Metal Reviews

So long story short, I got too nosy comparing different issues of Rush albums. They were all MP3's. I set up a frequency analyzer to see what was going on because I was sure this was not the same thing I had heard on CD hundreds of times. I was so appauled at what I saw compression wise, I immediately made a Flac file and compared it.

Every instrument was complete at 20-22Khz no matter how quiet. With the MP3, even my aggressive fidelity saving tactics resulted in NO SIGNAL past about 10Khz on an acoustic guitar, for example with mp3. Nearly everything I downloaded from another source was devoid of anything above 17Khz.

I won't get into the subjective tonal aspects which are more accurate, uncolored and superior on CD. I however don't think the original master's tone being closer to the CD compared to MP3 is a matter of opinion myself.

Digital distortion is a non-issue with lossless. Even really loud stuff like DT's Systematic Chaos were just fine without any gain adjustment.

I remember back when I was in high school. I would devour music for 4-6 hours a day. Since going to lossy digital around 2007 this has pretty much ceased. There were a couple times where I upgraded the quality and I was happy with it for a short amount of time, but eventually my brain would reject the musical information as being incorrect. I busted out an ancient worn out cassette copy of "Moving Pictures" recently and couln't believe how much I enjoyed listening to those songs. The quality sucked, but the information was all there, if that makes sense. I felt like I hadn't heard it in so long desite listening to it a dozen times in the last few months digitally.

So do you guys actually still listen to lossless formats of music? I ask because I just deleted 1000 albums and have no plans to bring them back if all my music has to sound like shit to have that much stuff. The difference was that immediate and profound.

Do you think the rise of MP3 and the (if even subconcious) effects of compression have made the past seem more glorious? No one talks about classic albums from the 2000's and I think compression has a lot to do with that.

I wouldn't ask what sounds better or if there is anything your ear can notice. If someone had to compare, I would ask them how does the music make you feel?

For the *ahem* record I think vinyl sounds mediocre and since everything goes through a digital machine at some point these days, there is no point in it.

Your thoughts?

I listen to cds almost everyday. No idea what a flac ape is tho..

And they are the same thing. Those are just like putting wav files into a zip file.

oh well yes, yes I do listen to them.

Well, I admit I went ahead and googled FLAC and APE cause I had no sweet clue what either was, and the last two posts confused me. FLAC in simple English on wikipedia ftw

Anyways, that said I prefer to listen to cds on a stereo. I still download some albums, but not as often as I used to and I much prefer listening to cds on a stereo instead. I'm not any kind sound techie or anything so really all I can say is that what I rip to my computer/MP3s in general don't usually sound as "full" to me.

I'm not sure how what you've described has affected albums being labeled as "classics" in the 2000s. The only way the rise of MP3s may have affected that is that it's harder (at least for me) to appreciate something I only have on MP3 as a classic. I can still do it, but I like to have the whole thing in front of me. Maybe people have come to appreciate music less because it's become more accessible. I don't know.

The other thing, too, is that the 2000s really haven't been a huge era of breaking boundaries in extremity as of yet (which, personally, doesn't bother me too much. There's already so much to discover from the 80's and 90's anyways). The majority of the 20th century saw the rise of countless genres and sub-genres throughout music, and the 2000s don't have that kind of history. That said, I can think of a few albums that I would call classics from the last decade, though. But I don't think any band has really waltzed in and ripped the metal community a new asshole like was done repeatedly in the 80s and early 90s. Doesn't mean there haven't been some great and even classic albums that have shown that you don't need to reinvent the wheel in order to write a timeless album.

As far as how the music makes me feel. I definitely enjoy the music more in a cd, cassette or vinyl format. If we put it all on a scale, with a concert being one of the best ways to experience music and get that adrenalin rush from it, or just appreciate the music, then I'd say MP3s are all the way on the other side for me. It's hard to get as good a grasp of the album, it's musicianship an atmosphere just by MP3. At least for me anyway, but then I do really enjoy having a physical format in front of me so that might affect my view.

That might not have completely answered the OP, but I'm a bit clueless when it comes to that sort of thing.

That is my point. I would take an 8-track over an MP3 right now. A month ago you couldn't convince me that I would be willing to delete my entire hard drive and redownload 1/3rd of my collection in lossless. You know what is non-ironic? The 1/3rd I'm keeping are roughly the same 1/3rd I bought on CD and listened to originally on the format, give or take 50 albums maybe.

For the first tim in a few years i'm gonna have to bust out the credit card and buy some of the albums I first enjoyed through Mp3. In another ironic twist, I was listening to far more "new" music buying CDs. MP3 just seemed to pile up and I couldn't get through more than a handful of tracks before turning the damn thing off. It would either require a copious amount of alcohol or a primitive urge to hear a certain song to even bother listening to music. I've probably listened to 20 hours of music in the last 3 days.


