With all the talk about the UMG remasters being louder and more compressed than the Virgins, I decided to rip a few tracks to my HD to compare. I don't actually have the full Virgin version of Exile on CD, but I do have two different sources for Tumbling Dice - Jump Back, which I bought in 1995, and Forty Licks, which I bought in 2002. Expecting these two versions to be identical except for volume normalization, I was planning to post only the results of my comparison between Forty Licks and the UMG remaster. Things didn't entirely go as planned, however...

First of all, let me show you what Tumbling Dice looks like on Jump Back:
[www.inter.nl.net]

As you can see, the dynamic range is okay. I wouldn't call it huge, but this isn't classical music anyway. For all intents and purposes, the dynamic range is fine (although one might wonder if it could've been better still). Anyway, here are the numbers:

Channel         Average level           Peak level
Left                  -13.2538 dBFS       +2.8141 dBFS
Right               -12.8093 dBFS       +2.8127 dBFS

It's hard to judge if any of the peaks are clipped. Some of them might be, but I can't tell for certain. Even if they are, the clipping is limited to a few isolated instances.

Well then... It's time to move on to Forty Licks:
[www.inter.nl.net]

This looks a little troubling, as the dynamic range seems to have been reduced. In fact, the song is also audibly louder than on Jump Back. Dynamic range compression was certainly employed here. I'm not exactly sure what's going on here, because I used to think the second CD of Forty Licks simply used the 1994 remasters. The differences here go beyond simple normalization, as is evidenced by the numbers:

Channel         Average level           Peak level
Left                  -10.5933 dBFS       +3.0010 dBFS
Right               -10.7323 dBFS       +3.0010 dBFS

Suspicious things are going on, especially with regard to the channel balance. On Jump Back, the right channel was louder than the left channel, but now the left channel has become louder than the right channel. Furthermore, both the minimum value and the maximum value are equal for the left and right channel, and the minimum (i.e. most negative) value and the maximum value are each other's bitwise inverse. Believe me, that's never going to happen if you just perform a straight transfer from analog tape to a digital medium! It's not a very bold statement to make that some peaks must've been clipped. By how much? We don't know, as that information is lost forever... Well, it's not really lost forever as the original files are presumably still stored somewhere, but for the *listener* it is. One could try to line up both versions of the song to investigate this, which should be possible if they came from the same digital transfer, but I'll leave that for another occasion.

It gets worse. Obviously, I'd almost say. Lo and behold, the UMG remaster:
[www.inter.nl.net]

OUCH! Everything seems to be clipping against an invisible wall! Also, where did our dynamic range go? And once again, the song is audibly louder than on both Forty Licks and Jump Back. Will the numbers confirm our hearings and sightings? Of course they will:

Channel         Average level           Peak level
Left                  -7.8538 dBFS          +2.7014 dBFS
Right               -8.2445 dBFS          +2.7014 dBFS

How's that for a change? The UMG remaster has the lowest peak level, but the highest average level - by an impressive margin. Congratulations UMG, you've just won the loudness war! Sadly, this inherently means you've also lost the fidelity war. As you can all see in the picture, the song was first compressed and limited and then scaled *back* as a means of volume normalization. This shameless butchering is the hallmark of "modern" mastering techniques. Let me tell you a little secret: the maximum peak level attainable on a CD (for negative values) is actually +3.0106 dBFS! This means that UMG could easily have made this track nearly a third of a dB louder than it already is without any further loss of fidelity (in fact, it would improve fidelity - although I'd call that a moot point). Of course, it'd ruin the volume balance between songs, but that could've been fixed by a better dynamic range compression approach. It always saddens me to see that good music is first pumped up to the max to sound as loud as possible and then scaled back to perform volume normalization, leaving part of the medium's dynamic range unused. Sadly, the easy approach seems to be preferred these days. I'd rather have them not perform any dynamic range compression during the mastering phase at all, but if you're going to do it, at least do it properly and don't clip peaks any more than necessary. By the way, did you notice that the left channel is now far louder than the right channel? And no, I didn't accidentally swap them, in case you were wondering.

I'm not saying only UMG is guilty of this - everybody seems to be doing it these days. I've also kind of given up hope that the tide can be turned, but it never hurts to point out that this is in fact occurring. The music we all love is being ruined at the mastering desk.

One remark I have to make is that I didn't compensate for the different lenghts of the pregaps. If I had done that, the most significant difference would be that the average level for Jump Back and Forty Licks would've been slightly higher relative to the UMG remaster. Between the two of them, they are pretty close in terms of length, although there's a time shift - but that doesn't affect that average level.

