For what it’s worth I did the same exercise by downloading the DSD64 Octave file and comparing it with the Qubuz and Tidal streams. The difference was absolutely staggering listening on a Innuos, Naim (old style) and modest Dali speaker system. I agree with everything Paul and the question writer said. The streamed versions (in my view of course) sounded over processed with exaggerated bass and were no way near as musical. As we say in the U.K. the streaming versions were just plain ‘pants’ in comparison. Again that’s my opinion. However, I do agree that the songs are very well crafted and the vocals of Clay Rose excellent. Thank you Paul for tempting me to listen to this band and buy my first Octave download. I’m impressed!
This is great stuff to learn about, this is a thing there about zero difference in cost for me as a listener to get improved sound from. I would also say that it's important for the artist to be aware of this as well, they handpick everything around them to be successful. I do try and hint to my favourite artists that there's people out there that listen to music all day on decent equipment and some modern productions are like fast food, ie only tasty for one bite. 😂
Artists are being conned to believe that if they crush the dynamics of their recordings in favour of loudness, this will be reflected in the streaming of the tracks and make their music stand out. In fact, it does the opposite. Not only have the dynamics of the recording been ruined by compression, critically often erasing the essence of the music. Their nasty loudness boosted terrible sounding tracks are then subject to the streaming platforms own limiter algorithm that levels the output of all tracks to around an average of -14 LUFS meaning ("Loudness Units relative to Full Scale" or" Loudness Units Full Scale"). So it stands to reason that a heavily loudness boosted and compressed track would sound pretty awful on any of the streaming platforms, as the consumer tries to compensate with the volume control on their equipment, often introducing more distortion to the already bad sounding track. I agree with Paul here, especially regarding the Adele recording but its true right across most contemporary popular artists. It is an awful recording that makes her upper register's sound strained and shouty, almost painful to listen to. It is important to say that compression does have a place in digital and analogue recordings for varying technical reasons. A good example is how drums are often made to sound fantastic on a recording when they weren't like that in the studio.This is clever and appropriate use of tools like compression, so lets not throw out the baby with the bath water. Totally crushing dynamics to allow modern choices of listening equipment is a misnomer. The recorded music industry could offer tracks EQ'd to suit say, bluetooth speakers or Headphone use or for high-end audio systems etc. The digital domain allows for this, so it worries me that we are not being afforded the choice about what we listen to and how we listen, its mostly loud & compressed or nothing. The industry is missing clear opportunities to modernize recorded music consumption and exploit all the marvels of modern sound recording, It's such a shame.
Yeah I simply don’t agree with the “audiophiles” idea that compression is bad period because it is most definitely a valuable tool in recording when used properly and drums in particular require at least some degree of compression in order to sound good on any recording. Even a perfectly tuned set of drums that sounds good to the ear live never translates that way through the microphones. Gavin Harrison for example has one of the best drum sounds out there both live and in the studio but in order to get that sound he uses compression. It’s not the evil thing that Paul makes it out to be. There’s a time and place for everything.
@@shannonmiller5648 I'm an audiophile and i have a "high End" home based HiFi system built up over the years. It has the headroom to work well with dynamically rich recordings but i appreciate there are many people who listen in the car, on the go or via bluetooth spealer etc and these systems are not designed to cope with low compression high dynamic range recordings. So some compression i.em wall of sound recordings seem better with this type if environment. What is stark though, is when streaming services mix high dynamic range material with high compression material! Its horses for courses but fundamentally for me I believe in as full a dynamic range as possible and leaving the volume to high quality Amplification. As I have said everybody deserves choices where formats are closely aligned to the type of reproduction system bring used.
There has been more than one album that I simply couldn't listen to at all. One was a nice sounding female vocalist, but I can't recall her name. Sadly it all sounded about as musical as a chainsaw from 2 feet away. This needs to change.
