Finally I have some freakin' confirmation that I'm not the only person who hears these things. Now I just have to find somebody who can tell us what the fuck it actually is.

I have the American pressing, and if you're hearing the same things that I am, then I'm willing to bet that there's approx. zero difference between the pressings.

So, what audio equipment are you using?

try not playing it in your computer. From reading this thread it seems that hardly any cards (and seems like zero consumer cards) have "perfect" digital pathways like it would be using a CD player's DAC and an amp. So go to your CD player and see what happens.

If you are playing it in your CD player then...I have no idea.

on the amazon site, you can buy a japanese import of 10000 days for 28 bucks (!), my point is that a few people who reviewed it say it sounds alot better than the american pressing because "the japanese have higher standards of sound", whether the last part of that is true or not, i don't really care, but i was wondering if there was any truth to the first part.

I'd like to think that's bullcrap, but you never know. It doesn't say who made it on the Amazon site, but on the Japanese site it says.

The US one was made in the USA by Volcano; the Japanese one was made in Japan by BMG Japan (says Amazon). When you look at the back of the US one though, it says "Manufactured in the United States by SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT. Printed in the United States." I wonder what the J version says...

It's possible that they are different in some way but I highly doubt it. By "sounding better", no, it does not contain tons more dynamic range or whatever you want it to have. It's the same mix-down but mastered using different equipment and different machines.

Kind of makes me want to waste 30 bucks just to see what it's like.

PS. I downloaded the EAC Log file of the Australian 10,000 Days rip that's floating around the web (originally upped at Pedro's) and I compared the CRCs to my own US pressing---they are exactly the same. (an interesting side note, both that original ripper and myself use the same exact CD drive, Lite-on 52246s). So by just checking the CRCs, the Australian and the American are exactly the same. Who made the australian one?

I've been listening to the album on nothing except my Sony CD D-NE300 Walkman and a pair of Sennheiser HD 485s. Admittedly the walkman isn't of the highest quality, but I've no other gear to try out the CD on.

Edit: Also, I leave the EQ settings flat. If I ever mess with it, all I do is up the bass.

Interesting.

On the back cover it says that it's distributed by Sony BMG and "Made in the EU" (European Union?) but that's all.

Are there any good foobar2000 and X-Fi setup guides out there, just so I can eliminate the possibility of any software problems?

I know that, man.

I'm going to test it right now, with your times, on my Soundblaster Audigy and Sennheiser HD-555's. Later I can test it on my apex DVD player-->pioneer amp-->HD555s, and this weekend I can try my Denon CD player-->denon amp.

Nothing.

I think I hear what you mean...that seriously sounds like a stick hitting the pad of a drum to me.

nothing at all.

again, it sounds like drum sticks. Besides the drum notes, I can hear Danny's sticks. I don't know if this is a good thing but it seems to be how the drums were miked. A point of interest on The Pot---the intro has a lot of white noise. Listen to it with headphones on loud, and before/during the pre-echo of "who are you", there's a lot of white noise. Shoulda used digital, there's a cleaner sound floor... :P

ok, by this time, i've solved the "mystery", well, I think. at 7:00 in RS, listen for that sound, it's drum sticks hitting the drum head.

I "blindly" listened to your samples as best I could, I put it a bit before and I looked elsewhere then listened for about a minute. After that I wrote my observations.

It's very tricky to find clipping to find clipping in these heavily distorted parts. I keep bringing up The Fragile, but by looking at the waveform you can VERY OBVIOUSLY see distorted waveforms...but it's so hard to tell because you're listening to a distorted guitar in the first place. Distortion of a distortion?

You can try HydrogenAudio, just make a post saying that you need to clarify if there are any settings you need to tweak for better sound reproduction.

ok, just tried it on my dvd player/amp and...exactly the same. although the white noise before The Pot seems to be gone, that was strange.

I am *dead* certain that I'm not hearing "the sound of the drum head". 100% certain. In fact, the drums are too far in the background for me to even focus on for long. What I'm hearing is more of a static sound.

It's good to finally be working this out though. It appears to be a problem with the way my CD player handles the digital audio. Frustrating for me, however, since this is the only CD I have where this is a problem.

go check it out somewhere else. you're on a computer right now. pop it in, run it through winamp, and hook your headphones to the soundcard. even if it's going through an old school Soundblaster 16 PCI, it will still give you some comparison. check it out via your DVD player even. anywhere besides that CD player you're currently using.

I'll try that out and report back.

Well you can hear it, that's pretty much the test :P Go listen to 10,000 Days, hmm, no range, question answered. No need to be a tech geek to know this stuff.