You can also look at the file sizes of the images, just for kicks.
Jump Back:  146414 bytes
Forty Licks:   143634 bytes
Exile UMG:      97405 bytes

All the clipping makes the waveform look so simple that the PNG compressor needs far less space to store it. Does the file size of these PNGs have a one-to-one correspondence with fidelity? Of course not, but it's still telling.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-05-20 17:36 by FreeBird.

FreeBird or Free Time Bird? LOL just kidding. Nice comparison.

Well, it wasn't my intention to work on it for this long, but there just happened to be a lot to talk about, and I wanted to be thorough.

I know what you mean. Thanks for the time you spent and for posting.

That's astounding. Ludwig got it right the first time it looks - some range still, nothing maxed out.

Very interesting reading! Thanks for taking the time out to post your findings.



If I may be so bold, can you possibly to do this with Beggars Banquet? One of earlier CD re-releases versus SACD CD version?

FreeBird:

Great, great post and great service to those of us just beginning, perhaps, to understand the implications of the Loudness War. Thanks so much for sharing your know-how and insights-

Rev.

Thank you so much Freebird. And for an introduction to what Freebird is talking about, check out this youtube video. It's only 1:52 long and it's worth your time:

Thanks for posting this. Worth the time and effort and everyone should read it.

It is criminal. And what's annoying is that the older (Virgin) versions are no longer available! I had a lot of Stones music on vinyl, but gradually I've been replacing with CDs and/or MP3 downloads in recent years, especially since I got rid of all my vinyl. Earlier this year I bought GHS and IORR, but of course these are the 2009 remasters.... so unless I can borrow copies of the older CDs then I'm stuck with the remasters.

I guess some people don't miss what they don't know (I'm referring to the younger ipod generation), but for me and others - highly compressed music is simply less pleasant to listen to.

Hey Freebird, here is a analog-2-digital transfer available online. How does it match up?

[www.divshare.com]

I'd like to add 5 cents :-).

Tumbling Dice from Rewind CBSCD 450199-2 (Austrian pressing 1986)

[s05.radikal.ru]

Channel Average level Peak level
Left -18.45dB -2.04dB
Right -18.62dB -2.16dB

A troubling look freebird, thanks.

Looks like The Rolling Stones are now being mixed as if they were Oasis.

By by dynamics...

I read an article in UK recording magazine Sound On Sound - it was about how the Beatles back catalogue had been remastered. Predictably the new CDs have a lot more compression (to keep up with contemporary mastering trends so the explanation went), however the vinyl versions were done with little or no extra compression bar what was there to start with. They said the vinyl releases were for the audiophiles so they hadn't touched them.

Also the CDs are all in stereo as far possible, eg Rubber Soul is in stereo when the original album had been mono, whereas the new vinyl version is in mono.

Great (but depressing) post FB!

Quote
WeLoveYou
I read an article in UK recording magazine Sound On Sound - it was about how the Beatles back catalogue had been remastered. Predictably the new CDs have a lot more compression (to keep up with contemporary mastering trends so the explanation went), however the vinyl versions were done with little or no extra compression bar what was there to start with. They said the vinyl releases were for the audiophiles so they hadn't touched them.

Also the CDs are all in stereo as far possible, eg Rubber Soul is in stereo when the original album had been mono, whereas the new vinyl version is in mono.

I thought Rubber Soul was actually released in both mono and stereo in 1965, giving the consumer the choice (although, the band put its efforts into the mono mixes). Btw, while all The Beatles' remasters are in stereo (which was the right call for the 21st century), they also released a mono box set that contains their entire run of mono recordings (everything through the White Album) for collectors and purists. The Beatles' remasters are fantastic. I wish the Stones' Universal remasters would have been done with the same care that was put into its ABKCO remasters in 2002, which is also fantastic.

Hi ajc68, you are correct...I got my facts a little confused. My gist was that the mono vinyl was left mainly untouched but the CD audio had been compressed more (although possibly not as much as the Stones 2009 remasters).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-05-20 21:10 by WeLoveYou.

don't know how to post a pic of it but i've ripped and been looking at rocks off on audacity
the universal remaster is nearly double the loudness of the virgin and nearly triple than the cbs

i cracked open the target box i got with the t-shirt ,the guitar pick and the disc with the bonus tracks ,and the first thing i noticed was the color of the disc was YELLOW ,just like the atlantic records rolling stones records used to be .very cool .then i played the disc .loved it a first listen .one minor grip ,taylor's guitar was lower in the mix on plundered my soul ,than the you tube video that i have been hearing online (the offical video).i put that disc on and the 41 minutes flew right by .i really loved good time woman track #9 which is tumbling dice very cool .great disc .wow !!!!!!!.how i wish they would mount a full fledge tour in support of this bonus tracks disc .

tg: the exile discs on the virgin reissue of '94 were also yellow...just so ya know.

