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Well, thats what CD's are today. Search for "loudness race", "clippressed" or "overcompression" on this forum, and you'll learn that really about every cd released today is mastered that way (apart from classical maybe). So well, if you have the choice between DVD and CD take the DVD in any case!

Okay, I'll point you here or maybe here. I don't think we need yet another topic about this.

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you forgot e) start liking classical music/ [old] jazz/blues, and never have this problem again

b) not to start another war over it, but just using lame v0 vbr-new will sound just as well as the 320kbps cbr files, even if i suppose you're not really looking to save space .. mp3gain might work, but it might be better if you RGed the cd's, and then converted those flac/whatever fast format works for you files to mp3 with RG enabled in the (.9) converter settings

c) sounds like loads of work/undoable

d) i wouldn't trust in all companies actually mastering differently for dvd or cd..
so you may be waiting for a long time, until the companies decide to stop gaining everything to hell and back, before that happens
better choice would then be to just find older masters for the same albums [if they exist] and buy those [off amazon/whatever place you can buy 2nd hand cds in]

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I don't think anything can tell you if clipping is actual occurring or not. Normalizing to 100% will make the highest peaks appear to clip, but the waveform is still ok (although some of these may clip during playback on some DACs).
Zooming in close enough may convince you that a 0dB peak isn't clipping but how could software possibly know?
Analyze/Statistics on CoolEdit/Audition will tell you if there are possibly clipped peaks.
You cannot actually restore clipped peaks but you may be able to make them sound somewhat better.

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a) Rip CD with EAC, encode to FLAC, and apply ReplayGain, and use the SlimServer software (via a Squeezebox is ideal) to stream the non-clipped FLAC files audio to your system, negating the need for a DVD/CD player
c) Rip CD with EAC using the REACT EAC plugin tool to pass the wavs through Wavegain (which applies the Replaygain standard) and re-burn to CD's


BTW I currently use option a) with great results

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What are you talking about? Audio CD's have 16-bit integer resolution, which means that they can't have any peak higher than -0dB. So, how do you want to improve quality by replaygaining the rips?? The only thing that happens is that they are quiter then. And they don't clip at -0dB anymore, but to what they have been gained, e.g if replaygain is -9dB then if the peak was at 0dB the peak will be at -9dB after replaygaining. However, it still sounds the same, just quiter. It's still clipping, just not at full scale anymore. So really, there is no way to restore clipped cd's. That's because the peaks can't be higher than -0dB on CD.

However, I haven't seen any DVD nearly as clippressed as a modern audiocd yet. So, if you want non-clipped sound, you need to buy either old recordings (older than about 1995 I think) or the DVD's (if available).

EDIT: Here are 2 screenshots showing that peaks decrease in the same amount as loudness while replaygaining, thereby not magically restoring clipped peaks:

a) how are CDs convenient? They are less convenient than having all the audio on your PC and ready to play at the flick of a switch. And you don't need a Squeezebox to use their software.
b) yes, wavegain is lossy

With what you've said so far, why do you care if it's lossless if you are unhappy with the level of volume that CDs are produced in at the moment anyway? AFAIK (and as far as I can tell) the wavegain process (for example) has no effect on audio quality, just audio volume levels... just like replaygain.

sheesh

troll - me outta here

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The CD isn't clipping (it can't). The source material was clipped before it even made it onto CD. There's nothing that can be done.

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I have this Cd as SACD/CD/DVD edition.
The CD and LPCM DVD Version sounds the same to me. So you are just nervous about some software told you it is clipped or do you have some listening results?
Sadly the loudness race got to far these days but some technically clipped recordings sound damn good. I wouldn´t get to paranoid about that.

You are right. Just because it is technically clipped does not mean it is sufficient duration to become audible. BTW, the CD referenced by the original poster(Playing The Angel) is a bit unique in that most of the songs were produced using very heavy levels of distortions all over the place throughout many tracks. Funny thing is, it works for this CD. I thought that tthis CD sounded damn good, all things considered.

-Chris

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Who said it appears it clips but it doesn´t?
I only said it doesn´t sound different. You came here and complained about the clipping of this recording on the CD.
Have you found some problems with the CD version against the DVD LPCM version on this recording?

Edit: SACD is a completely different story.

I think you missed the context of the some of the above statements.

