SPARS code AAD: When CDs sounded best

Try JAZZ SAMBA ENCORE! Stan Getz & Luiz Bonfa AAD on Verve, most selections are also composed by Bonfa.

You can thank Amstrad for disrupting the market and for making other electronics manufacturers believe that we wanted cheaply made crap with no qa testing

Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" was recorded in DDD in 1985. I guess it was the first album ever to be recorded in DDD. It is outstanding! I have a lot of AAD albums. Most of them are great!

The amount of bullshit on these channels is a joke

Supertramp - Crime of the Century in AAD.
Unfuckingbelievable...

The one truly outstanding CD in my fairly large collection is a 1985 Philips DDD recording of the 1812 Overture conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. I can hear the orchestra turning over the sheet music and light rain falling on the opera house roof at one point. I bought it on the same day as my brand new Philips CD150 CD player as a tester and was totally blown away. My second favourite sonically is Al Stewart's Last Days of the Century album from 1988 which I believe is AAD.

You're correct here, I can't stand "Brickwalled" CD's. For two examples that come to mind, INXS' Kick, first pressing 1987 is far superior than the "loudness" of the "remastered" versions since, exactly the same goes for Def Lep's Hysteria, early pressings definitely better. Madonna's Like A Prayer, another one - need I go on?!!!

For me ADD or DDD sound the best most AAD sound very weak to be clear AAD mean recorded to an analog multitrack tape, mastered in stereo to another 1/4 inch analog tape, that involve audio degradation of second generation and the last leter D was the transfert of the 1/4 inch tape to a PCM recorder DAT or a digitise with a Umatic tape or any direct to disc. In the other hand ADD was analog multitrack, mixed in another direct to disc or Sony DASH multitrack or with an analog or a digital mixer and put on the final step on a digital stereo PCM master recorder. Today all digital recording was DDD digital for any step of the recording process, most remaster are ADD some like dapht punk put digital Protools to tape and bring back the 2 inch or 1/4 tape to digital that's insane, but it also add some analog Flavour.

CDs mastered before 1992 or so had best SQ and AAD mastering.
Before 90s loudness/compression wars that reduced dynamic range to under 2 dB.

I could tell the difference mainly because there was more going on in the sacd and the AAD cd sounded straightforward and not fancy.

I love DDD

Tears for fears Seeds of love and George Michael's Faith sound good.

Follow on comment about CDs, data rot and M-Discs:
M-Disc is considered an archive quality medium and is intended for deep-time preservation of data.
It is a very expensive and slow to write medium.
The upside is that the data will Never decay!

A complex but very good option is to up-convert from CD format to DVD or BlueRay audio and then burn to M-disc in that format. That also gives a Much longer play time so music collections can be put on each disc and not just a single album.
That helps with the cost-per-recording math.

LOL, MongusTea! Great point: I'm seeing it every day now as I'm trying to flesh-out my collection.

One of the reasons that the "old" AADs can sound better us that recordists and engineers were very careful and sweated ALL of the details and minutiae.
Todays recordists and engineers tend to get "sloppy" and not pay attention to the little details (like NOT clipping microphone inputs!!) because of the mistaken attitude that "it's digital, it doesn't matter.... it's ok".
Ruined voice tracks are the bane of modern digital recordings. Again and again otherwise great recordings are Ruined by trashing the vocal tracks. You cannot "fix" clipping(!). Once that happens it is wrecked, cannot be fixed and must be re-recorded to correct it. Try telling that to the "new kids"...
I am an AAD fan for all of the reasons shown here(!)
Thank you for your concise work.

A very educational video, and you're right on the spot. Without knowing what it is what, I thought track 2 sounded good and yeap, you're right.

Im (1 year) late here lol, but I have a 1999 remaster of The Doors in AAD CD which sounds terrific. Yes, its more loud than the original copies, but the quality (at least to me) is superb!

Interesting it's great to hear somebody explain. I have gotten to a point to where I didn't like a lot of remasters. For a few reasons, 1 2 Basie and two thumpy. The mixes are different and it wasn't what I grown to love about these certain albums when they were released in the beginning. Second of all all the stupid bonus tracks on reissued. So I started focusing on the aad recordings buying them instead. There are a few remasters that aren't bad and I have no problem with but for the majority I'm buying aad compact discs now. Now they are not easy to find and they are rare. I'm trying to get my Sammy Hagar collection back and those CDs are not easy to find and when you find them they're pretty damn expensive. Especially the early Sammy Hagar stuff. I'm only buying up to VOA anyhow.

I passed the listening test hahaha this is fun

My copy of Cause Of Death by Obituary is AAD 👍

How a recording sounds is mostly down to the engineering. I have many great sounding rips of AAD CDs. I prefer all digital recordings for classical for the exceptionally low noise floor.

Question, the cds that do not have spars code on them, how do you identify them? Is there a way to plug the cd in the internet to find the soars code?

So, technically the letter d at the end of the code would be like a remaster in the case of the add code?

