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A decent amount of the albums in the TLMC were ripped and uploaded to Japanese P2P programs, a large amount of these rips were ripped "losslessly" with EAC, but

by Hakkin 8y ago

A decent amount of the albums in the TLMC were ripped and uploaded to Japanese P2P programs, a large amount of these rips were ripped "losslessly" with EAC, but they had the "normalize" option turned on in the settings, which adjusts the volume of the rip if it's above or below a certain threshold, basically ruining all the work EAC put into getting a bit-exact copy. This is likely why the rip in the TLMC doesn't match OPs rip. Edit: If anyone is more curious about this, a large amount of the rips in the TLMC were ripped by one uploader (or a group of people using a singular alias) on the Japanese P2P programs Share[0] and Perfect Dark[1]. He was so prolific in the scene that he has his own Baidu wiki page[2] (albeit, it's not as strict as Wikipedia with notability, I still find it impressive). All of his rips, as far as I know, were affected by this "normalize" setting, so even though he ripped hundreds (thousands?) of albums, a large majority of them probably wouldn't be considered "archive quality". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_(P2P) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_(P2P) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Dark_(P2P) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Dark_(P2P) [2] https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%8F%B0%E9%AD%94%E7%8E%8B https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%8F%B0%E9%AD%94%E7%8E%8B

squarefoot 8y ago
Normalizing alone with no compression/limiting involved shouldn't ruin fidelity at all. Actually in some (admittedly extreme) situations it could enhance it. A track that is very low from start to end could leave one or more most significant bits unused, therefore reducing bit depth, so especially during mastering I would welcome normalization if it brought the highest peak to 0 dB or slightly less. Of course I mean just normalizing without any compression/limiting, ie the dynamics curve stays the same: I'm well aware of the loudness wars plague.
- Hakkin 8y ago
  I believe you're correct that raising the volume is not necessarily a destructive process, since it would just be increasing the amplitude of the samples already there. Unfortunately, the majority of rips fall over EAC's normalize threshold, which means the volume is decreased, which ends up truncating some of the bits (assuming the album was using the full range of the 16bit audio). Edit: I noticed you used the term "fidelity", so you might be talking about being able to perceive the damage to the audio, which is not necessarily what I'm talking about. The point of EAC (Exact Audio Copy) is to make archival quality copies of audio CDs, this means as close to bit-exact as possible. Modifying the audio in any way would be counterproductive to that purpose, even if it doesn't necessarily affect the actual sound quality.
mxfh 8y ago
Also depends if ReplayGain information is merely stored as extra non-destructive metadata or applied to the waveform: https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=ReplayGain https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=ReplayGain

by Hakkin 8y ago

squarefoot 8y ago

Normalizing alone with no compression/limiting involved shouldn't ruin fidelity at all. Actually in some (admittedly extreme) situations it could enhance it. A track that is very low from start to end could leave one or more most significant bits unused, therefore reducing bit depth, so especially during mastering I would welcome normalization if it brought the highest peak to 0 dB or slightly less. Of course I mean just normalizing without any compression/limiting, ie the dynamics curve stays the same: I'm well aware of the loudness wars plague.

Hakkin 8y ago
I believe you're correct that raising the volume is not necessarily a destructive process, since it would just be increasing the amplitude of the samples already there. Unfortunately, the majority of rips fall over EAC's normalize threshold, which means the volume is decreased, which ends up truncating some of the bits (assuming the album was using the full range of the 16bit audio). Edit: I noticed you used the term "fidelity", so you might be talking about being able to perceive the damage to the audio, which is not necessarily what I'm talking about. The point of EAC (Exact Audio Copy) is to make archival quality copies of audio CDs, this means as close to bit-exact as possible. Modifying the audio in any way would be counterproductive to that purpose, even if it doesn't necessarily affect the actual sound quality.

mxfh 8y ago

Also depends if ReplayGain information is merely stored as extra non-destructive metadata or applied to the waveform: https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=ReplayGain https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=ReplayGain