CDs Pressed by Specialty: SRC code?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by CardinalFang, Apr 21, 2008.

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  1. Here's an addition to the list:

    Alphaville - Afternoon In Utopia (3 81667-2 SRC-1)
     

  2. Add to this list;

    The Cars - Panorama [] 514-2 SRC-02 []
     
  3. TheHighRoller

    TheHighRoller New Member

    I have a question:

    I had a CD that was SRC=09 and M1S3

    Then I bought another copy and noticed the matrix barcode wasn't split up. It has SRC=07 and M5S4

    Which of the two is best in terms of audio quality? From my understanding, a lower M/S is better, but the SRC also plays into it? The SRC is the plant, and the number after the "=" is the Glass Master used?
     
  4. Holy Diver

    Holy Diver Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    On a similar note, if a CD has no M or S would that be an earlier pressing than one that does?
     
  5. HiFi Guy 008

    HiFi Guy 008 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New England
    I love this one. The "least bad" of The Cars on their original cds.

    Listen to Steve's remaster of Touch And Go on the Car's Greatest Hits.
    That's how great this album could sound on cd.
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2014
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  6. mscoll

    mscoll Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK, South East
    Hi,

    We can't answer you question based only on a matrix numbers. If you want to know which CD sounds better, you'd have to examine the entire mastering.

    If I can elaborate, SRC pressings are sourced from the same master that has been created at the plant. The same master was used for years to manufacture another CDs (re-pressings). If there was an error in the mastering, or for other reasons, a revision master (RE in the matrix) has been issued. If I would guess, both of your CDs sounds the same.
     
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  7. ricks

    ricks Senior Member

    Location:
    127.0.0.1:443

    No Offense, but are you serious? You not talking about vinyl. Since you do mean CD's then sadly you will likely fall prey to a small cadre here with expensive early Japan CD's to sell that are exactly the same as inexpensive stocks discs.

    My friend the best advice you can be offered is what Mr Hoffman has said over and over; Sound quality on digital media is "all in the mastering". Worry only about that and all will be sorted out. If you decide to go a different route I hope your wallet is good enough to support an expensive snake oil habit. Upgrading ones gear/hardware to enhance the type of sound you prefer is a far better use of funds than on a fool's errand like a low M/S number. I'm sure one or 2 "famous" members here will chime in to the contrary but unlike them I'm not peddling early Japan or other pricey CD product.

    Hope I did not come off as being to harsh but trying to save you money . Eventually you would have come to same conclusion on your own but after loosing a lot of coin you would likely dropped out of the game which ultimately is bad thing for the community as the more who are aware of good masterings the better.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2014
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  8. TheHighRoller

    TheHighRoller New Member

    I was simply asking a question. I didn't say in my post that I collected low numbers. Not do I plan to as I think it is dumb and time-wasting.

    Besides, CDs are no longer the main place to obtain high quality audio from, so I only buy few that interest me.

    I was simply wondering if there was any truth to the SRC M/S myth.
     
  9. jh901

    jh901 Forum Resident

    Location:
    PARRISH FL USA
    Fortunately, you are not the forum authority on this matter. Nor am I, but my view is that pressing CDs is a mechanical process- some stampers are better than others. Further, not all "Japan CDs" come from the same mastering, so lumping them all together is unfair. Additionally, suggesting that some members wish to prey on others is insulting to say the least.

    Many of us do have high-performance component audio systems which reveal far more musical detail than systems comprised of mass market gear. This is an inconvenient fact, but it is a fact nonetheless.

    With that said, I wouldn't get too caught up with the potential sound quality variation of SRC codes. On principle, I always wish to track down the very first pressing run. There is a chance, in my view, that WEA Manufacturing could do a better job with the parts supplied by SRC on any given run. Perhaps the stampers are better at times and maybe the actual stamping process was better here and there. I've never compared SRCs myself, but my opinion is that the biggest difference would be in extremely fine detail which would only be meaningful in a really nice room with great gear all around.
     
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  10. princesskiki

    princesskiki Kiki's Mom

    Of the SRC CD's from the 1980's, the answer is YES.
     
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  11. Holy Diver

    Holy Diver Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    Thank you!
     
  12. ricks

    ricks Senior Member

    Location:
    127.0.0.1:443
    Agreed on unique masterings which is the case on some but not most early Japan CD's. Recording, Mixing, Mastering and of course ones playback gear [including speakers] add up to 100% of the equation.

