In article ,
Rob wrote:
Where on earth do you get hold of the notion that people (men?) who
listen to classical music are 'more intelligent and canny' than other
music genre followers?!

Given that pretty well all pop music is heavily processed *after* the
studio etc recording to make it sound as loud as possible - and this
apparently helps sales - it would be fair to say the average pop listener
has little interest in quality. Most classical music lovers would be
horrified if the same techniques were applied to that. And would return
the recording as unusable.

--
*If at first you do succeed, try not to look too astonished.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Don Pearce wrote:
On Mon, 9 Feb 2009 13:50:07 +0000,
(D.M. Procida) wrote:

Since the CD there has not been a single development that has improved
the sound, so none has been widely adopted by the classical listener.
I think that the convenience of the CD, rather than its sound quality,
has been the major factor in its success. I don't think people are that
bothered about sound quality on the whole.


Probably true for a large part of the market, but not for those I was
talking about.

d
I suppose this is one of the issues that made me ask about the future.
It seems that the way people listen to "classical music" , for want of a
better term, do so in a different way and are being left behind by a
technology that, understandably, caters for the mass market. The way
that mp3 treats sound quality, divides music into 'songs' with silences
between, and catalogues the result (in my experience)makes it a poor
choice for those listeners. I don't think that the CD will survive much
longer, and while I'm sure that "something will turn up" I'm not sure
what it will be.
Roger Thorpe

Don Pearce wrote in message news:4993241d.404931515@localhost...

On Mon, 9 Feb 2009 07:37:54 -0500, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

It is pretty much impossible to compare CD to SACD. You will hear
differences, but they are nothing to do with the medium, but rather
the mastering of the recording. SACD releases are, I'm afraid, rather
closely associated with the "smiley face" eq curve which places
greater emphasis on extreme bass and treble. The result is a sound
with a little more fizz and thump which can in the short term sound
better - it soon gets tiring though, I'm afraid.

A relevant comparison that is easy to do, which involves playing a SACD or
DVD-A. Intermittently and under listener control t a device is inserted
that transcodes the "Hi rez" data into CD format. This has been described
in
at least two AES papers, and the result was that experienced listeners
could
*not* detect the insertion of the transcoder in a blind test.

Yes, I know that one - one can also record the line out from the SACD
player onto a CD with similar results provided it is done well.

Or, one can switch a reasonably high-quality ADC/DAC pair (one example
would be M-Audio's "Flying Cow") in and out of the signal path in real time.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ item 220354041443, for example.

Neither is a trivial matter for a quick home test by the non-technical
though.

Unfortunately Don, that doesn't keep people you and I talk to every day from
thinking that they are experts in the matter. I give points to people like
the OP who at least showed some awareness of the limitations of such
evaluations as they have done.

"D.M. Procida" wrote in
message
...

Since the CD there has not been a single development that has improved
the sound, so none has been widely adopted by the classical listener.

I think that the convenience of the CD, rather than its sound quality,
has been the major factor in its success. I don't think people are that
bothered about sound quality on the whole.

That seems to be "revealed truth" in the hate-digital Luddite backwaters of
the audio world. It's an out-and-out falsehood. I was just reading one
commentator who pointed out that approximately 188 million iPods have been
sold to music lovers, with negligable favorable impact on the circulation of
the high end ragazines.

We are entering the post-CD digital era and a few noisy 10's of thousands
are still fighting for the resurgence of the LP and analog tape and against
CD. Talk about tilting at windmills!

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
Given that pretty well all pop music is heavily processed *after* the
studio etc recording to make it sound as loud as possible

Depends what you call pop music. Chart bound maybe ;-)

- and this
apparently helps sales - it would be fair to say the average pop listener
has little interest in quality.

Should be banned from the BBC. Close down Radio 1!!!

--
Adrian C

Arny Krueger wrote:

"D.M. Procida" wrote in
message
...

Since the CD there has not been a single development that has improved
the sound, so none has been widely adopted by the classical listener.

I think that the convenience of the CD, rather than its sound quality,
has been the major factor in its success. I don't think people are that
bothered about sound quality on the whole.

That seems to be "revealed truth" in the hate-digital Luddite backwaters of
the audio world. It's an out-and-out falsehood.

Goodness me.

Can you tell me (without informing me that I'm a lying, hating Luddite)
why you think that it's not true that most people are not very bothered
about sound quality?

Daniele
--
Thanks to a non-paying bidder, the world has an amazing second chance
to own a nearly immaculate BMW C1 (Cardiff, UK). Lucky world!

http://search.ebay.co.uk/220356804658

"D.M. Procida" wrote in
message
...

Can you tell me (without informing me that I'm a lying, hating Luddite)
why you think that it's not true that most people are not very bothered
about sound quality?

One very big reason is that since CD's became popular and widely available,
music lovers were no longer limited to the problematical sound quality of
vinyl LPs and analog tape. Sound quality at previouisly unobtainable levels
became common and cheap for consumers.

