Using old CD's are reference

[u/UnfairWorldliness882]

Can someone explain to me this.

Why the era/format also matters

A 1992 CD master was made for Red Book CD, a fixed 16-bit PCM format with no lossy transcoding step and no concept of "true peak" as a mastering concern at all — true peak/inter-sample overs only became something engineers cared about once lossy streaming codecs (MP3, AAC) made it a real audible risk in the 2000s–2010s. That +0.03 dBTP result isn't the 1992 engineer making a mistake or taking a risk — it's simply a number that had zero relevance to their format, so there was no reason to control for it. This CD rip isn't a broken master; it just predates a concern that didn't exist yet for the medium it was built for. Applying today's dBTP/streaming standards backward onto it doesn't tell you anything about your own file's target.

Yes, I know, I am a bad boy for using AI to help me master but I am trying to figure out if I am going down the wrong rabbit hole when comparing my work I am doing in 2026 to something that was made and manufactured in the 90s? Is it a waste of time to use old CD's pre-2000 or pre-2005 as reference?

[u/KS2Problema]

No problem - and I wasn't being critical of you, of course. 

AI-enhanced search can be useful but it drives me absolutely nuts when AIs spew out inaccurate answers with bland certitude. 

Most of my use of AI enhanced search has been researching software user interfaces - searches where there are often objectively correct answers that can be checked against the existing software - yet I cannot tell you how many times I have caught Google's own Gemini AI answering with complete and utter nonsense about Google's own software interfaces. 

 And when called on the inaccuracies, the AI's obsequious apologies and excuses are as laughable as they are cloying and obnoxious.

[u/dmills_00 → u/KS2Problema]

It always sounds so bloody confident in its bullshit, bit like a politician.

Very annoying, and I have actually had to argue with people at work who came out with clear gibberish, "But Claude said..." FML

[u/KS2Problema → u/dmills_00]

THIS!

Like a politician. Indeed! 

Although a politician would probably never make a public apology anything like the fawning, ass-kissing apologies I've got from Gemini ChatGPT when I called them on obvious BS. (At least Gemini now has some modalities that cut down on the glad-handing and ass-kissing if you ask for them. I think one of them is called no-fluff or something like that.)

[u/UnfairWorldliness882 → u/KS2Problema]

The AI LLM claimed some of the reference tracks I was using were worse and more poorly made than my track that I was working on. That part made no sense. The reference tracks were mastered by Bob Ludwig and made in a big well known LA studio in an era when record labels spent lots of money on albums vs my dinky home studio and I and fully aware I suck at this compared to Ludwig.

[u/KS2Problema → u/UnfairWorldliness882]

If AIs get the easy stuff so wrong so often, it only makes sense that they'd really bollix up matters of taste and discernment.