    As for insulting some here, I've been 'round long enough to know there are many factions here with agenda's. Some may say my agenda is to prevent others getting from being conned if so then that to me is a compliment. My agenda/goal is to prevent folks like "thehighroller" from being swindled [as I was] as those of us who care about audio quality are a dying breed. A new person who is interested then who is perceived as being conned will move on to other things or worse join an anit-SH type forum which sadly we both know exists on the interwebs.

    Revealing systems are well and good, but if the data is the same the system will reproduce it exactly the same. Investing in better gear and the best mastering are the keys in digital audio media. Don't want this new member to be conned as in terms of the future that is not a good thing. The subject if digitally identical disc is something that never ends well here as those with $ and ego based agenda are usually those who fight with the most venom. As a rule never follow someone in audio who states "I say they sound different and you can't prove they sound the same". Those few who actually understand how the tech work know that if digital data is not correct or bad, silence or nasty digi-noise will result. Reduced sound stage or less bass etc is not a possible outcome in the binary world - ether the data is correct or is in error no state in between is possible digitally. But as mentioned I have no $ based interest.

    So to "TheHighRoller" if you are serious about digital based audio quality think mastering or gear and don't slide into the laughing stock fringe world is flat arena. If you do any direct compares make sure they are done in gear that has been warmed up for at least 20 minutes as cold gear does sound different than warm - that of course is electronics 101. I wonder how many here put on disc 1 on a cold system then 30-40 minutes later put in digitally identical disc #2 [or vice-versa] on a fully warm system then conclude the difference in sound is the pressing??? When in actuality it is the temp of their gear. Not sure how many will even admit they make that error of course some famous posters here had their speakers wired out of phase for years and never noticed......:)
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2014
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  13. princesskiki

    princesskiki Kiki's Mom

    I am not going to get into this debate any further than this post, but just because two CD's were manufactured using glass masters taken from the same digital mastering, they do not necessarily have the exact same digital data (or to put it in another way, exact same amount of data). I understand that errors occur during the manufacturing process and so long as the amount of errors is up to a certain standard (which I understand to be not that high), they were "good enough" to be sold commercially. I have two CD's manufactured by the same company with the exact same matrix but one has all kinds of errors (including sounds that sound like surface noise when playing records) but the other copy sounds great throughout. And that example is based on the same production mastering! In the early days of CD's, WEA did not send glass masters to various manufacturers. WEA/SRC did their own glass mastering a little after SRC came on line. All of the earliest SRC discs with the WG Polygram matrices on the plastic ring are evidence that they did not do their own glass mastering until a short time later. On many of those CD's where I have the WG Polygram matrix vs. "SRC-01", the WG Polygram matrix (meaning Polygram glass master) sounds noticeably better than the "SRC-01" (the WEA/SRC glass master from the exact same digital mastering). (Here, I am NOT implying that WG Polygram production/glass mastering was better than WEA/SRC's. I personally think the difference in the sound quality results from the SRC disc-with-Polygram-matrix NOT having gone through mother and stamper stages (which would cause more errors).)

    You don't have to believe me, as I don't care about "spreading the gospel". It is better for a collector/audiophile like me that I have less competition in tracking down the best sounding CD pressings.

    I am not even a bit knowledgeable about audio equipment or digital technology but I know a difference when I hear it (or, as in the next example, when I see it). I sometimes watch a movie on Netflix through my new High Definition "smart TV". Most of the time, my wireless signal from my cable/internet router device is strong enough that I get a nice HD picture quality with really sharp images, etc. Every now and then, however, my signal is just weak enough that I do not lose the connection entirely BUT now the picture quality is blurry (like the TV I had back in the 70's). When I play the same movie over during when the signal strength is strong enough, that same part plays with HD picture quality. Again, I am no "techie", but it seems to me that the exact same digital data interpreted by the same TV are showing up with two vastly different "analog" results depending on the signal strength. (Please note that I am not saying that I can tell a difference in picture quality with varying levels of signal strength. I am just saying that at some point in the weakness of the signal, the picture quality drastically changes.) Any digital-to-analog process would require some sort of extrapolation by the conversion device. Of course, modern CD players (or the D/A converter and laser reading devices in them) are much better than the earliest CD players and some of the differences caused by "errors" in the CD manufacturing process are "smoothed over" by modern CD players. Even so, oftentimes (but not all of the time) I can hear a significant enough difference in the sound on many early CD's manufactured by different manufacturers.

    Again, you don't have to believe me, as that would be 1 fewer person who will potentially compete with me in trying to find the best sounding CD pressing.

    In short, while I agree that digital mastering is much more important when it comes to searching for the best or better sound quality, production mastering and the manufacturing process can also be significant.
     
