Vai, Petrucci talk about financial issues of touring.

[jonsick]

Insomnium - Heart Like a Grave
Dark Tranquillity - Moment
Omnium Gatherum - Origin

I was surprised to see these on your list of good production albums - unless I have misread your post there. The DT album particularly I thought was very flat in terms of dynamics, Identical To None I always felt was another good example where the bridge was meant to leave off a little until it came into the chorus but the brickwalling just took away that effect. I've heard this song live and it just seems a lot more powerful than it is on the album.

Added, with the Arcturus Sham Mirrors, I do agree the production is not great. I also think that it is meant to be that way. Well, sort of. It was recorded when computers were only really fully taking place in studios. I'm fairly sure the drums are not actually real drums, potentially by design. I don't really know enough about it to say categorically, but it just has that vibe to me. Of course, if ol' Jan Axel is really actually on that recording I'll be surprised.

I guess I more mean you could levy the same criticism against older recording such as Anthem to the Welkin I guess when mixing engineers were just getting their heads around mixing so many elements into black metal. But absolutely, the original release to me sounds far better than the remaster.

Same with Chaos A.D. I have the original pressing that I bought in 1994 or whenever it came out, never played it as my Mom's old record player chewed the hell out of my Slayer record and then I was too scared to play anything on it (horrid old Amstrad thing). I bough the Chaos A.D. reissue and I'm amazed at the difference. The newer remaster is louder for sure, but the old one actually does sound better. Maybe not as crisp (if that's the right word) but certainly just turn your volume knob up and the original pressing just sounds richer and more dynamic (I'm really trying hard not to use buzz words, but struggling to as you can see). Unless you were in my house where I could play you both back to back, it's hard to describe.

But in terms of production, I still throw Skid Row's Slave to the Grind as an example of absolutely fantastic production up against almost anything today. I have the original CD pressing from when it came out still. And to me, it still stands the test of time.

The core point I guess is that the target today is an iPhone speaker, not a hifi. I get it, I'm in the small gathering of crusty gits that still listens to music on CD, the world cranes over an iPhone and that's where we are at. So music has to target the bigger audience. And us CD/Record buyers, we just get the same wav dumped on another medium - certainly seems that way to me at least. But to claim any of this as evidence to the contrary of being in the loudness wars is false.

We are all musicians, we are used to running something up on our PC/Macs as a demo and passing it to bandmates. That is, we know how to listen to a demo or even a bad recording - certainly if you are old enough to remember those funny cassettes of bootleg shows being sold with those coloured inlay cards you definitely know how to listen to a bad quality demo.

The average listener that is a non musician has a very different set of ears. Ignoring the hook within the 20 seconds idea, the sound quality is hugely important. If what's coming out of their iPhone doesn't knock their socks off even before the hook comes in, they skip. I've watched them do it. The average listener auditions an entire band's effort in less than five seconds. Spend some time on the bus with someone flicking around spotify, five seconds is what you have. That means your production MUST surpass that of any bedroom engineer wannabe. Your simulated drums or free VST plugins no longer cut it in the world of the spotify listener. They just do not. That means, your track has to be LOUDER, has to have MORE BASS and has to be MORE compatible with their airpods than the last guy's track if you want to get over that first five seconds. This is how people listen to music now. Five seconds and you're out.

Just to anecdote, I told a lad outside a gig I just played to listen to Demanufacture by Fear Factory. It failed the five second rule, before he said, "not really my thing, hey have you heard Periphery?"

Anyway I digress. Spotify listeners today are demanding supreme top quality for nothing. That is, you must spend a fair chunk of change on your recording in order to compete with anything else to get that top quality. If you don't, it won't swing the five second rule, forget the hook. And you're spending all this money just to keep people listening to Daniel Ek's platform. And you'll get sod all back from it. That to me seems like a poor business model for any artist or band with any designs on progressing.

This is just my take on it, maybe you totally disagree maybe you don't. But just watching how people consume music on Spotify is interesting. Especially non musicians. And unless metal turns into a genre by musicians for musicians, all the pieces matter.

 

[nickgray]

There is a shit-tonne of music coming out. I wouldn't quite agree that all of it is awesome. I had a stint reviewing albums for a while

Reviewing sounds like a nightmare, to be honest I discover new music by skimming through tons of stuff, I'm typically overly petty and critical while doing this. Don't like the production after a 15 second snippet? Not gonna listen. After 30s it still sounds oddly generic? Nope. Oh, it's this specific sub-genre that I know I don't like? Skipping. Actually listening to full albums like that is going to completely suck the joy out of listening to music. For me, at least.

