Dark Side Of The Moon on CD: a blind listening test

I don't think so. Please, again, let's move on.

 

hopefully the endless quest of various members of this forum to be as irritatingly pedantic as possible didn't discourage you from keeping this going. there are some adjustments that could be made, sure, but I thank you for your effort and think it's a really interesting idea.

fwiw, after an initial listen, I enjoyed D, E, and F the most and perhaps leaned ever so slightly toward E. I'll have to give this a whirl a few more times.

 

Time for big reveal?

Tim

 

You're welcome. Although someone tried to spoil the fun, I'd like to really thank all those of you who chimed in, taking the time to listen to the samples with their own ears and equipments. Your comments are very appreciated as different equipments, ears and probably mood lead to different preferences.
E and D seems to be the favourite samples, but A is close and, even more interestingly, each sample has at least two folks who think it's the best sounding one.

Not easy to find the right moment for "big reveal" but I think there's no need to prolong the wait. I'm only waiting for member Solace to chime in (he asked for some more time), then I'll reveal the sources.

 

Wonderful idea.

Everybody's ears are of course different depending on the type of abuse through the years and what you were born with.
Add to that how weird and different everybody's brain's are along with the difference in playback speakers and equipment it should come as no surprise that there will be no unanimous opinion.

Would love to see how those different Led Zeppelin and Beatles discs would fare.
A vinyl version would be cool too.
Maybe we should start a kick starter research project ... nah, too much work.

Well done and thanks.

 

Preferred F and D.

 

Same preferences as mine, but I went for D. F sounds great to my ears, but D is a bit more natural. F may be more detailed though. It's almost too close to call for me. And I'm still "blind".

 

Thanks for waiting! And as others have said many thanks for all the trouble you've gone to to set this up. Can you reveal the sources now?

 

Source A
1988 - Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs
MFSL UDCD 517, mastered by Krieg Wunderlich
29.3 / 34.1 / 39.2 / 40.3 / 41.5 / 56.3 / 49.2 / 57.8 / 52.9 / 60.0

Source B
2003 - SACD red-book layer
(30th Anniversary Edition) EMI 7243 582136 2 1, mastered by James Guthrie
34.4 / 92.4 / 92.0 / 93.0 / 92.7 / 100.0 / 84.3 / 100.0 / 100.0 / 100.0

Source C
1984 - first EMI European mastering
Harvest CDP 7 46001 2, silverface
87.8 / 94.7 / 100 / 97.2 / 100 / 99.1 / 100 / 96.1 / 100

Source D
1983 - Sony Japanese mastering
Harvest CDP 7 46001 2, blackface (non-TO)
39.9 / 43.3 / 70.1 / 55.2 / 72.3 / 44.5 / 53.9 / 54.6 / 61.2

Source E
1993 - US Capitol
Capitol CDP 0777 7 46001 2 5, mastered by Doug Sax
67.9 / 69.1 / 76.9 / 75.0 / 96.8 / 69.6 / 89.3 / 75.7 / 82.5

Source F
2011 - Discovery Edition
EMI 50999 028955 2 9, mastered by James Guthrie and Joel Plante
40.6 / 92.8 / 99.5 / 96.6 / 98.4 / 100 / 90.6 / 100 / 99.7 / 100

 

I did the comparison before scrolling to the end of the thread to see what was what. I liked A best, closely followed by E. Least liked was C.

I love threads like this. Keep 'em coming everyone.

 

Here are the final "blind" poll results, for what it's worth (keeping Isaac's vote, my own vote being in bold):

 

No surprise Doug Sax was an amazing mastering engineer.

 

Interesting about E. The Sax masterings are hard to get here in the UK thanks to an EMI mix-up.

Tim

 

Watch the votes come pouring in now!

If the poll isn't closed there should be pre-reveal and post-reveal result numbers.
Not that I don't trust people ...

 

Some in-depth analysis of different TDSOTM masterings:

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/pink-floyd-dark-side-of-the-moon-analysis.264920/

 

Okay, I' going to listen more extensively to sample D. Maybe Burn a CD to listen to all samples on my main stereo. I can't stand that I like a recent remaster (sample F).

 

Personally I was really suprised to find out I consider the 2011 remaster to be very close to the holy grail. On my equipment the Sax sounds very good, but it's a bit less natural than the other two, as though the midrange is boosted or something like that.

 

The samples have been removed from the shared folder, hope this helps.

 

And let's keep these results quiet.
I have an MFSL that I may want to sell and I don't want the value to drop ...

 

Ha, I own D.

 

Well, it appears that certain early Japanese rock/pop CD masterings (i.e. TDSOTM & Thriller) have a slight bass boost, which people seem to like a lot...

 

Heh, pretty neat I have E but chose D, maybe I preferred how your analog out applied de-emph, Thanks for taking the time Grandegi to put this together

 

I have "only" one CD version of DSotM, I picked E, and I think that's the one I have. How lucky is that?

 

Funny, the one I preferred first of all is the one I own:
C
1984 - first EMI European mastering
Harvest CDP 7 46001 2, silverface

But after repeated listening I changed my vote to E... (before the sources were revealed!)

I enjoyed this, even if people wanted to get pedantic about polarity!

 

Note, that both samples you chose (C & E; F too, BTW) have inverted polarity (compared to samples A, B & D). Invert & re-test... also apply track RG in playback, while you're at it...