Aerosmith not sheepskin

Stranger in town by Richie sambora is aad , it sounds fantastic so does get a grip by sheepskin also aad

I have mid-1980s vinyls that sound fantastic yet they proudly declare that they were cut from digital originals. Or listen to a Random Access Memories vinyl record that was mastered by Bob Ludwig from the digital mixes - it sounds amazing. It is not about digital vs analog format, it is about the skills of CD mastering engineers. Listen to Eric Clapton’s Unplugged on a CD - it sounds fantastic, and there are quite a few examples like that. Percentage wise 80% of all CDs and 10% of older vinyl records sound bad, while the newly pressed vinyl records is a 50-50 gamble. Again, it is all in mastering goals and skills, not in a format by itself.

track 2 fake i dont recognize who's? 😂

when you are in radio industry ADD remastering will be best because the AAD (old cd) will no get significant volume or dynamic than mastered

AAD upset ADD wth I clearly hear the differences

It's all very informative but you made me laugh with your "synthethizers" instead of synthesizers pronunciation:)
People in te comments often emphasize role of mastering but they need to understand that it is mixing that is more important! Main compression, eq and limiting is done within mixing process. In mastering you don't compress much, just a little, like max. 1,5-2 dB of gain reduction, same with EQ and limiting.
Anyway, I like your channel 🤟🏻

This is simply not true... End of the debate.

Is there a date where I can be sure the CD is AAD? I see older cds for sale but without the AAD sign on them. Are all cd’s before a certain date AAD?

I think AAD CD's can sound very good too. For me the best sounding versions of the first three Who albums are the late 80's Canadian budget MCA CDs and same for Who's Next too. Sometimes a flat transfer is all you need. 70's Genesis albums suffered on vinyl cause they were too long and suffered again in later reissues from being needlessly remixed, the 80's CD pressings made most of them sound perfect.

AAD. Those W Germany early ones. Get the good recordings of those and watch out. The jazz ones.

Use your illusion 1 AAD
Nevermind Nirvana AAD
Eric Clapton Unplugged DDD
Aerosmith Big Ones AAD

Guns n Roses Use your illusion II - AAD

Nearly every CD I own is AAD. I started replacing almost every vinyl LP I owned when the first generation Phillips CD player was released. I bought one and couldn’t believe how good it sounded. I’ve been on several vinyl only type audiophile sites and forums touting how good AAD CDs and SACDs sound as compared to vinyl (with its background scratch and hiss at best). Yes vinyl has some warmth in the upper-mids that CDs do not…but the background scratch and hiss are not worth it!!! I love Blu-rays or SACDs in stereo a



😮 ort 192k.

Not mentioned enough, but the first issues of the Beatles main albums are tragically bad (UK). This was definitely down to lack of care and not tech or source. Maybe it was down to in house arrogance. They should have let the Germans or the Dutch do it.

"Euphonic" < An Italian bloke teaching an English bloke a new word, thanks mate.

Ciao Guido, è curioso che Giulio Cesare Ricci (fonè) abbia detto in diverse interviste che un "vinile" dovrebbe nascere AAA mentre un CD DDD. In effetti il Sig. Ricci usava in contemporanea (già dagli anni '80) un master su Tape(studer) e uno su PCM1630.

Are some current vinyls DDD?🤔

I love the DAC in my Philips CD600 cd-player which has the DAC chips Philips TDA1543 DAC and Philips SAA7220 stereo interpolating filter, combined with the Philips CDM-4/19 transport. It sounds much better than any modern generic compact disc capable player of any sort out there today.

AAD CDs tend to have a slight hissing nose in the background. However, I had a Sony DDD CD of Mozart back in the '80s, and I heard a noticable hiss, which means that that CD was likely mislabeled.

Not all AAD CDs sounded good. Way too much of generalisation here. For example, in the 80s I bought the AAD CD of The Byrd's Original Singles, 65-67, and listening to it on my hi-fi was like listening through the kind of cheap little hand-held Japanese radios that were common in the 70s. All of The Byrds original albums were eventually remastered and released from the mid-90s onwards, and pretty much have breathtaking sound quality.

´FööL Di$c knöt the untärget DRäc
´thät´$ ´the ´mehghikk??
there is härdlie üce talking 16 bit dreck with T H Ä T ´mässstäiR€ in ze bäkk vv

öhr ´vcR ´^?^

Cds came from japan sounds superb

I thought Track 2 sounded much better. I was surprised that was the AAD. Fun fact: Cowboy Junkies, The Trinity Sessions circa 1988 was recorded on DAT. It was mastered for DDD CD and vinyl. I don't know whether it was DDA to vinyl or DAA. I have both the 1988 CD and vinyl. I played back both on a top dollar system once: all Burmester electronics, Immedia turntable and tonearm, Lyra Parnassus cartridge. What was striking about the vinyl is this: the church ambiance charged and pressured up the listening room when the track cued up before the singing began. I could feel the low level sonics on my ears and person. It was not vinyl noise; it was the recording of the church ambiance, a blackness of a live space. I could hear the shape of the church space. Spaces are never truly dead quiet; they have a life of their own. In one track, a car motored off into the distance and one could hear it on the vinyl, the rounded burbling of its exhaust. The CD totally stripped out the church ambiance. The motorcar was reduced to prat-prat noise with no sense it was motoring off into the distance. There was no sense of the church space. The silent background was a dead background, a dead space devoid of life. In all the arguments of CDs vs Vinyls, nobody really talked about the silence of the background. Remember, the Trinity Sessions was recorded on DAT. Yet, the analogue master captured the ambiance whilst the digital master stripped it out completely.

AAD has nothing to do with how good or bad a CD sounds. The most important part is the mastering, which, of course, is always Digital in case of CD. In the early days, the engineers were used to master for vinyl (with its restrictions) and applied this to CD as well. This didn't sound great at all because they didn't make use of the frequency range and dynamic range of the CD medium. So the early years of CD really weren't so great sounding at all. It was only after the engineers had learned how to properly master for CD when the medium sounded at its best.

I’m currently going back and buying all the Beatles albums in their original CD format.