List of MP3 sources on CD
Printed From: Top 40 Music on CD
Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
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Topic: List of MP3 sources on CD
Posted By: Brian W.
Subject: List of MP3 sources on CD
Date Posted: 06 March 2012 at 11:07pm
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We have discussed this topic here before, but I thought it would be a good idea to start a list of CDs where one or more tracks are confirmed to have been mastered from an MP3 source. Because I just found out that this is the case with a very surprising title: Varese's "25 Rockin' Instrumentals."
Varese has a reputation for careful mastering, so I doubt if anyone on their end was aware of the situation. But it appears that the track "Honky Tonk (Parts 1 & 2)" by Bill Doggett, featured on this CD with both sides of the single edited together, was mastered from an MP3 source. Look at the images below. This is the track "Honky Tonk (Part 1)" from Ace UK's "Teen Beat Vol. 5": 
As you (barely) can see, the audio frequencies go all the way up to at least 22hz. Now take a look at the same spectral view of "Part 1 & 2" from Varese's "25 Rockin' Instrumentals": 
See how frequencies above 15hz are just cut out? That's exactly what you see in medium-bitrate MP3 (under 256kb). That's part of how MP3s compress the audio -- they just cut out frequencies that are above the range of most people's hearing. I showed this to Aaron, and he agrees, with no doubt: that song was mastered from an MP3 on the Varese CD. I'll add that I checked this on three different copies of the CD, and all are identical. I don't know what happened. Again, I doubt if the mastering engineers knew about this -- I think they were probably sent a digital master by King Records. But it makes me wonder if the other songs on this CD are like this. Or what other tracks out there might be... EDIT: Let me add one more image. This is the Ace UK version of "Honky Tonk (Pt 1)" which I've ripped as a 128kb MP3 with iTunes. See how the spectral view now resembles the Varese CD: 
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Replies:
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 06 March 2012 at 11:27pm
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I'm willing to bet that a good number of the "Now" CDs have mp3 sources. I can confirm "Now 31" and "Now 32" have lossy tracks, as detailed in another thread.
Are we just listing the CDs or the tracks, too? ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 06 March 2012 at 11:30pm
| I thought it would be a good idea to list the tracks, if we know what they are. "Hey There Delilah" was the first one to come to mind. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 07 March 2012 at 9:02am
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Wow. The Classic Sixties Collection 1969-70 (2006, Unversal B0007446-02). EVERY SINGLE TRACK is taken from mp3. That's just sad, poor mastering. ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 07 March 2012 at 10:45am
| OMFG! NO WAY! Unbelievable. What a pain -- now I'm going to have to do spectral analysis on virtually every one of my CDs from about 2003 on. |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 07 March 2012 at 11:06am
| Guys, please continue to share other CD tracks mastered from mp3 here. I sure hope this dubious practice isn't widespread. If it is, I consider it scandalous because I'd have never bought any CDs knowing they were mastered like this. |
Posted By: Ringmaster_D
Date Posted: 07 March 2012 at 1:02pm
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Pat,
Not to create too much extra work for you, but does it make sense to add a parenthetical "mastered from MP3" note in the database for those tracks that we know are from lossy sources? It would certainly add value. I see it as no different than the "mastered from vinyl" comments that are in there now. |
Posted By: KentT
Date Posted: 08 March 2012 at 11:35am
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Keep a list of these dubious discs so listeners are
forewarned. This is sonic Fraud! ------------- I turn up the good and turn down the bad! |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 08 March 2012 at 12:40pm
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Props to Brian for figuring out the sonic signatures from
