Just found this site today.

http://johnvestman.com/commercial_cds.htm

looks pretty good so far. He rates CDs based on the mastering quality. You know Chronic 2001's on there !

that was a very imformative site...thanks so much for the find NFX

I keep seeing this referrenced as a negative ... could anyone clarify what exactly it means for me?

" flat square waves in the tops of the waveform envelopes "

The way I use it is to listen to it just before mixing down or mastering a song. The production quality is what I am aiming for. Do I reach that level? No. but it's something to shoot for. I can A/B my track to get as close as I can within my abilities.

Of course if you are going for a different sound then you may want to use something else for reference.

Thanks, I understand that ...
I was talking about this particular phrase which I kept seeing throughout the linked site ...

" flat square waves in the tops of the waveform envelopes "

It notes that this "pattern" visually is indicative of something negative or bad in the quality. Was just curious how / why.

Right because that indicates clipping:




The audio was "clipped" hence the flat top. When a wav form's audio goes over a certain threshold, the sound cannot be rendered because it get chopped. While this often results in a louder audio, it also introduces a distortion because the transient peaks are lost.

In the picture above the top waveform is not clipping, while the bottom is the same waveform where compression and gain has made it much louder, but you'll notice the peaks have been clipped off as noted by the red circles.