Intrada Soundtrack Forum

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HOLY GRAILS
Twice Upon a Time
Rock & Rule
Sunbow/Marvel cartoon scores (Johnny Douglas)
The Big Picture
Blame It on Rio
An American Werewolf in London/Thriller
The Last Boy Scout
My Science Project
A Brief History of Time
Troy (Yared)
The Withces

Actually lossless has a specific meaning in this sense -- it means that the music wasn't "cut off" at certain frequencies to keep it a smaller size. This is different from the bitrate of the music, that is if it's 44/16 (CD quality) or whatever else. A FLAC file is compressed in a way a zip file is, in that all the info is still there, and can be uncompressed to get a bit perfect copy. An Mp3 however, is LOSSY, in that the high frequencies was cut off to get less info in there, and this info is lost forever.

The format seems really interesting, especially for evolving the listening experience from stereo to 5 channels differently than the lossy dolby digital (isolated music on DVDs) and the less lossy (but still) dts compression (dts Audio CDs). But the DVD-A and the SACD already did that and never found their place in the market, certainly because you had to buy a specifical equipment to read it. The Blu-Ray Audio format is no exception since you still have to buy a Blu-Ray player and a Dolby True HD and dts-HD multichannels decoder (which is not the same as previous Dolby Digital and dts decoder) + excellent hi-fi speakers, in order to fully appreciate the difference.

I don't see how people can be interested in such a technology in a world where people listen to music on cell phones or laptops with cheap speakers and where everyone download/buy music on the internet that is encoded in 128/192/256 kbps, especially when you know that the CD format (a 30 years old technology) presented the music in 1411 kbps (a 10 times better audio bitrate than most of the mp3s files that are commonly listened to today). Very odd days for the music, if you ask me !

Agreed about the claims of musical priority in today's society, but what of the possibility of limited editions for the more audio-inclined? Yes, I realize "everything's limited edition nowadays, now this?", but just as a possibility, would the format still be viable? I find it strange that the push for another superaudio format still continues. I can only assume that this particular case is at the urging of Reznor.

Personally, I couldn't make head-or-tails from what Anakin McFly mentioned, let alone wish hard enough to afford it. But if an HD holy grail should ensue, oh lordy lordy...

_________________
HOLY GRAILS
Twice Upon a Time
Rock & Rule
Sunbow/Marvel cartoon scores (Johnny Douglas)
The Big Picture
Blame It on Rio
An American Werewolf in London/Thriller
The Last Boy Scout
My Science Project
A Brief History of Time
Troy (Yared)
The Withces

As a side question: which previous super format had the best capacity/fidelity?

_________________
HOLY GRAILS
Twice Upon a Time
Rock & Rule
Sunbow/Marvel cartoon scores (Johnny Douglas)
The Big Picture
Blame It on Rio
An American Werewolf in London/Thriller
The Last Boy Scout
My Science Project
A Brief History of Time
Troy (Yared)
The Withces

Technically, the SACD is the only super format to present a different way of encoding the audio (DSD at 2822 kHz instead of PCM 192 kHz (at best) for the DVD-A and PCM 44 kHz for the CD). I have listened once to the Timeline SACD (Goldsmith/Varese) on an excellent 5.1 SACD equipment, and it remains the best hifi sound I've ever heard in my life...

The Blu-Ray Audio is very close to what the DVD-A could be at best (LPCM and PCM 192 kHz), not a major improvement over the 10 years old DVD-A format, except for the compatibility with Blu-Ray players and the digital connection (the DVD-A output was still analogic !)

Does it not ultimately end up in the quality of your speakers?

The closest thing I've ever heard to live, which is the best quality, were the direct to disc recordings of the 80's on the second play. I had a few of them and the quality was incredible with a warmth that CD's or any of this other stuff doesn't have. Something happens in this process of coding. These speaker systems that sell for a few hundred dollars can't compete with my Klipsch Corner Horn System http://www.klipsch.com/na-en/products/k ... -overview/ And if your using headphones or ear buds there is no hope for you. I suffer from poor room acoustics. I wish I could have a studio setting but I can't. Live if performed well is still the best given the new acoustic situations symphonies are allowed to perform in today.

I bought these in the 60's when my Dad and I made the conversion from mono to stereo. Doug or Roger will tell you the homemade sweet 16 for mono recordings was really nice. And a simple to make 30 watt mono amp was all you needed. Once stereo got rolling I bought those speakers a Macintosh preamp and power amp and they still work. All of this in lieu of a new car which is what it cost but it has been worth every penny. I'll have it until I die.


