comperic2003 said:

udo said:

It depends on the context.

Analog signals do describe reality better than digital ones.

But analog signals are harder to keep in good health.

Describes reality better? Is reality charicterized by an ever-present backgroudnd of pops and crackles?

You link 'analog' to a certain implementation.

I was stating at a more general, abstract level.

Wide, analog studio tapes with thick magnetic tracks can sound very great, even after 30 or more years. Also analog!

This is independt of the medium's condition. Theoretically and practically, analog is not superior to digital.

It is.

On a proper studio tape (analog!) you need more than a CD to equal that sound quality in there.

Sure.

Depends on the content, the gear, the ears, the location, the person, etc.

We are not talking about individual masterings, quality of equipment, room acoustics or "golden ears," we are talking about mediums.

So I state:

Decent studio tape sounds better than the CD.

The CD can sound better than the properly handled vinyl due to lack of crackles and pops.

(this is not always the case)

comperic2003 said:

jeffreymiller said:

rdhull said:

I'm not sure of this tit-for-tat convo regarding audio clarity is sexy or frustrating.

Can it be both?

How about excruciatingly annoying and full of super human hearing narcissistic bullshit?

You do realise that this thread discusses a HR Audio release? If you think that is all humbug, why don't you just find another thread? No need to insult people here...

TestingOneTwo said:

jeffreymiller said:

rdhull said: How about excruciatingly annoying and full of super human hearing narcissistic bullshit?

You do realise that this thread discusses a HR Audio release? If you think that is all humbug, why don't you just find another thread? No need to insult people here...

just to be fair, yall talking all technical etc are not above reproach or being above our usual prince org insults

you are no better than the rest of us

rdhull said:

TestingOneTwo said:

You do realise that this thread discusses a HR Audio release? If you think that is all humbug, why don't you just find another thread? No need to insult people here...

just to be fair, yall talking all technical etc are not above reproach or being above our usual prince org insults

you are no better than the rest of us

speak for yourself, but i'm better than all y'all motherfuckers!!!

unique said:

rdhull said:

just to be fair, yall talking all technical etc are not above reproach or being above our usual prince org insults

you are no better than the rest of us

speak for yourself, but i'm better than all y'all motherfuckers!!!

well, of course YOU are..In talking about these other knob twisting pocket protector wearing glasses held together with tape in the middle audio mugs

I'm surprised no one is talking about what seems to me to be the big news here, which is that Prince has agreed to allow a digital remaster of one of his albums to be released in some format, or at least is not stopping it from happening. Whether this release is better than the original vinyl or the 180-gram reissue seems to me less important than the fact that we have any kind of remaster at all. The previous reissues (like Ultimate) were just re-tweaked versions of the original digital files. As I pointed out above, these tracks have different running times and don't come from the same digital source as the original CD. THAT is the big news.

Has 1999 been taken down from the HDtracks.com?

electricberet said:

I'm surprised no one is talking about what seems to me to be the big news here, which is that Prince has agreed to allow a digital remaster of one of his albums to be released in some format, or at least is not stopping it from happening. THAT is the big news.

If that is true then yes, it is big news.

blacksweat said:

Has 1999 been taken down from the HDtracks.com?

No, it's still there.

rdhull said:

blacksweat said:

Has 1999 been taken down from the HDtracks.com?

No, it's still there.

Thanks. I see it on the front page, but when you click on the image, it says it's not available.

rdhull said:

electricberet said:

I'm surprised no one is talking about what seems to me to be the big news here, which is that Prince has agreed to allow a digital remaster of one of his albums to be released in some format, or at least is not stopping it from happening. THAT is the big news.

If that is true then yes, it is big news.

I've already predicted in other threads that there will be a big Purple Rain deluxe box for the 30th anniversary next year. This could be the first sign that a deal has been worked out to make that happen.

harbars said: blacksweat said: rdhull said: No, it's still there. Thanks. I see it on the front page, but when you click on the image, it says it's not available. that's because these bandits use IP Address to determine your location and if they don't or can't sell to that location the item is shown as unavailable. you can get around that by using a proxy service.

Thanks!