mp3 compression! The views that he shows in the embedded pictures are from a newer version of the old standby, Cool Edit Pro. (I still use an ancient version of it for my editing, and will likely never change to anything else.) The default view in Cool Edit Pro is the "waveform view", which we're all used to seeing. It's trivially easy to switch to the spectral view that Brian shows - Go to View > Spectral View. I'd think that Audacity or the other editing programs should have a similar view, but I can't confirm. I played a little with mp3 encoding from the old CDex program, just to see if the effects are visible even at very high encoding rates. I took a wav file of one of my needledrops, encoded to mp3, then converted back to wav so I could view it in Cool Edit Pro. I mp3-encoded with "preset insane" option on CDex, which encodes at 320 kbps. The wav-to-320 kbps mp3-to wav file shows the hard cutoff effect that Brian shows, but at 21 kHz. The source file has frequencies that extend to the max scale and don't show a hard cutoff. |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 08 March 2012 at 5:28pm
You may have to at some point. Last year we upgraded the production studio machines at my stations. Previously, we'd used Audition 1.5, but it wouldn't run properly on the new computers. Weird issues where the cursor & timer weren't in sync with the audio being played. Spent way too much time trying to get it to work, finally upgraded to 3.0 and it worked fine. |
crapfromthepast wrote:Posted By: The Hits Man
Date Posted: 08 March 2012 at 10:29pm
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Even the older Audition 1.5 has issues under Windows 7. I
doubt it will even work under Windows 8 very well, if at all. I'd say the best version of AA is 3, even though CS5.5 has a few neat features, plus that it's much faster. ------------- |
Posted By: TomDiehl1
Date Posted: 08 March 2012 at 10:38pm
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I haven't yet had any issues running Adobe Audition 1.5 on my Windows 7 computer..... personally I'd go back to XP if I could, though. ------------- Live in stereo. |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 09 March 2012 at 7:55am
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Props to my "Cool Edit Pro - Special Edition version 1.1",
which appears to have a copyright date of 1998. Still runs great under both Windows XP and Windows 7. |
Posted By: The Hits Man
Date Posted: 09 March 2012 at 6:58pm
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The features in the later versions are indespenible to me.
I'm already using Windows 8! ------------- |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 31 March 2012 at 11:18pm
I think that's a great idea, Ringmaster D. I also conducted a spectral analysis of the remaining tracks on the 25 Rockin' Instrumentals (Varese Sarabande 302066484) and the only other track besides Bill Doggett's "Honky Tonk Parts 1 & 2" that appears to have been mastered from an mp3 source is Billy Joe & the Checkmates' "Percolator (Twist)". I have no idea why mp3s were used for these two tracks, but I suspect Varese received the tracks this way from the licensing record labels and simply never realized these were lossy files. |
Posted By: The Hits Man
Date Posted: 02 April 2012 at 10:57am
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One thing to consider, guys, is that, at least for the
older tracks, the sources may not have been from mp3. The tracks, or tapes they used, simply had a high-pass filter applied to them to eliminate high frequency noise or something. ------------- |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 02 April 2012 at 8:42pm
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Looking at Brian's pictures above, there's no question in my mind that the
track is from mp3...and I haven't even heard it. ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 02 April 2012 at 9:11pm
That cannot be true on the "Percolator (Twist)" track that Todd Ireland analyzed. When I saw it, it not only had frequencies above a certain point shaved off, but it had all the hallmarks of a VARIABLE BITRATE MP3, similar to LAME at, say, the V1 or V2 setting. What I saw (can't post it now, my regular computer is on the blink), was a flat shave-off of frequencies at about 16hz, then higher frequencies at certain points throughout the song. When I get my regular PC working again, I'll post a photo. |
Posted By: AndrewChouffi
Date Posted: 03 April 2012 at 6:00am
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Back to specifically "Honky Tonk (Parts 1 & 2)", people may have forgotton that cleverly edited track surfaced on peer-to-peer networks about a year before Varese released it, so maybe Varese realized they couldn't do a more seamless splicing effort and decided to release it the way they found it. Just a thought...
