or anything else for that matter was in some aspects unbalanced - it wasn't worth listening to with use of equalisers, or and even Hi-End equipment.

Every thing these days is produced with main aspect in focus = profit (there simply isn't pride or warranty of quality any more... some may say it's to make it cheap - I do disagree, taking into account 2/3 of world haven't got such an issues, but rather simple survival ;)

Peace

Peter:

I'm with Puncher on this one - many CDs are just badly produced and designed to be loud with little in the way of dynamics. Beolab 9s are fine speakers and I cannot ever think of them being flat. I would always make sure they are set up correctly - most seem to be set up in free space mode and then stuck in a corner! It always amuses me that people differentiate between different music types. They all use notes! The ability to reproduce good sound should not really vary on the type of music playing. What may vary is the expectation of the listener. If you want pummelling bass and shreiking highs then one probably needs a non B&O enclosure.

 

in my eyes (rubbish in rubbish out) what you loose at the start of the chain,can not be rescued at the end.

I mean, poor recordings will sound compressed, ,fine on ipods etc but not on a expensive,

revealing playback system,which is main objective,is to reproduce all the information as accurately as possible.

I listened to all genres,and have heard good cds and bad,the speakers in my eyes should not colour the sound at all,you should hear it as the artist intended.

my 2 cents

 

Peter:

Beolab 9s are fine speakers and I cannot ever think of them being flat.

Just nitpicking, for clarities sake, but I assume you mean that you don't think they're  "flat" in the "sounding dead" sense, rather than questioning their frequency response?

Exactly!

butch1:

in my eyes (rubbish in rubbish out) what you loose at the start of the chain,can not be rescued at the end.

I mean, poor recordings will sound compressed, ,fine on ipods etc but not on a expensive,

revealing playback system,which is main objective,is to reproduce all the information as accurately as possible.

I listened to all genres,and have heard good cds and bad,the speakers in my eyes should not colour the sound at all,you should hear it as the artist intended.

my 2 cents

 

Agree..! A lot of todays music is produced to sound good on docking stations/earphones.
Lots of bass and treble -not much detail in the mid-range.
Another 'advantage' by this is that you can't tell as big a difference when converted into mp3, as when a good quality recording is converted.
(and, Yes - a lot of people still do listen to low quality mp3 files...they don't even care about losless/FLAC etc...)
Its more about quantity than quality.

Rubbish guys!!! If you knew the exact quality and standards that go on in our music studios!!! Recording studios perform to an extremely high bench mark and each we try to go even better!

How people can criticise good quality MP3 when just 20 or 30 years ago, people listened to music from the compact cassette or vinyl - scratchy, dusty, wearing out vinyl!  Sorry guys, you can argue as much as you'd like but vinyl sounds NOTHING like the output that I hear from studio masters!  If anything a good 320kbps MP3 or 256AAC iTunes file is as close as any!

Thanks steffen its good to hear you like listening to quality recordings,instead of all this compressed junk out their.Thats why we buy audio equipment in the first place.

I still listen to vinyl through a linn sondek lp12,and have yet to hear the same albums in digital format beat it for sheer emotion and musicality.

Paul W:

Rubbish guys!!! If you knew the exact quality and standards that go on in our music studios!!! Recording studios perform to an extremely high bench mark and each we try to go even better!

How people can criticise good quality MP3 when just 20 or 30 years ago, people listened to music from the compact cassette or vinyl - scratchy, dusty, wearing out vinyl!  Sorry guys, you can argue as much as you'd like but vinyl sounds NOTHING like the output that I hear from studio masters!  If anything a good 320kbps MP3 or 256AAC iTunes file is as close as any!

So You can speak out for every recording studio and every producer in the world..? Great..!

Just because the technology is improving, doesn't mean that the producers are...

And - I was mentioning low quality MP 3 which is still very common on the internet. And that a lot of people don't care.
I can tell you that a lot of people have never even heard of different resolutions of MP 3 - or Losless/FLAC...

