What to do with bad recorded CDs

Sorry for some of the misspelling above, eg propel instead of people, but that is an artifact of nanny spelling correction on this device. Makes one appear illiterate.

What is a "bad" CD? I have an Oppo BD 105 run fully balanced through other components to my Sound Lab U-1PXs. I listen to many old jazz (Charlie Parker) recordings that have been "tweaked". One can listen to the room ambience , and really feels you are at the Club, some of these are off the air transcriptions. Another crappy primitive "off the air CDs" are Siegfried Wagner broadcasts from the 20s and 30s. One ignores the bit of tape/wire noise during the pianissimo passages. I submit I have never heard more stirring interpretations and orchestral dynamic range. No gain riding here!  All of the above are obviously in mono. NB, I have many Wagner LPs, CDs and DVDs I can compare them to and some I like for other reasons that go beyond the scope of this discussion.

 Oh, one has to be careful how one runs the CD player into the amp or preamp so as to effect an output/input synergy based on the linearity of the out/in put stages as well as their resistance. Call the manufacturers' service department to find out what gain levels are optimum and then play it by ear. Moreover, one does not want to overload the input of the following component.

On the other hand there are 70s on LPs and CDs that were recorded of pop and classical that are edgy, especially on the thin vinyl of the time. The reason was as much the cheap TIM-full primitive op-amp multi-mixing consoles as much as the digital transfer. One has to turn down the brilliance control for some of the clipping high ends in the original recordings. Some of these just take the enamel off your teeth on a mediocre system, LP or CD.

All equipment needs adequate amperage. I know of one mono tube amp that runs 6 amps idle and 12 at full output. Two these will these require their own lines or you are going to have to 24 amps out of a 20 amp line. No magic box you stick into the wall will make up for that!  No wonder the system sounds like junk or propel think the amps are defective. That I believe is why you are seeing so many class D amps. Finally agreeing with other people one should consider installing 20 amp lines for all your equipment using copper wire. Consider using a whole house filter dedicated to the service line where it comes into the house: then your computers and microwaves won't go south when lightening strikes, and some even have filtering of noise. They are not as expensive as you may think. What do you think data centers use on a much grander scale? Other stick some of these on the dedicated lines that go to you audio and computer systems, often comprising the entire system today. These will smooth out and protect both sound and equipment. 

 Analogy: have you ever tried to substitute a much lower amperage power supply for Your laptop? It will drive you nuts software wise until you restore the full amperage power supply. The same thing is true with audio equipment, especially those performing digital tricks. If you don't have the juice your components are going to sound poorly and it will exacerbate the sound of crappy CD, etc. Consider this power business a necessary but not a sufficient condition for enjoyable listening.

What do you have for ac power isolation and conditioning?

How exactly are they "bad" for you that you can't listen to them?

Best,


Erik

Power conditioning, power cords, interconnects. And of course top of the line transport dac and digital cable.
Never mind. Bad cds will still sound bad just more tolerable.

Benellis are not "good" shotguns even when they work. They are over-priced and would have gone belly up if Beretta hadn't bought them. Now they have worse quality control and more new models. Best to buy and give to your guide as a tip at the end of your dove shoot below the Equator.

Yes power conditioning  is often a ticket to better digital.  

Or or you can always just send your bad CDs to me.  😉

OP,

I have a revealing, musical, thoroughly enjoyable, CD-based system that plainly doesn't have a problem with lesser CD's any more than with the exceptionally well made ones...by all means try some of the suggested solutions out on your system (personally I'd start by looking at some sort of power conditioning)...if that doesn't work, please send all your unwanted CD's to me!

There is much good music recorded less than optimally. Sometimes poorly. If you love the music recording quality will not stop you from listening as long as things are going well. If not there are ways to make lesser recordings tolerable perhaps though always remember recordings are what they are each a unique sounding work of art with unique things to offer.   Much great music may never live up to audiophile standards but that will not stop a music lover from listening.  

Easy solution... buy speakers and equipment that are non-fatiguing and that allow you to enjoy every recording in your collection. Sadly, some of the most highly touted brands out there do a poor job at this. Avoid those brands and/or models within those brands, and you'll live a happier, more musically satisfying life. 

I toss all bad recordings.  Why store crap that I will never listen to!

Crappy-sounding recordings or crappy-sounding pressings are a fact of life in this hobby. As others have suggested, there are various tweaks that can be applied to a problem CD to make it potentially more enjoyable, and I agree that seeking out better pressings is worth the effort, but I think the ultimate solution is, as Jafant suggested, to kick back and TRY to focus on the joys of the musical content, not the quality (or lack thereof) of the sound. Easier said than done, I know, but IMO a truly great system can capture the inherent good qualities of a poor recording just as much as it can reveal its flaws, allowing one to more easily focus on the musical content. Just one man's opinion!

