Solid Stance

Who wants to hold out for the Quaristice CD instead of spoiling yourself with intangible forms of audio like MP3 and FLAC? Who wants to join the Quar-on-CD movement with me?

You should wait for the cd because the mp3's sound a bit fuzzy ...

or maybe my headphones arent good enough.

hell, i'm not even reading any reviews and i'm avoiding all threads quaristice... enter a new display name asked me "why not order from warpmart?"... i love physically going out and making the human interaction/transaction when i buy a new autechre cd!

  asymmetrical head said:

hell, i'm not even reading any reviews and i'm avoiding all threads quaristice... enter a new display name asked me "why not order from warpmart?"... i love physically going out and making the human interaction/transaction when i buy a new autechre cd!

QFT.

Personally, I'm gonna buy it from my local indie record store...

But first I gotta buy up the rest of their Autechre stuff. They still have

Envane

Peel Session

Peel Session 2

Gantz Graf (CD + DVD)

Garbage

Time to complete my collection... :tongue2:

I am totally doing that

I bought the double CD and the mp3s and loving it.

Just listen to the Scotland 05 live show quite a bit of it will be on the bonus CD and normal CD

Yeah, I'm waiting for the physical release too, though I'll be pre-ordering from Warp because I'm not 100% sure I could get it here on 3/3.

  Rogueofmv said:

Who wants to hold out for the Quaristice CD instead of spoiling yourself with intangible forms of audio like MP3 and FLAC? Who wants to join the Quar-on-CD movement with me?

How is PCM digital audio "more tangible" than any other form of digital audio representation? Do you mean you can't 'have' the music without the Compact Disc it's stored on? If it's the sound quality, then the FLAC version is lossless - it will sound the same to you, unlike the MP3 (maybe).

Or is it the artwork you would miss in the completion of the 'experience'? That is, artwork that has next to nothing to do with autechre, and that is made by tDR/commissioned by Warp to render AE's music somehow more conventional than it is, thus making it easier to lump in with all those other artists' and bands' albums you buy.

I understand getting the CD, to some extent -especially for reasons of audio quality - but I can't comprehend delaying listening to a new autechre album until you have the Designers Republic artwork and the little bit of mass-produced polycarbonate plastic that is used only as a means to hold the digital data that may then get converted into sound when you feed it to your player.

Wrong side of the bed.

  Dr Clitterhaus said:

You should wait for the cd because the mp3's sound a bit fuzzy ...

or maybe my headphones arent good enough.

I think this album does have that kind of quality to it, it's not the MP3s. It's the gear they're using as well. On The Plc, for instance, there are lots of tiny 'clicks' that sound like the machinedrum's sampling/playback - it's nearly impossible to get rid of those clicks - only to diminish them.

I'm with you Dangulberry...

I bought of bleep yesterday and I'm planning on buying the cd too...

Initial thoughts? Well.....some tracks are similar to the live sets from Glasgow 2005 and Pontins etc...bit disappointed with this - i know those sets inside out so these tracks aren't really all that new......but they're still good...

There is so much going on here that it's like being high on mushrooms and then smoking white widow, your brain feels like it wants to explode!!! Yet for me this remains a very satisfying experience...

Also the sound production is ever more superb, parts of the album remind me of Chiastic Slide, other bits of untilted - yet apart from the live set tracks this is very fresh indeed....

Gotta say, MP3 is not up to the job for this album. It might be good for rock or orchestral music, but the texture of sound on Quaristice is kind of the main point for a lot of tracks (e.g. Fol3) and the MP3s just fail. I was slightly disappointed in the MP3 version but the FLAC is compelling. Wonder if they'll release it in one of the "hi-res" formats like DVD-A?

  Larry David said:

I'm with you Dangulberry...

 

I bought of bleep yesterday and I'm planning on buying the cd too...

 

Initial thoughts? Well.....some tracks are similar to the live sets from Glasgow 2005 and Pontins etc...bit disappointed with this - i know those sets inside out so these tracks aren't really all that new......but they're still good...

 

There is so much going on here that it's like being high on mushrooms and then smoking white widow, your brain feels like it wants to explode!!! Yet for me this remains a very satisfying experience...

 

Also the sound production is ever more superb, parts of the album remind me of Chiastic Slide, other bits of untilted - yet apart from the live set tracks this is very fresh indeed....

I'd love more Chiastic Slide. Even if it's just one track. :laughing:

  dangulberry said:

I understand getting the CD, to some extent -especially for reasons of audio quality - but I can't comprehend delaying listening to a new autechre album until you have the Designers Republic artwork and the little bit of mass-produced polycarbonate plastic that is used only as a means to hold the digital data that may then get converted into sound when you feed it to your player.

no shit! preach it brother!

y0~!

I mean, it's not like all we have access to is some shitty 128k mp3s... we have flacs for goodness sake!

  amni said:

Just listen to the Scotland 05 live show quite a bit of it will be on the bonus CD and normal CD

what gave you this idea?

Well I'm happy with my FLACs thank you very much.

I wish Sony had succeeded with the Atrac format. It was better compression technology than mp3 and sounded better. 320Kbps was lossless from the original CD because of the way it was encoded.

