Music Streaming Services, Remastered Albums, The Loudness War & Brickwalled Music

[drp1003]

A simple question:

Where do the streaming services - especially the high resolution ones like TIDAL - stand on remastered albums that are brickwalled to death with zero dynamic range? Do they have any say in the matter or are they streaming the same brickwalled albums I could get on CD or some other format?

I realize nowadays, by and large, the Loudness War is essentially over thanks to loudness normalization.

Louder is better. Louder sells more albums. That was the way things were done when CD sales were at their peak back in the 90s 2000s.

I guess what I'm asking is, is there a new push, thanks to loudness normalization and the streaming services that use it, to remaster old albums so that they are NOT BRICKWALLED to death anymore? Or are we streaming music tracks that are still brickwalled to death?

 

[Dswankey]

You might want to post this in the "Digital Sources" forum, you'll definitely get more replies

https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?forums/digital-sources.25/

 

[drp1003]

I can't answer specifically for Tidal but when I have checked out streaming services they often use digital remasters that differ from the original masters. If the remasters are loudness mastered then so are the streams you get.

The CDs may actually sound better than highres streaming, provided the CDs were mastered with a good dynamic range.

It's not really the fault of the streaming services per se but enough of a deal-breaker for me personally.

Loudness normalization doesn't really solve the original problem, or make any sense, if the masters being used are the old, brickwalled ones from 15-20 years ago. I really don't know what the state of any newly remastered albums are from say the past ten years. Are they brick-walled or not? I would assume since streaming services are relatively new, then they would be using the latest remastered release.

 

[totem]

Perhaps the Tidal Masters category is where they get around the issue with overly compressed content.

• TIDAL MASTERS
• What is TIDAL Masters?
  
  TIDAL has partnered with MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) to deliver guaranteed Masters recordings in the highest quality, directly from the original master source to TIDAL members – exactly as the artist intended the track to sound.
  

 

[Condorsat]

Believe they get whatever the record labels send them .. probably most current release. That's what I recall a Tidal rep saying at RMAF some years ago.

It's one of the downsides to subscription streaming ... like the old Eagles songs says

Late at night a big old house gets lonely
I guess every form of refuge has its price

Don Henley & Glenn Frey

 

[E-Stat]

TIDAL has partnered with MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) to deliver guaranteed Masters recordings in the highest quality, directly from the original master source to TIDAL members – exactly as the artist intended the track to sound.

In reality, neither of those claims are true.

According to mastering engineer Brian Lucey, the first claim is utter BS.

http://fairhedon.com/2017/11/05/an-interview-with-mastering-engineer-brian-lucey/

Secondly, MQA is a lossy format which is at best is 96/17. All you need do it look at the patent.

https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/163302855-is-mqa-doa

Why would anyone choose lossy content today given the low cost of both storage and bandwidth. I replaced Tidal with Qobuz Studio which offers lossless 192/24 content.

 

[totem]

Got it now after some due diligence.

 

[CraigVMN]

I've never been satisfied with the SQ of any of the streaming services.

 

[E-Stat]

I've never been satisfied with the SQ of any of the streaming services.

Have you heard 96/24 or 192/24 content from Qobuz?