I truly believe 90% of this 'loudness/brickwalling' is caused by people's expectations. If you go on believing something is wrong it will go wrong. I listened to the first 2 discs of American Legend today after relaxing and putting everything out of my mind to enable myself to just 'listen'. I have never done this before, it was almost like meditation. My thoughts, yes there is some loudness but nothing excessive, I enjoyed the experience, my ears didn't bleed, headaches were non-existent. I have no doubt the Hi-Rez downloads will sound great as will the LP set when I get them. I also believe had I not been aware of any 'loudness' issues, I would have enjoyed listening even more. I will add that I'm not disagreeing with those who complain about DR levels, obviously there is something that they find wrong but I think it's all about perception.
I wonder if the ''DR People" whine about everything in life, not just cds. Like "OMG the weather man said it is 75 degrees and it's 80!!! I will NEVER go outside again!'' lol that is what they sound like to me. This set is amazing, so great to have, the labor of love just vibes off it, and sounds just fine. Their loss.
OK, I just got the e-mail with the download link for the "Official Live 'Leg" - and bonus! It includes the elusive 5th song that was only on the UK version.
Just received it today. Went back and listened to Wildflowers last week as a refresher in anticipation for this new release.
I've had to listen to my daughter talk for close to 40 years. That's ear fatigue. This new TP set is nothing compared to that.
The HDTracks versions sound much better than the CD versions. More openness and crankable. Like the previously released hi-res versions of his albums.
The Petty hi-res releases have been great and this continues the streak. I have the original vinyl for the 1st 7 albums but the hi-res digital is my go to as I avoid the ticks & pops of past usage.
I started a thread last year asking about post-1993 era Petty, may be of interest. Tom Petty - Best of 1994-Present
Listening to disc 2 now. Someone above said "ignorance is bliss", count me among those. It's just good to hear some "new" stuff from TP. Really miss him.
That would be ideal, but I seriously doubt that the record company would approve another specialty boxed set at this point. Especially when sales of such a set would cut into potential sales of the inevitable career hits box. More likely to get rarities scattered across multiple deluxe editions. They could milk that for a lot longer, and that seems to be the trend these days. But we can dream. Still, a hits box on vinyl would be pretty appealing, so they've got my money either way. Actually, ideally, they could release a "Playback II" set, while simultaneously re-releasing Playback (this time, hopefully, without the HDCD), so that newer Petty fans could buy both simultaneously, and have a one-stop career overview. But again, knowing record company politics, I think that's probably about as likely as a Led Zeppelin reunion.
Really enjoying disc one. I was not feeling much enthusiasm or anticipation for this set during the past couple weeks knowing it was about to be released. Perhaps it was because I have not been in a Tom Petty mood lately, but this set is off the a very good start. Jumping back into his work is a reminder that Tom truly was a treasure. He is missed.
Same here. I've got it spread into several 80 minute playlists, to mimic the runtime and feel of box set discs.
Quick question as my set hasn’t arrived yet: does the alt. version of ‘The Best of Everything’ contain the previously omitted verse? Thanks in advance.
I've heard 8 db sound decent. In that kind of grey area, it really comes down to the mastering. And TP albums over the last few years have mostly been pretty well mastered.
This is a remix of the southern accents version, so unfortunately, no. A strange decision, but that’s fine.
I read somewhere that the remixes were attempts to strip the songs of dated production techniques. So, in that context, it makes some sense.
The remixes nature of the set works really well - all the studio stuff sits next to each other with no issues at all! I also just realised each disc is organised by Decade. This makes the “kinda chronological” flow make more sense to me. I also love how the set ends - with Tom telling the listener he really appreciates us listening. If that doesn’t bring a tear to a listener’s eye, I don’t know what will.
Yea...WAS cuz now theres almost NO players in existence that will decode those 20 bits properly...and going forward there will be NONE
It is if you've got HDCD decoding in your equipment. Otherwise, the sound is pretty iffy. And the rips are terrible. I do a lot of listening on mp3 players these days. I know it's not the best medium, but it is convenient, and I would like to have a rip that sounded at least as good as a 256 kbps rip from a standard CD with minimal compression.
If they treated AAT with the same HDCD peak extension as Playback, the whole 4dB difference wouldn’t be a thing.