OP-

Kick back, listen and enjoy the music!

Coasters to prevent rings on wooden tables or string them on a dock to keep seagulls away

Have fun EQing them! :-)

Oregon papa - in a perfect world Telarc recordings should have stopped digital right in its tracks.

Geoffkait ...

Have you ever noticed, especially early on when CDs first came out, that pianos sounded like those children's toy plastic pianos? Also, on symphonic music, it sounded like the recording engineer had his hand on the volume dial, and instead of the orchestra's natural volume expanding and contracting, it sounded like the engineer was moving the dial up and down. It even sounded that way on the initial Telarc releases on vinyl. Do you remember those? The conductor was Fredrick Fennell. Terrible recordings!

Agree with Oregon Papa, degaussing is a good idea, so is ionizing the CD, so is degaussing the interconnects. In fact, can I say that almost all CDs are well recorded, it's just that there are a great number of problems in the playing of the CDs that make it appear the CDs suck. I have gone on record for many years saying that out of the box CDs by and large sound thin, unnatural, tizzy, boomy, threadbare, congealed, airless, unfocused, very distorted, two dimensional, boring and amateurish.

Get a VCR tape demagnetizer from Radio Shack. Demag your CDs after using any cleaning fluid. This makes CDs sound more analog. It reduces grain and glare. If that doesn't work, then toss them into your "trade box." and when full, take them down to your local used record store and trade them in for store credit. Then hit that store's record bins and pick up some great vinyl.

I wouldn't throw them out. You haven't heard all them at their best yet! It's great you're enjoying your excellent system--but there is more!! First question--do you have a "phase reverse" switch on your preamp - and if so have you experimented with it? The better your system the more difference correct phase makes. It can definitely be the difference between poor versus involving sound.. There's more... hang on to your discs

Beewax, you gave a brilliant suggestion - why didn't I think of that ? The wind and engine noise + speakers no in a proper enclosure all adds up to an idealistic condition for music listening - so I might as well listen there...

Thanks for the idea !

Mapman - you have a good sense of humor - I wish you lived near so we can hang around - like most people, I love a good sense of humor...

I added a Pangea AC14SE power cord for my DAC recently.

The biggest difference I seem to notice with this is that my worst loudness wars CDs that had some edge to them prior are no longer fatiguing to listen to. A good example is Accelerate by REM and Death Magnetic by Metallica.

This cord is designed for use in source and line level gear to reduce noise and distortion, and I think that is what I am hearing overall and is most noticeable with the edgiest CDs I own that now seem to be more pleasant.

SO yeah, if you still do not know what to do with your bad recordings, seriously, send them to me. I might be able to wean some enjoyment out of them. :^)

I also have a collection of sub par recordings ( excellent performances, however) that stay in my car. If its a bad recording and a bad performance, I give them away.

All that said, as my system has improved, I have found that I have fewer and fewer bad recordings. For years, I was frustrated with the Harmonia Mundi label, which fairly consistently delivered excellent performances compromised by what I thought was digital glare in the upper frequencies. That "digital glare" disappeared with better ac delivery. Power cords and power treatment to address RFI/EMI made a huge difference.

My new Sony HAPZ1 has substantially improved reproduction of a number of cds that I would have characterized as bad recording quality.

Some of these bad recordings may be bad. Or, they maybe revealing something that is not optimal in the system.

+1 beewax. Also if I like the music enough and know it sounds better on other formats I will use a zero stat that is designed for Lps to remove static charge and many times will make it much more listenable. Don't laugh to hard , try it first . Then laugh if needed. Best

Simple, I kept and played them in my cars.

They become background music in the basement system when I'm working on a project.

Trash them big time!!

Hak,

THis?

Listening on my computer using decent earbuds, it sounds OK, on par with most similar material I could compare with. Nothing great, nothing horrifically bad.

On a good system, really good recordings can make stuff like this difficult to listen to in comparison.

Myself, if the music is good, and I find it flat or less polished than most good recordings, I can still enjoy, as long as I find the listening to not be outright fatiguing.

