SBAF DAC Talk II

There could be a pattern of people with good ears mis-attributing this to another phenomenon, but on the face of it that's a very very long shot. The likelihood that it is reasonably irrelevant seems high.

Edit: spelling

 

It's really easy to do it yourself if you try that Apple tool I linked to, or if you're willing to write a handful of lines of MATLAB/Octave/NumPy code.

Really feeling the slurs today, huh? "Backdoor boys", "girly-men"? I'm not all that inclined to waste time debating sad fifty-something middle-schoolers.

 

In other words stuff not really worth wasting time listening to

 

This is a fun place, don't be an asshat

 

To prevent further pollution for this thread, started a new thread: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/intersample-overs.7395/

Anybody who want to put some shit, go there.

 

I think what @purr1n is getting at is that are these ISOs audible. Sure I could go and write my own sinc function in ML or use the Apple tool you linked to and then see if there are any ISOs, and there almost certainly will be in certain types of music given how they are mastered. However the question is that are these ISO's audibly relevant when the track is already a mastering clusterfuck?

 

Thats f'ing dumb and untrue. Mastering engineers for the most part are after a mix of the "best sound" (whatever the f**k that means) and making their masters sound good on the majority of systems that music will be listened to on. This means that for the most part, its going to be systems that are

a) Not ideal
b) Inexpensive
c) Don't use Siltech classic grand supreme golden ear reference cables

They have to strike a balance between "good" sound, and the mix/master itself sounding good on the vast majority of systems which again, are not ideal.

Mastering engineers all have their own ideas of what sounds good, sure. That makes sense. However, they are also always on the search for better gear, better tweaks, and better ideas to make their mixes sound better. A good mastering engineer will be open to trying new things, and new techniques.

It f'ing bugs me how "Audiophiles" (and that describes me as well) complain about compression and loudness and dynamic range etc...

Compression is a mixing engineers/mastering engineers best f'ing friend. It just needs to be used wisely, and sometimes, it needs to be used more than the average "Audiophile" would like.

Don't even get me started on the bullshit "hearing what the artist intended" schtick that permeates audiophile circuits...

/rant off

Sorry, this shit has been bugging me for the last little while more than normal and you got the full force rant. I feel better now.

 

If the music is good listen to it. Fucks sake.

 

@ufospls2 I would like to add that the mix/master has to please the client, if the client (record label or indepent group/rapper, etc) wants brickwalled to shit loud and strident sounding album...then that's what the engineer has to do. Sadly, this happens like +90% of the time, thus what you're hearing is what the engineer has been told to do, not his idea of "good sound".

 

In most cases (speaking in terms of mass marketed popular music,) its not even the artist, its the f'ing execs who sign the paycheques. For music that makes money, anyhow. Smaller artist have more input - sometimes

 

Yes, mostly is because of the record label's executives, but not necessarily always. Some independent artists (who, of course, don't have a record label with greedy executives behind), have horribly compressed albums. I have a hard time thinking about a good sound engineer yelling to the band's singer (while pointing at a 1176 compressor with 36 empty coffee cups on top): "all buttons at once, 0 dbFS or your shit won't sound amazeballz you deaf prick".

 

Also harmonics. The strongest harmonic is usually the first at an octave above the fundamental. Then you factor in the frequencies where human hearing is most sensitive and you end up in the midrange.

 

The mastering engineers who mastered CDs in the 80’s and much of the 90’s didn’t produce overly loud compressed CDs. Did they sound like crap? I didn’t think so then and don’t think so now. What changed? Sound quality is not the driving force anymore. The record labels are making the mastering decisions now and loud and compressed is what they want. It has nothing to do with making the songs sound good on the vast majority of systems. It’s about being as loud or louder than other songs.

 

But isn't louder = betterer?

 

wow take it easy, I prefer for it to sound good, there's 2 things that make a great album. Great music and Great sound quality. I try and stay away from brickwalled garbage masterings if I can unless I have no choice. I still won't listen to it much ear fatigue is a real thing.