I've recently downloaded Megadeth's latest album, "The System Has Failed", as a preview. Before anyone accuses me of thievery, Megadeth is one of my fave bands, I've bought almost every album by them and I'm happy I did.
In my first search I found the album in the MP3 format, unbelievably encoded with LAME 3.90.? and the mighty "--preset standard" (at least according to Mr. Questionman's guess), not the dominant encoder & setting in the P2P jungle (had to filter loads of DRM'd WMAs).
One would normally expect these files to be highly faithful to the sound of the original pressed CD. The truth is, most of the MP3s are nearly unlistenable because of heavy clipping. I suspected something was wrong when I saw the abnormally high average bitrate for the whole album (239kbps). I've ripped/encoded quite a few metal albums, and the average bitrate for the whole album never went over 230kbps with --preset standard (never used wavegain before encoding).
What I don't know is the cause for something like this. A naive, technically ignorant audio release group messing up with the files?. Maybe improper analog ripping due to some kind of digital copy protection implemented on the CD?*. I suspect the latter is probable, since Megadeth's discography was recently re-released (remixed, remastered, plus bonus tracks and blah), with the (IMO) main goal of adding "anti-piracy" digital copy control technology (there is a warning about this in every re-released album). Why wouldn't they add copy protection to their latest album, if they've re-released all the previous albums in that fashion?. Well maybe because of the fact that the reissued albums were released by Capitol Records and Megadeth is now releasing through another label, but who knows!.
Of course I might be wrong, maybe the album is extremely "hot" and, if not previously wavegained, the mp3 encoding process increases this clipping by itself even if the audio was correctly ripped through DAE. But I highly doubt this is the case, Megadeth never delivered something so awfully mixed/mastered.

I've listened to an interview with Dave Mustaine (Megadeth's leader). Being a computer-literate person, he explained his vision of the pros and cons of lossy audio compression and its interaction with the internet, nonetheless he holds a strong anti-piracy position; what he may not know is that there are many people, like the average HA member, who want to be able to play their music without having to change CDs all the time. And I particularly want to be able to have lossless backups of every CD I buy, just in case.


Because of this, I decided not to buy the album until I'm absolutely sure it is not copy protected in any way. That brings me to the reason of my post: I'd like to know if this album is copy protected. Does anybody have concrete information/proof pertaining this matter?.
I know Mustaine probably has the right to release his music however he thinks convenient and I respect his decision, however we consumers too have the right to choose to buy or not to buy.

*What I mean here is, maybe the person who ripped the album wasn't able to make a digital rip because of copy protection, and decided to make an analog rip, but wasn't smart enough to properly manage the gain level in order to obtain non-clipped audio. (My personal experience tells me that if the original wavs are clipped, further MP3 encoding often makes this even worse, tell me if I'm wrong).

BTW I hope I'm not breaking any TOS rule by just talking about copy protection, it is not my intention to violate any anti-piracy technology, just to speak my mind about it.

It's probably just the mastering. It's not that rare for heavily compressed metal to go over 230kbps with APS.



If the new album is indeed copy protected, then Mustaine must have somehow missed the irony of the album title....

It's probably like other CDs, it may very well be copy protected depending on which region/country you live in. I'm in the US and buy quite a lot of CDs and not once have I encountered a copy protected CD despite hearing about people in Europe or wherever getting the same CD copy protected. And yes, The System Has Failed is heavily compressed, I haven't listened to it very close but I wouldn't be surprised if it was clipping all over the place - it's loud. And 239kbps average for an album with 3.90.x APS isn't that abnormal for metal albums. For example I think I remember some Pantera CDs encoding in a similar range, perhaps higher.

Velver revolver-contraband encoded with Lame3.90.3 is 220-250 all tracks-aps too

I've got some old Emperor that didn't have alot of bass, however there were alot of mids and highs that resulted into 254kbps with LAME 3.90.3 APS.

Children of Bodom - Follow the Reaper yields an average bitrate of 255 kbps with LAME 3.90.3 aps And it really sounds overcompressed too (and I'm not too picky with mastering with this kind of music either)

Horrible mastering then. Too loud. If the files I´ve downloaded were digitally ripped and then encoded, this album should definitely be wavegained prior to encoding IMHO. I´ve compared these mp3s with a --preset standard encoding of Pantera´s "Vulgar Display Of Power" (done by myself, used just EAC and LAME 3.90.3) and it´s like night and day. Right now don´t have the graphs to post.

Leaving the annoying clipping aside, most songs are good and some of them really good (Tears In A Vial, Kick The Chair). The best Megadeth album since "Cryptic Writings" IMO.