In this year, I've heard over a dozen albums so far, about 8-10 stuck with with me and I'll be listening to them more, out of these 3-4 I've listened to quite a few times and even learned to play some of the riffs and melodies, even some songs on one. And it's just May, so plenty more time to go.

Extreme and heavy metal styles are just as popular as ever.

You mean in the same niche way that they were, as in they didn't lose the appeal for those few who are or might be into it? Or in terms of absolute popularity? I mean, metal as a whole is just not popular and neither is rock. Being interested, for example, in the latest tech death releases that feature fretless bass is something that is hilariously niche and obscure.

Anecdotally, I don't really want to go into the details and actually checking, this would take forever, but here, for example, is a list for Spotify's most followed artists:

Most followed artists on Spotify (daily update)

Who are the most followed artists on Spotify? Is it Drake, Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, BTS, or a complete surprise? Check it out!

chartmasters.org

I'm not sure what you meant by popular, obviously you realize that it's not breaking any charts, you don't see random people in your local supermarket with Necrophagist t-shirts on anything like that.

As a teenager in 2000s I remember Slipknot being by far the most mainstream metal band, or at least in terms of band shirts you've seen (not that there were many in absolute terms, it's was still super niche). Linkin Park was probably the most mainstream rock-related band that random people not interested in music were actually listening to. What else... System of a Down. People who were slightly more into metal might've known about Children of Bodom, Cradle of Filth. Obviously, it'll differ based on your personal experiences and location and all that, so it's anecdotal.

These days... I've no idea. Avenged Sevenfold maybe? Is that a popular band? What shirts would the kids who are into metal in the most mainstream sort of way wear these days? Metallica? Do kids even listen to Metallica, the new stuff?

In any case, what I do remember is that when I was a teenager I never found anyone who's even remotely into music as much as I was. Which is my main point - I do think it's pretty rare for people to go full nerd into it and treat it as a deep hobby, not casual entertainment.

Well that's where software is different, isn't it?

Both are not super relevant, imo at least (I've almost never run into any of those two issues, I'm not really a gamer though and I play old games when I do, usually; I've no idea what's the state of modern AAA game cracks like Call of Duty or whatever is popular these days). A huge chunk of gaming scene are indie games, these usually have no protection to begin with. Malware is an issue only if you lack basic computer skills (in which case don't pirate, I suppose?). Cracks that are problematic are not common, I don't think. Cracks can even help sometimes if the copy protection itself is buggy or eats up extra resources. On the flip side, AAA games these days are released as beta versions with a shitton of bugs and optimization problems, so the crack likely has nothing to do with it, it's the game.

Piracy for music is quite inconvenient. You need a computer, for one, there's really no point in doing this on a smartphone. Unless you're very computer literate, you're not going to setup any kind of streaming server or complex filesharing system between your devices, so you'll have to physically move files from your computer to your smartphone. I'm old school, I've been dealing with this crap since I was like 10 years old, so it's normal for me. But people new to this might think I'm completely insane, and they might be right to some degree.

The thing with audio piracy is that it was at its most mainstream during early 2000s. Kazaa, Napster, all that stuff. eDonkey was a thing for a while. Later on, BitTorrent became popular and private trackers emerged, which is where the actual proper meat of it all was, but that was never ever even remotely mainstream. Meanwhile, from what I recall, it was the iPod and iTunes Store that kickstarted the sales of digital music. But that only happend in 2003 (iTunes store was opened in early 2003).

Streaming is insanely more convenient. You don't have to download anything, you don't have to manage folder structures and organize and rename things, don't have to manage tags and find albums covers, it's available on mobile devices and on computers, everything can be synchronized between a single account, and you don't have to watch your hard drive space.

These days, obviously, it's all about free streaming. Makes no sense for most people to download anything, it's a niche thing for crazy people who like collecting shit on their hard drives.

was very flat in terms of dynamics

I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing here. Metal as music is often pretty flat in terms of dynamics, both compositionally and in terms of performance. It's not like a 19th century piano sonata, it's more like a harpsichord piece. The problem with limiting the master too much isn't that it makes the composition itself less dynamic (as it usually isn't), it's mainly that it squashes the drums and introduces audible distortion. That's by far the most audible effect and the overall impression of that is that the music becomes shouty, it's subjectively perceived as loud even at low volumes. But this arises in the more extreme cases of limiting like was often done in 2000s. DT - Moment is just not anywhere near as drastically brickwalled.