Andy |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 09 July 2012 at 1:29am
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Just discovered that my Ludacris "Stand Up" promo CD single (DEFR 15907-2) is lossy except for the instrumental:
1. Stand Up (Radio) (lossy source) 2. Stand Up (Instrumental) (lossless) 3. Stand Up (Call Out) (lossy) That's a 2003 single, so they started this sort of thing pretty early. In addition, my promo CD single of "Crank That" by Soulja Boy Tell 'Em AND my commercial import CD single of the same title are ALL from lossy sources. Have not been able to find the 45 version of "Crank That" in lossless format yet, since the album version segues in from the previous track. (Something that should probably be noted in the database.) |
Posted By: Fetta
Date Posted: 09 July 2012 at 8:28pm
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I get most of my new music from Promo Only....Does anyone know if
they use lossy files? |
Posted By: MMathews
Date Posted: 10 July 2012 at 6:56pm
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Hi all,
This is really just an FYI, as i never usually enter these kids of debates (and still don't plan to) but just to add some info, as The Hits Man pointed out, there are other reasons a source may *sound* lossy to a listener. This does mean necessarily it was sourced from a compressed medium. Additionally, spectral analysis is not the instant answer about a source. There has been an extended discussion on the topic - with input from other engineers as well - both on the Hoffman boards and on BSN. I know a few folks here frequent both of those boards. Check them out if you have time. A master tape source of limited freq. range recording can be easily processed to read a false-positive on a spectral screen. Conversely, i know of several ways to take an good mp3 source and have it pass a spectral test easily to fool it. So, point is there is no special one-sized fits all method to determining a lossy source. These results can be inaccurate or misleading. The best tool is still your ears. MM |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 10 July 2012 at 11:04pm
I respect your opinion, Mark, but these are mostly tracks where we have found lossless sources for the identical songs and they look totally different under spectral analysis than the apparent lossy sources. "Crank That," which I mentioned above, is one of those -- it is lossless on the Souljaboytellem.com album, but on both the promo and the import, if you zoom in closely enough to the spectral waveform, you will see whole chunks of data that have literally been cut out of the waveform, like someone took a mini cookie cutter and cut thousands of holes in it. Your explanation is possible, but it's just as likely that the record companies don't care and just send out whatever files, or lose track of which is which. I also would argue against the "using your ears" method, because very, very few tracks can be easily A/B'd at 320kb, and anyone who tells me they can do it the majority of the time has never done it in a blind listening test, in my opinion. |
Posted By: eric_a
Date Posted: 11 July 2012 at 1:52pm
I asked P.O. the same question after receiving a particularly grungy-sounding track on a disc some years back. They said they did not accept compressed files from the labels, but sometimes it was out of their control, i.e., if someone at the label submitted a WAV file that had been converted from MP3. |
Posted By: Jody Thornton
Date Posted: 12 July 2012 at 4:50am
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This should be something that allows for action to be taken against record labels. Because that means these lossy sources will be used for LPs and 12" singles too. And the labels aren't making a good case in trying stop downloads of MP3s. Why would I now buy a compact disc instead downloading an MP3?
------------- Cheers, Jody Thornton (Richmond Hill, Ontario) |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 12 July 2012 at 6:17pm
I very much get the impression that the labels want to get out of the CD business. Their costs remain the same whether a given song sells a million copies or 15, likewise no production bottlenecks in the event of a left-field hit. It doesn't seem that audio quality is a selling point these days...not many audiophiles left. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 13 July 2012 at 9:45am
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Latest SoundScan stats: "CD sales represented 61% of all album sales through midyear, down from 66% at this time last year. Digital album sales accounted for 38% of all album purchases during the first half of the year."