What people do with digital media is up to them. They no longer can blame
the limitaitons of the media.

I can tell you from living in one of the Great Lakes states that having a
plentiful supply of good, fresh water makes people very indiscriminate about
water. The same applies to sound quality.

Arny Krueger wrote:

Can you tell me (without informing me that I'm a lying, hating Luddite)
why you think that it's not true that most people are not very bothered
about sound quality?

One very big reason is that since CD's became popular and widely available,
music lovers were no longer limited to the problematical sound quality of
vinyl LPs and analog tape. Sound quality at previouisly unobtainable levels
became common and cheap for consumers.

No, that is an *assertion* that CD succeeded as a medium chiefly because
of its superior sound quality. I'm aware you think that. I was asking
*why* you think that.

I think that CD succeeded mostly because CDs were more convenient than
the existing alternatives: easier to store, play and look after, more
durable, and so on.

I don't think that they succeeded because of superior sound quality,
because all the evidence is that before and since the advent of CD the
vast majority of people are quite evidently happy listening to
appalling-reproduced sound, whether it's coming from over-driven PA
systems, badly-tuned radios, scratched records and rubbishy record
players, warbling cassettes or hideously-compressed MP3 files.

On the other hand, most people are fairly quick to ditch less convenient
systems when more convenient ones appear.

Daniele
--
Thanks to a non-paying bidder, the world has an amazing second chance
to own a nearly immaculate BMW C1 (Cardiff, UK). Lucky world!

http://search.ebay.co.uk/220356804658

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Eiron
wrote:


One annoying thing about MP3 is that files cannot be seamlessly linked.
As many of my albums do not have a period of silence between tracks I
prefer not to have one inserted by the player. The only solution I have
found so far is to copy a time range spanning the required multiple
tracks from the CD using Goldwave or similar.

I can't see any inherent reason why it is impossible for playing devices
to
play sequential mp3 files with no gap. Presumably the problem is that none
of them bother to do so as the designers/programers presume 'tracks' and
'songs' not movements or sections from a longer work where they may be no
gap in the music.


I'm sure you are right. Windows Media Player irritates me considerably by
calling all audio segments "songs" regardless of whether they are in fact
songs, or whether they are orchestral music, talking books, speech radio
downloads, or anything else.

David.

"D.M. Procida" wrote in
message
...
Arny Krueger wrote:

Can you tell me (without informing me that I'm a lying, hating Luddite)
why you think that it's not true that most people are not very bothered
about sound quality?

One very big reason is that since CD's became popular and widely
available,
music lovers were no longer limited to the problematical sound quality of
vinyl LPs and analog tape. Sound quality at previously unobtainable
levels
became common and cheap for consumers.

No, that is an *assertion* that CD succeeded as a medium chiefly because
of its superior sound quality. I'm aware you think that. I was asking
*why* you think that.

I've got ears and 37 years of experience listening to LPs and analog tape
because there was no viable option.

Not only that, but I was around to see how high end audio dealers and
ragazines fabricated the myth of LP sonic superiority let alone parity, and
CD acceptance based primarily on convenience.

I think that CD succeeded mostly because CDs were more convenient than
the existing alternatives: easier to store, play and look after, more
durable, and so on.

OK, so you bought the myth.

I don't think that they succeeded because of superior sound quality,

Yet, that is their most obvious attribute.

because all the evidence is that before and since the advent of CD the
vast majority of people are quite evidently happy listening to
appalling-reproduced sound, whether it's coming from over-driven PA
systems, badly-tuned radios, scratched records and rubbishy record
players, warbling cassettes or hideously-compressed MP3 files.


Your account of the evidence leaves a lot to be desired.

Here's what really happened:

Prior to the advent of the CD, just about everybody tolerated listening to
appalling-reproduced sound, whether it's coming from over-driven PA systems,
badly-tuned radios, scratched records and rubbishy record
players, and/or warbling cassettes.

Even those of us who knew better and had better, were still inhabitants of
the real world, and that was how things were and are. Much of the time the
sound quality that we suffer with is way outside of our control.

The CD made two important changes. They have pretty well banished rubbishy
record players, and/or warbling cassettes. We're still often stuck with
appalling sound from those other sources.

CDs also raised the bar on recorded sound. Before the CD you were stuck with
all of the well known sonic failings of LPs and analog tapes, even when
played on the finest players around. Now we aren't.

Life has even changed life inside cheap music players. Inside each and every
one of them, there is generally a really y good analog music signal at the
inputs to their amplifiers. Better than that from any LP or analog tape,
given a good recording. That's why transports designed for boom boxes can
end up in $3,000 CD players. After that, it may be downhill fast. But you
can't blame that on the CD.

CDs didn't help the crappy speakers and amps on many boom boxes, cheap table
stereos, and poor PA systems. CDs did not tune the badly-tuned radios. It
would be unreasonable to expect that they would.