Sounds pretty good to me though...waveforms don't show anything spectacular. I randomly picked Gravity and Pet, and they both show a ton of clipped waveforms, I can easily pick out a ton of visual examples, nothing like what's on 10,000 Days (those are shady and not really conclusive, visually).

Of course I didn't read the thread but you guys should have been able to tell this off the bat. Look at the waveform, it's in the red for the entire record. You can very much hear the digital clipping in the record. Did anyone ever think Tool albums were not compressed?

1. It's not "in the red" for the entire record. Go look at some wavs and report back to me. Preferably with pictures.
2. Where can you hear it? Provide some times, I/we will check them out. It'd even be nice to look at the waveform where you think the clipping is. I looked at the places that apathetic goat was talking about and I did see some interesting things, no flat out good examples of clipping though.
3. I've always thought Tool albums weren't compressed, well before this one I mean. Undertow, Ænima and especially Lateralus had beautiful dynamic range.

PS. Most of the time, it's bad to jump into a discussion that's already up to 100 posts by saying that you didn't read the previous 99 posts.

Okay I tried listening to the CD through winamp - same deal. I tried listening through a panasonic DVD/CD stereo - it was even worse.

So, I'm starting to think that there's something wrong with my particular copy of 10KD. What I'd like to ask of you, hushy, is if you could upload a snippet of a high-quality rip of either Vicarious from 0:45 to 1:07, Jambi from 0:05 until the drums stop, The Pot from 4:52 to 5:12 or Rosetta Stoned 6:52 to 7:03. I'd like to listen to your copy to see if I hear the same things as I do in my own.

I'm assuming it's not against the rules to post sound clips from songs, especially if we both each have our own copies.

It's generally annoying but the music is still listenable and good

and someone has actually heard of Kyuss here! I thought I was the only one here into them

alright, I've uploaded them as FLAC, hopefully you know what to do with FLAC. Decompress them to WAVs and pop them into cooledit or something--looking very closely at the WAVs you can see a few flat peaks, a few really really close to the limit parts, but there's nothing notable or consistent enough for me to say "holy jeez I have to post pictures."

http://hushy.flaretech.net/music/tool.zip

no way dude, there are lots of Kyuss fans everywhere! Usually it's kept sort of hidden though...

I do get a lot of looks and (always positive) comments when I go to shows, because I always wear my Welcome to Sky Valley t-shirt.

Okay, I listened to your rips and I'm still hearing the same static noises. So, this means that either:

Mine and Ph1em's listening equipment is doing something funky to the digital audio which results in static noises when a certain frequency hits a certain level of amplitude

OR

Ph1em and I can simply hear things that other people can't.

To be honest, I think that it is the former rather than the latter. I'd like someone with some real high quality gear to tell us if they can hear anything.

By the way, thanks hushypushy for helping us try to get to the bottom of this!

What does your listening equipment consist of, Ph1em?

Don't forget the third thing, which is a variation of your second point: perhaps something in your head is hearing this (or in other words, imagining it).

I'll be perfectly honest. I've heard clipping before. However, I've only heard it when I'm way high. This can be explained in two ways:

1. I have supersonic hearing when I'm high (or at least I notice details a lot easier). I've noticed a lot of details listening to 10,000 Days, and I remember one experience where I heard clipping in a few songs. Of course, I was enjoying the moment and I wasn't about to go analyze wavs and do an objective analysis.
2. I was making up things. Hey, when you're high, things aren't as they seem.

I also got new headphones since that clipping experience (I used to be on Plantronics Audio 90's) but I doubt that's it. Anyway, it's nice to me to not hear clipping because without it, it makes the music more enjoyable. And I only hear other problems (such as the annoying white noise) when it's way loud, so that's not much of a big deal.

No problem man, I'm always glad to help. I was thinking of taking those files I just posted and putting them on somewhere like Hydrogenaudio and seeing if these guys that have insane sound systems can pick up anything. What do you guys think about that?

PS. Ph1em, did you check out the files I uploaded?

That'd be a great idea. Those hydrogen audio fellas really know their stuff.

I must say that I seriously doubt that it's all in our heads. What are the chances of us both imagining static noises at the same places on the album?

And yeah, thanks hushy. It's good to finally find someone intelligent to talk to about this.

Alright, posted. Time to see how it goes.

Ya know, I just noticed you guys are from down under...could it be differences in sound due to the hemispheres? HA, not likely.