@@Gez492 Choices are great of course and with the ability to release multiple versions of any modern recording without a lot of extra effort I definitely see your point. My point is simply show me any recording ever made where the drums sound as good without a little compression. Like I said it’s a tool and a very valuable one when used as intended. You can easily add bit of compression to tighten up drums and still have an extremely dynamic mix as the end result. That’s the beauty of multi tracking. You don’t have to squash an entire mix with an over abundance of compression. It’s not all or nothing as so many people seem to think. I’m a musician as well as an audio enthusiast. I also come from a background involving high end audio, live sound production and happen to have a bit of recording experience as well. I’m no expert but I know and understand enough to know that once again there is a time and place for everything. I won’t say I’m an audiophile because that implies that I’m someone who holds ridiculous extreme audio misconceptions as being factual. Such as this idea that compression isn’t a useful tool for quality recordings when used properly. It’s just not the case. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not accusing you of being one of those people. Just saying that many people clearly don’t understand the concept of compression, what it actually does and that it’s not an all or nothing implementation. Some things just sound better with a touch in the right places. Especially drums.
@A Led Excuse me but what the heck are you even talking about aside from making it abundantly clear that you know less than zero about recording and probably not much more about good sound? Compression isn’t a button you push that adds a none variable abundance of it to every single instrument and it’s either on or off. For starters most albums within most genres are multi tracked and have been for a long time. Once again it’s a valuable tool when utilized properly. I’ll take it a bit further and say it’s a valuable tool unless you’re an idiot that doesn’t know 💩 about 💩. I’m sorry if you philes have a hard time accepting this for whatever reason. Heck compressors and limiters are even used in live sound all the time to tighten up what you’re hearing through the PA system. It isn’t just used for recording, so yes often the recorded drums sound exactly like your beloved live performance sound even if a little compression is used because it was used to achieve the live sound as well. I’ve been playing drums for most of my life. I’ve played in multiple bands. I’ve been involved in recording projects and I know enough to know that compression, when used properly, can often make or break the quality of the drum sound in particular but isn’t limited in it’s usefulness to just drums. Break being no compression and Make being a little as needed just to give everything a nice focused attack and smooth controlled sound. Nothing sounds worse than a ringing ass sloppy drum sound and often even when tuned by someone who knows what they’re doing tuning doesn’t completely eliminate some of the negative overtones on some drums. What can be done to remedy this you ask? Well I’m glad you ask and the answer is quite obvious and simple, you use modern recording tools and techniques to smooth out and tighten up the things that couldn’t be taken any further by things like tuning, damping, room treatment and microphone choices or even head choices as far as drums go. No one in their right mind wants to hear something that sounds bad just because that’s how it sounded when then the instrument was actually being played. This idea of audio purity that “audiophiles” regard as being so critical at all costs is a complete farce anyway. Engineers and producers have been using compression to great benefit long before over compression for top 40 💩 became the industry standard and for people who supposedly have such well trained ears you should easily be able to identify the obvious difference between compression used tastefully within certain areas to benefit a recording and compression used to smash a recording beyond listenability. I certainly can hear the difference. I’m not sure what kind of music you listen to but unless it’s nothing but 💩 like chamber music and classical then you probably like more recordings that utilize a bit of compression than you think. Yes too much is definitely bad but this idea that any amount of compression used for any reason ruins a recording is purely nonsensical. Somehow the pedophiles of audio always know better than the guys making and more importantly playing the music for you jerks to listen to is always amusing to say the least. Compression is realistically one of the best things that ever happened when it comes to getting a great drum sound on a recording and that’s just one of those things that having an alternate opinion and arguing about will never change. You do you though. I don’t limit myself musically based on how a recording was made if the end result sounds good and as a high end audio enthusiast practically since birth and a musician for the majority of my life I damn well know the differences between good sound and bad sound. Probably way more so than people who do nothing more than critique other peoples musical achievements on overpriced audio gear. The price of which makes those same people think that not only is their hearing somehow vastly superior to everyone else’s but also that they’re somehow more qualified to have an opinion. Real world news flash: they’re not😉
It is the way of streaming services that everything is compressed and 'EQ-ed' just like you used to get on FM radio so that you can hear it well under less than ideal conditions (such as in the car, on your tablet, on earbud earphones etc). I love listening to classic albums and live recordings (from the late 1930s to about 1990) and these never sound good on streaming services (despite many of them being quite limited in dynamic range and originally mixed for non hifi reproduction). Streaming is ok for on the go but for sitting down in front of my HiFi I always choose lossless rips of CDs, DVDs and SACDs. A streaming service that is intended for audiophile use is probably too much of a niche market to be commercially viable. Although from a technology point of view It can be done very easily and the bandwidth is not an issue for any modern device. I wonder if Octave Records could look into doing a proper streaming service ?
