DVD vs CD

After a few months of having the 970, it seems that my concert DVD's sound much better than my CD collection, is it just my imagination from watching the performance at the same time on my 46" HD set, or does it really make a difference??

I'll take a shot in the dark at one possible reason for this, and I'll start out with a question (or two). What audio format are the concert DVD's on and what mode do you listen to CD's in? It's always possible that some of the concert discs in question are good surround mixes (something that can't be said of all surround music mixes, but something that also shouldn't be underestimated), which could produce a more immersive and meaningful experience than CD's - especially if the CD's are being processed with a matrix decoder like PLII/IIx, which some people simply don't like for music.

The concert DVDs use 48hz while the Cds are only 44.1 Hz. Also, they care in the DVD concerts bring on the sound.

I've got a couple of concert DVDs and the matching CDs and while the differences are subtle, I've also noticed the DVDs sound better. At first I thought I noticed a difference because I was watching the video too, but now I'm convinced the DVDs sound better. I generally listen to the DVDs in stereo so my comparison, while not A-B testing, is in a consistent format. I find the 5.1 mixes on music DVDs overemphasize the center channel and it sounds more like a live concert in stereo. Anyway, it is interesting to note the difference of 48 and 44.1 Hz for DVDs vs CDs. If that is the sole reason for what I hear maybe my middle-aged ears aren't so bad!

Generally speaking, the differences between 44.1kHz and 48kHz sampling rates on a 16-bit source are far too subtle to cause any significant differences. In fact, many folks (myself included) who do any kind of recording intended to be distributed on CD chose 44.1 as their recording rate rather than 48, because it avoided a downsampling step. If the recording was actually done at 48kHz and you have can play both sources back-to-back, you may hear the most subtle difference between them, but nothing to write home about. And for the most part, the difference isn't so much the extra resolution of 48kHz but the fact that you're hearing a source that hasn't gone through a lossy resampling step.

With that, I'd say it's something else. First, the mastering process could be completely different. Any time you start from scratch from master tapes, you make it possible to produce a very different (and perhaps better) sounding recording.

Also, DVD-Video can accept MANY audio formats including 24-bit/96kHz. If the concert DVD includes a 24-bit audio track, the difference could be very significant, especially if the master recording (or at least the mixdown) was done at 24-bit. This doesn't leave much bandwidth for the video portion...

- Jason

Interesting. The two DVD/CD sets I have (Dave Matthews Central Park and Matthews/Tim Reynolds @ Radio City) both allow a choice of 5.1 or PCM Stereo. The CD could have been mastered differently from the DVD but they seem the same except for the quality. The same person mastered both the Central Park DVD and CD but it looks like there might have been mixed by different people. Maybe someone has one of these sets and can also do a comparison.

I would not be surprised at all if the PCM stereo track on those DVD's sounded better than a CD. As JasonR mentions, it could actually be 24-bit, which would certainly give the DVD an edge.

Thanks for the feedbacks guys.

AvFan, I actually have both of those Dave Matthews sets and also the Springsteen "Live in Dublin" and they all sound better on DVD. The soundstage does not seem to be as defined on those CD's and a lot of my others.
Oh well, my ears are shot anyway...