EmitFlesti
The Fly
I can't really tell much of a difference, if any. Not nearly as clear a difference as at the start of Boots.
I get this issue, and would like to see people master their albums with normal sounding dynamics rather than compressing everything, but I do think some so-called "audiophiles" (audio=sound, phile=lover of; so except people who simply hate all music, aren't we all "audiophiles?") make too much of the problem. I'm sure there are extreme cases with some CDs over the last decade or two, but I don't particularly notice any distortion on any U2 albums, not only this one, but ATYCLB and HTDAAB too, both of which seem to be the ones most complained about as far as mastering goes.
(And the above goes for whatever format I listen to them in - CD on my stereo, computer speakers, or iPod. I most often listen to my iPod on a Bose docking station, and my stereo is a Yamaha with Bose speakers; but I'm sure neither of those systems would be good enough for so-called audiophiles, for whom, my reading up on the matter suggests, no sound system is decent unless it nearly requires a second mortgage! I read one of the Sterophile articles someone linked too earlier, and while interesting, most people simply cannot and would not pay $20,000 for the kind of speakers the guy in the article was raving about).
I also don't get the audiophile attachment to vinyl...perhaps it sounds good now on high-end turntables and speakers, but what do you think most people in the heyday of vinyl were listening on? Certainly not the kind of system that would qualify one as an "audiophile" these days. The fact is that more people now have better access to good quality sound at a reasonable price than they ever had in the "golden age" of vinyl.
And sometimes sound quality isn't everything. I listen to a lot of classical music too, and one of my favorite Mahler recordings is Bruno Walter's last Vienna performance of Mahler's 9th in Vienna in 1938, six weeks before the Nazi invasion. Being a 1938 mono recording, the sound quality is not great(though it's much better than one might suspect) compared to a modern recording, but it's a beautiful performance, and wonderful to hear despite the lack of "audiophile" quality.
Why get upset over something like this? We have a new album, appreciate, appreciate!
