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

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Artist | HDtracks - The World's Greatest-Sounding Music Downloads

 

THIS WEEK on HDtracks...

Bad Company - Burnin' Sky (Deluxe), Run With The Pack (Deluxe)
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Works Volume 1 (2017 Remastered Version),
Works Volume 2 (Deluxe Edition) [2017 Remastered Version]
Shakira - El Dorado

and many many more...

 

Sadly...

 

Plus "multiple Grammy Award winning"? This tells me nothing. Most people know certain industries are soo good at rewarding theirselves, never asking us down here in the forum

 

The Neil Young situation is confusing me. The Official Release Series 5-8 comes to CD this fall according to Amazon, "remastered from the original analog studio recordings at Bernie Grundman Mastering." These albums are also for sale as hi-res downloads on his site, but there's no source info on those albums' pages.

So, are the coming CDs just CD versions of the same mastering? I'm trying to figure out if the hi-res offerings are the front end of the current mastering that simply came out ahead of the CDs, or are they trailing behind a new/upcoming upgrade reflected in the Sept CD releases.

 

The first series box (1-4) was based on the remasters, no reason to think they would do differently this time. I thought the Grundman reference would only be relevant to the vinyl release...easy to assume the provenance for the recent hi-res remasters would be the work done in-house, as almost every remaster has been: John Nowland at Redwood Digital.

 

Thanks a lot for the info -

 

For digital, unless someone wants physical CD's, the hi-res versions at Neil's website are without a doubt the way to go.

 

+1

 

+2

 

Looking to take advantage of the 20% discount code at HDtracks, has anyone purchased the individual Eagles downloads as opposed to the box set, and if so, are they all mastered by Bernie Grundman? Only the Eagles and Desperado mention who mastered them in the "about this album" section, don't want to get old versions, although I'm guessing there all Grundman's as they were all released in 2013.

 

Is anyone else experiencing a download issue with HDtracks now?
It keeps giving me 'there was a problem logging in, please try again later' error.

 

Does anyone have any positive hope for the first two Iggy Pop albums being released today? I'm not too concerned about the TV Eye Live release. The remastering part scares me a bit, but maybe it won't be so bad. The cheapest place I'm seeing so far is ProStudioMasters with their 20%-off sale price right now. I'll probably take the plunge but I won't be able to test it until later since I just got to work.

The is the mastering info for the new vinyl editions...

• Cut from analog tapes
• Mastered by Robert Vosgien at Capitol Mastering
• Pressed at URP (United Record Pressing)

I'm curious to know if the hi-res digital is getting the same treatment.

 

From Prostudio's technical notes:
"192 kHz / 24-bit, 96 kHz / 24-bit PCM – Thousand Mile Studio Masters

This album is a high-resolution digital transfer of material originating from an analogue master source. It may contain noise, distortion or other artifacts, and may also contain audio which is limited in bandwidth or dynamic range, due to the technology used at the time of its original creation. As such, it is offered as a high-resolution documentation of a historical release."

Thousand Mile Studio Masters would be different from Capitol Mastering, right?

 

Yeah, I saw that on their website. I went ahead and bought both of the albums, but I haven't had a chance to listen to them, yet.

 

I have 'The Idiot' in my cart at PSM but have not pulled the trigger yet. Will probably grab over the weekend unless bad feedback arises.

 

I picked up lust for life and i can hear things in the mix never heard before. Some songs sound better than others, but its better depth than any of the old versions.

 

Does "cut from analog tapes" mean all-analog mastering for the three Iggy LPs, rather than being produced from the hi-res files?

 

From The Idiot 24.96 download. Good 1st impression, will likely scoop up Lust as well.

 

I would advise not to buy the King Crimson material on HDTracks at the moment. I am not an expert, but the files on the Heroes EP appear to be watermarked and lossy.

 

Not looking good. Are the settings of your spectrogram properly calibrated? And/or could you send me a sample of a track so I can check and confirm?

 

I'll PM you a link to some samples. I've created 30 second clips in Audacity directly from what I downloaded from HD Tracks. I then exported at 24 bit FLAC.

 

Thank you!

OK I checked and these are 44.1kHz recordings mixed and mastered at 48kHz. (your spectrogram is not sensitive enough)
They don't seem lossy but there is something slightly weird with the high end, as if they scrubbed the ambiance or a low-pass filter was applied across the board. Keep in mind these are live recordings.

Bottom line: they don't appear lossy, and it's difficult to see evidence of watermarking which is usually in the midrange. The trails you see around 19kHz are just dither or noise.

 

Exodus anyone? I read elsewhere it is ridiculously clipped.

 

I can't imagine something sounding better than the Diament CD which is dynamic and has great tone.