Hi-Res Download News (HDTracks, ProStudioMasters, Pono, etc.) & Software/Mastering Part 12**

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Gary, May 9, 2015.

  1. ServingTheMusic

    ServingTheMusic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SoCal
    Nope..ain' t kidding..
     
    john morris likes this.
  2. oboogie

    oboogie Forum Resident

    Location:
    U.S.A.
    Has anyone here purchased the Super Deluxe Sgt. Pepper 24 / 96 hi-res release? If so, please share your thoughts on sound quality.
     
    Shaddam IV and tonewheeltom like this.
  3. Vandenville

    Vandenville Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    I haven't bought the Hi-Res release version (as I own the boxset), but I'm sure we can assume it will be the same (over-compressed) master from Blu-Ray in the box.
     
  4. ServingTheMusic

    ServingTheMusic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SoCal
    Identical number of tracks, but strangely, in a slightly different order than the discs..and the mono tracks are not labelled as such at the end...but it is all there.

    And no booklet is seems..real lame.
     
    Vandenville likes this.
  5. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Who are these people? And they calls themselves audiophiles? So this is what the Laymen mean when they coined the phrase, "Audio-fools."

    The music is stored on the disk. The sub codes (track numbers and such) are also on the disk. When you hit TRK 5 manually on your CD remote by hitting the TRK forward button 5 times or you press TRK 5 on your remote the same thing happens. The same command is made. The same data block is accessed - TRK 5 is accessed and played. I think they have this wierd notion that accessing the track 5 one track at a time in order is easier on the Drive or some other nonsense. Aren't these the same audio-fools who put their speaker wires on blocks? Back in the 90's there was even the belief that putting an LED clock next to your stereo would make it sound better... Or was it worse? No joke! I swear! To add to this foolishness some major audio magazine did some A/B/X test on it.

    Can we please relocate all these audio-fools to large magellanic cloud. And no, it's not far away. At 180 000 light years outside of our own Milkyway Galaxy it's the closet galaxy to us.
     
  6. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    No, don't be silly! My grandmother does all the listening tests for us here at the studio. My grandmother is more reliable than some fancy-pantsy-smantchy computer program. If there is too much bass she will yell and exclaim, "Damn, it's like a subway car in here!" If a mastered file is too harsh she will shout, "Who murdered the cat!?"

    LOL Joking of course.

    Yea. And it's bit for bit perfect and yet it's different. The original 24/176.4 PCM file sounded very close to the original analog 1/2 inch tape. And the final 16/44.1 CD master file sounded great. A big soundstage with powerful detailed bass. But the test disk was bizarre. The soundstage was reduced and the bass was there but it wasn't. The detail in this stand up bass was gone. On the 16/44.1 you could hear the heavy breathing of the drummer when Gus Illosde plays the soft brush parts. Not on the test disk.
     
  7. Time Is On My Side

    Time Is On My Side Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison, WI
    Has anyone compared the Keith Richards - Talk Is Cheap to the MFSL CD?
     
    art likes this.
  8. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Why would a tape recorded in 1977 be in bad condition just 9 years later? You are talking about SSS. But it only effected one brand of tape between 1969-1982. SSS has a simple solution - bake the tape. it was good for at least 24 hours. The tape would play fine with no loss of sound quality.

    When they took a digital master and ran it through a digital editor where editing and equalization work was done; what would end up on the next 3/4 inch copy was not a clone since the data on it was changed. But plenty of great sounding releases went through early digital editors.

    Back in the 80's all the ELO albums were put out on CD. Putting the crap releases for a moment aside let's look at the good ELO CDs from the 80's.

    On The Third Day
    Eldorado
    A New World Record
    Out Of The Blue


    I owned all these 80 releases so I know what they sound like.

    5 years or so later came ELO's Afterglow Box Set. I bought it and it is the worse sounding piece of garbage I have ever heard. This set was not made from any analog copy. It was made from the digital masters of ELO albums already on 3/4 inch video tape.

    Out Of The Blue and A New World Record sounded great on those 80's CD's. So why did the same songs from these albums sound so bad on Afterglow? They are just clones right?
    I suppose it could have gone through a digital editor where clicks and pops were removed, level changes were made, and edits were made. Maybe that's what caused the bad sound. They all went through digital editors. Either on the second or third digital copy. That's how they did digital fade outs and removed pops amd such.
    And heavy digital editing was used on MFSL's, Dark Side Of The Moon. 100 clicks were removed. But that disk sounds great. So the digital editors could not have been the problem.
     
  9. macdaddysinfo

    macdaddysinfo Forum Resident

    Ffps would clear this up...
     
  10. xj32

    xj32 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Racine, WI
    ???
     
