Blu-Spec CD2 Discs ARE Better than their domestic counterparts.....

The Beave · Feb 11, 2015

utenteanonimo64 said: ↑

It's a modern mastering post.
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IT'S the Real BrickWalling......
the one and only....beave

Dennis Metz · Feb 11, 2015

The Beave said: ↑

I've been doing some Steve Hoffman Thread Crunchin over the past week trying to educate myself on the Blu-Spec and SHM and CD2 Japanese releases. Unfortunately, there is very little real information on these things, but a lot of arguing back and forth on whether there is anything other than a marketing rip off going on here over the past couple of years. So I'm hoping to cut through that crap and give some sonic reality to the controversy.
This started basically with Aerosmith. Over the past 1/2 a year I've been blessed with getting a few really good sounding Cd Players, namely the Onkyo C-7030, then the Marantz CD6004, then the Onkyo C-7070 and ending with the NAD 565BEE. All at their price points very Excellent Kits and all worthy of Excellent Sound Systems. Playing some of the original four albums on the Marantz, I noticed that they did NOT sound as bad/mediocre as I remembered them sounding. But they still have a lot to be desired in the sound realm. I happened to be notified by a friend that the first four were being released in Japan on the Blu-Spec CD2 version of the Redbook format. So I went to CD Japan and at $18.17 each I decided to take a chance. Well, after getting them I opened Toys In The Attic and popped it on the NAD 565BEE and gave it a spin.......Bummer, sounds like the 93 remaster....no difference. Popped in the 93 domestic and went back and forth a few times and went right up to the computer and put Toys and the other 3 up on Amazon for sale.........
In the meantime I had tracked down the original Columbia issues of Toys and Rocks....I wanted to see if they were inferior sounding to the 93 remasters or ???? Well, I sold 'Aerosmith' on Amazon and still had the other three unopened. With my Wife away for the day shopping I had the house to myself, no grandkids, no air conditioner running in the background, just a nice quiet house to myself. So, Myself took the original Rocks and popped it into the NAD and tracked the first two songs......then I popped in the 93 remaster to compare it to. Lo and Behold, there WAS a big difference between the two....the Original issue was cut lower in volume but the soundstage was a lot tighter than the 93 issue, which sounded compressed and the Bass frequencies sounded bloated, whereas the original issue had less 'apparent' bass presence but had much more 'kick' to the sound. So then I got bored and decided to pop the Blu-Spec on even though I had to break the seal, but this was getting interesting so what the hey.......
I put on first the original, then the 93 remaster, then the new Blu-Spec cd-spotlighting one song only: "Last Child" and the first words out of my mouth were (Honestly) '**** Me'. Not having any distractions and background noise, and actually listening to the music attentively brought everything into focus. And this is what it boils down to: Specifically on 'Last Child' the original pressing and the 93 suffer from sibilance. It basically sounds like all the S words and T words have that awful hi freq sound that is like sonic plastic, or fingernails on a blackboard. In addition the Bass on the 93 issue is bloated, by that I mean that instead of hearing a sonically tight bass region where the bass guitar, bass drum and lower end of the spectrum that region sounds like it has been sonically blurred. Almost like hearing a woofer clean and hearing one with the edge surround breaking apart. It's the difference between a clean Fart and a dirty wet sounding Fart. Sorry bout that example but it does what I'm trying to put across very well. One sounds blurpy loose and all over the place and the other is a tight clean execution of that sound. Well when I put on the Blu-Spec CD2 of 'Last Child' all hell broke loose in my mind. The bass was full, like on the 93 remaster, except it DID NOT sound 'Bloated' like that CD. Also the Treble, especially on Joey's Cymbals Where he hits the crash ('Yes Sir No Sir, don't come close to my home sweet home) Sounded Like real cymbals (I'm an ex drummer) whereas on the other cd's that cymbal crash sounded like hi frequency plastic. Also 90% of the sibilance on the song was GONE. Literally GONE. And the whole soundstage on this very muddy recording all around sounded more in focus-to use Barry D's words from an older thread. In another words, I was expecting a different mastering/eq that I've been used to hearing but this is a totally different thing. But I know what I heard, it's unmistakable and how is that possible with cd's from the same mastering and here is where all the arguments in the older threads came up.....it's just not possible for a clearer plastic to make that kind of difference, after all pits are pits and bits are bits aren't they???
Yes they are..........But, what I think is happening are two main things: First is these newly Remastered cd's, the master tapes are being played through curent state of the art DAC's. 24 bit most likely, but also I think that, especially in the case of the Blu-Spec cd's, the master tapes are being 'UpSampled' (maybe to 192K) during the mastering of these cd's..... and THAT is where this difference is coming from! And like Barry D said in the older Blu-Spec thread, if it brings you closer to whatever master tape the engineer is using, sonically, then that is where the 'improvement' comes from. It also answers why so many people, including me initially, don't hear these 'improvements'.....because it's not night and day like two different eq'd tapes, these 'improvements' are 'inside' the soundstage and those kind of details take a good resolving system capable of reproducing them, and the right listening environment in order to hear them. Again, the almost total lack of sibilance distortion on the Blu-Spec CD2 compared to the other two issues is a REAL thing I heard over and over again. It was just amazing how Natural Rocks sounded, in spite of the fact that's its far from an audiophile recording. So needless to say I went right up and pulled the other three cd's off for sale and will have to make time to do the comparison to those. But I know what I heard, and What I heard is really an improvement over the cd's using the same identical tape for mastering. And that's what's sooooooooo cool about our hobby, you really do Never stop learning.......
The Beave
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No they are not

ReggieTheVaper · Feb 11, 2015

....oh of course they are better . The added "blu" is "good for you" !

Lonson · Feb 7, 2016

No offense to The Beave, but I wish we had a real musical engineer's opinion on Blu-Spec CD2 and what the process may or may not be responsible for in the final sound of these discs.

I have been purchasing these the last few years and am very happy with them, preferring them when comparing them to identical US or Japanese masterings.

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Blu-Spec CD2 Discs ARE Better than their domestic counterparts.....

The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it! Thread Starter

Dennis Metz Born In A Motor City south of Detroit

ReggieTheVaper Forum Resident

Lonson I'm in the kitchen with the Tombstone Blues

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Blu-Spec CD2 Discs ARE Better than their domestic counterparts.....

The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it! Thread Starter

Dennis Metz Born In A Motor City south of Detroit

ReggieTheVaper Forum Resident

Lonson I'm in the kitchen with the Tombstone Blues

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