Highly rated musicians and their managers don't care much about quality and less yet about audiophiles. Except the sparse 'collectors editions' Yes there are exceptions, but the large majority...
It would be fun to see if I live long enough so even I start to listen to "streamed music". I don't think so, but if I live another 50 years and they completely stop releasing music on CD/SACD discs in 4 years I'll will be forced to use streaming whether I want to or not if I want something new to listen to.
@@JingoLoBa57 Not @ all Paul has his ears closed to multichannel just like so many other audiophiles. But Paul is a visionary with DSD and the relevancy. And DSD is intended for multichannel audiophile recordings of classical and jazz etc from day 1. Better than any Atmos stream.
Yup, I streamed one of their songs on my Aurender N20 on Tidal and it sounded awful. The music was good, but they shot themselves in the foot by downgrading their own creation.
Yep Adele’s recordings grate on me like finger nails across a chalkboard 😬 shame as she has written & sung some fantastic songs but I suppose most people listen on low rate Spotify streams with non audiophile players so inaudible to them luckily.
Ooooh someone is mad that a band didn't like the results they got at Octave Records and went and got their music remastered somewhere else. Why their music is just as bad as Adele's music now. (LOL) That's what happens when you ignore the Artist's intentions and mix music so that it only sounds good on the FR 30s. The equipment should serve the music, not the other way around.
Then it is about what is "music" for each individuum. For someone it is noise in the night club for others it is perfect vocal and instruments replication in their living room. Have the record company right to stick to the one of the sides? I think it has
People must realized that not so many albums are « audiophile « recorded.. but car and earbuds destinated… Adele, in a very good car system ( 5000$ upscale) sounds ok, top roof open and driving on concrete roads! But, at home, it is very poor recorded or mixed… that is new trend? 😢
Yep. This fool actually claims that his input mastering recordings is just as important as the musician's contribution to the music. Absolutely delusional.
@@mightyhail8707 The "music belongs to and is an expression of the musician(s) NOT the record company. The Record company certainly has a right to represent itself as being a certain way, but in the end, it's the artist(s) expression of the art that counts. You and I may not like certain types of music but that doesn't make it not music.
@@Skye_the_toller Albums or more correctly music IS NOT recorded with a destination, such as cars or earbuds, in mind with the exception of boutique studios like Octave Records who record for people that are not interested in the music but rather listen to their systems. In fact, most music is actually recorded (by a recording engineer), mixed (by a mixing engineer), and then mastered (by yet another engineer) with no final destination in mind, simply because none of these Engineers has any idea, or control, over what system might be used to listen to the final product. Only supposed "audiophiles" that don't like the way their system sounds when most music is played on their system try to blame the music and the recording process, while having little knowledge or thought about the music and the process used to create it.
Great video , Paul. The thruth should be told!
For what it’s worth I did the same exercise by downloading the DSD64 Octave file and comparing it with the Qubuz and Tidal streams. The difference was absolutely staggering listening on a Innuos, Naim (old style) and modest Dali speaker system.
I agree with everything Paul and the question writer said. The streamed versions (in my view of course) sounded over processed with exaggerated bass and were no way near as musical. As we say in the U.K. the streaming versions were just plain ‘pants’ in comparison. Again that’s my opinion.