  14. ricks

    ricks Senior Member

    Location:
    127.0.0.1:443
    Summary you "say they sound different and I can't prove they sound the same". Learn how the tech operates on the hardware and logical levels. Are your compares based on warm gear? Of course you will now say yes to save face, but it a pretty safe guess you have not done all your compares in that fashion so consider revisiting that. Also I know from your past posts [and matrix's provided within them] that you have actually in many cases compared different mastering and simply were not aware.

    Bottom line if members like "thehighroller" seek out the best or different masterings they will never feel conned. Whereas absolute best case scenario following your comments/logic is tiny chance they will agree with those with your views. That means we will loose more potential allies in the quest for best sound than we could ever hope to gain. I am sure Mr Hoffman would agree with that.




    I miss ChrisM the voice of reason.
     
  15. princesskiki

    princesskiki Kiki's Mom

    I have finally found a copy of "SRC-01" (with no record company number preceding the matrix) of James Taylor, Sweet Baby James. Woohoo! :goodie:
     
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  16. princesskiki

    princesskiki Kiki's Mom

    Now you are personally attacking me. I think you really should read my posts very carefully before opening your mouth. I do not need you to agree with anything I say, but at least have some common courtesy.

    BTW, unlike you, I do not have any ego to be bruised when someone disagrees with me or points out my mistakes here. I do, however, take offense at comments like yours above.
     
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  17. ricks

    ricks Senior Member

    Location:
    127.0.0.1:443
    Many insist that Bigfoots/Yettis/Sasquatches exist and will argue the point to the nth degree.....

    You seem more than smart enough not to get taken in, I wish I had been 7-8 years ago. Welcome aboard and you should find at least a few CD's or SACD's masterings that compare favorably to the sound of a nice slab o'vinyl..
     
  18. Lazlo Nibble

    Lazlo Nibble Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, Colorado
    Please enjoy my long-winded rant!

    Technically true; if you create multiple physical (glass) masters from the same digital audio data, it doesn't necessarily follow that the audio data will start at the same physical position on the disc, and in cases where the audio data stream isn't null-padded at the end this variation can result in different numbers of meaningful samples being "chopped off" the end of the data stream (though in practice this rarely amounts to more than a small fraction of a second's worth of data). Also the subcode information in the data stream can and often does vary between physical masterings on discs whose audio content is bit-identical. So yeah, bit-identical audio doesn't in any way imply bit-identical discs.

    But, having said that: unless someone screws up very very badly, two physical masters created from the same digital audio master will contain the exact same digital audio data on the disc, even if one disc has a few more null samples before the signal starts than the other (taking into account the caveat about losing a few samples at the end if the audio master isn't null-padded at the end, which to my mind at least counts as someone screwing up). And two discs pressed from the same physical master will always have the exact same data on them by definition, the same way that two book pages printed from the same printing plate will always have the same words on them.

    Discs with an error rate below certain thresholds are considered "good enough" for commercial sale because those errors occur before the lengths of the pits and lands pressed into the surface of the disc are decoded into the final digital data stream, and are minor or infrequent enough that the error correction mechanisms designed into the CD spec will ultimately allow the decoder to generate the same data stream it would have generated if there had been no errors at all. These mechanisms are very robust; the CD spec allows for an average of ~220 block errors per second, and discs are still completely readable with error rates ten times that or more. (This is true error correction too, not the waveform interpolation many players will do if a chunk of audio data is missing from the stream the decoder spits out--what you refer to as "smoothing over". The latter has the potential to cause audible errors; the former literally can't.) To continue the book analogy, these block-level errors are like minor printing glitches in a book: some smudging, ink bleeding into the holes on some letters, maybe a missing dot on a lowercase "i", but nothing that prevents you from correctly reading all the words on the page.

    That doesn't mean there's different digital data on the "bad" disc; it's far more likely that it has the exact same data as the "good" one but for whatever reason, your player just can't read it properly. That's typically the result of damage to the disc, or (more likely than not in the case you describe) a not-quite-to-spec pressing and a not-quite-to-spec player interacting with each other in a way that prevents the disc from being read properly. If all the discs from the pressing run that generated the "bad" disc were similarly unreadable by a typical player they are unlikely to have ever made it out of the factory.

    You can test this by trying to rip the two CDs. Regardless of how much work with how many different drives it takes to rip the "bad" one, if you can eventually get accurate rips from both discs, that proves that both discs contain identical data...even if your player, for whatever reason, can't read one of them properly.