~100 albums down, 400 left to go...at a shitty american 170kbps download speed...

And now I feel stupid to actually purchase my mp3s (well unless I just want to check something out, in that case I don't. Or if the band is Metallica, of course.).
I feel stupid because not only I'm paying, but for something you tell us being of a subpar quality compared to the actual CD.

Oh, fuck it. My hearing is crap anyway.

(And to answer your initial question : no, my library is mp3-only.)

iPod

I'd like to disperse this rumour once and for all. Unless you are absolutely deaf, the higher frequencies have a drastic effect on the lower ones as a "harmonic series."

Even with piss poor hearing like Pete Townshend has, the high frequencies are what it makes it sound "real" which is why high frequency info is usually the measure of "fidelity." (aka Realism Factor)

My hearing rolls off between 15-17Khz, but I wouldn't even consider deleting anything past that.

I have a Rush 96Khz, 24-Bit transfer of Snakes and Arrows (a whopping 2gigs!) that extends all the way up to 48Khz and I can hear the difference in that even though it does not contain any additional audible frequencies, but that extra octave makes the portion we can hear much more realistic because it "resolves" the sounds more accurately.

I only listen to CD's. I'm technologically stuck in 1998.

I notice distortion and ugly soundingness with 128 or 160kbps mp3s, but everything 192 or higher sounds the same to me. For a couple months I cared about flac but then stopped caring again when I couldn't tell the difference. Also realized that when I'm at the computer I don't pay attention to the music I'm listening to, and if I'm listening to it through my ipod, its sound card probably isn't good enough to make the difference known.

I think the lack of classic albums from the 00s is a) debatable and b) more because they're recent and these things take time. And I listened to crappy quality burnt CDs and mp3s pretty much all day in high school. Free time and no hobbies, fuck yeah.

Jane Doe, Colors, Si Monvmentvm, Frances The Mute, and Blackwater Park are all well on their way to becoming classics, if they aren't already.

Terrifyer, Chinese Whispers, Dead as Dreams, Dopethrone. No one calls these things classics because it hasn't been ten years since any of them have come out. Hold your horses, guy.

I agree with the PtH loving trio. Haven't passed much time to talk about classics of the 2000's. Maybe in 5 years. I'll add Evergrey's In Search of Truth to the list.

I did try this flac thing but it didn't work for me. Downloaded a few albums on mp3 and flac and could not hear the damn difference. I think it's overkill, with the huge size and all, for the average listener.

I rip all my CDs to wma lossless and listen to that at home, and convert those to 128-bit wmas for mobile devices and work. I only listen to CDs when I don't feel like booting up a computer system.

I get your points guys, but I was more referring to the fact that no band that even approaches metal will be mainstream successes in the way that there were 20 classics a year coming out in the 80's. That is systemic of the way the genre isn't mainstream anymore, but then again when something gets close there is no compelling auditory reason to want more for people in my opinion. Metal is tone-rich and thrived in an environment of accuracy that was LP and CD. Metal is in the gutter and has a decline pretty much proportional to the quality of the masters released, much like AOR always faired well when treated like a Steely Dan album and did extremely poorly when half-assed in the mixing room or mastered like shit.

I also wanted to say this "loudness war" thing is mostly horseshit based on the distortion that occurs with lossy files or terrible processing from D/A convertors. After some testing with the 100 albums I have backed up so far only Vapor Trails and Death Magnetic are "clipped" to a degree that it is noticeably detrimental. It is much less harsh and really faint and only intermittent appears on other recordings tested. St. Anger did not sound like it clipped very much and when it did, it sounded like a speaker/microphone breaking up and not digital distortion.

I must reiterate that I have absolutely no fancy equipment. I use the stock 192Khz 24-Bit sound card in my Sony Laptop, a cheap AV receiver with the pre-amp ripped out of it and use 100 dollar Sony's for monitoring. This isn't an equipment thing, believe me.

I will say that having an old 16-bit 48Khz AC 97 based sound card on your computer is not going to sound good. CD Players don't seem to be up to the challenge of keeping up with computers. If you have to have a disc player I'd go with a Panasonic DVD player because it features 20-Bit HDCD.

Ummm metal is not mainstream like it was in the 80s and it's because of sound quality?

Well if you want there is your A7x City of Nightmares or Iowa or whatever. Reign in Blood wasn't mainstream when it came out.

If complete shit like Dead as dreams and Blackwater park are heralded as future classics, then I shudder to think what other bands influenced by those albums will come up with.

WITTR? Krallice? Panopticon? Not really shudder inducing to be honest with you, bro. Real good though? Yeah!