However, I do agree that the songs are very well crafted and the vocals of Clay Rose excellent. Thank you Paul for tempting me to listen to this band and buy my first Octave download. I’m impressed!
Great one Paul !!! thank you for making great sounding music !!
Paul. 100% right. Don’t disagree with you not one bit, especially about the Adele comment. You’re right!!!
This is great stuff to learn about, this is a thing there about zero difference in cost for me as a listener to get improved sound from.
I would also say that it's important for the artist to be aware of this as well, they handpick everything around them to be successful.
I do try and hint to my favourite artists that there's people out there that listen to music all day on decent equipment and some modern productions are like fast food, ie only tasty for one bite. 😂
HDCD is the best!😃
Gotta stand up for what you stood for 🙂
Artists are being conned to believe that if they crush the dynamics of their recordings in favour of loudness, this will be reflected in the streaming of the tracks and make their music stand out. In fact, it does the opposite. Not only have the dynamics of the recording been ruined by compression, critically often erasing the essence of the music. Their nasty loudness boosted terrible sounding tracks are then subject to the streaming platforms own limiter algorithm that levels the output of all tracks to around an average of -14 LUFS meaning ("Loudness Units relative to Full Scale" or" Loudness Units Full Scale"). So it stands to reason that a heavily loudness boosted and compressed track would sound pretty awful on any of the streaming platforms, as the consumer tries to compensate with the volume control on their equipment, often introducing more distortion to the already bad sounding track. I agree with Paul here, especially regarding the Adele recording but its true right across most contemporary popular artists. It is an awful recording that makes her upper register's sound strained and shouty, almost painful to listen to. It is important to say that compression does have a place in digital and analogue recordings for varying technical reasons. A good example is how drums are often made to sound fantastic on a recording when they weren't like that in the studio.This is clever and appropriate use of tools like compression, so lets not throw out the baby with the bath water. Totally crushing dynamics to allow modern choices of listening equipment is a misnomer. The recorded music industry could offer tracks EQ'd to suit say, bluetooth speakers or Headphone use or for high-end audio systems etc. The digital domain allows for this, so it worries me that we are not being afforded the choice about what we listen to and how we listen, its mostly loud & compressed or nothing. The industry is missing clear opportunities to modernize recorded music consumption and exploit all the marvels of modern sound recording, It's such a shame.
Yeah I simply don’t agree with the “audiophiles” idea that compression is bad period because it is most definitely a valuable tool in recording when used properly and drums in particular require at least some degree of compression in order to sound good on any recording. Even a perfectly tuned set of drums that sounds good to the ear live never translates that way through the microphones. Gavin Harrison for example has one of the best drum sounds out there both live and in the studio but in order to get that sound he uses compression. It’s not the evil thing that Paul makes it out to be. There’s a time and place for everything.
@@shannonmiller5648 I'm an audiophile and i have a "high End" home based HiFi system built up over the years. It has the headroom to work well with dynamically rich recordings but i appreciate there are many people who listen in the car, on the go or via bluetooth spealer etc and these systems are not designed to cope with low compression high dynamic range recordings. So some compression i.em wall of sound recordings seem better with this type if environment. What is stark though, is when streaming services mix high dynamic range material with high compression material! Its horses for courses but fundamentally for me I believe in as full a dynamic range as possible and leaving the volume to high quality Amplification. As I have said everybody deserves choices where formats are closely aligned to the type of reproduction system bring used.
There has been more than one album that I simply couldn't listen to at all. One was a nice sounding female vocalist, but I can't recall her name. Sadly it all sounded about as musical as a chainsaw from 2 feet away. This needs to change.