At least for full-length albums, CDs are still outselling digital downloads (93 million units vs 57 million units, year-to-date). Year-to-date singles sales are at 698 million units. When you think about the history of recorded music, though, a high quality mp3 far exceeds the sound quality that most consumers have had in years past. Vinly only sounds better than mp3 when you have expensive equipment and a copy that is in great condition. Cassettes have never sounded amazing, even when played on a good deck. Furthermore, most people can't tell the difference between an mp3 and a lossless CD. That's not to excuse the carelessness of putting a lossy file on a factory-pressed CD, but as Brian points out, it's very, very difficult to hear a difference at 320kbps. Unless it was a glaring quality issue, the mastering engineer may not have noticed. ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: KentT
Date Posted: 15 July 2012 at 3:27pm
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I can hear the difference on Bill Doggett/Honky Tonk Pt 1 and Pt. 2. Why do you think I play my old 45 most of the time I want to hear it? ------------- I turn up the good and turn down the bad! |
Posted By: The Hits Man
Date Posted: 16 July 2012 at 1:05pm
I take great issue with that. ------------- |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 16 July 2012 at 3:13pm
My 320kbps mp3s are WAY better sounding than any 45 I listened to as a kid, which were all played back on a cheap turntable. I never had a great sounding turntable until I invested $600+ as an adult. By contrast, I can hook up a $40 iPod shuffle and play 320 mp3s on my nice stereo receiver, and they sound excellent. ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: The Hits Man
Date Posted: 16 July 2012 at 4:57pm
I can hear the difference between a record and an mp3. ------------- |
Posted By: NightAire
Date Posted: 16 July 2012 at 6:12pm
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...On a cheap record player? ------------- Gene Savage http://www.BlackLightRadio.com - http://www.BlackLightRadio.com http://www.facebook.com/TulsaSavage - http://www.facebook.com/TulsaSavage Tulsa, Oklahoma USA |
Posted By: Jody Thornton
Date Posted: 16 July 2012 at 7:13pm
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See this is what I find odd since the LP started making a modest return back in 2007. And keep in mind, I love vinyl and traditionally hate digital. Having said that, I find that a top flight "uncompressed" compact disc and an equal quality LP will likely sound more similar than different on top end gear.
I find that in the 80s (and keep in mind that not all of us had terrible equipment back then), that audiophiles were more honest about the limitations of the LP, even on good equipment (wow and flutter, sibilance, mistracking, end of side distortion, surface noise and wear). Now in the 2000s, since the LPs' Comeback, we all seem to accept that LPs are better than CDs (when in fact, single play audiophile CD Players have improved immensely from second-generation players in the 80s). And new turntables aren't what mid-priced stuff was then. Back in the mid-80s, wow and flutter never rose much beyond 0.05% WRMS, whereas now, Pro-Jects, Music Halls and Regas typically spec around 0.1% or higher - specs I would expect to find on an idler-wheel Dual 1019 model from 1971. So if the analog equipment wasn't what it was in the 80s, yet CD Players (good ones I mean) are better, where do we get off saying vinyl is clearly better than CD? I mentioned this on the AudioKarma forum some time back, and I was flamed beyond belief for stirring up hate towards vinyl. Hmmmm...let's see, I have a handful of rare CD singles, but I have 5,000 analog discs - I don't think I hate vinyl. But it seems that analog's revival is creating a "bandwagon" effect. When in truth, there are great and horrible LP pressings, and great and horrible digital discs. And modern day LPs are being made on many occasions from the same compressed masterings that are being used for CDs. So where's the benefit. I can admit that my love for all things analog is a sentimental one. I would like Night Aire to tell us why an analog disc played with a record changer, using a ceramic cartridge in 1980 would sound better than a 320 kbps encoded MP3 in 2012. I'm sure you can tell the difference, but would a rumble-laden playback with rolled off highs and improer RIAA EQ sound better than a high bitrate MP3? ------------- Cheers, Jody Thornton (Richmond Hill, Ontario) |
Posted By: NightAire
Date Posted: 17 July 2012 at 1:55am
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Jody, you missed my question mark, I think. I was questioning whether The Hits Man could hear a (positive) difference between vinyl on a run-of-the-mill turntable and a 320 kbps mp3.
