Alicia Keys: did the era of lossy mastering just begin?, Spoiler alert: spectral views included revealing nothing definitive. Options

[Anakunda]

This is snapshot of one of the tracks of accurately ripped original CD with Eac (LOG 100%):



If I'm right this is 1st album mastered from lossy source.


..more snapshots:



This post has been edited by Anakunda: Nov 28 2012, 21:03

[DVDdoug]

As you may know, low-pass filtering is a required part of digitizing (to prevent alaising). And, there are other reasons for filtering during the recording/production process. It's fairly common practice to filter-out the lower frequencies from everything except the bass and kick drum, and to completely filter-out subsonic frequencies. I assume some producers/engineers also like to filter-out supersonic frequencies.

There are no perfect filters so there are trade-offs in filter design. No one can say why a particular filter was used, or why the filter was designed a certain way. The recording/mastering engineer may not know anything about the filters in his ADC or downsampler... He just knows it sounds good or that it has a good reputation.