Would I like it to have more dynamic range? Sure, but it's eminently listenable as is, it's not fatiguing or tiring, at least to me it's not. Which is my main problem with those 2000s brickwalled albums - they're just very fatiguing to listen to.

I guess I more mean you could levy the same criticism against older recording such as Anthem to the Welkin

Ah, but 3 years ago In the Nightside Eclipse was way nicer sounding. Anthems has this absolutely asinine guitar tone that drills into your skull, not to mention the master is loud af. Meanwhile, same year (1997), Dimmu Borgir - Enthrone Darkness Triumphant had way better production than Anthems.

Sure, you might argue it's an artistic decision or whatever, but the end result is still the same - it's uncomfortable to listen to and I really don't think that was the point, it's not some obscure drone that's meant to brown note you, it's basically prog black on this album already (even the first one is fairly complex).

The core point I guess is that the target today is an iPhone speaker

I'm really not sure why you think that. Maybe for pop music or something, I've no idea. But for metal I highly doubt this is the case. Not unless you can find mastering engineers specifically saying that they master for an iPhone speaker. That's just way too weird.

I think you seriously underestimate the state of headphones these days, they're on average way way better than cheap crappy earbuds from 2000s. The market is huge too, in 2000s you basically had this small niche market for pro/semi pro audio and audiophiles, and then the rest was just crappy consumer stuff. But these days the market is enormous and plenty of people are willing to drop a few hundred on premium consumer headphones with ANC. The awareness for sound quality in general is way better too.

There's also LUFS - you master it louder like it's mid 2000s, but Spotify is going to turn it down. I don't remember the technical details now (it's kinda complicated actually), but you can look up how it's calculated and the impact it has on mastering due to LUFS normalization on streaming services.

Just to anecdote, I told a lad outside a gig I just played to listen to Demanufacture by Fear Factory. It failed the five second rule, before he said, "not really my thing, hey have you heard Periphery?"

In terms of DR calculation, Demanufacture is identical to Periphery II, amusingly enough. Completely different production and music though, so I'm not sure that it's any kind of fair comprasion. I'd take Periphery over Fear Factory too, FF isn't my cup of tea, although I don't dislike it, it's just way too situational kind of music for me.

Album details - Dynamic Range DB

Album details - Dynamic Range DB

 

[jonsick]

Reviewing sounds like a nightmare, to be honest

It is/was. I used to enjoy it when I first did it back in the early 2000s. In my view, bands were actually trying to sound good and OK fine if they didn't quite make it, I would say a good 50% of the albums/EPs/singles I got in for review were actually pretty good. The other half was dross. In my last stint, about 2020, that went down to about 10%. Not even looking at it from a sound quality point of view, more a songwriting point of view. I like to think I am fairly versatile, I'll happily listen to Madness and Burt Weedon just as I will Djevel or Vergelmer or even Eazy E. Hell even some country. But damn, the quality I was getting through were complete joy-suckers. The bar for entry to music is far too low. I would say the biggest difference was that in the early 2000s, there was some form of curation by A&R and thus even the bands themselves. If it really wasn't good enough by the artist's standards themselves, they went and did something that was. Today? I don't think it's as much the case.

I discover new music by skimming through tons of stuff, I'm typically overly petty and critical while doing this. Don't like the production after a 15 second snippet? Not gonna listen. After 30s it still sounds oddly generic? Nope. Oh, it's this specific sub-genre that I know I don't like? Skipping. Actually listening to full albums like that is going to completely suck the joy out of listening to music. For me, at least.

In this year, I've heard over a dozen albums so far, about 8-10 stuck with with me and I'll be listening to them more, out of these 3-4 I've listened to quite a few times and even learned to play some of the riffs and melodies, even some songs on one. And it's just May, so plenty more time to go.

I would say the same is true of most non-musicians but the timings are far less. 5 seconds is what you have to impress.

You mean in the same niche way that they were, as in they didn't lose the appeal for those few who are or might be into it? Or in terms of absolute popularity? I mean, metal as a whole is just not popular and neither is rock. Being interested, for example, in the latest tech death releases that feature fretless bass is something that is hilariously niche and obscure.

