DT12 CD vs HDTracks - A visual representation

[425]

I would say that it's definitely worth it for SC and DT12 at least. BCSL and ADTOE are also definitely less loud as well, but I didn't have problems with the original masters of those two, unlike SC and DT12. Depends on your mileage, but I definitely recommend SC and DT12.

[Prog Snob]

What kind of stereo system does everyone have to listen to these HD tracks on?  I'm wondering if my current  setup would suffice.

[Zydar]

What kind of stereo system does everyone have to listen to these HD tracks on?  I'm wondering if my current  setup would suffice.

I listen to all my music on the PC, so a decent soundcard and good headphones does it for me. Nothing fancy.

[Prog Snob]

What kind of stereo system does everyone have to listen to these HD tracks on?  I'm wondering if my current  setup would suffice.

I listen to all my music on the PC, so a decent soundcard and good headphones does it for me. Nothing fancy.

I was reading that some people use a DAC which is good if you have a bad soundcard.

[Plasmastrike]

What kind of stereo system does everyone have to listen to these HD tracks on?  I'm wondering if my current  setup would suffice.

You'll notice improvements regardless of your setup

[PetFish]

Thanks to Kotowboy for helping me out with this.

They actually ended up sending me an email link with a direct download of their "Download Manager" software which worked quickly and flawlessly.  Why they don't just do that in the first place.

 

[Kotowboy]

 

[Prog Snob]

What kind of stereo system does everyone have to listen to these HD tracks on?  I'm wondering if my current  setup would suffice.

You'll notice improvements regardless of your setup

Thanks. I have a decent stereo setup so I'm sure it will sound pretty good.   

[Kotowboy]

You can definitely hear more cymbals in the HD version and the snare doesn't sound like it's wrapped in a blanket quite so much.

[Prog Snob]

I guess the only thing I have to be concerned about is if the disc player in my stereo can play FLAC or WAV files. 

[ProgressiveIce]

Even if you need to convert it to MP3 320, it'll still be much better than the CD.

[Bolsters]

I guess the only thing I have to be concerned about is if the disc player in my stereo can play FLAC or WAV files. 

Do you intend to burn the files to create a regular audio CD? Because if so, all audio CDs contain the same type of audio data (16 bit 44.1kHz PCM wave) so yes it will work. But you might need to convert the high-res files into this format first, because most disc burning programs probably won't like the high-res files.

[Prog Snob]

I wouldn't have to convert them to anything. I am assuming I can just put them on a DVD and play  the wav or flac file if my player can handle the format.  Or I can connect my laptop to my television with an HDMI cable and play it through the stereo setup that way.

[425]

You can convert them down to any number of formats. Or you can just play them outright if you have the appropriate player. The thing is that if you're not a complete audiophile, you're not buying them for the format. You're buying them for the master, which is totally different than on the CD.

[Prog Snob]

You can convert them down to any number of formats. Or you can just play them outright if you have the appropriate player. The thing is that if you're not a complete audiophile, you're not buying them for the format. You're buying them for the master, which is totally different than on the CD.

I'm really curious to hear the tracks the way they were meant to be heard. So keeping them as close to the master is a priority for me.

[rumborak]

Had too much spare time today (snowed in once again), so I wrote a small script that detects hard-clipping in wave files. Ran it over DT12, and probably not too surprising, it found a ton of clips. This one is from TBP, right before "would you talk me off the ledge":



That's a solid 10 consecutive samples on the right channel hard-clipped.
What's interesting is, they are not clipped by the maximum a 16-bit waveform can handle (i.e. the value 32767). They are hard-clipping somewhere around 32,000 but still have a tiny amount of wiggle there. I think what that means is that it was instead the compressor component that was driven to the limit.

EDIT: Here's another interesting graph. It's the distribution of amplitude values over the whole album, zoomed in on the tail end of the distribution (towards the 32,767 value). It's coming in normally from the left as you would expect from an audio signal, but then you see those two big spikes.



The first, smooth spike will be the compressor one, whereas the second one is the 32,767 one, i.e. where they actually maxed out the 16-bit waveform range.
The way to look at these spikes is, all that "mass" of those two spikes was, in the original audio signal, to the right of those spikes. Meaning, a solid chunk of dynamics got smooth-squeezed by the compressor, and hard-clipped by the waveform range. Not good.

