Neil Diamond 50 - The 50th Anniversary Collection

Hmm, I'll likely have to pick this up, but even though it's 6 discs, I think the 1996 Columbia IN MY LIFETIME 3CD set has some better outtakes, plus those very early demos and why does "This Time" from 1988 continue to be left off his comps and boxed sets? I also wish a few additional tracks from The Jazz Singer like "Summerlove" were on here, but this is much better than than the 50th 3CD set which was a big disappointment to me, especially coming right after the Capitol 1CD and 2CD comps.

 

I don't think the "DOUBLE GOLD PLUS" fan bootleg will ever be topped. The original Bang stereo mixes sounding awesome. No reason to waste money on a horrible Bernie Becker mastering.

 

That Bang years comp has stellar material but horrible sound.

 

I just said screw it and did my own transfer of Double Gold
I'm done with Neil comps.

 

That's the question...will Bernie Becker be remastering this new box, probably? I didn't like the mastering on the 50th 3CD comp at all, plus "Yesterday's Songs" has a very bad glitch at the beginning.

I won't be buying this 6CD set until I first read reviews regarding the mastering on it. His best mastering was on that Columbia 2010 The Very Best Of 1CD comp, although it was a touch bright, but still sounded excellent IMO.

 

The Bang mono CD is distorted. Established. I think the reissue producer or engineer even weighed in on it at one point in a thread about it. But, there was no specific explaination as to why it is distorted.

But, I don't think it is that bad. I use the comp for the mono tracks I don't have on the boxed set.

 

The expanded version looks quite good, especially since Amazon.co.uk has it for left than £50 right now. The sixth disc looks as though it might be rather short, but otherwise that would be quite a good purchase for a casual listener.

 

Well, Columbia's 1996 In My Lifetime 3CD set was packed full with 71 tracks...this new 6CD only has 115 songs and yes, disc 6 looks very short.

While the new 6CD collection has more album tracks and some unreleased material on disc 6, In My Lifetime has the late 50's and early 60's demos/singles and a lot of catchy outtakes. plus the 6CD set is very pricey on Amazon.com...the pre-order price is $99.98. I wish this new set had an exclusive vintage concert DVD and/or a lot more music on it for the price they are asking.

However, while In My Lifetime had terrific content, the problem with that set has always been the less than great sound quality - the songs sound too murky in the midrange area and Sony's SBM Process was no substitute for real restoration or remastering.

 

Sounds like you don't know what SBM is. Super Bit Mapping is a noise shaping scheme. That means it is a method of moving the dither noise around the frequency range in the effort to minimize its effect on the sound. That's all. There are literally hundreds of methods for shifting around dither when converting 18, 20, 22, and 24-bit to 16-bit. Noise shaping can have an audible effect on the final result you hear, but not in the way you're thinking.

I understand that the tapes used on the "In My Lifetime" boxed set were first generation tapes, and they sound like it to me. What happens is that the consumer gets used to hearing EQ'ed sound. In fact, if you hear some master tapes, and i've heard quite a few, they sound what some would describe as a bit "dull".

Anyway. SBM is not a mastering process. It is part of one. Is it transparent? Maybe, maybe not. But, it was one of the best back in the 90s, along with Super UV22, as used on the Elton John remasters during the same era.

The trend today is to not use any noise shaping when dithering when it is assumed that the files will be converted to some sort of data-reduced files like .aac or .mp3. I don't use it anymore because I feel that flat dither is more transparent. I have spent days and weeks configuring my own noise shaping schemes, and the last one I created was very transparent. I did A/B testing between flat dither and my own and could not reliably tell the difference except with certain cymbal hits and bass.

A lot of people here do not care how accurate or transparent dither is. I do. I'm very anal about sound. If I, for example, download a 24-bit album from HD Tracks or 7-digital, I want the 16-bit version I create from it to be as close to the 24-bit sound as I can get it with the software I use. If you are one of those non-audiophiles who can't hear a difference, be happy and move on.

 

Bob Ludwig used the same process in 1996 with Dire Straits, right?

 

I made an error here. The Elton John remasters of the 90s used Prism. It was the Rolling Stones remasters that used UV22. The SBM Process is Sony's proprietary system.

It was late last night, I just caught it, and wanted to clear that up.

Don't know.

 

I appreciate the information and reply, but I am aware that SBM is a separate process away from the mastering. I own many CDs from the 90s which use Sony's SBM Process and generally speaking, I was never a fan of it - most of the CDs that I own which use SBM sound too bright and thin to me...SBM definitely has an effect on the SQ on most of the CDs that I have heard.

Having said that, the In My Lifetime set does not sound bright and thin and it is harder to hear the SBM aspect, however, for whatever reason, I don't think that In My Lifetime sounds good at all, and it might be my worst sounding Neil Diamond set that I own. The songs have a slightly murky quality to them and to be honest, original master-tapes or not, I don't know why they sound like this?

I don't know if you have the original 1992 Greatest Hits 1966-1992 2CD set, but his Columbia hits sound so much better and have more normal tone than they do on In My Lifetime...it's night and day actually. But it's funny, the original 1992 set sounds stellar, but a couple of years ago, I purchased a second copy of the Greatest Hits 1966-1992 2CD set before it went OOP and to my horror, discovered that it was secretly tweaked some time afterwards...the songs had a slightly darker sound now, compared to my original 1992 issue, and this stupid secret tweaking is apparently a common practice as well, especially with certain WB CDs.