I'm absolutely with you: vinyl is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to bring up to the fidelity of all but the smallest of mp3s. As you mentioned: bad pressings, tracking distortions, wow, flutter, rumble, surface noise, clicks, pops, cue "burn," skips, worn needles, etc. etc. etc. I was finally, reluctantly, convinced that vinyl COULD (barely) sound better than even a 16-bit CD a few months ago, but the conditions have to be PERFECT: extremely stable, extremely low noise turntable, expensive cartridge, new or nearly-new needle, premium tube pre-amp, excellent pressing, mint vinyl, no scratches or dust... The effort it takes to make a record sound even AS good as a CD is ridiculous. I remember the first time I heard a CD. I couldn't believe it! The noise floor seemed bottomless!! I'd never heard such detail in my recordings. The highs were so sparkling & crisp, the bass was tight and clear... it was like taking a wet blanket off my speakers (or in this case, my headphones). The idea that a recording medium that samples the air 44,100 times a SECOND when we can only hear up to 20,000 vibrations per second, can't capture all of the sound is insanity and quite frankly, silly. (The differences I THINK I heard that put this ONE vinyl recording ahead, BTW, may have had to do with the 16 bit sampling rate... however unlikely it is that I could hear the difference between 16 bit [96db noise floor] & 24 bit [144db noise floor]!) More importantly: Even with a perfect pressing & perfect equipment, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I play that record, it MUST sound worse than the time before. There is NO way to avoid this. EVERY time you play a record, the diamond needle wears away a little more of the vinyl from the groove, increasing noise & distortion and reducing high frequency response. I have CDs from 23 years ago, that I've played hundreds of times... and they sound exactly as sharp and as clear as the day I got them... perhaps better, because of the improvements in Digital to Analog converters! MP3s do throw away some of the sound, yes... BUT, it is done based on what isn't missed by the human ear & more importantly, the brain. Research has consistently shown that 256 kbps is indistinguishable from linear digital audio, and 320 kbps is just one step higher in retaining more of the information. The problems come when you encode at 128 kbps or lower, or you use an old or bad codec, or your file is encoded, then re-encoded (especially from .wma to .mp3, or some other codec). The old encoders were not as good as the latest ones, and files encoded twice don't know what it was supposed to sound like in the first place so they're more likely to throw away parts of the sound you DO need to hear. 99% of the preferences for vinyl come from equalization and personal preference. If you like the EQ of the record, you may not like the "flat" sound of the CD, even though it's more accurate to the original studio tape. If the constant low rumble is what you're used to hearing with recorded music, it sounds "wrong" without it. Same with little ticks and pops. There was something always very satisfying about dropping a needle on a record and listening to the "lead-in" grooves... but what came after could never hold a candle to even 160 kbps mp3s today. SUMMARY: Jody, I'm on your side. :) ------------- Gene Savage http://www.BlackLightRadio.com - http://www.BlackLightRadio.com http://www.facebook.com/TulsaSavage - http://www.facebook.com/TulsaSavage Tulsa, Oklahoma USA |
Posted By: Jody Thornton
Date Posted: 17 July 2012 at 7:58am
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Yes Night Aire - I should have pointed the question to The Hits Man. I think the working state of my brain could be summarized with a question mark.
Now I want to read your post...lol. I relate to a lot of your memories (except that my first audition of a CD in 1983 was Ho-Hum, and I think reinforced my view initially about analog "superiority".). In truth I have heard much better CDs since then. ------------- Cheers, Jody Thornton (Richmond Hill, Ontario) |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 17 July 2012 at 10:08am
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I have to agree - I'll take a CD recording over a 45 or LP recording ANY DAY. When a CD sounds imperfect to my ears, I simply adjust the EQ (and sometimes other parameters) and voila ... I have a very warm & crisp recording that sounds amazing to my (and my friends') ears. When I hear vinyl that sounds imperfect (which is 100% of the time), I can spend hours on one song removing pops, clicks, rumble sound, the worn fuzzy sounds (that sound like a well-worn record - even if I've just unsealed the LP and played it for the first time - it amazes me how much of that sound can be there when I've just unwrapped the LP and cleaned it!), removing the light crackle sounds, trying to reduce siblance, and all sorts of other hard to remove sounds that the original engineers never put into the recording, then I also have to hope I have a copy of the 45 or LP where the hole is truly in the middle; otherwise, I get an alteration in speed and pitch that sounds really bad (another problem with vinyl that no one mentioned above.) And that's assuming there are no skips (or repeats) in the record! And if all this goes RIGHT, I still have a recording that I can detect as vinyl - because when I listen on headphones as the song fades out (and I won't fade records early when I clean them up), I can still hear a bit of that "record sound", revealing I've taken this from vinyl and not a CD/tape source. And that's assuming all the worn-out, grungy sound can be removed. Even with the best of softwares, you can only go so far with that specific aspect. And like I said, that sound is already present on sealed LPs. It's not like a pop/click which can (for the most part) be removed fairly easily.