[Calvin6s]

Can you run your program on some other DT albums for comparison?  And maybe compare it to some other album extremes (Death Magnetic on one end and ?? on the other)

[rumborak]

I have SFAM as a FLAC too, so here's the same second graph for that album:

[Prog Snob]

Nice work.  We need you bored more often to figure stuff out like this,       Do you think the guys are aware of where the shortcomings are in order to improve on future releases?

[rumborak]

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure they're even in the slightest aware at the DTF bitching about the compression. When I read the fan posts on the official FB page for example, it's all people replying how DT12 is the best album ever.

[Prog Snob]

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure they're even in the slightest aware at the DTF bitching about the compression. When I read the fan posts on the official FB page for example, it's all people replying how DT12 is the best album ever.

Okay, even if they aren't aware of the fan base complaining about it, how does JP and JR not hear it after listening to the finished product?  I'm sure someone has already brought this up and it;s been  discussed to death. it's more a hypothetical question.   JR's musical proficiency is boundless.  Do you think he listens to the CD and goes "yeah this is the best we could do."

[PetFish]

I've been listening to DT12HD for a few days and all I can say is "meh".

It sounds a little clearer, sure, maybe the kick drum is a little more punchy but for me personally I won't be buying HD versions again.  It's not worth the $26 (lame dollar conversion + tax) for only a little gain.

It needs/needed to be a "whoa" difference for me to justify it and it just isn't.

I already asked about a guitar part in Illumination Theory and that's no different between CD/HD but mostly cuz of the fade out/in that was pointed out to me.  I think where I was really surprised to NOT hear any improvement is during the guitar solo on The Bigger Picture (probably my all-time favourite Dream Theater song now) when Mangini is playing something in the background that sounds like chimey little bells, dunno what they're actually called, and they are very quiet on the CD and I was hoping with the HD version they'd be louder or have more presence but they sound the same.

I will say it sounds better in my car than my headphones but still not better enough over the CD to warrant further purchases.  I tried.

[goo-goo]

I've been listening to DT12HD for a few days and all I can say is "meh".

It sounds a little clearer, sure, maybe the kick drum is a little more punchy but for me personally I won't be buying HD versions again.  It's not worth the $26 (lame dollar conversion + tax) for only a little gain.

It needs/needed to be a "whoa" difference for me to justify it and it just isn't.

I already asked about a guitar part in Illumination Theory and that's no different between CD/HD but mostly cuz of the fade out/in that was pointed out to me.  I think where I was really surprised to NOT hear any improvement is during the guitar solo on The Bigger Picture (probably my all-time favourite Dream Theater song now) when Mangini is playing something in the background that sounds like chimey little bells, dunno what they're actually called, and they are very quiet on the CD and I was hoping with the HD version they'd be louder or have more presence but they sound the same.

I will say it sounds better in my car than my headphones but still not better enough over the CD to warrant further purchases.  I tried.

I bought the HD Tracks version and I did notice a difference. The HD master is not as loud as the CD master. if you crank up the volume to lets say 10, the HD version should be quieter. I don't think you will get to hear the details that you would like to hear. That would require a remix  which I don't think it will happen.

[tweeg]

Had too much spare time today (snowed in once again), so I wrote a small script that detects hard-clipping in wave files. Ran it over DT12, and probably not too surprising, it found a ton of clips. This one is from TBP, right before "would you talk me off the ledge":



That's a solid 10 consecutive samples on the right channel hard-clipped.
What's interesting is, they are not clipped by the maximum a 16-bit waveform can handle (i.e. the value 32767). They are hard-clipping somewhere around 32,000 but still have a tiny amount of wiggle there. I think what that means is that it was instead the compressor component that was driven to the limit.

I know it's a decent amount of work,  but I'd love to see this graph done for the other DT albums, especially to compare pre- and post-RR.

[rumborak]

Ok, here's the most interesting graph so far:

EDIT: Disregard this graph, it was buggy.