@@Gez492
Choices are great of course and with the ability to release multiple versions of any modern recording without a lot of extra effort I definitely see your point. My point is simply show me any recording ever made where the drums sound as good without a little compression. Like I said it’s a tool and a very valuable one when used as intended. You can easily add bit of compression to tighten up drums and still have an extremely dynamic mix as the end result. That’s the beauty of multi tracking. You don’t have to squash an entire mix with an over abundance of compression. It’s not all or nothing as so many people seem to think. I’m a musician as well as an audio enthusiast. I also come from a background involving high end audio, live sound production and happen to have a bit of recording experience as well. I’m no expert but I know and understand enough to know that once again there is a time and place for everything. I won’t say I’m an audiophile because that implies that I’m someone who holds ridiculous extreme audio misconceptions as being factual. Such as this idea that compression isn’t a useful tool for quality recordings when used properly. It’s just not the case. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not accusing you of being one of those people. Just saying that many people clearly don’t understand the concept of compression, what it actually does and that it’s not an all or nothing implementation. Some things just sound better with a touch in the right places. Especially drums.
@A Led
Excuse me but what the heck are you even talking about aside from making it abundantly clear that you know less than zero about recording and probably not much more about good sound? Compression isn’t a button you push that adds a none variable abundance of it to every single instrument and it’s either on or off. For starters most albums within most genres are multi tracked and have been for a long time. Once again it’s a valuable tool when utilized properly. I’ll take it a bit further and say it’s a valuable tool unless you’re an idiot that doesn’t know 💩 about 💩. I’m sorry if you philes have a hard time accepting this for whatever reason. Heck compressors and limiters are even used in live sound all the time to tighten up what you’re hearing through the PA system. It isn’t just used for recording, so yes often the recorded drums sound exactly like your beloved live performance sound even if a little compression is used because it was used to achieve the live sound as well. I’ve been playing drums for most of my life. I’ve played in multiple bands. I’ve been involved in recording projects and I know enough to know that compression, when used properly, can often make or break the quality of the drum sound in particular but isn’t limited in it’s usefulness to just drums. Break being no compression and Make being a little as needed just to give everything a nice focused attack and smooth controlled sound. Nothing sounds worse than a ringing ass sloppy drum sound and often even when tuned by someone who knows what they’re doing tuning doesn’t completely eliminate some of the negative overtones on some drums. What can be done to remedy this you ask? Well I’m glad you ask and the answer is quite obvious and simple, you use modern recording tools and techniques to smooth out and tighten up the things that couldn’t be taken any further by things like tuning, damping, room treatment and microphone choices or even head choices as far as drums go. No one in their right mind wants to hear something that sounds bad just because that’s how it sounded when then the instrument was actually being played. This idea of audio purity that “audiophiles” regard as being so critical at all costs is a complete farce anyway. Engineers and producers have been using compression to great benefit long before over compression for top 40 💩 became the industry standard and for people who supposedly have such well trained ears you should easily be able to identify the obvious difference between compression used tastefully within certain areas to benefit a recording and compression used to smash a recording beyond listenability. I certainly can hear the difference. I’m not sure what kind of music you listen to but unless it’s nothing but 💩 like chamber music and classical then you probably like more recordings that utilize a bit of compression than you think. Yes too much is definitely bad but this idea that any amount of compression used for any reason ruins a recording is purely nonsensical. Somehow the pedophiles of audio always know better than the guys making and more importantly playing the music for you jerks to listen to is always amusing to say the least. Compression is realistically one of the best things that ever happened when it comes to getting a great drum sound on a recording and that’s just one of those things that having an alternate opinion and arguing about will never change. You do you though. I don’t limit myself musically based on how a recording was made if the end result sounds good and as a high end audio enthusiast practically since birth and a musician for the majority of my life I damn well know the differences between good sound and bad sound. Probably way more so than people who do nothing more than critique other peoples musical achievements on overpriced audio gear. The price of which makes those same people think that not only is their hearing somehow vastly superior to everyone else’s but also that they’re somehow more qualified to have an opinion. Real world news flash: they’re not😉
It is the way of streaming services that everything is compressed and 'EQ-ed' just like you used to get on FM radio so that you can hear it well under less than ideal conditions (such as in the car, on your tablet, on earbud earphones etc). I love listening to classic albums and live recordings (from the late 1930s to about 1990) and these never sound good on streaming services (despite many of them being quite limited in dynamic range and originally mixed for non hifi reproduction). Streaming is ok for on the go but for sitting down in front of my HiFi I always choose lossless rips of CDs, DVDs and SACDs. A streaming service that is intended for audiophile use is probably too much of a niche market to be commercially viable. Although from a technology point of view It can be done very easily and the bandwidth is not an issue for any modern device.