Quote
StonesTod
tg: the exile discs on the virgin reissue of '94 were also yellow...just so ya know.

oh boy this does not look good for me because i have been playing the shit out of my virgin exile issue .so much for the old brain cells .like neil young sings it's better to burn out than it is to rust .so i got that going for me !!!!!!

Quote
The Greek

Quote
StonesTod
tg: the exile discs on the virgin reissue of '94 were also yellow...just so ya know.

oh boy this does not look good for me because i have been playing the shit out of my virgin exile issue .so much for the old brain cells .like neil young sings it's better to burn out than it is to rust .so i got that going for me !!!!!!

yeah, well, it's not like you can see the discs while you play the shite out of them. with the vinyl, we get to watch 'em go roundy round while we listen...then we get dizzy and we all fall down....amd that's the fun of vinyl...

Quote
His Majesty
If I may be so bold, can you possibly to do this with Beggars Banquet? One of earlier CD re-releases versus SACD CD version?

I'll post a comparison between the versions of Sympathy on 1989's Singles Collection and 2002's Beggars when I get around to it. From what I've seen of the 2002 ABKCO remasters so far they seem to be okay, so I don't expect the results to be very shocking - but you never know!

Quote
MJG196
Hey Freebird, here is a analog-2-digital transfer available online. How does it match up?

Just fine, it appears! I didn't have a chance to really listen to it, but visually it looks excellent, apart from what seems to be a slight channel imbalance. What was it transferred from?

Here's the visual:
[www.inter.nl.net]

And here are the numbers:

Channel         Average level           Peak level
Left                  -16.3707 dBFS       +1.7229 dBFS
Right               -15.2322 dBFS       +2.1344 dBFS

As you can see, the dynamic range is even better than on Jump Back and it doesn't look as if any clipping took place. This is, however, impossible to say for certain.

very interesting indeed. This is the reason why I also upgrade my vinyl equipment. I've read from Beatles fans that it is true and some prefer the old vinyls (some special mono editions from the 60's) rather the new ones.

"we know it's a bit late but we hope you don't mind if we stay"

I also found this to be interesting, thanks for the investigation

Quote
FreeBird

Quote
MJG196
Hey Freebird, here is a analog-2-digital transfer available online. How does it match up?

Just fine, it appears! I didn't have a chance to really listen to it, but visually it looks excellent, apart from what seems to be a slight channel imbalance. What was it transferred from?

Here's the visual:
[www.inter.nl.net]

And here are the numbers:

Channel         Average level           Peak level
Left                  -16.3707 dBFS       +1.7229 dBFS
Right               -15.2322 dBFS       +2.1344 dBFS

As you can see, the dynamic range is even better than on Jump Back and it doesn't look as if any clipping took place. This is, however, impossible to say for certain.

This was transferred from an original Canadian Kinney pressing LP. I had mentioned in another thread the lineage of the transfer:

[*]Turntable: VPI Scoutmaster with Trans-Fi Terminator Air Bearing Linear Tracing Tonearm
[*]Cartridge: Audio-Technica AT33PTG
[*]Phono Preamp: Pro-Ject TubeBox
[*]Soundcard: E-MU 1212

All rips are recorded in full 24bit 192khz resolution and then resampled to 44/24 for manual click repair. They are then dithered to standard redbook 16bit/44khz.

Someone had asked why people bother with vinyl-2-digial-2-CD. This is the reason why!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-05-21 01:52 by MJG196.

Quote
StonesTod
tg: the exile discs on the virgin reissue of '94 were also yellow...just so ya know.

huh? my virgin exile cd is silver faced with black writing on it

Visual comparisons? Poppycock. What do your EARS tell you?

I'm finding all the Universal remasters to be a double-edged sword. The remastering itself is very nice. The music is clearer and crisper, and I'm hearing things in the background I've never noticed before. But, these discs are too damn loud, which makes for an exhausting listen. I noticed the second Rocks Off came on that it was brighter and louder and knew immediately it was going to be tough to get through the whole CD without turning it down lower than I prefer. Once my earls adjusted, I did start to enjoy the crisper sound. It's just a shame they felt the need to up the volume so much, because the remastering is pretty good across the board.

>>Let me tell you a little secret: the maximum peak level attainable on a CD (for negative values) is actually +3.0106 dBFS! <<

Err what? Tell me more about that little secret because I've never heared of it.

dBFS must have a minus sign at the beginning. There is not something like +6 dBFS.
[www.sengpielaudio.com]

which audio editor did you use?

Good thread. Maybe more people would read it if you changed the subject line. "Visual comparison" sounds like you're talking about the packaging.