I do indeed. But also enjoy the Steve Wilson remasters. It's the sound of the music when it hits my ears from the speakers, not a smiley EQ that has some folks turned off no matter how good the music may sound.
About Dynamic Range. I have a question to all of you: When you are listening to Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms, original CD 1985, "So far away" with a DR20. Is this the most dynamic piece of music you ever heard? If you say YES, what do you hear? If NO, why is it so when the number says it is? I will give my answer: NO. When I listen to my SHM-SACD of Countdown to Ecstasy and my to fave tracks "Your Gold teeth" and "Pearl of the queens", both with DR12, and compare it to Dire Straits CD; in my ears and how I experience true dynamics in music, I will say that Dire Straits sounds dynamically DEAD in comparison. And I know the answer why it is so.
Purely from TT DR value standpoint there are numerous tracks that have numbers higher than DR20 (see DRDB listing of releases featuring the highest max DR values). Whether they are necessarily "music" is debatable (some are percussion, spoken word, avantgarde, experimental, etc. pieces). I think, another Dire Straits recording (Private Investigations) may be a good example of the most dynamic mainstream rock piece that is also highly musical (LoG SHM-SACD states TT DR19 track value for this song). N.B. TT DR values are actually reflecting the dynamics only of the loudest 20% of the analyzed material, so the quieter pieces (like classical or acoustic) may be at a disadvantage. PI at the same peak level as SFA is ~3dB quieter (lower in RMS), so clearly PI has more dynamic range per se (but its loudest 20% is comparable to the same of SFA dynamics-wise, so are their TT DR numbers)...
OK, I'm up to the Asia SHM-SACDs, starting with Alpha. First impression, harsh, harsh , harsh! Especially the first track, which I thought sounded pretty horrendous for an SHM-SACD. It made me want to get out the Audio Fidelity version to compare until I realized they only did the first album. So, I did a track comparison of "Don't Cry" from Anthologia to the SHM-SACD. I had to turn the regular CD down and now my head hurts. OK, so it's apparent that the masters of this album are an oversaturated mess and probably should not have been selected for SACD release in the first place. I'd be interested to hear what Hoffman/Gray could do with this album, but until then, I'm going to assume it's not a salvageable recording. I don't have particularly high hopes for Astra, but then again I found that album weak compared to the first two albums anyway. I wonder if the LP of Alpha is any better?
Yeah, I also found the new Asia discs to be pretty bad. It's obvious these tapes needed a bit of work, not just a flat transfer. I much prefer the original Geffen CD's.
I'm not dreaming of flat transfers, just a good transfer from original tapes and then good mastering job, like SH would do.
Whoever did apply the compression and smiley eq to the SHM-SACD of Countdown To Ecstasy sure did a great job. It must have really needed that. Great job man!
There's a 2013 SHM version of Camel's 'Mirage' I think it has the same 4 bonus tracks than the previous one from 2009 How does it sounds? is it the same as the previous version, or a new mastering?
Same mastering. I hope they will reissue this album, flat transfered from the original tapes like they did the two others.
OK, my wife is out of the house (and as such can't gripe at my playing of this one) so it's time for Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow (the band's first effort). Totally not my type of music and I've never heard the album before but initial impressions are that this one has a good sound quality to it. Not muddy, clean instrumentation, good soundstage. If you are a fan of Dio, you'll probably be happy with this one.
Just curious why you bought it if you were not familiar with it. Is there a CD Japan platinum club now? The Rainbow sounds excellent IMO.
Second that emotion. Really good sounding disc, sounds like the master that was used is in great shape!
You are right. Somebody else has pointed that out and I already corrected myself in another post. I was talking about the SHM-CD which uses the same mastering as the SACD.
My wife would no doubt as the same question. And, indeed did just ask that question about my owning a Destiny's Child SACD. A few years ago, I started collecting SACDs as an audiophile pursuit. I generally buy all of the non-classical SHM-SACD offerings whether I've heard the band/album or not (I'm OK w/classical but there's just way too much of it to try to buy it all). I only draw the line on things I know for certain I will abhore, such as Bon Jovi. It has introduced me to offerings by Caravan I might not have heard otherwise, and ideally I can always flip them later if I decide to clean house.
I'm now on to Cream's Goodbye. The live tracks are... eh. Badge was pretty good. The album overall is OK and there's nothing about the sound quality on this one that makes me want to run to the MFSL gold CD and compare them. I have it as a completist, but not sure I'd buy it as an SHM-SACD otherwise.
That is true, considering these Japan discs are limited some may fetch decent prices on the used market. Glad you discovered Caravan, there stuff is really nice. I was late to the party as well.
