The lengths I go to to get a good master...
I've always had a real soft spot for Counting Crows' cover of Big Yellow Taxi (it's got that light and easygoing, carefree late 90s/early 00s vibe that fills me with nostalgia), but I've always preferred the version that has Vanessa Carlton on it. There's an unofficial vinyl release of Hard Candy (the album) with better mastering than the digital releases but it only features the version without her on it. So the version with Vanessa Carlton is only available on a separate CD single with a dynamic range rating of 6 and it has that very blunt early 00s pop music EQ too to compound it, it's passable on a good set of speakers, but kinda crap and unpleasant on headphones.
Anywho, I used yt2 to download the official music video from YouTube and demuxed the audio, and voila, a dynamic range rating of 10, and no clipped or limited peaks or intersample peaks. However, the YouTube stream is only 128Kbps Ogg; and while I'd take a low bitrate lossy copy with more DR and a better mastering over even a Hi-Res lossless file with worse DR and mastering, I'd like to do better if I can... So, I tracked down a Now That's What I Call Music 2003 US DVD-V on discogs which features the music video and added it to my basket, popped over to rutracker to grab a disc image to double check and it has the video on there with an LPCM 16/48 track with the same dynamic range.
Just gonna rms-match each track with replaygain and listen to them to double check this isn't just a low frequency eq adjustment giving a false reading and that it legitimately sounds better, then will add to my digital library and hit buy on the discogs copy for a few quid to add to my physical collection.
This is what it's like for my fussy arse. I've auditioned over 30 versions of some albums before deciding what copy or copies to get and add.
My audiophile journey started backwards compared to most folks, rather than getting speakers and an amp, then maybe dac, then feeding it with whatever I've got. I started at the source or 'ground level' and prioritised getting the very best masters I could of every release I want to give me peace of mind, ripping them all in in the best quality possible and adding them to my foobar digital library whether CD, HDCD, Vinyl, SACD, DVD-A, BD-A, Hi or standard res lossless download, lossy download etc. I even have a lot of DVD-V, BD-V stuff of live concerts where I've demuxed the audio, used the chapter markers as guides for a cue sheet, then imported it into my library like any other release. Wherever the best [or my preferable] master/s are I'll go there and then get it into my digital collection in either a bit-perfect state (digital) or as transparent as possible (analogue). I can't bring myself to use Spotify or Tidal or whatever streaming service as a primary source, not just cause I like to possess both physical and digital copies where possible, but most of the time you have no idea what mastering you're getting and very rarely will the best or better mastering be on there; this is far more of a concern to me than lossy vs lossless, if the master is poor, the latter is pretty much irrelevant to me. I'd take a 128Kbps mp3 of a great master over hi res lossless file, an SACD or a 45RPM 12" set with a poor one, but then if that master is on the latter, then I'll go there.
I think a part of this is also my need to archive and preserve things in their best form, it's something I think is immensely important (same for movies, tv etc). I have a giant SSD to run it all from alongside a portable foobar install with everything needed on that drive and setup so it can be plugged into any other computer and run anywhere, everything is meticulously tagged and referenced so you know the exact release. I have a second drive I take with me places, then a couple HDD backups (one 'offsite') and then I have all the physical copies of stuff stored away safely. Everything lossless is in FLAC, the few lossy things are left as is. All my DSD/SACD stuff has the original files and disc images backed up in separate folders, but I convert to 24/88 PCM with Weiss Saracon and use that for now in the main library. I use replaygain with an 'album source by tags' and 'prevent clipping according to peaks', with the scan set up for maximum precision and oversampling to catch all intersample peaks. I also have a mirrored library where every track is in Opus 400Kbps with a very specific custom encoder setup and I can't tell the difference at all, even in ABX. I still use and keep the lossless for 'posterity'/preservation of course (and that elimination of doubt). But the Opus version of the library is setup to eventually go on a microSD so that portable listening is viable on a reasonable storage capacity on a DAP or similar. My main librbary is coming up on 2500 albums with an average bitrate of 1600Kbps and the Opus/portable mirrored version comes in at 390Kbps. So it quarters the size for a portable device. The custom encoder is setup for one click in foobar, moves only specific accompanying files, simplifies the folder structure for portable devices and also embeds the "version" tag I use into brackets at the end of the album title so that distinct release are separated. The comment tag features all identifying info in a specific layout and I use a discogs tag with the direct link to the discogs release. Right now, I just have an abridged library on my phone with a smaller microSD using Musicolet & Poweramp (Pro?), though the UIs leave a lot to be desired.
I'm even planning on doing LTO tape backups at some point and am working on a specific setup (tape gen etc.) that minimises cost and can be iterated on every year or two as well as stored safely. When I'm old I'd love to hand a case to my children or a relative or someone important who I know appreciates music and give them the gift of a vast library of the very best sounding music that they can enjoy. It's a lot of work over the course of 12+ yrs, so I have to protect it. My most prized possession is those drives alongside the music itself. They literally represent time and I'd be devastated to lose them. All the testing, the ripping, the click/pop removal, the tagging, the organising, all the little pipelines and systems devised to optimise everything, the artwork, the logging of everything. Then setting up foobar to read and organise all the custom tags, all the little tweaks to make everything just so.
Foobar has been an absolute godsend. Paired with the 14yr old still yet to be updated simplaylist component, I can have multiple versions of an album denoted by custom id3 tags and it separates them out wonderfully. And it's so snappy compared to anything else around today, along with perfect audio output. I don't think I'll ever use anything else.
Anywho, on the hardware side. I've just had a complete reset and I'm going to pretty much start again. I've sold almost everything I had and I'm in a smaller room atm....right now I just have the little Fiio headphone dac/amp running from my laptop in dac-only mode, then I either run that into my little (real) tripath amp + Q Acoustics bookshelf speakers -or- into my Cayin C5 portable headphone amp + Sennheiser HD 380 Pros.
I'm gonna build things up again slowly and I'm currently whittling down three tentative setups to work my way up through bit by bit, I wanna really nail everything together and appreciate the improvements. A Denafrips DAC plus a Denafrips Pre-amp will be the basis and I'll be starting off with some nice larger bookshelf speakers from ELAC. The amp I'm undecided on. Basically wanna restart with a nicely balanced mid-budget system, get all the tweaks, the room and the connecting parts nailed, I'll always have peace of mind that I'm feeding it with the best quality music source (alongside a heavily tweaked -- albeit old fashioned -- portable install of foobar that works perfectly for me) and then once it's all in place: hot swap the weakest link for an upgrade, and main component by main component, bring it up to the next setup level. Same on the headphone side... though I'll always use the fiio dac + cayin c5 + hd380 pros to screen and compare different releases/masters to decide what to have. But for pleasure listening, the first stop will be HiFiMan Edition XS. It's kinda fun to start again.