How do you delete shit on winamp? for some reason I have 2 compies of albums one full the other blank. No i can't find a delete option an hate seeing those damn empty albums.

it's probably right in front of my eyes though haha.

[Edited 3/28/13 23:11pm]

purplemajesty23 said:

How do you delete shit on winamp? for some reason I have 2 compies of albums one full the other blank. No i can't find a delete option an hate seeing those damn empty albums.

it's probably right in front of my eyes though haha.

[Edited 3/28/13 23:11pm]

in the winamp playlist highlight what you don't want and press your delete key or right click and see if remove is there

unique said:

purplemajesty23 said:

How do you delete shit on winamp? for some reason I have 2 compies of albums one full the other blank. No i can't find a delete option an hate seeing those damn empty albums.

it's probably right in front of my eyes though haha.

[Edited 3/28/13 23:11pm]

in the winamp playlist highlight what you don't want and press your delete key or right click and see if remove is there

So they cound albums as playlists?

purplemajesty23 said:

unique said:

in the winamp playlist highlight what you don't want and press your delete key or right click and see if remove is there

So they cound albums as playlists?

i'm not sure what you've done really. i just play a song or album, i don't import stuff in like itunes. you've maybe dragged and dropped and included both the files and a playlist file like a m3u file so it shows the album twice. itunes does that anyways

[Edited 3/29/13 5:53am]

[Edited 3/29/13 5:54am]

KlyphIsBackAgain said:

ufoclub said: comperic2003 said: Except the three format versions available for The Beatles Love album all had significantly different dynamic range values, so, your example is not valid. Regardless, I would not consider you, or any naysayers of audio science, "CRAZY." Misguided and ignorant? Yes, but not "CRAZY." Are you are unwittingly confirming what I'm saying? "all had significantly different dynamic range". Because that is exactly what I'm saying. 16-bit CD has a theoretical dynamic range of about 96 dB, 24-bit digital audio calculates to 144 dB dynamic range. Yes, theoretically, but i can almost guarantee even the the 24-bit version had nowhere near that range, and it wouldnt have even maxed out the range of 16-bit audio. There is no way to tell what was done to the CD version of the album in comparison to the 24-bit one. You say its the same master, which is possible, but for all we know Dynamic Range Compression could have been applied to it. The most accurate way to do a double blind is to take the highest resolution source you can find and then make straight rips in lower res from it. Then you know for sure that the source is the same. Ive done this several time with SACD's that I knew sounded "better" to me (Thriller was the last I did). I made 16-bit 44.1, 320 Lame mp3, 256 m4a & 192 mp3 rips from 24-bit .dff files (yes, I had to make flac versions first. I know, I'm "loosing the benefits of DSD blah blah blah!) and the only one i could immediately spot was the 192. Could not distinguish between the others. The parts that i swore i was hearing in the SACD for the first time were right there in the 320 & the 16-bit. I was hearing them for the first time though..... because it was a different master than i was used to hearing for the past 20+ years.But i do want the 1999 album from HDTracks, just to see if it is a new master.

[Edited 3/29/13 5:53am]

[Edited 3/29/13 5:54am]

The only parts of the sound that jumping from 16 bit to 24 bit effect within human perception are the quiet moments or the fade outs. CD 16bit quality in quiet parts might not be considered as bad as the degrading sound quality you get towards the inner grooves of vinyl records (as the curve gets more extreme), but that is where CD's can get a bit rough on the sound. For example listening to the higher resolution version of George Harrison's demo for "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" where it is just his vocal and an acoustic guitar sounds DRAMATICALLY more live and present on the the higher bit version.

But that is only about BITS, which which can be thought of as resolution of wave amplitude (volume).

Now the 96 or + hz advantage is probably only in the natural harmonics and unpredicable collisions that might result out of your speakers that can effect the frequencies in the limited perceptive range. This could result in more natural and lifelife changes or "defects".

Someone here could test this for themselves by bouncing down some originally produced full layered type music at a high frequency sampling of 120 and then at a lower like 44.1, and then listening to the two results on great speakers, or great headphones.