 

What triggered my post was your comment:

Could you have wrote that in error?

Truth is, I was never a fan of it, either.

I thought the same as you did for years. But, as I also said, consumers have gotten used to EQ'ed sound. When many mastering engineers master, they often use the notes that came on the tape boxes, or follow whatever the last guy did. They tend to brighten the sound up. That is likely what happened with your Columbia Greatest Hits CD.

My only real concern was with the track "Cracklin' Rose" on the boxed set. I thought it sounded quite dull, as if noise reduction was applied to it. But, i've heard many CD masterings of the track over the years, and two on vinyl, and am not sure what to make of it all. My boxed set is packed away so I can't look at the producer/engineer credits, but reissue producer Al Quaglieri is a member here and occasionally pops in (he once popped in to scold me for getting a bit of personnel info wrong ) If he sees this thread, maybe he can add some info here f he was involved with the box.

 

Yes, perhaps I needed to clarify what I said about the SBM Process earlier...sorry about that.

Well, we might have similar hearing after-all, I also thought that maybe NR was used on the In My Lifetime set, but it's difficult to know for sure. I mean, I still enjoy listening to In My Lifetime once in a while, mainly for the exclusive tracks it has, but when I want to hear Neil's hits with better sound, I generally reach for the 1992 2CD set or the 2010 The Very Best Of comp...both on Columbia.

Since Neil moved back to Capitol/UMe...I haven't been a fan of the SQ so far - I picked up the 2014 All-Time Greatest Hits 1CD and the 2017 50th Anniversary 3CD set, but didn't like the SQ on either of them that much, even though the 2014 CD sounds like the source material is using first generation tapes...I just thought the high end (treble) was missing on that one, and the 50th 3CD, well...."Desiree" sounds spectacular...maybe the single best sounding Neil song I have ever heard on CD...yep, but the rest of the songs didn't impress me at all from an SQ standpoint and "Yesterday's Songs" has a terrible glitch at the beginning, so I generally listen to his Columbia CDs these days.

 

how do you tell if 1992 2CD is the early edition ?

 

I have no clue what FC means unless he can provide matrix info and DR info/levels.
Looks like two different matrix's exist. A 1A CK hub and the DIDP
For audiophile, the old 85 "His 12 Greatest Hits"
Shame his entire collection wasn't mastered like this.

 

How is the Gold ultimate masterdisc remastered by Glen Meadows of the "his 12 greatest hits" ?

 

The catalog numbers printed on the CD labels are slightly different on the 'secret reissue'...I think I might have posted this information on another Neil thread long ago?

Both of my 1966-1992 2CD sets are packed away somewhere and aren't that easy to find, but when I come across them again, I'll post the differences. From memory though, I do recall that both of the original 1992 edition discs have a red label on top, while the 'secret reissue' has one CD with a red label and the second CD has a black label now.

 

I am going to have this 3cd version on wednesday. Replaces my missing in my lifetime pretty well

 

Hey c-eling, it's true. someone did a secret remaster on the Neil Diamond 1966-1992 GH 2CD set, but the SQ differences are not as night and day as the Yes Big Generator CDs though, but I didn't like how my second copy sounded though. When I am able to find both of my copies, I'll post the differences again, but yeah, there is an extra DIDP number or something like that on the reissue, and one of the CDs on the reissue has a black label now, no longer a red label.

Do you have this 1992 GH 2CD set and if so, do both your CDs have a red label or a red and black label?

 

c-eling, I just found my original post on the Neil Diamond 2014 All-Time Greatest Hits CD thread...the 1966-1992 GH 2CD secret reissue has DIDP printed on the discs, while the original 1992 release does not. Also, disc 1 has a red label, while disc 2 now has a black label on the secret reissue. Overall, the secret reissue sounded slightly darker in tone to me, while the original '92 issue sounds more normal has has more high end.

In any case, this release is now out of print since Neil went back to Capitol/UMe, and if anyone finds a copy today, it will likely be the reissue.

 

Thanks, I have the old double red DIDP. I should re-visit it, it's been years

 

Strange all I can find on ebay are the double reds , pretty easy find . A few reviews have it as sounding really bad with a bunch of poorly recorded live versions . I owned the double cd and sold them like 20 years ago remembering it not so good .

 

I love the live version of "I'm a believer"

 

When I originally bought the 1966-1992 GH 2CD set (Columbia, 1992), I was also caught up in the bad reviews too...it was littered with live tracks because they couldn't or wouldn't get his MCA studio versions, and I was guilty of not playing this comp for over 20 years, but after I bought his 2014 All-time Greatest Hits 1CD comp on Capitol, and wasn't that crazy about the SQ, I decided to revisit the 1992 comp and realized I had made a big mistake by shelving it - his Columbia studio songs from the Jazz Singer, Heartlight, Yesterday's Songs, etc, sounded completely normal, with nice tone...they sound like 1992, not like his primitive sounding 80's CDs and my favorite sounding CD version of "Heartlight" is on this 1992 comp.

His 2010 The Very Best of CD, his last comp on Columbia, is the next best sounding Neil comp IMO - Bernie Becker did a good job on that one, it's a tad bright, but the tracks sound stellar...too bad "Heartlight" isn't on it. I thought the 2014 1CD comp on Capitol used great original sources, but I don't like the sound quality on that one...I don't know what the issue is, but it sounds like it's missing enough high end or something. I never heard the All-Time Greatest Hits 2CD version though on Capitol.