But they gave up on it last month.

  blos said:

Gotta say, MP3 is not up to the job for this album. It might be good for rock or orchestral music, but the texture of sound on Quaristice is kind of the main point for a lot of tracks (e.g. Fol3) and the MP3s just fail. I was slightly disappointed in the MP3 version but the FLAC is compelling. Wonder if they'll release it in one of the "hi-res" formats like DVD-A?

How do you figure? What exactly is the difference you hear between the mp3s and the flacs by which you concluded the mp3s to be inferior? I've got news for you son, it's all in your tiny little head. If you think I'm wrong then take the fucking Pepsi Challenge and do a blind listening test.

It's also worth noting that no human thus far has been able to tell the difference between a "hi-res" audio recording and the same at standard 44.1kHz/16-bit redbook audio. You aren't missing anything.

  Dr Clitterhaus said:

It was better compression technology than mp3 and sounded better. 320Kbps was lossless from the original CD because of the way it was encoded.

Wrong and wrong. Give me your paypal account info and I'll send you a nickel to go buy a clue

  Bob Dobalina said:

How do you figure? What exactly is the difference you hear between the mp3s and the flacs by which you concluded the mp3s to be inferior? I've got news for you son, it's all in your tiny little head. If you think I'm wrong then take the fucking Pepsi Challenge and do a blind listening test.

Settle down - one of the reasons I liked the FLAC better was the lack of little gaps between tracks which butt up against each other. If you think you're missing nothing with MP3, try the exercise of MP3 encoding an AIFF or a WAV, then render the MP3 back to the same format, invert the waveform and add it to the original. Now you have a file of the difference between the MP3 and the uncompressed audio. Should be inaudible, right? Have a listen and get back to me.

(and yes, I know about psychoacoustics, I am just of the opinion that not everybody's hearing works in an identical way, and that inaudible to one person is audible to another. MP3 is based on a psychoacoustic *model* derived from psychophysiological data averaged across subjects. It's absolutely fine for casual listening, I use it all the time.)

  Bob Dobalina said:

It's also worth noting that no human thus far has been able to tell the difference between a "hi-res" audio recording and the same at standard 44.1kHz/16-bit redbook audio. You aren't missing anything.

In fact there is only one study that I know of, and it compared SACD with and without the HF components filtered out. The results were hardly definitive. Do you know of better studies?

I'm not stupid enough to think that frequencies beyond 20kHz are unambiguously audible, but nor am I arrogant enough to think that I know what a complete stranger's experience of sound quality is, from 20 000 km away. I listened to the album a few times on portable audio under varying circumstances. Then I listened to the MP3 version, giving it my full attention, in a quiet and dark room. Then I listened to the FLAC version, same speakers / amp, same conditions. I liked the FLAC. Don't need a double blind for that, since I'm not a test meter requiring calibration, I'm a human being who wants to enjoy music. Thus I prefer the one I enjoyed.

  asymmetrical head said:

hell, i'm not even reading any reviews and i'm avoiding all threads quaristice... enter a new display name asked me "why not order from warpmart?"... i love physically going out and making the human interaction/transaction when i buy a new autechre cd!

What about too obscure music that can't be found in any music store?

i'm waiting for the CD. i like having pretty CD thingys.

  Enter a new display name said:

What about too obscure music that can't be found in any music store?

  ezkerraldean said:

i'm waiting for the CD. i like having pretty CD thingys.

That's this thread in a nutshell. Plus, I like to stick with or close to release dates. 1 month before CD release just seems too soon to put the album out there. It may be official, but it still feels as though I witnessed Quaristice being raped by Warp Records in the back alleys. :omg:

  Rogueofmv said:

Who wants to hold out for the Quaristice CD instead of spoiling yourself with intangible forms of audio like MP3 and FLAC? Who wants to join the Quar-on-CD movement with me?

grandpa

  blos said:

Settle down - one of the reasons I liked the FLAC better was the lack of little gaps between tracks which butt up against each other.

Well MP3 is suitable for perfectly gapless playback but both your player and the codec used should support it. So it's either your player, or you got ripped off and bought shitty MP3s, in which case I would also choose FLAC just because the gaps are totally unacceptable.

  blos said:

I listened to the album a few times on portable audio under varying circumstances. Then I listened to the MP3 version, giving it my full attention, in a quiet and dark room. Then I listened to the FLAC version, same speakers / amp, same conditions. I liked the FLAC. Don't need a double blind for that, since I'm not a test meter requiring calibration, I'm a human being who wants to enjoy music. Thus I prefer the one I enjoyed.

Hypothetically speaking, if you were to try, and fail to ABX the MP3s from the FLACs, would you still be enjoying the FLAC more afterwards? Would you still waste the money/disk space for it? I know I wouldn't, but I guess it's understandable if having lossless gives you peace of mind.

There are artists which, even if I'm fully digital now thanks to my Squeezebox, I still buy on CD. In fact most of the stuff I want, I'll get them on CD. It's a physical backup, and a way to assure myself that the mastering of my Mp3's are directly 1-step from the redbook cd Audio.

Since I have every AE release on CD, I can't see myself only downloading it, even at the same price. But it'll go directly on my computer, I won't even listen to it once on CD!!!!