I wonder if Octave Records could look into doing a proper streaming service ?
Qobuz is fantastic
Highly rated musicians and their managers don't care much about quality and less yet about audiophiles. Except the sparse 'collectors editions'
Yes there are exceptions, but the large majority...
Qobuz is the best😎
Definitely.
When it comes to sound quality, I couldn't agree more. I do wish they had better playlists and tracks seem to get blocked a lot, which drives me nuts.
Tidal 4ever…😅
It would be fun to see if I live long enough so even I start to listen to "streamed music".
I don't think so, but if I live another 50 years and they completely stop releasing music on CD/SACD discs in 4 years I'll will be forced to use streaming whether I want to or not if I want something new to listen to.
Upgrade the ETHERNET CABLE!
Dear Paul, PLEASE make a recording session with Led Zeppelin.... I Absolutely love them, but boy oh boy, how their albuns sound crappy.
Is the Qobuz version the one borked / compressed / sizzled to sound good on a beats pill, or is it spotify?
Paul DSD is intended for multichannel. Help us here.
Lets reinvent your business with multichannel PCM, DSD and FLAC streamer processor.
Not enough market to justify sales and production
@@JingoLoBa57 Not @ all Paul has his ears closed to multichannel just like so many other audiophiles.
But Paul is a visionary with DSD and the relevancy. And DSD is intended for multichannel audiophile recordings of classical and jazz etc from day 1. Better than any Atmos stream.
Yup, I streamed one of their songs on my Aurender N20 on Tidal and it sounded awful. The music was good, but they shot themselves in the foot by downgrading their own creation.
Yep Adele’s recordings grate on me like finger nails across a chalkboard 😬 shame as she has written & sung some fantastic songs but I suppose most people listen on low rate Spotify streams with non audiophile players so inaudible to them luckily.
Ooooh someone is mad that a band didn't like the results they got at Octave Records and went and got their music remastered somewhere else.
Why their music is just as bad as Adele's music now. (LOL)
That's what happens when you ignore the Artist's intentions and mix music so that it only sounds good on the FR 30s.
The equipment should serve the music, not the other way around.
Then it is about what is "music" for each individuum. For someone it is noise in the night club for others it is perfect vocal and instruments replication in their living room. Have the record company right to stick to the one of the sides? I think it has
People must realized that not so many albums are « audiophile « recorded.. but car and earbuds destinated… Adele, in a very good car system ( 5000$ upscale) sounds ok, top roof open and driving on concrete roads! But, at home, it is very poor recorded or mixed… that is new trend? 😢
Yep. This fool actually claims that his input mastering recordings is just as important as the musician's contribution to the music. Absolutely delusional.
@@mightyhail8707 The "music belongs to and is an expression of the musician(s) NOT the record company.
The Record company certainly has a right to represent itself as being a certain way, but in the end, it's the artist(s) expression of the art that counts.
You and I may not like certain types of music but that doesn't make it not music.
@@Skye_the_toller Albums or more correctly music IS NOT recorded with a destination, such as cars or earbuds, in mind with the exception of boutique studios like Octave Records who record for people that are not interested in the music but rather listen to their systems.
In fact, most music is actually recorded (by a recording engineer), mixed (by a mixing engineer), and then mastered (by yet another engineer) with no final destination in mind, simply because none of these Engineers has any idea, or control, over what system might be used to listen to the final product.
Only supposed "audiophiles" that don't like the way their system sounds when most music is played on their system try to blame the music and the recording process, while having little knowledge or thought about the music and the process used to create it.