And hey, thanks to you guys too. I'm just trying to get to the bottom of this and figure out what other people think. Plus I had a shrooms trip last week and I feel really, really peaceful and connected to others. Good vibes all around :)

Well I've actually been in Hawaii since April, so I've been listening to the American copy.

I'm very interested to see what happens at hydrogen audio. So far that one guy has said that there is no clipping whatsoever. Yet those are the exact samples in which I hear the static. So I guess what I'm hearing is not clipping.

In fact, I was reading a thread over there about what everybody thinks the worst-produced albums are, in terms of compression, limiting, clipping and the whole "loudness war" thing. Audioslave's debut album was practically number one, and I never noticed a thing while listening to it myself.

I should also mention that I've noticed similar static noises in a lot of other CDs. They're generally made after 2001, and the static occurs when one of the higher frequency channels has a lot going on in it.

I'll be returning home to NZ soon, and once I'm back on my own computer, I'll be able to compare the waveforms and data from the offending tracks and try to find out what they have in common. And I'll really be able to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Also, hushy, I'd be interested if you could ask the HA folks what their overall opinion of the mastering/production is based on the samples given. Maybe somebody will mention the cause of what I'm hearing.

I'm using Audio-Technica ATH-AD700 headphones with an X-Fi XtremeMusic.

Well, I did have a listen to them and they sound the same. I think I trust you enough regarding the waveforms.

Stop reminding me about my lack of contacts.

I think we have established that this must either be a hardware issue or the result of an excellent set of ears (doubtful).

Well, one thing at a time. When the clipping thread dies, then I'll probably just make a specific 10,000 Days thread in there. I've always wanted to actually, and I remember searching the site months ago to check if anyone has said anything about the album. Not much came up conclusively, although someone did mention it under best produced albums!

Thanks for following up on this, hushpuppy.

heh.

A few months ago I had a quick look at the waveform of Vicarious in Goldwave, and zoomed in to the parts where I hear the noise, but I couldn't see any parts of the wave actually going all the way to the top/bottom. It was only a quick look though, and I didn't really know what I was doing.

I'd like to hear tool comment on the clipping...!

Isn't it true that if you import a track from a CD at a less than optimum level, you get clipping? Couldn't this all just mean that we're looking at a less than perfect import?

There is none, so there is nothing to comment on :P

I'm not quite sure where you got that info...but it's wrong, it's obvious you don't know what clipping is. And since you said "import a track from a CD" (rather than import from, say, a master tape or from another country), I assume you mean like ripping the song to your computer? Many of us are listening directly to the CD, which doesn't involve any importing.

Okay, I think I narrowed down the problem a little. I found that when I have my walkman's volume on the very lowest setting, that there is no static at all (I was finally able to listen to 10KD without having the experience marred by the noise!).

I suspect that the problem is due to the way my walkman increases the volume of the signal. Or something.

Yeah, could be something like that. In the HA thread, it's mentioned that full scale signals can be clipped due to the DAC, and through no fault of the music.

Wait a minute, you're a douchebag?

Holy shit! Never coulda guessed that!

Why does every tool fan assume that any question is sarcastic?

What an asshole.

What the hell are you talking about? I took your question seriously and I gave you a polite answer, and you call me a douchebag? What the hell are you talking about?

Have you guys figured out how to make the album not sound like ass yet?

Listen to it on a system that doesn't suck, don't encode to lossy formats, and have an open mind.

Here are a couple things for your brain to munch on:

10,000 Days is just as compressed as the other Tool albums (except Undertow!). Replaygain is a program that “specifies the reference level of 89dB and an algorithm to measure the perceived loudness of audio data.” In other words, every album is measured to where it is relative to 89dB. Let’s look at the figures of my Ogg Q5 encoded albums (doing a FLAC would be more precise, but it would be a difference of tenths of a dB…and I didn’t want to rerip/reencode all the albums just for that):

Opiate: -6.89
Undertow: -4.06
Aenima: -7.76
Salival: -9.39
Lateralus: -6.97
10,000 Days: -7.87

This means that all the Tool albums (except Undertow) used heavy limiting, which is a form of compression. Unfortunately, like I’ve previously mentioned, this album suffers from a lack of dynamic range, which is not necessarily related to limiting.

This is obvious, but I’ll state it anyway: lossy compression induces error. ReplayGain is handy because it tells you the track peak. I took the WAV file of Wings for Marie and encoded one to FLAC and one to Q4 Ogg (128kbps). Keep in mind that any peak above 1.0 would technically mean clipping as the track goes above 0dB. Rounded to four digits, the lossless FLAC had a peak of 0.9906 and the lossy Ogg had a peak of 1.1164. So if you’re having problems…whip out the CD and go from there.