I think I mean amongst the people that are into metal. Of course metal is always going to be its own niche just like a lot of other styles. I doubt you'll find many teenagers into polka music. But the effort and strives for quality is really to me what means popularity I suppose? It's hard to properly qualify.

Both are not super relevant, imo at least (I've almost never run into any of those two issues, I'm not really a gamer though and I play old games when I do, usually; I've no idea what's the state of modern AAA game cracks like Call of Duty or whatever is popular these days). A huge chunk of gaming scene are indie games, these usually have no protection to begin with. Malware is an issue only if you lack basic computer skills (in which case don't pirate, I suppose?). Cracks that are problematic are not common, I don't think. Cracks can even help sometimes if the copy protection itself is buggy or eats up extra resources. On the flip side, AAA games these days are released as beta versions with a shitton of bugs and optimization problems, so the crack likely has nothing to do with it, it's the game.

Well, anti-piracy measures are vastly more evolved than they used to be. Of course in the 1990s you had disk copying going on - if you are into the Amiga scene, you cannot possibly ignore the affects that piracy had on that platform. In the early 2000s when games were distributed on CD-ROM, the NO-CD cracks were a huge thing. Nowadays? Well with the complicated devices software manufacturers are building into their games, coming across a fully playable pirate copy of any game is incredibly difficult. This has really played into the manufacturers' benefit and I do get why they do it. Of course if they pour a fortune into producing a game, the average player knows that they could probably find a cracked copy somewhere, but will be a wholly detracted experience when compared to purchasing the real thing. Steam gave games players a single-platform resource to get legitimate games without bulky boxes and the consistent updates surrounding that. Essentially, pirate but expect a detrimental experience.

The same is just not true for music. Of course, you can pay your £10 a month for spotify and be in the clear, you'll get your content and from your point of view, you've paid your dues (not you specifically, the esoteric world 'you'). The fact that the money generated from those plays are going to Mr. Ek and rarely the artist seems so many layers removed, unless you are a band that has engaged with Spotify it's almost unknown.

While spotify has really damaged piracy in music, to me it is just legitimised piracy that the artist must engage with, or die where they stand. To me, the world being predicated on what number you have next to your plays or how many times a like button is clicked is rather sad. And there is no repercussion to the end user, there is no generational loss, in fact great expense is gone to to ensure this legalised piracy is as good as it can be. It does boggle my mind a bit, but this is the world. I fully get the convenience of streaming and I especially understand that the end listener wants that convenience. To me it is not like the model that Steam employs where the end user has no choice. Any modification to the Spotify paradigm to generate money to artists will simply see people fleeing back to piracy. I guess the end result is not really all that different for the artist.
But alas, all of this is why we are seeing £200 gig tickets, or artistts only playing festivals in the UK, or £40 t-shirts. Something has to give and you can't very well go to your FOH engineer and say, "Sorry, we didn't make enough tonight, nobody's getting paid, maybe next time, hey?"

I'm really not sure why you think that. Maybe for pop music or something, I've no idea. But for metal I highly doubt this is the case. Not unless you can find mastering engineers specifically saying that they master for an iPhone speaker. That's just way too weird.

If the end platform most of your listeners are using is spotify on an iPhone speaker or a set of airpods, then that's where you master for. Not just my own band, but a couple others locally have made similar comments, if that's where your prime listener base is then that is what you target. Which to me seems crazy as that's actually where you lose your money, not make it.

I think you seriously underestimate the state of headphones these days, they're on average way way better than cheap crappy earbuds from 2000s. The market is huge too, in 2000s you basically had this small niche market for pro/semi pro audio and audiophiles, and then the rest was just crappy consumer stuff. But these days the market is enormous and plenty of people are willing to drop a few hundred on premium consumer headphones with ANC. The awareness for sound quality in general is way better too.

Oh most certainly not, I have a set of £20 Sony things I got off Amazon for listening while I work. They're great. I also saw people dropping huge amounts on Beats headphones back when they were popular. And it boggles my mind. Brand is certainly more important than quality today.

In terms of DR calculation, Demanufacture is identical to Periphery II, amusingly enough. Completely different production and music though, so I'm not sure that it's any kind of fair comprasion. I'd take Periphery over Fear Factory too, FF isn't my cup of tea, although I don't dislike it, it's just way too situational kind of music for me.

