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Chris Malone didn't say the original CD was better, he said it was the easiest on the ears.
He also said that all have their flaws.
The Rhino is certainly not an improvement over the original CD.
The Blue Box is another matter, as Chris Malone said.
When someone hears something I can't hear, I don't think he's necessarily wrong, but I wonder why I can't hear the same.
We can have improvements without any loss.
May well be, then again, according what you just quoted, not necessarily so.
Take noise reduction. No doubt it is an improvement if you remove the noise and hiss inherent in an analog recording, but it comes as a price, so you may choose how much noise reduction (or if any) you use. You choose between less hiss and less ambiance or lots of hiss and lots of ambiance, or aim for something in between, but you can't have both. Unless the technology can remove all noise and hiss but JUST noise and hiss, without removing any of the ambiance. So that's where it gets tricky. Noise and hiss is certainly detrimental to a listening experience, yet on the other hand, yet you can't eliminate it all before it effects other qualities of the music.
I am therefore not offering objective truth in this matter, but my opinion, and to my ears both the Rhino and the FSM sound better than the original CD release of Superman, the FSM CD way, way better.
I don't even know what "easier on the ear" is supposed to mean here.. but it's a usage of words I find at least susceptible in the context of sound quality. But who knows, I might prefer a more sterile sound over one with more hiss, so maybe it's a question of preference, and somebody else might like it the other way around more.
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Ford Thaxton said in another thread :
https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=4&threadID=92795&archive=0
"Here is an interesting fact.
A Vast majority of the world listens to their music in THREE WAYS
a.) While working on their computer through their speakers on said computer
b.) On Headphones for their digital device (iPods,iPhones,etc)
c.) In 'the Car while driving.
Now, as a great man once told me, if it passes the CAR TEST and sounds good there, you are in business."
Yes, may well be, that is why the vast majority of people happily ditched CDs and LPs for MP3 sound and basic Spotify. I thought we're aiming for something else here.
All music pretty much sounds second rate under the above mentioned conditions, makes little difference there how well it is mastered.
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Posted: |
Feb 13, 2019 - 5:47 AM
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By: |
Bus_Punk
(Member)
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Mr Fake’s response to Mr Thaxton’s comments about mastering for car playback:
“I often find myself in agreement with you on stuff but not this time. Reducing the audio quality available on a CD for the environments you speak of (car, boom box, headsets, etc.) is a poor concept and any engineer who masters music using this so-called "Car test" as his or her yardstick for quality is doing us all a major dis-service.
To me, that would be identical to saying that all motion picture studios, be they making a brand new Spielberg movie or restoring a Hitchcock classic, should just reduce the clarity of the picture and the multi-channel audio and squeeze it all down to a low-res product simply because most people end up watching the movies on their laptops, iPads, cell phones and whatever other mobile devices they have on hand while doing chores, talking, whatever.
Music does not have to be poorly mastered to be playable on ANY device. And certainly, while one might argue that hip hop and metal do not require a home stereo environment per se, it is madness to master symphonic music in the lowest possible quality just for the folks who play the music in their cars. That's insanity.
As a final note: my CDs to Battle: Los Angeles and The Expendables and Quo Vadis sound dreadful in my car just as much as they do in my studio. They are just too darn distorted. (My old 1951 10" vinyl to Quo Vadis has less distortion... what's wrong with that picture?)
I like a lot of the work you do. Please, I beg of you, don't defend what is currently a very unfortunate development in audio.
--Doug”
http://intrada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5924&start=15
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I do lots of listening while driving, I have to, since I'm driving a lot. My car has a decent sound system, but obviously, it is no match for a home stereo system. Still, whatever sounds good on my home system also sounds good in my car. Alas, some things that might be acceptable for car listening reveal their limitations when played on a good stereo system. Lots of different noise in a car, and the acoustic qualities of car interiors also leave to be desired, but they may veil some shortcomings of recordings.
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The distortion in the loud passages of Quo Vadis and Conan the Barbarian makes them the two most unlistenable re-recordings I can recall suffering. Beautiful performances, ruined.
Is there any way these could be improved, even slightly, with remastering? Or were they irretrievably botched at recording stage?
I like where you are going here. But that would require them admitting that they screwed up. And they don't seem very interested in that.
Tadlow produced two marvellous recordings of film scores that are widely praised both for their interpretation AND their sound quality. Against all odds, they recorded a full fledged QUO VADIS, which was only available very abbreviated (and in fairly poor sound). I would hardly call that "screwing up", no matter if one peronally likes the mastering the way it is or not.
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I think all of this compression on the bus might be an example of today's engineers keeping up with the Joneses.
One of my favorite pieces of music is Tristan und Isolde by Wagner (who'd of thunk? lol). Though there have been some stellar performances of this opera in the past several decades, the recording conducted by Karl Bohm (with the incredible Birgitt Nilsson in the female lead) is my favorite.
Now, the Bohm recording is something like fifty five years old and sounds it. The reasons I adore it above more recent, more hi fidelity recordings (besides the awe-inspiring performances) is the fact that bus compression wasn't the "thing" it is today (I call it the downside of technology). Same for the Solti Ring, many of the original mid-60s Beatles recordings, etc.
In so many of the modern day recordings of what is probably Wagner's meisterwerk the compression is so obvious...it leeches the blood out of performance and squashes dynamics. Now, this engineering trend actually works toward the good on recordings that emphasize the beat like the majority of Pop (which I mean to include all subgeners like Rap, Hip Hop, Country, Rock/Metal, etc). However, when it comes to music that requires some conscious immersion to get the most out of it, compression defeats the purpose. One of the most thrilling instruments in the solo violin, and one of the reasons for that is its ability to employ so many dynamic range-stretching techniques, including subito (which was a favorite of Jerry G.'s). This, being perhaps the most expressive, dynamic instrument in history, is one of the main victims of over compression. A violin isn't cut out for compression, because it's range is an integral part of its value.
That said, I'm getting more forgiving, for one on the Tadlow Conan the Barbarian, which is a really excellent performance that pays off big time once the compression issue is put aside during the listening experience imo. Yes, the Destroyer is less glossy in that sense, however I personally have come to believe one should most definitely have both; for one reason because I've owned the OST many times (including the Intrada) and come to the conclusion that the original CTB really didn't sound that great to begin with (granted, I believe there were insufferable performance problems during the original film score recording).
Or maybe my ears are just getting used to all the squishy engineering lol!
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