    In my experience it's extremely common for WG PolyGram-era discs to have different audio masterings from later US-pressed versions, especially for titles mastered and pressed by PolyGram before any US plants came online. That's a far more likely explanation for two discs sounding differently than anything to do with the physical production process. No reason to assume either way, though, when (again) you can easily check by ripping both discs and comparing the results.

    Except it's not the exact same digital data. Dedicated streaming clients like the Netflix player switch between different quality data feeds on the fly depending on (among other things) how fast the connection is. When your WiFi signal quality drops, the player notices that it's not getting data fast enough to play it back properly, and tells Netflix to start sending video in a lower-resolution format that will fit inside the now-narrower "pipe". If the connection speed improves, once the player sees that there's enough room in the "pipe" for a higher-quality stream, it tells Netflix to start sending one. The blurriness you see when dropping down to a lower-resolution stream is because your TV is having to stretch the smaller image out to fit your screen, the same reason a standard-definition DVD stretched to fit an HD streen will always be blurrier than the equivalent 1080p Blu-Ray.

    This might have been at least arguable a decade ago, before there was an overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary, but the AccurateRip database has nailed shut the lid of that particular coffin. As of this month the ARDB has recorded over 240 million bit-accurate rips from almost three million unique discs. This simply wouldn't be possible if discs in the real world were routinely unreadable straight from the factory due to errors introduced by the physical production process.
     
  19. ricks

    ricks Senior Member

    Location:
    127.0.0.1:443
    Lazlo great FACTUAL post!
     
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  20. Say

    Say Forum Resident

    some additions to the first gen. SRC list: a couple of these do not have the minus " - " sign)


    Yes - 90125-2 SRC 09
    Phil Collins - Hello I Must Be Going 80035-2 SRC 05

    Led Zeppelin II - 19127-2 SRC-02
    Paul Simon - Graceland 25447-2 SRC-03
    The Best of ZZ Top - 3273-2 SRC-01
     
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2014
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  21. isidroco

    isidroco Forum Resident

    Location:
    Argentina
    I ripped some of different SRC releases with EAC secure mode and used CUEtools to check accuracy, usually it's same exact data with a fixed offset displacement (you can compare checksums of CUEtools log report which shows all reported different displacements of same data). So in those cases, as digital data is the same, audio quality should be the same too provided that there's no problems with a particular reader with a particular CD.
     
  22. isidroco

    isidroco Forum Resident

    Location:
    Argentina
    Steve Hoffman's remaster of this one is quite better than that edition.
     
  23. jh901

    jh901 Forum Resident

    Location:
    PARRISH FL USA
    What is the best component audio system which you have spent meaningful time with?
     
  24. isidroco

    isidroco Forum Resident

    Location:
    Argentina
    Ontopic, I'm slowly sorting out my collection and found:
    U2 - Under A Blood Red Sky
    90127-2 SRC-01
    In digipak, white CD placholder. No front digit, no MxSx. It must be first 1986 CD edition. (Bought it used on 1991).
    Paul McCartney - Tripping The Life Fantastic: Gen4:
    CD1: 11 CPCD 94779-2 SRC+01 M1S4 - Thick barcode, unused matrix space empty, (Gen4 probably 1990)
    CD2: 11 CPCD 94780-2 SRC=01 M1S1

    Nirvana - Nevermind (1991)
    38 DGCD 24425-2 RE-1 SRC=01 M1S3 - Thick barcode, unused matrix space empty (Gen4).
    Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Live Seeds (1993)
    2 61554-2 SRC##01 M1S2 - Thin barcode, unused matrix space empty, seems gen6
    Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Tender Prey
    2 61059-2 SRC*01 M2S1 - Empty space filled with * (Gen5 1992)
    Led Zeppelin - Inmigrant Song (1992)
    3 2777-2 SRC-01 M2S1 Thick barcode (Gen4)
    Genesis - Seconds Out - No 1st digit, filled empty space, Gen1 probably 1986
    CD1: 9002-2.1 SRC-02
    CD2: 9002-2.2 SRC-01
    Genesis - Live
    3 81855-2 SRC-01 M1S3 - Filled empty space, Gen3 (88/89)

    Have some more, but lazy to continue... (Couple of 1992 Brian Eno)
     
  25. Say

    Say Forum Resident

    more:

    Roxy Music - Avalon: 23686-2 SRC-01
    Steve Winwood - Back In The High Life: 25448-2 SRC-03
    Stanley Jordan - Standards Volume 1: CDP-7 46333-2 SRC-01
     
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