The other day I was playing the mono remaster of Sgt Pepper, and clearly heard where the dog whistle is laid in before the inner groove loop (it must have been a whistle that had part of it's voice still in human range). A friend of mine could not hear it, even if I rewound right to it. But it sounded exactly like the high pitched whine that an old analog tv makes when it is still on with no signal and no static. My point is: that not everyone even has the same range of hearing.

[Edited 3/29/13 7:52am]

^ typically people's hearing changes not long after they turn around 20 and can keep changing through age. it's the high frequency range that is usually lost

in the uk there are gadgets used in places like shopping malls that emit a high pitched sound to prevent youths from gathering, and there are also high pitched devices used to keep insects away. i know someone who has one of those and i can hear it when it's on as i have excellent hearing. i can also tell the difference between things like dolby digital (DD) and digital theatre sound (DTS), and stuff like dolby B and C and tape hiss drove met nuts

but others simply don't notice these things, or they overlook it naturally, so they don't care so much about hissing and crackling and pops and rumble and mains hum or earth noise, and that accounts for most people, which is why being a true audiophile is very much a enthusiasts pursuit, and why LCD tv's have speakers that sound as flat as the screen. as an AV enthusiast and audiophile, my main screen has no speakers at all. the panel comes without them as default and there are a number of different speaker and stand/mounting options for the customer to pick, but as it's a high end product aimed at the top end of the market, they know most people won't use built in speakers and have a seperate amp and speaker package. but hit the lower end of the market and few people will watch a movie or tv on anything other than the built in speakers and uncalibrated panel, probably still stuck in demo mode with retina burning contrast and colour

KlyphIsBackAgain said:

Don't know WHY my posts are being formatted all screwy!

See http://prince.org/msg/3/395030

ufoclub said:

electricberet said:

Prince did say at one point that he gets his masters back after 30 years. That would mean 1999 is his now. Perhaps it's an experiment to see how much revenue he can make through distribution on HDTracks?

Anyone who believes record companies are just going to hand over the rights to those recordings needs to wake up.

rdhull said:

purplemajesty23 said:

My only problem with this release is really just a problem on my end when I think about it. I just don't have a media player on my computer that plays flac (which I'm sure is the best way to enjoy this release).

Sigh... There are FOUR formats to choose from. Is it really that much trouble to spend a little time investigating which one is best for you, especially considering that there are helpful guides all over that website? Is simply READING now too much to ask?

unique said:

well on the basis you are using windows, winamp is what i have used since the 90s as it can play the most amount of audio files, you can get all sorts of plugins, it's small, it's free, free of bloat,

Winamp has been rubbish for aeons. Look for foobar2000, developed by a guy who actually wrote Winamp before it became crap.

unique said:

housequake82 said:

This is as close as you are going to get to vinyl sound. I think this sound so much better. I do have a pretty good stereo at home though. I would purchase these alone just for the better mastering quality than the cd. I bought the 96khz/24bit wav. I am going to archive this on a dvd-a and listen to it through that means. I did down convert the files on itunes to 320 vbr at 48khz/16bit and they sound far better than the cd rips that i had before. Highly recommended.

but some people don't want a sound close to the vinyl sound, but close to the sound recorded in the studio that appears on the master tapes

I'm sorry but that is nonsense. That sound in the studio gets played through very expensive speakers, and even then it is not the final stage, since then a record still needs to be mastered.

CDs get a bad rep because initial CD mastering simply wasn't that good, both due to the hardware used and the inexperience of the people doing the mastering. The medium was simply too young, and only after many years CD mastering became "grown up".

In the end we can only hope to approximate what an artist meant for us to hear when he put something on tape (or HD). Higher bitrates get us closer to that goal, but in reality it is an unobtainable one since each of us has a particular ear.

BartVanHemelen said:

unique said:

well on the basis you are using windows, winamp is what i have used since the 90s as it can play the most amount of audio files, you can get all sorts of plugins, it's small, it's free, free of bloat,

Winamp has been rubbish for aeons. Look for foobar2000, developed by a guy who actually wrote Winamp before it became crap.

now that's rubbish

winamp has not been rubbish for aeons. whilst you may prefer foobar, i and plenty of others don't. it takes up too much screen space when vieweing a playlist