Yeah! Great remark Dibrom!



Yes, they are trying to degrade CD format as much as they can...
I really agree with your statement about TSHF, that's for sure!
BTW: Since I've bought the reedition of CW I really started to enjoy it until now.

Edit: Poor English...

i have the album in my hands - if there's copy protection, they don't state it in any obvious place. i've already ripped the cd without any trouble using EAC, so i don't think you'll have a problem.

i'm no audiophile, but i downloaded a few of the mp3's before the album came out and they sounded fine to me, and the album itself sounds fine too.

It may be copy protected in some countries but not others. However I see no reason to believe it is copy protected anyway from the prior posts in this thread.

Who are "they"?. I would guess that you mean the Record industry.
I don't see the point of actually releasing bad sounding CD's. Is there a new
format to store music on in the making as we speak?.
I know that "they" pulled the same stunt when the old LP format had
played It's final spins. The LP's in the mid eighties sounded really poor in most
cases. This stunt was pulled just to make the masses turn to the new
format: Compact Disc.
Well, we finally had to wether we wanted or not, since they stopped
releasing LP's.

Yes. DVD-A and SACD. They'll push us to those formats (by comparing a crap mastered CD with a better mastered DVD-A/SACD, "ooh, listen for yourself how much better it is") which have copyprotections in the standard (bye bye ripping and fair use).

No No, don't make me adopt a standard with:

instant track to track
no need to turn over
doesn't wear out with use
greater frequency range
greater signal to noise ratio
more resistant to damage

You nasty evil devious recording companies.

(retreats to tube amp and vinyl collection to nurse wounds)

NOT !!!

Sure! By "They" I mean Record industry.
The guys above me explained it very well.

It is very clear that DVD Audio and SACD don't bring us any new quality apart from the CD, because CD was invented to be perfect sound without waste and CD already does a better job than we need it to. That's my point of view!

Well back in the 80's folks may have just said "dude, this sounds bad" -- however fast-foward to 2004 and such a ploy would probably result into a multi-million dollar lawsuit on behalf of consumers worldwide who bought the purposely inferior product, and with the laws in some countries the guilty party could probably expect to spend some time in prison. If a product is forced to be of lower quality to force people into choosing another format the scandal could financially ruin a record label to the brink of bankruptcy, and forever tarnish the reputation and career of the artist/group that bears the name on the disc. Such a dubious marketing strategy almost sounds like bait-and-switch.

I listened to a few tracks from this album and the sound is pretty annoying, but pretty much inline with most new releases I hear. The thing is this deterioration has been going on for many years now. If this was 1994 there might have been a backlash. Here in Australia every time I walk into a CD store the sound for their systems is even worse than the megadeth album, most of my friends listen with $10 gear and seem to really enjoy the music.

To me the outbreak of the grunge revolution back in the early 90's also signaled the end for sound quality. The industry had a perfect method of starting the loudnessrace. During the early 80-early 90's mastering was at its peak. Then everyone wanted to destroy commercial rock and bring in the 'raw' sound. I've even heard several people mention this next to me. I for one never liked this but we have been heading down lo-fi road for more than a decade to the point of near dictaphone quality cd's.

The sound we hate today is also the norm for many listeners and I am not sure that they will like a more dynamic sound. They will just say 'ohh thats sounds so eighties..'

I don't think it could financially ruin a record label to the brink of bankruptcy, because listeners nowadays don't know what's a really good sound. So there's no way to stop it, to give up listening awfully mastered garbage and to save CD format against DVD Audio & SACD.

Kill'em All - (cool and old) Metallica

Good point, I think. Out of the blue, I had a friend(who uses normal quality mass market playback equipment and listens to popular modern music bands) listen too two version of a song. I used 'Outshined' from Soundgarden(1991). I prepared another version of the song, using the cmopression levels as estimated from statistical analysis of the histogram in Cool Edit PRO from an AUdioslave song that has very similar instrument/vocal patterns as a guide. I was able to closely replicate the cmopression levels without too much added distortion. I then just presented these two versions of the Soundgarden song to the friend, and they commented how one version(the original) was too quiet for them; that they could hear things much better in the other(highly compressed, hard limited version). Eeek! This is just one person, and has no statistical value; but I intend to do a similar thing with some additional average listeners of current popular music out of curiousity.

-Chris

You mean you don´t hear Mustaine´s voice clipped all over the place in "Blackmail The Universe" (Track 1). I´m not saying this can be heard on the original album (I haven´t bought it yet) , but I can clearly hear it on these --preset standard MP3s. Never heard this clearly noticeable and annoying clipping before on correctly ripped/encoded --preset standard MP3 files. (Neither I´m saying these are correctly ripped/encoded, but one would believe that someone using LAME 3.90.x and --preset standard should have a clue about the correct way to do it).

