This is snapshot of one of the tracks of accurately ripped original CD with Eac (LOG 100%):
(http://thumb.screencast.com/2/613cbd99-70e9-4b78-96a6-29bb5241d3cc/thumb.gif) (http://content.screencast.com/users/nobody5/folders/Snagit/media/613cbd99-70e9-4b78-96a6-29bb5241d3cc/keys1.png) (http://thumb.screencast.com/2/ef33ce7c-2cd8-40c8-95b9-624eae1e213f/thumb.gif) (http://content.screencast.com/users/nobody5/folders/Snagit/media/ef33ce7c-2cd8-40c8-95b9-624eae1e213f/keys2.png)
If I'm right this is 1st album mastered from lossy source.
..more snapshots:
(http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/3883/tbyzeo.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/a/img834/3883/tbyzeo.png) (http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/1707/yx1pkb.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/a/img62/1707/yx1pkb.png)
The lowpass at ~20.5 kHz doesn't necessarily mean that this track was lossily compressed.
I don't see anything in those spectral graphs to conclude with any degree of certainty whatsoever that the album was mastered from a lossy source.
Regarding whether this is the first album mastered from a lossy source, there have been reports in the past.
I don't get however why the hard cutoff. Never seen that on CD audio.
I've seen it plenty. There is no issue here.
I don't see any good reason for doing this on lossless audio format. Curious what's the point of doing this when the space requirements are exactly same.
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.
I don't get however why the hard cutoff. Never seen that on CD audio.
Check any CD from the 80s. I don't recall any which does
not have this 20-kHz lowpass.
Which in the 80s was due to a conservative lowpass during A/D conversion. In Alicia's album I'd guess it's because they used some analog processing during mixing or mastering (and then some conservative A/D converter for some reason). What scares me are the lines going to 22 kHz. This is solid gold digital waveform clipping.
Chris
What scares me are the lines going to 22 kHz. This is solid gold digital waveform clipping.
I've found clipping on Third (Portishead album). It's obvious and shocking.