Quoted from hydrogen audio:

Here are a couple more interesting tidbits if you didn’t read the HA thread I posted in.

So perhaps, if you are playing it off a CD, that’s where your clipping is coming from.

But look at the thread I made. Only one person noticed “static” (no one noticed any clipping) and he didn’t even stick around to clarify it.

This album does have some problems with some white noise (end of 10kd/beginning of The Pot is a very noticeable example), but that comes with the analog recording equipment. Everyone wants analog precision, well you usually get analog noise out of that. I’m not complaining, you have to have it pretty loud to notice that.

If the album really does clip, you’d notice it in the waveforms. Clipping doesn’t appear out of nowhere (unless, as previously said, your hardware is doing it. But then that’s not the fault of the music, necessarily). Look at some waves from Californication, you can hear and see clipping all over the place there.

In doing this analysis, I’ve learned a lot about music and mastering and I have lots more to learn, but I think my initial analysis was partly wrong. Here are my new thoughts:

-This album IS compressed to hell. Just like every other Tool album besides Undertow, and just like pretty much every album coming out these days. Limiting is used far too excessively. Here’s an interesting example; Look at this guy’s comparison. There is a lot of controversy regarding how many SACDs and DVDA’s have horrible CD layers and excellent hi-res layers. Some say it’s a conspiracy because if reviewers notice that the CD side sounds horrible and the SACD side sounds fantastic, they’ll state that in a review and that will skew the bias towards this higher res music (which is totally worthless, practically speaking). A great example is Dark Side of the Moon, where the CD stereo layer is horrible clipped (observing the wave shows it was over compressed and limited both with analog AND digital means) and the SACD stereo layer is beautifully mastered and transferred. There is also the idea that engineers are just more careful with the SACD/DVDA layer, being that it’s reserved for audiophiles (these still aren’t mainstream). So it’s kind of like, “ok, the audiophiles can have their high resolution layer with all the dynamic range…and now let’s crank up the compression for the average Joe who’s listening to the CD.” Who knows. I hope 10,000 Days shows up as a DVDA or SACD.
-Limiting doesn’t always mean bad news. Look at Nine Inch Nails. Trent uses limiting a lot, like on The Fragile. But he preserves the dynamic range beautifully. Lateralus is loud as well, but also has beautiful dynamic range.
-WFM/10KD is the only song that suffers from lack of dynamic range. It’d be nice if some others had a bit of variation (Right in Two, perhaps) but honestly, this album doesn’t lend itself much to dynamic range the way Lateralus did.

By this point, I just don’t care anymore. Okay, ONE song has overly compressed range. Jeez, probably just to fit in with the rest of the tracks. Whatever. I can get over myself and enjoy it nonetheless.

You'll only get enough "technical" problems (i.e., not talking about the songs themselves or the mixing, rather the mastering only) to be annoying if you listen on a really crappy system. I don't hear any problems on my computer via Winamp (even on lossy files which are said to clip), my Technics CD player through Denon amp, or my Apex DVD player through Pioneer amp. And they are not high-end (probably not even medium-end, either..) by any means. Take this thing out of your walkman, take those earbuds out of your ear, and check your cocky ego at the door.

If you never enjoyed the mixing, the content of the music, or whatever other trivial bits, go back and listen to Undertow whilst touching yourself in the dark because there might never be a remix of this album, and if there is, it will be to 5.1. There’s not going to be this massive redirection of the sound. Sorry. Personally, I think this is one of the coolest stereo mixes I’ve ever heard, Barresi wasn’t lying when he said this album has a lot of layers.

I'm pretty sick of it by now. I’ve spent many hours analyzing waveforms and ReplayGain results and such, reading forums and wikis and googling for info. I’m tired. I just want to listen to the music. This album is lacking in dynamic range, oh well. It's just as limited as four of the five previous albums (technically speaking it’s less limited than Salival, which wasn't produced by Ludwig. The heavily compressed tracks on that album were live tracks, so that doesn’t even really count in my book.). Only one person on Hydrogenaudio could even hear a "static" sound, and no one has produced screenshots showing any sort of clipping. One or two wave peaks is not enough—in such a case the clip is over as fast as it started, and no one can notice that, especially with distorted guitar (which is produced by clipping/distorting that signal). All these sound problems are caused by some sort of broken link in the D-->A chain, not by the album.

Those are pretty much all my current thoughts but uh…yeah, we can keep discussing this.