question about disco compilation cd's

[Spellbound]

I have a question about the disco compilation cd's I have seen advertised on this site and others. I have never bought one. I prefer owning 12" vinyl. I am curious about the bass response on the cd's. How do is it compare to the original vinyl? Some of the bass on the original vinyl pressings is very weak. I was wondering if the overall sound on the cd's is enhanced or remastered in some way for the cd's?

[eddie]

It depends on the compilation and who is doing the mastering. For the most part, I have no problem with 95% of the CD's out there. The bass response is a bit less when compared to Lp. Sometimes CDs are remastered and reequalized and thus changed. An example of this is Elvis 1's. Othertimes, a vinyl copy is used which may or may not be clean.

One bad example: Shades of Love on Hot CD

Distortion is also less on CD but many of the master tapes are deteriorating after decades in storage. Personally, I can't stand the sound of channel flutter from tape.
Honestly, I collect almost all cd's and my albums consist of artist who are hard to find on CD like One Way.

[djsonic]

It seems to me that the disco hit cd's on REBOUND from polygram, have less quality sound. like the disco's greatest hits cd with "Born To Be Alive" & "Dont Leave Me This Way" i have to turn the volume all the way up just to hear a little better...no bass at all on this cd. now as for some good ones
one of the first disco cds complations ever,(i think) was on profile and they were good quality. also the billboard dance classics was a good set. as studio 54 sound track cd
and hippo did some good ones a few years back...
hope this helps.
sonics.

[QUINNY]

In general, where tracks have been from master tapes the sound quality is superior to the vinyl in purely sonic terms? How could it not be, especially if we're talking especially long disco tracks, where the bass/overall response would have had to be attenuated (sometimes rather severely) in order for the cut to play.

However, subjectively, if you're a vinyl freak you probably wouldn't agree.

Give me CD anytime.

[BrunoRepublic]

In general, where tracks have been from master tapes the sound quality is superior to the vinyl in purely sonic terms?

The problem is that a lot of compilations -- even major label ones -- often have lousy sources, or even use needle drops.

How could it not be, especially if we're talking especially long disco tracks, where the bass/overall response would have had to be attenuated (sometimes rather severely) in order for the cut to play.

Generally this is very true. I find that a lot of contemporary CDs screw up the sound in other ways though, like excessive hard-limiting. Well-mastered disco CDs are quite rare.

[QUINNY]

Despite what Graham writes, in general, even with hard limiting and iffy mastering (vinyl wasn't hard limited or poorly mastered...DUH????) CDs sound a hell of a lot better than vinyl. I've written this before and I'll write it again "if you like the bass end of vinyl it doesn't mean that vinyl is sonically superior..quite the opposite in fact and no-one can seriously tell me that they prefer the pops, clicks, rumble and poor sound to noise ratio for anything other than purely personal reasons."
If CDs lack bass, it's because they are actually giving you for the very first time, the sound of the track as perceived in the control room when it was recorded. The vinyl release was merely an approximation by comparison. I know that digital is, in effect an approximation too, but it's a whole lot more realistic than vinyl ever was or could be, despite audiophiles moaning about the HF brick wall. When we all have speakers that go all the way to 50KHz, ears that go all the way and all microphones, amps, FX units etc all go that far too, THEN I might concede that 44.1 CD standard isn't good enough/inferior.

[Mixmachine]

Well-mastered disco CDs are quite rare.

this has been my experience too, some of those Djs comps are horrible..

I have bought many comps that sound no where near in quality to the original vinyl release, many of this CDs have this 'metallic' or 'digital' sound that hurts my ears if I raise the volume to high, and forces me to re-EQ my system to get me through the CD, on the other hand if I pick up the original 12s I don't have this problem; In my experience, a good clean 12" played in a good system beats the CD release most of the times, even if the CD was taken from the masters, Why? I don't know exactly why, even after reading many conflicting opinions by "experts" , but after all is said and done, who cares about the Technical limitations of one format or the other, I let my 'ears' do the judging, and they have spoken. :lol:

THEN I might concede that 44.1 CD standard isn't good enough/inferior.

But SONY already did for you, and they came up with SACD, the few comparisons of SACD to CD/vinyl that I've done demonstrate a great improvement. :P

[ol'skinflint]

the overall sound of a compilation disco CD is usually a bit better than the "parent" album that the individual tracks were pulled from, but the tracks on the compilation CD don't usually sound as good as the 12" versions that I own. And the source recordings is all-important. I mentioned how disappointed I was with the CD version of Donna Summer's "A Love Trilogy" and I strongly suspect it wasn't recorded from the original master recording. Some CDs mention in their liner notes that they weren't recorded from the original master recording (the "West Side Story" original soundtrack is a good example). Finally, so many disco compilation CDs use the exact same songs so often that I no longer care about their quality, I get so sick of the same songs over and over. Anyone notice that the version of the Undisputed Truth's "You + Me = Love" is missing the first few bass notes? What crappy work

[paul]

Well (forgive me Graham :cry: ), I used to be one of those who was firmly entrenched in the vinyl camp. Over the last few years I've heard improvement in the sound of cd. Now for all practical purposes I have to say the cd is the better choice. I can hear the difference between cds of the last few years vs those released when the format was introduced. Of course there are still the occasional poorly matered cd and you can find some superior audiophile vinyl that are pretty hard to beat.
Quinny, there is something to the dynamic and frequency brick wall that were noticeable issues in early cds. Analog and vinyl in this case was more forgiving sonically at or above it's rated level. The techniques used to address this problem for digital spilled quited audibly into the frequency range many of us can hear. For example, the filters used to limit high frequences caused phase problems in the treble regions. This was heard as a bright tizzy sound on early cd.
A good way to compare the difference between analog and digital in terms how they behave when their limits are reached is the cell phone. Early cell phones using analog would tend to get noisier as one passed out of range. Digital phones will simply drop the call once the limit is exceeded. This and other nasties would be unacceptable of course when listening to music. Therefore the hard limiting was particularly pronounced for digital.
Today, techniques like upsampling, oversampling etc., put the frequency issues way past the audio spectrum. Dynamically, the availability of 20 and 24 bit recording reduce concerns for dynamic problems. These techniques are then reformatted to be cd compatible.
Thanks for playing Too Much Information. :oops: :lol:

[QUINNY]

Finally, so many disco compilation CDs use the exact same songs so often that I no longer care about their quality, I get so sick of the same songs over and over. Anyone notice that the version of the Undisputed Truth's "You + Me = Love" is missing the first few bass notes? What crappy work

This has nothing to do with the sound quality of CD in relation to CD compilations. Don't suppose the same old tracks were ever released on vinyl compilations? Yeah, it annoys me too, and makes some CDs less than essential, unless there's one track I must have, but it was the same back in the good ol' vinyl days too. The only reasons it appears worse today are the massive number of compilations released and the comparitive ease at which they can be bought, via the internet.
Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

My copy of You + Me = Love is complete, so far as I am aware, on the Disco Connection compilation, which is highly recommended. Personally I couldn't care that much about a few missed bass notes and certainly wouldn't miss the over long, pretentious crap that are the intos to, Candido's Thousand Finger Man or the Trammps That's Where The Happy People Go, for instance.