Normally I wouldn´t discuss all this stuff, I´d buy the album and find out for myself, but money is something really, really hard to get around here

BTW has anyone bought the remixed/remastered version of "Rust In Peace".
Any really noticeable changes?

F#@ , the bitc# besides me has just lighted a cig. I hate g*ddamn unrespectful smokers. There are "no smoking" signs all over the place!.
Ah...she trashed it....I love clean air .

I wonder what would be the penalties for something like that in Europe.

Sorry for the cursing

Edit: Corrected my horrible english!. It's never too late.

It sounds to me like you got a bad copy when you downloaded it.Sombody put the cd into a cheap home stereo,and over-tuned the gain going into the input side of some sb16 or something.Try a download that lists at or above 256-320kbps,and 44-48khz mp3.Strange bitrates make for strange sounding audio and these i have spoke of are whats typically known as *studio quality mp3 laming.If such a thing exists ¿.A lot of cd's sold in stores still in the shrink-wrap dont deserve 128kbps 44khz rip.Its wasted space for the sound quality you get.If i was to buy a brand new cd for twenty dollars,and it sounded over modulated and full of hash,i would find a way to contact the record company as to get a reply as to a reason why.If somebody with their hand on the record gain knob ignores the red marks on the record DB gauges,its going to sound like trash.No matter what company puts it onto cd or who encodes it,it was trash coming out of the recording studio.I buy cd's all the time.Not one by one ive been known to get them in the mail by the hundered.More often than not the quality is better on the cd than any mp3 copy you will find.Maybe somebody is putting music on the net thats full of clippy lossy audio.(off topic)Music thats downloaded at an untrustworthy source usually has poor sound quality,and may contain viruses.The Programs i have seen used for this share your files at the same time your getting files from people.And the people uploading the music to you may not know your getting it from them at all(unauthorised).Also if your firewall allows you to download music,than more than likely it allows traffic to flow in as well.And crackerheads know this and watch and wait for people to sign up for insecure file sharing,so they can crash pc's,or obtain personal info.

Hi there!
Have you received my reply?
Yes, I've bought "Rust In Peace" Remaster. Alright, the main change is the sound (of course!). The drums sounds more powerful and awesome than on the original RIP. Also you'll notice a high compression and loss of dynamics (that's what we'd expected). But the most noticible change is vocal on "Take No Prisoners" because it's entirely newly oversung due to lost master tape (you probably read about it at Megadeth' droogies forum) and backing vocals on "Five Magics". And noticable guitar on "Dawn Patrol". Also there are very cool demo songs with Chris Poland on lead guitar! I don't regret that I've bought it but I think that this album could be done more perceptively...

I got your reply, yes, thanks for the info. I never visit the droogies forum so I didn´t know this. I think I´ll stick with the original version of RIP, which is actually too good to be true . Maybe when I have plenty of money I´ll give the remixes a chance.
-----------------------------

Been fiddling with Adobe Audition and Megadeth MP3s. Notice that I've used --preset standard MP3s so I can compare them to the latest Megadeth release as I've found it online.

I'll paradoxically start with "My Last Words", track #8 from "Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?" (1986). Really fast song with great, intense guitar work. The track has been digitally ripped with EAC 0.9b4, then encoded with LAME 3.90.3 --preset standard and loaded into Adobe Audition. Audition reports zero possible clipping samples for both channels. At least from this point of view, good mastering.



The second graph belongs to "Holy Wars...The Punishment Due" , track #1 from "Rust In Peace", Megadeth's greatest album for most fans, released in 1990. Same ripping/encoding/analysis procedure than before. The song is fast, heavy, aggresive, however there is no extreme loudness or compression as you can see. Apparently no peaks are chopped off at all. Adobe Audition reports zero possible clipping samples for both channels.



The third graph represents "Skin O'My Teeth", track #1 from "Countdown To Extinction" (1992). It's louder and maybe more compressed than "Holy Wars..."; sounds good to me. Adobe Audition reports zero possibly clipped samples for both channels once again. Still good.



Fourth graph: "The Disintegrators", track #5 from "Cryptic Writings" (1997). I have chosen this one because it's also fast, wildest song from the album. Louder and more heavily compressed than previous track, but sounds fine to me. The same extraction/encoding/analysis than previous track. Adobe Audition reports possibly clipped samples: 72 (left channel) and 87 (right channel).