I mean sure, FF may not be your cup of tea. But could you decide that by the second bar of the kick drums on the first track? Before the guitar kicks in? Before vocals happen? Personally I can't, but kids today absolutely can and will. I am very interested in how people listen today, both young and old, but particularly non musicians. While I just do not get Periphery at all, it's just not my thing, I appreciate that others do. And particularly what gets them over that 5 second threshold.

I do fear we have rather run away with the topic compared to touring expenses, but worth insights and perspectives to me

FWIW I do get what you mean about the guitar tone on Anthems. But to me, it's a signature sound of that album. In fact, I remember plenty forum posts asking how they got that. AFAIK, it's a strat into a Peavey Bandit as that's what they had. The resultant sound was largely luck and a victim of circumstance rather than something engineered. Certainly when it came out, the guitar tone was one of the biggest draws for me, so basic yet very well played. I guess similar to Rotting Christ's "Dead Poem". Very little gain, but superbly crafted, a far cry from what you may hear on Kata Ton, etc.

 

[nickgray]

FWIW I do get what you mean about the guitar tone on Anthems

You know, after tinkering with production lately, there's this plugin called soothe2 that can automatically detect and reduce resonances. It works absolute wonders on guitar, but I've found that it can make a tremendous difference if you throw it on a master that has those really fatiguing guitar tones. Here's a short A/B. It starts with the processed version that should sound completely like normal and then when the original kicks in you should hear that godawful screeching guitar tone. The contrast between the two should make the issue way more apparent. I would also argue that the processed version still sounds badass and nasty, the guitars are quite raw and evil, but they don't have that satanic screeching that doesn't do anything other than sound very tiring.

Anthems A/B

 

[gnoll]

I like The Sham Mirrors and the first 2 Emperor. Those albums have character. I think heavy music has become more and more difficult to listen to, production wise. Bland mixes, flat crappy drums, bright bad overgained guitar tones, no space, too loud masters. Most stuff I have to just turn off. I remember trying to listen to Archspire once. Impossible.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

Oh most certainly not, I have a set of £20 Sony things I got off Amazon for listening while I work. They're great. I also saw people dropping huge amounts on Beats headphones back when they were popular. And it boggles my mind. Brand is certainly more important than quality today.

Off-topic, but...

I've been using £50 SoundMagic earphones for over a decade. IMO they sound better than most brand's offering at 2-3 times the price. I've previously owned Sennheiser and Sony earphones that were decent, but not as competitively priced.

Conversely, I would say Beats sound far inferior to most offerings from other brands in the same price bracket. They were always far more of a fashion accessory than a high-quality piece of audio equipment.

I often get comments that I need to "upgrade" to wireless headphones, when in my view that's a downgrade on sound quality. Needing to remember to keep headphones charged is a far greater inconvenience to me than a wire, so there's not even an improvement in convenience to trade-off for the loss in sound quality.

 

[jonsick]

You know, after tinkering with production lately, there's this plugin called soothe2 that can automatically detect and reduce resonances. It works absolute wonders on guitar, but I've found that it can make a tremendous difference if you throw it on a master that has those really fatiguing guitar tones. Here's a short A/B. It starts with the processed version that should sound completely like normal and then when the original kicks in you should hear that godawful screeching guitar tone. The contrast between the two should make the issue way more apparent. I would also argue that the processed version still sounds badass and nasty, the guitars are quite raw and evil, but they don't have that satanic screeching that doesn't do anything other than sound very tiring.

Anthems A/B

It may be like the midboost function on my old Sony Discman. I used to keep that one most of the time, gave it a nice live feel. Probably not the exact same thing, but a cool feel nonetheless.

 

[jonsick]

I like The Sham Mirrors and the first 2 Emperor. Those albums have character. I think heavy music has become more and more difficult to listen to, production wise. Bland mixes, flat crappy drums, bright bad overgained guitar tones, no space, too loud masters. Most stuff I have to just turn off. I remember trying to listen to Archspire once. Impossible.

I know exactly what you mean. My band did a track with all modern techniques. I'll be honest, I hate it. But it's what "modern" is and you have to be that to stand any sort of a chance of getting over 5 seconds. Sucks, but true. How to take something exciting and energetic and Spotify-ify it.

 

[jonsick]

Th

Off-topic, but...