ALso there is more that goes into system sound than just speaker and amp. The fine details can make or break things sometimes. There are many ways noise and distortion can be introduced into even the best systems in most environments, and with good gear and keen ears one can tell.

old thread....

mapman, while ago you asked for some samples of a bad recorded cd:
i remember playing this cd on my system years ago by Adcom - it sounded good.
Recently, i played it on Accuphase with Magnepans, and McIntosh with B&W - and it is difficult to listen to it...
the CD is Love and Rockets - "Express"

Instead of letting off many rounds ammo at many cds, why not take aim with an RPG at the huge pile of expensive crap masquerading as high end state of the arty poos hi-fi gear, but just can't seem to manange to play a less well engineered cd to the musical satisfaction of the poor listener?
Now, THAT would be fun.

I added Van Den Hul Optilink glass cables to my digital front end. The OPPO (transport mode) is also connected through a single digital cable, and 6-channel for SACD's. I can toggle between inputs on my Proceed processor while the CD is playing for comparison. The Van Den Hul Optilink II digital connection best smoothed and cleaned up the worse recordings.

Also helpful: While critically listening, I can adjust volume of the subs, or, toggle the subs ON/OFF to send full range signals to all speakers. Removing musical subs (SVS Ultra 13 and REL Storm II tuned together) for certain CD's or tracks can make the CD sound much more enjoyable by cleaning up a poorly recorded bottom end.

Harsh highs can be tamed a bit by positioning speakers slightly off axis AND slightly moving yourself out of the direct line of poorly recorded high frequency output.

My system and room set-up included tests on each source to troubleshoot the best settings for poorly recorded music. My processor has a couple settings that "agree most" with the worst recordings. They are stereo, PL II Music, and L/R Surround mode. Each requires a moment to adjust the best sub setting: Volume up, down or subs on/off with full range signals sent to all speakers.

My subs set-up default settings helped: I set the default on the SVS to about 1/4 volume and used the internal crossovers of the sub itself from 20-40, and the REL at 2/3 volume and crossed over wide open from 20-92. Both are next to the Left main and both subs phases set to zero. The final default SML speaker level tests equalized levels of all speakers at 80 dB with the subs up 3 db for a large listening area. The subs bass blends great with the mains and has so much clear rhythm and natural feeling punch (especially with the REL turned up a bit), that alone can often override poor recordings. I now enjoy redbook disks like never before. My experience was sort of like painfully crafting one musical instrument capable of reproducing all instruments, then, learning to play the source material the best ways through it.

They make good drink coasters .

I do not subscribe to the theory that the better the Hi-Fi, the worse poorly mastered CDs sound. In my experience the opposite is true. On poorly matched systems, bad mastering does indeed become fatiguing and painful. When you have a well matched setup, you do, of course, STILL hear far more of the music. I do not own an unlistenable CD and none are fatiguing, even some well publicised turkeys.

Someone mentioned earlier that perhaps one in ten CDs were audiophile quality, well not in my world :)! Perhaps we listen to different genres? On my RYM page I list audiophile quality CDs - I have 98 audiophile CDs out of 3322 currently catalogued. I still have to re-assess quite a number but I would hazard a guess that only 3-4% are of a high quality. I also have around 500 "remastered" CDs and only about 50 of those are what I would term audiophile quality. I would say, in defence of current issuing policies, that I believe the backlash that I'm sure we have all witnessed in recent years, regarding the state of modern mastering/remastering, has had a knock-on effect on record labels, certainly the smaller independent ones. Lots of recent re-issues have been very good indeed.

Invest in a good 12 gauge shotgun like a Benelli and shoot skeet with them.

For the bad recorded CDs for which I dont like the music either, they go on Ebay. If I like the music, I try to find a remastered version

I guess I mean by un-refined, voices that are husky in an unpleasant way - brought out by a revealing hifi system.

In a lesser system, they sounded tolerable, but not on a better system.

I might try different speaker as Godbless suggested.

Thank you again for all the insightful inputs...

For me its simply, the better the quality of speaker, the better the speaker makes the lesser engineered cd sound.

Frisbees for little hands.

I'm teaching my grandson how to frisbee a Sheryl Crow cd.

Any of them work fine.

I will still take a pint and the bar coaster.

" I find some of the pop music recordings with syntheciser sound un-refined, as were the husky voices"

NEed to know what "un-refined" means to you?

Many pop synth recording suffer from compressed dynamics in teh recording process, which might be considered "un-refined", but other than that they should sound clear and undistorted at any reasonable volume you listen at.

Too bad my proposed machine to restore the dynamics on recordings might be difficult to achieve.

However it still is a shame to purchase music that you hear and like, and then bring it home to find it unlistenable because of the "recording choices". I've found this to be true with all recording formats and every type of music I purchase from ragtime to rock.

It doesn't seem to matter where I play such a title (in the car, home theater system, IPod, or the main rig) the performance (because of the recording) suck!