The sad thing is Steffen, with regards to MP3 on the Internet is A LOT of great music never actually makes it onto iTunes!!!

A lot of RnB music that we were playing over a year ago has never made it onto iTunes and we are talking big names as well including exclusives from Chris Brown. In this case, the only way to search is scanning that Internet... but, look hard enough and it's often quite easy to find a 320.

Times have also changed on how we listen to music. When I was a child, I remember a neighbour would sit in his armchair every evening and listen to his vinyl - that was his life. Now of course, we listen but we are taking it with us whether we are running to the gym, mountain biking through a forrest, surfing on the ocean or simply driving or commuting on a train / underground. 

Music as now become a part of us rather than us becoming a part of the music as in the 'old days' and I for one are very glad that it has moved with the times.

Most recording studios throughout the world work to an extremely high standard and do demand the best. However, with our ears, what appeals to one listener will not appeal to another and indeed a refined system that plays classical or jazz may not be able to play modern music that well. It probably explains why there are hundreds of different loudspeakers to choose from on the market. Just like suit - I chose a slim fit because i'm sports mad and of an athletic build however, another guy may prefer a more relaxed fit etc - all personal choice. But, I certainly would not say that recording are worse than 10, 15, 20 or 30 years ago in terms of quality.

You're very lucky, most of us would not be able to comment on recording quality when listening whilst running or mountain biking through forests.

Paul W:

I certainly would not say that recording are worse than 10, 15, 20 or 30 years ago in terms of quality.

To quote someone earlier in the thread - Rubbish!!! The Loudness wars are very well documented and the practise has been in common use for over 10 years. Here is a brief article that illustrates part of the practise, but if you want to read in depth just search for "loudness wars" in you browser. You will also find lots of comment from industry leading producers and engineers speaking out against the practise and whats it does to the music.

Peter:

I'm with Puncher on this one - many CDs are just badly produced and designed to be loud with little in the way of dynamics. Beolab 9s are fine speakers and I cannot ever think of them being flat. 

I'll also add - someone else has probably added this but I'm in a rush so haven't checked - that CDs have no equalisation. Download the same tracks via iTunes, add equalisation and you often find they sound brighter and more dynamic, whereas the same tracks from CD sound "flat".

But lots of modern CDs are badly produced these days and it does make me smile when users on this forum tell me they extract tracks (from CD) compression free, forgetting that the source of the badly produced content won't change, compression or no compression! It's all placebo, but makes them happier, clearly ;)

I do agree about vinyl mind you - the distortion in vinyl reproduction is certainly present but is accepted because it sounds nice! I also remember the awful records produced at the end of the LP era - thin warped things - Eddy the Eagle was needed to track some of them.

Comrades..

 

That certainly generated a response!!!! Thanks for the replies.

To be clear, what i was describing listening to a lot of dance music on my beocentre 2 and beolab 9s is: a almost shrieking treble, little mid range and a thumping bass. It sounds 'muffled' and shrill at the same time. The bass response appears fine but mid range almost non existent.

I note no one commented on Kate Ryan, LOL.... I suspect she's not known outside of France, Belgium and the Netherlands.. though had a big hit about two years ago with Ella elle l'a.   I really love dance music and wish it didn't sound so crap on my system  :(

Perhaps i need to start acting my age and just listen to Rigmor Gustaffsson or Grieg.....

 

David

Peter:

I do agree about vinyl mind you - the distortion in vinyl reproduction is certainly present but is accepted because it sounds nice! I also remember the awful records produced at the end of the LP era - thin warped things - Eddy the Eagle was needed to track some of them.

Maybe distorition and all that kind of "features" of vinyl makes it more enjoyable than CD´s ? For example, I prefer to listen my J-M Jarres from vinyl than CD´s, especially older productions witch were first published on vinyl. Dont know if CD´s are in that case bod quality or is there something wron in digitaising procedure?But mostly CD´s sound ok in everyday use, I think.