I changed my script to, instead of just looking at a single sample at a time, look at the "short-term energy" of 100ms at a time, and then generate a histogram of that short-time energy.
You can definitely see the progression over the years from an almost quite IAW (red line), to an insanely loud DT12 (yellow line).

[erwinrafael]

Maybe they are just playing louder songs also because they have gone towards more metal sounding songs later in their career? Can you compare relatively similar-sounding songs? I see the FII graph, and I see that it also reached the loud levels, most likely because of the punch of Peruvian Skies and Burning My Soul.

SC also appears to be insanely loud based from the graph.

[Prog Snob]

Well then it's settled. Whatever the hell they did for Images and Words, they need to do again.  Everything sounded crisp, clear, and we didn't need HD Tracks.

[ariich]

Rumbo, I would just like to take this moment to appreciate both your awesome geekiness and your geeky awesomeness.

Carry on.

[erwinrafael]

Well then it's settled. Whatever the hell they did for Images and Words, they need to do again.  Everything sounded crisp, clear, and we didn't need HD Tracks.

But Images and Words are qualitatively different than their material today. It sounds dated also, so I would not want to go back to that sound again. I would be curious about comparisons of similarly arranged songs (ballad vs ballad, metal vs metal, Rush vs Rush)

[rumborak]

Thank you, aarich When it comes to geekiness, you can count on me walking the extra mile.

I find particularly striking in that graph the comparison between IAW and DT12. The quietest parts of DT12 are louder than the loudest parts of IAW.

SC also appears to be insanely loud based from the graph.

I think that fact shows that this measure correlates well with what people perceive as loud. At least on DTF, SC and DT12 are usually called the most brickwalled albums.

[Prog Snob]

Well then it's settled. Whatever the hell they did for Images and Words, they need to do again.  Everything sounded crisp, clear, and we didn't need HD Tracks.

But Images and Words are qualitatively different than their material today. It sounds dated also, so I would not want to go back to that sound again. I would be curious about comparisons of similarly arranged songs (ballad vs ballad, metal vs metal, Rush vs Rush)

Well I'm not necessarily saying to write the same type of music, but whatever it was that gave it that sound definitely helps.  Would Images and Words have sounded as pleasing to us if it was recorded the same way as DT12?

[erwinrafael]

How would they compare with ToT and SDOIT? Again, I bring this up because aside from the brickwalling, maybe what the graph is showing is also the difference in the type of music they are playing. FII is closer to SC than I&W based on the graphs, but we do not hear many hear complaining of brickwalling in that record.

[erwinrafael]

Well then it's settled. Whatever the hell they did for Images and Words, they need to do again.  Everything sounded crisp, clear, and we didn't need HD Tracks.

But Images and Words are qualitatively different than their material today. It sounds dated also, so I would not want to go back to that sound again. I would be curious about comparisons of similarly arranged songs (ballad vs ballad, metal vs metal, Rush vs Rush)

Well I'm not necessarily saying to write the same type of music, but whatever it was that gave it that sound definitely helps.  Would Images and Words have sounded as pleasing to us if it was recorded the same way as DT12?

Well, for one, the DT12 songs are collectively more metal in style than I&W, so they would definitely be louder. Again, I am bringing this up, because FII, which is highly regarded in this DTF in terms of production, looks closer to SC and DT12 in this graph than to I&W.

[Prog Snob]

How would they compare with ToT and SDOIT? Again, I bring this up because aside from the brickwalling, maybe what the graph is showing is also the difference in the type of music they are playing. FII is closer to SC than I&W based on the graphs, but we do not hear many hear complaining of brickwalling in that record.

I understand what you are saying. FII gets a lot of praise here for its sound yet there are similarities between it and DT12 according to the graph. I'm not sure what causes that to be honest.  Maybe rumbo can explain further? 

[rumborak]

CRAP!

While walking to work, I just realized there is a bug in my script. Specifically, it makes the comparisons between the albums somewhat invalid. I am retracting the graph for now, and will regenerate it when I get back from work. Stay tuned!
(for the technically minded: When I'm generating the histogram for each album, I'm first looking at the maximum energy, so I can rescale it so it fits into the 1,000 buckets. However, for the graphs I'm not "unscaling" it again. So, albums might be squished or expanded due to the bug)