JohnnieB

JohnnieB

Senior Audioholic
101 pages of posts, I can't read them all. If this has been covered please indulge me, Thanks in advance. I've read that DDD recorded cd's have the best sound quality. Does that mean they have stuck to the original source as close as possible, or they sound the best with speakers capable of bringing every nuance of a recording to your ears. I looked at every cd I own and cannot find this triple letter designation anywhere. I have downloaded a lot of music, some good some bad, quality wise. What source do most of you use for cd's if you are looking for the best recorded sound. One example, I have two particular Led Zeppelin cd's, both have most of the same songs. One of the discs sounds great, the other I could throw in the trash and probably wouldn,t hurt my feelings. It's borderline that bad. Both were bought at Best Buy on sale.:confused::confused:
 
zhimbo

zhimbo

Audioholic General
DDD won't have any analog hiss, but that in and of itself is a pretty minor component of audio quality (assuming it's not overwhelmingly loud, which is rarely the case). So, in principle, DDD *can* have better quality, and some DDD recordings sound amazing. But most new popular music sounds awful, and I imagine many new releases are DDD.

Finding the best sound of a particular recording is hard work. New remastering is often an improvement, but can also make things sound worse through, typically through making the sound more 'modern' by increasing loudness and dynamic compression. I wish it was easy to find a reliable assessment of the audio quality of various masterings/editions/releases of the same music...but it isnt'...
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
DDD has nothing to do with the price of cheese. It is the actual recording AND the mastering that yield the best results IMO. In other words, there's no good way to unequivocally find out if a particular track or album is well done.

Try here:

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/general-av-discussions/78328-high-quality-sound-albums.html


As mentioned, DDD doesn't guarantee quality, and in fact, some will argue that analog masters are better than digital ones. If you have Amazon prime, check out the film Sound City which is a story about that studio and its one of a kind analog console that was highly sought after for its particular sound for recording and which produced over 100 gold and platinum albums.
 
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Pyrrho

Pyrrho

Audioholic Ninja
"DDD" has a specific meaning. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARS_code

It can be great quality, but it need not be. It tells you nothing about the microphones used, or their placement, or the acoustics of the space in which the recording was made. Or whether EQ was poorly applied, or a whole lot of other things. That said, the very best recordings tend to be DDD, but some ADD and AAD and DAD recordings are better than some DDD recordings. For what all of this means, see the link above. Just click on it already!
 
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