  11. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    I'm not just talking about sticky shed. And I wasn't just thinking about tapes made in '77, but older material as well. Which might not have been stored correctly, or had alignment issues, or had issues with Dolby or dbx or some other noise reduction scheme mistracking, etc. etc. etc.

    But since there are recordings that didn't even make it thru the recording process without major technical issues (like Steely Dan's infamous dbx issues with Katy Lied), I wouldn't be at all surprised people had trouble getting some material to master well to CD in the '80s due to pre-existing issues with the master itself (assuming they even laid hands on the right master to be using).

    Any step you put the material thru can get screwed up, assuming they didn't intentionally do something to the sound. Also, I thought Afterglow used the single mixes, not the album mixes found on Out Of The Blue, etc.
     
  12. ServingTheMusic

    ServingTheMusic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SoCal
    Well, you don't have to convince me...the lunacy that exists in the audiophile, er audio phool hobby defies imagination. All of what I describe is well documented.

    It extends even into the virtual..with the endless FLAC vs WAV vs AIFF vs ALAC debate.
     
    john morris likes this.
  13. macdaddysinfo

    macdaddysinfo Forum Resident

    Flac fingerprints. They would be different if the waveform data is different (ie different masters). Been wondering why they aren’t included with every download. Standard practice with recordists to include them in sets...
     
    xj32 likes this.
  14. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Good points. An intelligent post like yours is rare.
    It was very interesting. You are right of course. But unfortunately the information you bring up just makes matters worse. The early stuff (most of it) sounded o.k....Well...mmm. Not bad... It was the 1975 - 1978 period that sounded so bad. And there is no single mix for: Boy Blue, Nightrider, Stadin' In The Rain, Steppin Out and all the other "non single" tracks that sounded like crap.
    And I purchased ELO's greatest hits back in 1989.
    It has the single mix/edit of Sweet Talkin' Woman. What ever that is on After Glow it is not the single edit/mix. So all the other non single tracks were taken from digital masters or perhaps copies. Who knows?

    I think we can both agree that it really easy to screw up the sound of a CD.
     
  15. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Well, not just CDs. Listen to all of the complaints about vinyl reissues. In addition to sourcing the wrong tapes or screwing up the mastering, you've got a slew of manufacturing issues to contend with.

    The labels clearly don't give a crap.
     
  16. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    You are the last person I will be responding to.
    I agree. They just didn't care.

    I will assume you are not one of the 26 members on here that tried to bully me into not calling Giles Baby Martin which I have been doing for over a year. Calling Sir Paul - Macca though...

    That's o.k. 26 members think I hate Giles. Most of them show way greater disrespect to Giles by saying he should never remix a Beatle album again. What a group of hypocrites!

    I will miss you and a few others.
     
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  17. Vandenville

    Vandenville Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    Please don't leave because of some morons here in the forum. There are lots of people who are interested in your knowledge and "stories from the studio floor", including me.
     
  18. marcb

    marcb Senior Member

    Location:
    DC area
    FWIW, both 7Digital and HDTracks show a copyright date of 1988 for Talk Is Cheap.
     
  19. jmacvols

    jmacvols Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tennessee
    THIS WEEK on HDtracks...

    Edie Brickell and New Bohemians - Rocket
    Keith Richards - Main Offender
    Eric Clapton - Happy Xmas
    Elvis Costello, The Imposters - Look Now

    plus much much more...
     
  20. ServingTheMusic

    ServingTheMusic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SoCal
    Don't go bro!:cry:
     
  21. Time Is On My Side

    Time Is On My Side Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison, WI
    With regards to Talk Is Cheap, will the labels reply if you ask them about mastering questions?
     
  22. PanaPlasma

    PanaPlasma Forum Resident

    Location:
    Belgium, Europe
    So, no hi-res for Lennon and Bowie boxset?
     
  23. PanaPlasma

    PanaPlasma Forum Resident

    Location:
    Belgium, Europe
    So Bowie 24bit cancelled? Or do they want to sell the cd & version first and make the 24bit version available next year ...

    Not all 80s stuff might be recorded this way, but Let's Dance already got an sacd-version ... although i'm not sure if it was real hi res or upscaled redbook.
     
    TonyCzar likes this.
  24. Vandenville

    Vandenville Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    "Let's Dance" SACD is mastered from a proper hi-res source, signals up to 35kHz. Probably the only Bowie SACD to recommend.
     
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  25. jmacvols

    jmacvols Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tennessee
    THIS WEEK on HDtracks...

    David Crosby - Here If You Listen
    Christian McBride - Christian McBride's New Jawn
    Max Richter - Never Look Away
    Chicago - Greatest Hits Live

    plus much much more...
     
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