The source material can be clipped without the host storage format clipping. For example: if the recording engineer uses some very hard limiter setting and ends up inducing some clipping, or ends up with some clipping from somwhere else in his process while attempting to get it as loud as possible, the top of the waveform peaks are cut off(clipped) resulting in high level harmonics. The engineer might knock it down by 0.1 dB(-0.1 dBFs maximum value) for mastering. But the signal is still clipped. But the actual format(CD) here would not be technically clipped because the signals are not exceeding 0dBFs on the actual format(though many DACs may create peak voltages above 0 dBFs). The clipping as given in the example here is not due to exceeding the CD peak ampllitude limits, it's due to other things.

-Chris

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No. I gave an example where clipping can exist, but it would not be due to the CD format itself being clipped.

You can find CDs that the waveform simply is cutoff at 0dBFs. These would be considered clipped. But still, this can be a result of the mastering engineer normlazing peak values to stop at 0dBFs instead of -0.1dBFs as I gave in my example.

-Chris

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Its only bad if you can hear the clipping

Everything these days clips. A lot of it still sounds fine because the mastering job was done good enough that you don't notice. Or rather they screwed up the mastering in a way thats not too noticable.

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It won't imporve the quality of the sound file, but it *might* improve quality of playback compare to CD play , if peaks no longer approach 0 dB. That's because 1) some CD players don't handle 0 dBFS levels without distortion and 2) intersample 'overs' -- clipping that isn't visible -- is more likely at higher peak levels.

http://www.cadenzarecording.com/papers/Digitaldistortion.pdf

IIRC Cool Edit will report single peaks *at* 0 dB as possibly clipped (they aren't), as well as peaks that are part of a 90 dB 'plateau' (which really are clipped). I dont' recall if this Cool Edit behavior can be changed to something less conservative, but I know that in 'Wave Repair, you can specify the 'definition' of clipping as being a set of N consecutive peaks at the same amplitude.

You should try to understand that clipping will not always be audible. How much clipping there is, and how it is distributed, matters. Also, you should realize that recorded clipped peaks can't be 'fixed', at most you can attempt a 'guess' at reconstructing them via software.

Clipping that's due to the player overloading at output, e.g. when it encounters 0 dbFS peaks, or feeds an input at too high a level, *can* be corrected by getting a better player or by lowering the output level.

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I post this link occasionally, seems applicable here.

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/...6256C2E005DAF1C

excellent !!

Perhaps you have your CD Audio and Wave Outputs set to different levels on your sound card?

If everything's set to the same levels for your soundcard driver and you're using the same program to play both the CD and the MP3 then the output volume should be identical

Plausible, but incorrect. MP3 encoding modifies the waveform, that's why it can shoot over 0 dBfs even if the original doesn't.

So lets make some small conclusions.

1. If you rip a CD to a WAV-file (uncommpressed) and it's signal is clipping, then there is nothing you can do about it.
2. Same for ripping to a lossless file (the WAV-file and the lossless file have the same waveforms).
3. The only reason for applying replaygain on lossless files would be for making songs/albums have the same volume.
4. If you rip a CD to an MP3-file then the waveform is changed and extra clipping is possible.
5. This sort of clipping you can remove by replaygain or mp3gain.


So this is my conclusion. Can someone confirm these conclusions or do I have to read all posts a bit better... (and i don't like reading )


And if I'm right (or if I'm wrong), do other lossy encoders also alters the waveform so that extra clipping occurs? (and wich one?) And is it for those possible to remove the clipping with replaygain?

Ruptura, your conclusions are mostly correct, except

#1. is ambiguous.

A better way to put it would be
1. If the waveform on the CD is clipped, there is nothing you can do about it.

#3 is somewhat inaccurate.

What you said applies only to ReplayGain's Track Mode. In Album Mode, RG preserves the level differences between an album's tracks; OTOH, all albums are brought to the same average level. You are correct in concluding that RG will not help with the clipping that originated in the studio.

Besides of classical and jazz, there are some other genres, which tend to not or rarely be overcompressed:

- ambient (talking about real ambient here - not "techno-ambient" and not "chillout" - i'm talking about steve roach, vir unis, etc. here).

- Berlin-school / synthesizer music: Redshit, Radio Massacre International, etc.

Basically, the more you dive into unpopular/underground/eclectic styles, the better the dynamics become. So, quality music (in every sense) is below the surface of the music-world.

I have that album as I am somewhat of an avid Oasis fan. Not only is clipped it's also compressed (Vlado Meller deserves a beating). There 1997 album Be Here Now is atrocious (it's clipped beyond believe). What would you expect they recorded most of it in Abbey Road Studios anyway?



That's the general trend I tend to see also. Classical music always has a good dynamic range.