(Beovox CX100+Cona, Beovox 3000 panel, Penta, S45, Linn Index)

Check the settings on the BL9s. That is exactly what they sounded like to me when I first heard them demonstrated. I went back the next day, switched the position selector to corner, turned off the loudness and flattened the tone controls and they actually sounded quite nice! Not as good as my MS150s, but really not bad!

There definitely was (is) a loudness war that removed much of the dynamic range that could be handled very well by 16 bits of depth. It seems to me some of the older CDs maintained the dynamic range. The average level would be lower for the whole CD since it has to be played at the same level to accommodate the higher levels of later songs. The loudest level and lowest level are fixed, the average levels are not. Just like TVs on a showroom floor may have 'Dynamic' picture setting chosen to help it stand out, some of today's recordings are trying the same thing with compressing the average volume level. "Louder must be better".

But I say that is still and artistic choice. I hope it will be a fad, but I accept it as it is. As was said elsewhere in this thread, the job of the B&O system is to play back the music as recorded, with as little editorializing as possible. The principle of garbage in garbage out is at play. Despite it's warm nature, the B&O sound includes clarity across the frequency range, letting you hear into the recording. Lesser playback systems may mask over the details and make these recordings sound better than they really are. Your system is allowing you to hear the music as it was produced.

Hello

Well interestingly I took the offending CD into B&O to play on one of their systems..

it sounded much better than on mine  :(  It didn't sound as shrill. It didn't sound fabulous,but it was absolutely fine. The 9s sounded nice, the 5s showed up more faults with the recording, which the assistant admitted. I think my B&O store now think Im on the Autism Spectrum.

I did change the settings on the beolab 9s when i got home and set them both to wall, they were on free. I also turned off the loudness setting, turned the treble down to just a few bars (so well below mid way point), bass is now just at midway point. A small improvement. It sounds to be as if the acoustic lens is just too loud.. id like to be able to turn it down just a little to compensate for the fact our room is very bright acoustically.

Its so frustrating that music I love the most sounds the worst on our system.

I imagine the sound is something to do with the room... wooden floors, floor to ceiling glass doors (Ive included a few pics so people get the idea)

So, short of carpeting the room or cluttering it with furniture.. any other suggestions??

David

 

 

Paul W:

 But, I certainly would not say that recording are worse than 10, 15, 20 or 30 years ago in terms of quality.

 

So, why I ask, does a track these days show clipped signals when ripped?

Years ago, more quality cd's didn't have or were made without these clipped audio tracks. 

As I understood, more cd's are gained in volume to impress with more clippings as a result.

 

Hey mr,

I found the same difference with most of the dance music that i have too, most of the time it is the poorer quality of the recordings. Also, your room REALLY accentuates that because it is such a bright (wet) room. Of course as you know my set up is very much the same but in an opposite acoustic environment, and i can honestly say that for me the sound is acceptable even on some compressed mp3s.

*edit* I just read the rest of the thread Maybe you could get someone in to take a look at the rooms acoustics and see if you can have sound deadening panels, carpets and the like, strategically placed.

David Coyne:

Comrades..

 

That certainly generated a response!!!! Thanks for the replies.

To be clear, what i was describing listening to a lot of dance music on my beocentre 2 and beolab 9s is: a almost shrieking treble, little mid range and a thumping bass. It sounds 'muffled' and shrill at the same time. The bass response appears fine but mid range almost non existent.

I note no one commented on Kate Ryan, LOL.... I suspect she's not known outside of France, Belgium and the Netherlands.. though had a big hit about two years ago with Ella elle l'a.   I really love dance music and wish it didn't sound so crap on my system  :(

Perhaps i need to start acting my age and just listen to Rigmor Gustaffsson or Grieg.....

 

David

Your description is right when it comes to a lot of modern music. There is more treble and bass and less detail in the mid-range.