Fifth graph: "Seven", track #10 from the infamous "Risk" (1999). Softer and happier than all previous tracks. Still quite compressed (same producer, same mastering engineer than "Cryptic..."). Adobe Audition reports 236 possibly clipped samples for the left channel and 694 for the right channel. A lot more clipping but not annoying at all to me.



Finally, we see "Blackmail The Universe", track #1 from "The System Has Failed" (Sept 2004). Fast, heavy metal. It is unfair to compare it to the others because I don't know exactly what extraction/encoding method was used (only sure thing is LAME 3.90.x --preset standard). If same method than the previously explained was used, I don't know what to say. Compressed to the max. A lot of peaks badly chopped off. The distortion is audible and annoying to me, particularly when Mustaine begins to sing after the fake news report. Adobe Audition reports possibly clipped samples 837 (left) 245 (right).



I think it's a good example of the "loudness race" so many times discussed in this forum.
All files ripped with EAC 0.9b4 from original pressed CDs, encoded with LAME 3.90.3 --preset standard, analyzed with Adobe Audition 1.0 (with the exception of "Blackmail The Universe", downloaded from the net). If anyone can rip/encode/analyze "Blackmail The Universe" from the original album in a similar way please post it and give me your opinion .

Thanks!.

You should note that the statistical analysis will not be able to tell what is really clipped. For example(and I have noticed this a few times), they can clip the signal to hell, then reduce overall amplitude before mastering so that nothing is over -0.1dB, instead of at 0dB, and the clipping will not be recognized by the program's statistical gathering process. But the clipping(and distortion) remains ,none the less.

First, let me address your possibly clipped sample analysis, since you are interested.

Blackmail The Universe track - In Cool Edit Pro 2(should be virtually identical to Audition), it reported 'possibly clipped' 4 Left, 0 Right. This is from EAC ripped file from a US retail CD purchased from Best Buy. It appears that something is not right with the downloaded file you tested simply from this huge difference compared to your reported numbers.

Now to address something else...

Unfortunately, it can be misleading to simply look at the raw waveforms. A statistical analysis with a narrow window resolution(50ms) reveals that overall compression is similar between the 'Holy Wars' and 'Blackmail The Universe' tracks, though the new version has some small amount of average compression increased and it lacks any high amplitude dynamics, unlike the old version which had room left for them. So yes, the new one is more compressed, but not in a linear fashion(main difference being that the modern song appears to have had the highest amplitude dynamics compressed/hard limited, as opposed to the entire range compressed more then the older song - I'm not saying this is not bad -- it is -- I believe those missing dynamnic peaks are very important -- I think they lend realism/quality to music(I don't think I'm violating TOS here, I don't know how one could possible ABX to support this opinion -- the differences of comprssed vs. less compressed by several dB would be too obvious for a fair blind test, I believe)). It's quite funny looking at the new version, since the overwhelming majority of the time, only -14dB are really utilized of the possible -96dB! LOL!



-Chris

Excellent news! . Thanks for taking the time to do this.



Yes...that´s no good. I like music with a decent dynamic range at least, because if not it turns into something monotonous.

I've bought some of the 2004 Remixed & Remastered Megadeth Albums... And I've got to say that if I were you [Megadeth die-hard fans], I would put my hands on the original releases of the albums... I would not make these remasters a priority! Per example... Cryptic Writings has much better sound than this remastered and remixed version... I don't enjoy the fact that the old releases are being substituted by these new Remasters...
As we speak, I'm trying to get my hands on that original release of the Cryptic Writings CD.

Of course that these new releases are interesting to hear...

Hi Megadeth fans out there!

First sorry for resurrecting this thread.

Today I have received the latest album "The System Has Failed". Althought there is not writen that this CD has a copy protection I realized, that both my optical drives (LG & Teac) have a bit trouble initializing the CD. When I look on that CD in windows explorer or Total Commander, there are only 12 audio tracks but in EAC it appeared there's a data track on the CD except for the first loading, when CDDB recognized the CD. The other tryes CDDB haven't recognized CD and I was very suprised, when I renamed all the tracks and then put the CD to the other drive, that the CD was once again not recognized.

I have ripped the CD by EAC burst mode test & copy CRC matched, but accurate rip said to me, the CD is not in database, so I would like to compare my rip to the other ones...

MD5 checksums:



CRCs from EAC log file:



Thanks in advance for your help with that thing!

I don't think thats quite true. Mastering for a CD and Vinyl are two different beasts all together. That's quite a big stretch be honest. And what about cassette? Cassette was actually on top throughout the 80s not Vinyl. So if your theory is correct all the cassettes sounded like crap on purpose too. I simply don't buy that theory. LPs were simply faded out over a 10 year period.