Thomas

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"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance...that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
Herbert Spencer

I wish soundtrack labels embraced the DTS-CD, because they're producing music that was recorded and mixed with a discrete presentation in mind from the get-go. They're the most compatible format around compared to DVD-A or SACD - the latter of which did see a few scores put out, specifically some Goldsmith albums like "Star Trek Nemesis".

While pre-90s scores didn't have discrete or 'split' surround channels (which came into play primarily with Dolby Digital in 1992), they did have discrete left-center-right channels just as current scores do. Some albums like "Star Trek II" have such strong presentations of those original 3-channel recordings that with Dolby Pro Logic processing you can recreate that discrete mix quite well, but most scores are remixed for stereo so it's not always the same idea across the board. That was a case of preserving the original mix and not changing it.

There were a few SACDs I would have loved to hear - primarily "A Beautiful Mind" with all of those discrete pianos in each channel (as the DVD of the film reveals to a small degree under the sound effects) but I was never able to get a SACD player. I do have the "Titanic" score in DTS, and the discrete mixing puts the original stereo album to a great shame and almost makes it sound monaural in comparison, not to mention a far greater dynamic range.

Long story short, it just seemed to me that film scores and the DTS CD would have made for a completely natural fit, both in terms of mixing and in terms of being niche, but without all the expensive compatibility issues...any DVD or CD player with a digital audio out connected to a surround receiver. No special DVD-A player or SACD player - both premium-priced items not commonly available outside of specialty stores.

I've heard that some people actually like - LIKE those compression artifacts in their songs. They like the 'sizzling' sound, though personally I considered it more of a watery sound, but that kind of thing is sickening. I don't go near 128kbps or less mp3 unless it's a podcast with discussion.

192 is a gray area because it can sound like garbage or it can sound like it's actually a higher bitrate than it is - depending entirely on what was used to encode it.

Dolby Digital surround tracks are the same - 448kbps is the standard, but some DVDs offer 384kbps for a 5.1 presentation, and usually it's all-too noticeable especially in the rears - and I like 'aggressive' surround mixes so I often paid extra attention to that.

Few years ago I 'disassembled' my Titanic DTS CD so I could make my own versions of the score with just center channel music (meaning the album has no synthesized choir) and just rear-channel music (meaning the electronic chimes are more expansive and the music has a heavier, wetter sound) and also because I was never happy with how quiet the rears were in relation to the front three channels so I boosted them to match more closely, making it a more immersive listening experience and I also downmixed it into a new stereo CD which was better mixed than the actual stereo CD.

At the same time I never found it - and this is after listening to individual channels and pairs of them - to have any kind of noticeable compression artifacts at all. Like full-bitrate DTS DVDs, the quality was stunning.

It's interesting that DTS-HD Master Audio is quickly taking over Blu-ray, forcing Dolby TrueHD out to a degree. I suppose the benefit of that is anyone who doesn't have the means of listening to the HD audio formats gets the full-bitrate DTS over standard Dolby Digital, though many do have the maximum bitrate it can do, which is 640kbps.

I guess it is my ears then because it just doesn't sound the same to me. I'm probably way too comfortable with my system and should just enjoy it. I've listened to fairly expensive surround systems in homes or at theaters and you can't compare it to the sound Bernard Herrmann use to get from the church he used in England to record or any of many other symphony halls in the world. As an example the sound quality that the original Herrmann phase 4 albums he did for London are incredible. Ask Doug he'll tell you the same thing I am. The original series of Mercury recordings used one mike perfectly placed to reproduce the sound of the symphony orchestra which is why my Dad and I used this one 16 speaker unit to reproduce the sound. As I said the problem is room acoustics.
Thomas

_________________
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance...that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
Herbert Spencer

You know what? I actually don't like listening to music in surround sound. To me, it all becomes about "Hey! That piano was behind me!" It distracts me from the music rather than enhances it. GIve me a good stereo any day.

Sincerely,

Cranky Old Man

Doesn't it distract you from the music to hear the piano on the left or on the right ?
I think that, on the contrary, you pay extra attention to the music when you are able to distinct each instrument. I have re-discovered entirely Titanic in 5.1 : "oh I had never heard that piano... and that flute there... and where does that choir comes from, never heard it before..."