EMM Labs on Bad Redbook

VVrinc, VVrinc, VVrinc, ...

“If we don't sell it, it must be crap.”

This "blanket statement" would perhaps be a truism, regarding digital, if we ever add the Burmester, Meitner, Ensemble, MBL, Zanden, Weiss, and perhaps the Northstar and Audio Synthesis lines and mods of various others and who knows what else.

Many people *do* try to optimize the sound of good recordings and do not give a care about how bad those bad old recordings sound.

But, oh yes, the topic was whether high-end digital sounded worse than low-end digital playing horrible recordings. I said nay and provided examples and counter-examples. Sorry this offended you.

Later,
-Mike

The Infamously Awful Sounding CD

Mike,

I wouldn't mind if you could list a couple of seriously bad sounding CDs you have. It would be fun to try some of those nasties in my system - I'm sure I could find a copy at the used CD store. Unless, of course, I already own them. ;-)

Regards,

It's true that the EMM Labs won't make a bad recording sound good. But it can open up the dynamics on recordings that sound compressed, just as a good cartridge can do the same for what appears to be a sonically constricted LP.

Hi Metralla,

Well, there are a number of categories:

1. Plain bad sounding CDs (beatles, early pressings of led zepplin, etc.).

2. There are a number of bad sounding CDs whose remastering made them sound better which indicates that it was the orignial pressing/manufacturing that was at fault (Verve early stuff versus their stuff on 20bit, Miles' Sketches of Spain versus the same on DSD, etc.)

3. There is stuff that sounds so much better on vinyl that one must only conclude that the CD must have been badly mastered (led zepplin, dire straits 'brothers in arms' (even the $$$ XRCD pales before the quality of the analog))

4. Then there is stuff that sounds bad on both vinyl and CD that makes one question the quality of the original recording itself (al green, dean martin (yes I like dean martin :-))

AS per the above topic, however, one need but play a CD on, say, our Levinson 390S and then, say, the Audio Aero Capitole - and if it sounds nasty on the first and decent on the second we have a member of the set of bad sounding CDs that can be made to sound better by chosing one's CD player carefully [though, I would personally argue, as I do not beleive all CD players sound the same, that depending on the choice of the first CD player, in this case the levinson, that ALL CDs might possibly be members of the set :-)].

Unfortunately we are updating our house from the 70s and when we moved out the few hundred CDs we took with us did not include bad sounding CDs, strangely enough :-) nor our Levinson 390S. So the last in-home test bad CD, an old Buffalo Springfield, is in a box in a stack of boxes somewhere :-(

At shows, we have used Miles' Porgy and Bess as a test 'bad CD' which was close enough to the accepted fair that we did not get thrown out of rooms for playing it.

And as far as 'infamously', that has to be reserved for the Beatles, does it not? - some of the best music ever produced that a whole generation got to listen to on really awful sounding CDs.

P.S. It was great to see you at CES. I have been wondering for awhile what you thought about those BIG Wavacs on the ESP speakers...

Take care,
Mike.

read this:

http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic.php?p=67741#67741