I've been using £50 SoundMagic earphones for over a decade. IMO they sound better than most brand's offering at 2-3 times the price. I've previously owned Sennheiser and Sony earphones that were decent, but not as competitively priced.

Conversely, I would say Beats sound far inferior to most offerings from other brands in the same price bracket. They were always far more of a fashion accessory than a high-quality piece of audio equipment.

I often get comments that I need to "upgrade" to wireless headphones, when in my view that's a downgrade on sound quality. Needing to remember to keep headphones charged is a far greater inconvenience to me than a wire, so there's not even an improvement in convenience to trade-off for the loss in sound quality.

The Bluetooth thing always gets me. Nothing sounds good over Bluetooth. I have the same lamentations over my gym player.

I was using a Creative Zen credit card sized MP3 and some Sennheiser wrap around headphones. Anyhoo, as things do, they wore out, got eaten by sweat and died. I'm now on my third pair of Bluetooth headphones and second Sandisk player (third if you include that stupid phone). Not only is it barely audible for a deaf mofo like me, but I just hate having to spend the first 20 minutes of any workout sodding around with the Bluetooth getting the thing to connect properly. What the hell is wrong with a damned wire that comes out to a set of headphones that you aren't constantly having to push and prod to stay in yer damned lug-holes? Why can't I buy a set of wrap-around headphones (sport band things) with a goddamned wire anymore?

Wireless headphones pretty much suck. My Mom actually sent back the set I got her. They were £100 Sennheiser things. Bluetooth of course. Yes, they sounded weird and whenever the sync failed, that was it you were stuck. I got her a £30 set of Sonys and a real long-ass wire, she's happy out with that.

Wires > Stupid bluetooth.

 

[RevDrucifer]

This thread could win an award for the longest replies within one thread.

 

[jonsick]

This thread could win an award for the longest replies within one thread.

To be fair, a lot of the responses are offering well thought out perspectives.

I doubt anyone is really solving anything, but it's good nonetheless.

 

[Soya]

Th

The Bluetooth thing always gets me. Nothing sounds good over Bluetooth. I have the same lamentations over my gym player.

I was using a Creative Zen credit card sized MP3 and some Sennheiser wrap around headphones. Anyhoo, as things do, they wore out, got eaten by sweat and died. I'm now on my third pair of Bluetooth headphones and second Sandisk player (third if you include that stupid phone). Not only is it barely audible for a deaf mofo like me, but I just hate having to spend the first 20 minutes of any workout sodding around with the Bluetooth getting the thing to connect properly. What the hell is wrong with a damned wire that comes out to a set of headphones that you aren't constantly having to push and prod to stay in yer damned lug-holes? Why can't I buy a set of wrap-around headphones (sport band things) with a goddamned wire anymore?

Wireless headphones pretty much suck. My Mom actually sent back the set I got her. They were £100 Sennheiser things. Bluetooth of course. Yes, they sounded weird and whenever the sync failed, that was it you were stuck. I got her a £30 set of Sonys and a real long-ass wire, she's happy out with that.

Wires > Stupid bluetooth.

You say nothing sounds good over Bluetooth, but also say that you're a "deaf mofo". Maybe these two are related?

 

[jonsick]

You say nothing sounds good over Bluetooth, but also say that you're a "deaf mofo". Maybe these two are related?

Gad dammit, you got me!

I mean, I pretty much still use CDs, even when I'm working at home or whatever. I do use records too, but CD is my main format. I almost never stream.

The rare occasions where I do have to bluetooth my audio over something, be it car, gym headphones, etc, it's just a night and day difference to what I'm used to.

I had this discussion with my bassist a while ago. I just simply played Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory on CD, compared it to almost any online streaming service, the difference is palpable. But if you're used to the lower quality streaming or bluetooth mechanisms, you'll probably never know the difference and be perfectly happy.

I was perfectly happy with Netflix until I started buying the odd movie on DVD and just seeing how huge the difference in quality was. Nowadays, I buy a few DVDs off of eBay every so often, they don't cost much, so next time we want to movie it up, we get proper quality movies instead of lower quality streaming. Like I said, I didn't see the problem with Netflix standard either until I happened to impulse buy a few DVD/Blu Ray one day. Now, Netflix, Amazon, Disney (we share accounts shhhh!) all seem significantly lower quality than physical format.

Long answer for a short question I know.