Sometimes I have to turn down the bass -as it simply gets too much when I hear it on my 'big' B'n O speakers.
However -when I listen to the same tracks on smaller speakers (CX 50's or Beosound Century) the 'bass boost' is actually OK...
-and that's the way many people today listen to music - through docking stations/pc-speakers/headphones etc.

Yesterday I listened to some tracks from a band called TV2 that is quite big in Denmark.
Tracks from 10-15 years ago definitely had less bass -while the latest ones (with a younger producer) has much more bass/treble.
And the same goes for a lot of english, american etc. artists...(Not all of them).

Fortunately music has no age. I listen to music from the 70's and 80's -as well as modern pop/rock music.  
And some classic music now and then.
 
I don't know this Rigmor Gustaffsson you're referring to -but I don't even think I want to know her...

Ha.. @Steffan.... Rigmor Gustaffsson is a very lovely Swedish Jazz artist... look her up... some really nice music and beautifully produced!

@ Dave Pyne.... SLAP!!!!!! Good point.. though don't really want my living room to look like Nanas with lots of furniture, pictures on the walls and carpet...arghhhhhhhhhh!! Why can't I have minimal style and good quality sound  :(      Though you may well be onto something.. I'm thinking that green wall in our living room could be green felt or something??? Or maybe some gorgeous sound deadening hangings from the ceiling... I can imagine steel thread and white rectangular bats...................

Maybe I am Autistic after all?

Interesting thread.

I spent some time, a while ago, testing BL9's and found that the mid range was lacking and treble high highlighted with some cd's. The dealer thought I was mad, though the problem was there so I did not purchase the speakers. They are based on the BL1 innards which I have and don't suffer these issues.

My thoughts are that these speakers should perform better than they do in my experience. 

Hope you sort out the problems.

beoaus.

Paul W:

Rubbish guys!!! If you knew the exact quality and standards that go on in our music studios!!! Recording studios perform to an extremely high bench mark and each we try to go even better!

How people can criticise good quality MP3 when just 20 or 30 years ago, people listened to music from the compact cassette or vinyl - scratchy, dusty, wearing out vinyl!  Sorry guys, you can argue as much as you'd like but vinyl sounds NOTHING like the output that I hear from studio masters!  If anything a good 320kbps MP3 or 256AAC iTunes file is as close as any!

It's very sad to read that even a recording studio says that a 320kbit/s MP3 sounds good! This explains all the soundquality issues of modern CD productions!

A few years ago there was an article and research in a german magazine "Elektor" or some of the audio magazines (I can't remeber it exactly) about the fading quality of modern productions compared to older ones.
They've digitaly read out and analyzed the audiomaterial on the CDs and you could clearly see, that the waveforms got louder, less defined etc.

Listen to a high quality CD (no matter which kind of music) and compare it with the ripped file in MP3 format. If you can't determine between the CD and MP3 it's easy:
You don't need a good hifi system with good speakers! :-)

I'm always in a bad mood when I buy a CD and beeing shocked while listening at home when I discover that it's not a good recording.

 

David Coyne:

Ha.. @Steffan.... Rigmor Gustaffsson is a very lovely Swedish Jazz artist... look her up... some really nice music and beautifully produced!

Hmm -she looks good. I'm not that much into Jazz music -but maybe I should give it a try...

beoaus:

 

Interesting thread.

I spent some time, a while ago, testing BL9's and found that the mid range was lacking and treble high highlighted with some cd's. The dealer thought I was mad, though the problem was there so I did not purchase the speakers. They are based on the BL1 innards which I have and don't suffer these issues.

My thoughts are that these speakers should perform better than they do in my experience. 

Hope you sort out the problems.

beoaus.

 

 

 

I went from the BL1s to the BL9 also, and see the thing is that the BL1's have such a prominent mid-range and the BL9's do not. After living with the BL9's and having them in a room that is acoustically appropriate for the speakers, the result is a satisfying and balanced sound. Mid-range no longer sounds lacking to me.