I'd much rather hear a CD (re-EQ'd by me, if need be) than listen to an uncleaned or even well-cleaned vinyl source. I have the best softwares for cleaning vinyl (stuff that Mark M turned me on to). And still, after all that, I'll take a CD source every single time! It's so much easier to add warmth and sparkle to a CD that hasn't been mastered well and has that dull and lifeless sound. |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 17 July 2012 at 10:43am
And what is this software, Gordon? |
Posted By: Jody Thornton
Date Posted: 17 July 2012 at 4:04pm
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Well I will admit that I have heard terrific stuff on both formats. Hey I have even heard terrific pre-recorded cassettes and normally I would not consider that format really audiophile hi-fi (let's discount Tandbergs, Nakamichis and the like - I mean a typical HX-Pro Yamaha, Teac or Onkyo deck as typical higher end cassette performance).
But I must admit that I have heard records well reproduced, though it's possible that what I preferred in the sound were actually artifacts; it's entirely possible. But albums like Jacko's "Thriller" or Steely Dan's "Gaucho" seem to belong on a turntable. I have tended to cite CDs as sterile or almost "too perfect" sounding with no solidity. But in honest truth I have heard some GREAT compact discs. Don Henley's "End of the Innocence" and Heart's "Brigade" were poor LPs (I'm glad I have them because they were hard to find) but in 1989 or 1990, most of the LPs were being cut from dynamically compressed DAT masters, and sounded fully the equal of an FM pop station. These were INDEED better compact discs. ------------- Cheers, Jody Thornton (Richmond Hill, Ontario) |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 17 July 2012 at 8:14pm
| Brian, the software is WaveLab. |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 24 September 2012 at 2:59pm
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Here's a new spectral analysis showing the difference between a lossless file and a lossy one. In this case, B.o.B's "Nothin' On You" single.
Here, I compare the domestic CD single to the iTunes Plus single that I purchased. I inaccurately said in a previous post that the CD single looked like it was taken from the iTunes file. My bad, but it is MUCH harder to tell the difference with an AAC (iTunes Plus) file than it is with an MP3. However, the below links will show the telltale signs: Nothin' On You (iTunes Plus single) http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8312/8021196952_3ec48d5df7_h.jpg - http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8312/8021196952_3ec48d5df7_h.j pg Note the missing spectral information in the iTunes file, indicated by the white arrows. There are "cookie cutter" black chunks missing from the middle of the file, as well as chunks missing from the upper frequencies. Now look a the domestic CD single for the song: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8170/8021190363_61523483f1_h.jpg - http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8170/8021190363_61523483f1_h.j pg The black "cookie cutter" cutouts are not present, and in the upper frequencies there's much more of a gradual fade to black, rather than the sharper edge of the iTunes Plus file. Try opening both photos at the same time in different windows and flip between them... then the difference is really obvious. |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 24 September 2012 at 5:43pm
| Those black voids in Brian's first spectral analysis literally look like missing jigsaw pieces. How bizarre! |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 05 May 2013 at 3:03pm
| You can add Reader's Digest "Jimmie Rodgers Anthology" to the list of CDs that are (apparently) mastered from MP3s. Either that or they did some sort of weird digital rolloff at 18000 hz. There's nothing above that, just black, and the edge has that jagged look that is indicative of it NOT being an analogue rolloff. I am pissed, because that's the only CD source for the 45 version of "Are You Really Mine." But this 18000 hz cutoff is on every song in this set, including the stereo ones. |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 06 May 2013 at 12:10pm
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I really don't quite know what to make of "The Jimmie Rodgers Anthology," the more I look at it. I've tried to recreate the way it looks in spectral view with other songs and haven't quite been able to do it.
I tend to think that perhaps it's some form of digital rolloff at 18k rather than it being sourced from MP3s (and why would it be, after all). Why they would do this, I don't know, unless it's from some sort of noise reduction. I'm puzzled. I wish I knew who mastered this disc so I could ask them, but Reader's Digest doesn't list mastering engineers. All I know is there is nothing above 18k on this CD, and on a normal CD the audio information goes up to 21k or 22k. |