after reading your post again for the 20th time.. i see what you are saying about the maximizer...

the reason why the recording may sound better is because the SIMILIAR PHASED frequencies have been re-aligned so the the bass and highs are tigher aand more conistent. That would only leave me to believe that the enhancements that were recorded make the recording sound better and more exciting. (less dull).

but using the maximizer does not add to any signal strength or dynamic range... but then again when I would play my recorded mix at a lower level, It will still sound great... vs. not using the maximizer.

___________________
sun.com
my xbox is -->MICRSFTSUX (xbconnect.com).....

Cd sounding better than vinyl. The eternal debate, that can be brought down to digital vs analog. It's a matter of preference.

It's true, most actual digital formats have better S/N, so allow for more dynamics in the signal. You don't have to think about noise problems per se (although CD is still a little bit limited). But to get something digital, you most pass two conversion stages at least (one from analog to digital, one from digital to analog : the output). An analog signal has an infinite amount of values for any time you would look at it. Digital has discrete values that are dictated by the bitdepth and the sampling rate. As high as you set them, there will always be loss of information (dunno if you looked, but I've never seen an option to record at infinite bits, infinitely high sampling rate).
But that's not the main problem. With the arrival of new media's like SACD, we are coming to a level, that the loss is almost inaudible.
But the main difference is, well designed digital equipment and media will be more linear than well designed analog gear and media. In other words, analog gear will always color the sound in some extent. By definition, that's a default. But that coloration is usually pleasing to the ear (same thing in studio's why much people prefer valve gear, or analog tape). So be prepared to hear that much people still prefer the sound of vinyl over cd (including me).

Now, for the radio part, I've got to follow prodigy here. Radio's have one huge problem. They want to be the loudest.
People that already read some of my replies know that I'm a fervent defensor of dynamic music. The problem nowadays is, that artists and labels want their music to sound louder than the competition. So the music is compressed to death (last time I checked, there's still a volume button on your hifi. If you want the music to be louder, turn the damn knob). So that's one part. But the second one is even worse. Where do people mostly listen to their radio? At home, while they are doing something else, or in the car. Either way, there's always something else going on at the same time. So what the radio broadcasts must be comprehensible all the time. It must cut through the ambient noise (the car engine, cooking pots making noise, etc). In other words, it has to be loud all the time, with the least variation possible. So, compression galore again (a second reason is the signal must be compressed for broadcasting issues, the radio waves can't stand too much dynamics, you basically get the same thing as I explained why they compress for vinyl for example). Don't forget that the music already got squashed to death before (the loudness race). Squashing + even more squashing = one big mess. If you ask me, radio stuff is horrible to listen to. It might not sound so bad in the first place, but the main difference is, try to listen to a dynamic piece in it's original state. If you would hear that same piece on the radio, you couldn't listen to it that long before your ears would start to hurt. Even at half the volume of the original piece. An overcompressed sound is just tyring for the ears. Not good. Not good at all.

quote:

Originally posted by SUNWmsf after reading your post again for the 20th time.. i see what you are saying about the maximizer... the reason why the recording may sound better is because the SIMILIAR PHASED frequencies have been re-aligned so the the bass and highs are tigher aand more conistent. That would only leave me to believe that the enhancements that were recorded make the recording sound better and more exciting. (less dull). but using the maximizer does not add to any signal strength or dynamic range... but then again when I would play my recorded mix at a lower level, It will still sound great... vs. not using the maximizer.

That's just because it makes it sound less dull. Less dull is less dull at any level.

But that's where the problem with exciters/sonic maximisers arise. In the pro business they try to avoid using such devices as much as possible.
The basic rule is : the fewer stuff you put in the signal chain, the less degradation your signal will suffer. It may sound ironic, but even a device supposed to make it sound better (and that, my friend, is still subjective no matter what you say), is still degrading the signal (in other words, deviating it from it's original form like it should be).

That's why the most important thing in audio is : the source is the most important in the complete chain. Of course the rest that follows should be as good as possible, so you don't lose as much quality.

Lemme give you a simple studio example.
Imagine a guy having the state of the art Neumann microphones, connected to the best preamps money can buy, he mixes it on a super duper mixer, uses the best effects there are (including exciters). Then he wants to record a singer. He puts the singer in a cave, with the worst accoustics ever (standing waves, too much reverb etc). He puts the microphone next to the singers ear (I'm exxagerating to prove my point). A horrible sound will be the result. But no problem, he got state of the art EQ's to fix it. If he's the best engineer the world has ever known, he'll still only be able to get a passable sound out of it.

Now get the guy that saved up to get a decent budget mic, an ok mixer with noisy preamps, and some budget effects. But he uses his wits, and hires a good singer, does everything he can to get good room accoustics. And he spends two hours finding the exact placement where the mic sounds best with that singer. I'll guarantee that he'll get a ten times better sound than the first guy. Why? His source was great. So it needs less fixing. As the sound is great all by itself, it doesn't need much of the crappy EQ from that budget mixer (so little that a 1 dB mid boost might do the trick, and you won't hear the EQ is bad with that). He doesn't need to add anything else because his sound is so good. He can leave out compressors and other effects that can only add more noise to the signal.

This applies for everything in audio or video. Get your source right. If there's something wrong with that, try to find out why, instead of going for the "we'll fix it later" approach. One of the first things I learned in school was : lot's of people are worshipping some select producers and engineers like Don Was, Roger Nichols or Alan Parsons to name a few (I'm naming traditional music producers here, as there is a difference with electronic music producers), because they get that awesome sound. But frankly, it's not because they tweak the hell of their stuff. Usually they get together : good musicians/singers (people that can actually play or sing well, without needing midi quantize or Antares Autotune), a good studio with good accoustics, good mic placements, decent gear and a bit of talent of course. But if those requirements are fulfilled, 90% of the job is done. They don't need tweaking, they open a fader and it sounds good...

Same for dj mixes. If you think your recordings sound dull, find out why. Maybe your needle is a limiting factor, maybe your mixer, maybe something totally different. Try to understand what goes wrong, and try to solve the problem. I don't say to throw away your Sonic Maximizer, I just say, don't always take the easiest route. Just think about it, if you happen to find the problem, and you solve it so everything sounds super without any addition, wonder how it would sound with the maximizer. Maybe you'd get a sound that's even "better than the radio"

I see what you are saying.. great advice thy...(sort of makes me want to make a career change and go into the sound engineering field.)

I think that I am comparing the way I 'want' my mixes to sound vs. what they sound like without the maximizer.

When I record without the maximizer, everything is fine, the quality is there (in relation to how the music was created and is supposed to sound), but I wanted my mixes to have that 'oompf' as you mentioned. Cleaner bass lines, and a rounder , fuller sound, and more punch (or oompf). (basically less dull)

With out the maximizer, i still have a quality recording ... not much 'oompf'. The mix comtains the music how the music was created.

I do think you are right though... I am changing the signal by passing it through another device... I think that some confusion arose from my earlier posts...(After Thy has educated me, I can better explain what I wanted.) I actually wanted to change the signal so that the overall mix that I make will sound less dull. In short, I wanted to add the 'oompf' to the mix..(or add more 'oompf'). I do like the way the artists originally put their song together. Maybe it is because I have a hip-hop background, but i actually like the 'oompf'.

I guess it all boils down to how the DJ wants his mix tape to sound. I actually want to add something more to my mixes than just mixing songs together.

___________________
sun.com
my xbox is -->MICRSFTSUX (xbconnect.com).....