As a result, after being burned a few times, I never purchase another CD by that artist and I avoid the labels that typically produce such unlistenable horrors.

What happens next? The CD either is kept and never played, or traded at the local used CD shop. Sometimes the local CD shop doesn't even want them, because there is no demand.

I still consider recordings like this inferior products and believe the consumer should have the right to return and get a refund on such junk. Maybe then the artist, recording engineer, and label would get the message.

I usually have the artist rerecord the material:) I am assuming that by poor performance, you mean that the CD sound quality is bad and not that the artist himself/herself gave a bad performance. I usually apply some ultra vivid or other treatment to the CD and it does render the sound quality somewhat more acceptable. I find some of the earlier CDs were very lean and strident, it is very good with them. If it doesn't work, you can send them to Garebear!

Sincere thanks to all those insightful posts !
Many good ideas -
I will definitely give them a try...

Mapman asked me which recordings are bad - I find some of the pop music recordings with syntheciser sound un-refined, as were the husky voices - through the revealing hifi system.

Why not a machine that can uncompress and restore the recording to its original dynamics?

There is a pretty simple answer to that question. There are just too many variables for that to work across the board.

First, there are a lot of things that get adjusted besides dynamics. On a typical modern recording, there are dozens and dozens of mike tracks that get mixed down. Take drums for instance. There will be multiple mikes on the drums and each one may get a different adjustment for frequency response, dynamics, and position in the stereo field. (Ever notice that some drummers seem to have a 15' wide arm span?) There are dozens and dozens of signal processing effects that can be added and many have nothing to do with dynamic range.

I've got Adobe Audition that I use. Without running over to that computer to check exactly, I think it supports up to 128 channels and the processing effects seem endless.

In other words, a final recording is basically a scrambled egg and you're asking to have it unscrambled and put back in the shell.

Just taking compression, the settings for that parameter are infinitely variable in Audition and I'm sure most other studio recording programs.

As a practical matter, you're not going to find many artists or record producers who will release an unmixed/processed album. It sounds the way they want it to sound, even when it is not to your liking.

I have some CDs that sound better than others, but very few that sound bad (<10%).

I strongly believe that the % of CDs that sound "good" on a system is a useful measure of overall system quality. If a lot of CDs do not sound good on a system,that is an indicator that a change needs to be made. The change, if done right, does not have to even be very expensive, I have found.

Bad is a matter of opinion though. The only CDs I have that I would say sound bad are those that have extremely bad dynamics, excessively limited frequency range and significant background noise in the mix. Almost all CDs on my system nowadays are enjoyable within their inherent limits. Those limits are a result of lackluster production process in making the CDs. The same truth applies to vinyl records...some are good, some are poor, and some are great.

My recent satisfaction with CDs as a source overall I can attribute to several factors I've introduced into my system over time:

1) external (tube)DAC as an upgrade
2) Audio Research Tube pre-amp
3) careful matching of amp to speakers
4) careful choice of speakers to fit rooms
5) the MIT terminator interconnects seem to let the best attributes of the components connected by them shine through, ie the ICs are not a bottleneck
6) my music server has become my prime source of digital material over CD player and has enhanced my listening pleasure as much due to convenience and flexibility factors as due to the fact that it sounds fantastic as well, as does my Denon player/recorder through the same external tube DAC.

My poorer recordings sound much better ripped to hardrive with EAC and then played through squeezebox/benchmark. What is unlistenable through my Esoteric is tolerable through the squeezebox.

Why not a machine that can uncompress and restore the recording to its original dynamics? It seems this should be possible.
It is a shame that bad recordings can't be returned. To me after I pay $15.00 for a CD (or more) and it sound is hideous I should be able to return it and buy a new CD (not a exchange it for the same one).

Bad news for you LP fans, I've purchased just as many records that were poorly recorded as CDS.

It is not the format, it is the recording engineer, artists, etc. Some labels are noted for poor recordings while others tend to get it right.

I propose a machine (something like a DAC) that would take the digital hi rez feed and then give the user a choice on how it is mixed for car, mp3, redbook, no compression, natural dynamics, etc. This would give the enduser the choice.

It depends on how bad. Try to find a better copy, tolerate it, don't listen, or adjust the tone controls to mitigate the mix. I know it's just plain impossible on some recordings. Face it, you can't make silk from a sow's ear and you may just have to toss the recording and go eat barbaque instead!

Get an assistant, hand him the bad ones , shoulder your shotgun and yell, PULL!

Can you tell us some examples of CDs you have listened to that do not sound good that we might be familiar with?