Neil Young Official Release 5-8 & 8.5-12 to get CD release (Pricing & Shipping Thread)

Lean more toward the known sources.....

 

Neil likes to keep us on our toes.

 

Sorry in advance for the erratic post. I picked up some hi res downloads from Neil's site that I had been tardy with, On The Beach, American Stars n' Bars, and they are 24/176.4, so I am assuming these are the older remasters. It sounds like from what people are saying here these albums were remastered for 5-12 vs. just using the old work?

Also I feel like either a) I have been living under a rock, or b) I unearthed a treasure buried under the sand, because I have never heard Time Fades Away until last night-- and in fact I almost didn't buy it yesterday given all the lore about how bad it sounds-- but I am absolutely in love with it and it works quite well sonically in the hi res thank you very little. Such interesting writing and playing as well; this one is my new unlikely hero.

Finally, I can't find a hi res download of Long May You Run anywhere, I guess that is not out yet.

 

"Long May You Run" wasn't released as part of the (14 albums) hi-res downloads in 2014. Not sure if the downloads on offer now are the new versions (2017) or the 2014 versions.
Neil Young's first 14 albums remastered and released as downloads on 12/23!

 

Are the two newest boxes encoded with HDCD? I have the first box and it is. I saw somewhere that the next batch aren't encoded with HDCD.

 

No HDCD on boxes #2 and #3.

 

Bummer.

 

That is kind of surprising/weird because I read people saying the recently released Decade CD is HDCD. No rhyme or reason sometimes I guess.

 

i keep asking:

do you think neil young even knows?

he just seems like that kind of guy who would want to know that they took the HDCD encoding off of 3 of the Cd's it was already on, doesn't he?

i really don't think anyone even told him.

 

I've never heard that it sounded bad. Just a pita to master properly. The freakin guts are all over this. Pure Neil at his rawest.

 

So I'm in a bit of a conundrum here. I have three of the first four albums except Neil Young. I have On the Beach from 2003 too. I wanted to order these, but I'm not sure about the first box. Are they all digipacks? I feel like I saw the first box with plastic cases. In that case I would not bother with it. I see also digipacks though.

There are a couple sellers of this box. Import CDs has it from the UK portion of Warner. Not sure if it is digipack though.

Also, does enlarging these make the artwork distorted? I positively hate distorted or cropped artwork. I remember the 40th anniversary CCR albums in digipack had cropped artwork. I got those all in the plastic cases.

 

There is a numbered limited edition with mini-lp jackets and 24K gold CDs. Here are some pictures of mine.

 

Thanks for the photos, but it seems I would have no idea if I am getting this numbered edition with the LP jackets, which I would get for 20 bucks from import CDs or Amazon, both Warner UK, but I feel like I could end up getting the plastic cases, and I hate having to send back stuff to these guys as it takes forever.

How do you know who has the numbered editions versus the plastic cases ones? Are there plastic case editions? because I thought I saw pictures of them like that.

 

At least here the numbered copy costs around 70€ and the plastic one a little over 20€. I bought mine a few years ago. It was the last one my local store had. I think it is OOP now. :/

 

All the new versions are in jewel cases. That version is long OOP

 

Ahhkay good to know. And the 40-50 dollar sets of the others ones are what plastic or digipack? I honestly don't even really want them, I only want a couple of the CDs. And can anyone tell me why Stars N Bars has less dynamic range? Should I just get the older one? People are talking about new dropouts and stuff, makes me think I should just get the old one.

I find it kind of crappy they aren't selling singles of these at all. I don't even want the boxset covers to be honest, so I might as well throw them away if they come with the plastic cases. Also, not sure why the huge price increase of these sets when the first one has the best material album for album. I guess unless 5-12 are still the digipack sets and numbered?

 

Any chance you can do hi res files? Especially if you cannot decode HDCD you might really want to go that route (in Neil's case anyway IMHO). For these early albums the prices simply cannot be beat and you can pick and choose HD Digital - Music

 

I have a bunch of the high-res free from the internet, so I was looking to get a bit more physical to be honest. But not sure now. I ordered the old HDCD of Stars just because those are still valid, but not sure about purchasing any of these 4 or 5 disc sets. I really don't want all of the albums that come with them, and I don't see any reason why they are not selling these as single discs.

 

I'm having the same issue with "Cortez The Killer" off Live Rust.

What's weird is that the disc itself plays back absolutely fine through both iTunes and Windows Media Player.

It's only when any software tries to rip it (EAC, CDex, Windows Media Player, etc - I've tried them all) that I encounter issues. Then, my blu-ray drive sounds grindy like an old 5 1/4" floppy drive noisily accessing data, and the extracted audio is skippy, loaded with gaps, and has chunks missing entirely.

So, for this one track, I'm recording my soundcard's output of standard disc playback.

 

My 5-8 set just arrived last night, and I can't believe the sound. To paraphrase Michael Stipe, Tonight's the Night crushes my old cd like a grape.

Can't wait to get home tonight and crank some more of this.....

 

Hmmm. A 6 digit numberred box set. I think I'll wait a while and try and get N° 999 999.

 

Because people want Time Fades Away.

 

I've had them for a while however haven't listened. Was there a consensus if they are a different mastering to the hires versions available from Neil's store/previously on the Pono store?

 

Man, sorry, I'm not familiar with those so I can't say. I'm sure they're different from the single Zuma & Tonight's the Night CDs currently available on the Neil/Warner store ~ because those aren't marked "remaster" and they're, like, $7.99.

Started my morning with On the Beach...just remarkable clarity.

I'm wondering if the first album remaster in his store is the same as Original Release 1?

 

I had both sets in my hands at the store a couple weeks ago, but I can't afford to spend $140 for these things ($70 per box)... especially when my only reasons for buying them are to get Time Fades Away and the unedited Live Rust. Why couldn't they just be released individually?