Sinatra / Capitol: General Purpose Sound Quality (and more) Discussion Thread*

I always thought that it was an intentional error to make people listen to the entire album

 

Since I haven't heard the grey label LPs in years, I'm not the one to ask. I believe that Songs For Young Lovers and Swing Easy! may not be the best, because they come from the masters for the 12-inch LP reissues (circa 1962), and those were past the days of grey labels. The other mono albums in the London box sound pretty damn good to me.

If Matt gets around to doing comparisons of them all, you may get a real answer.

 

It's pathetic that you have to buy a $450 box set of CDs from another continent in order to get decent sounding recordings of the classic albums of America's greatest singer ever.

 

My '91 Walsh Where Are You? has the same track timing issues.

It is a bit much, but hopefully Capitol will continue piecemeal releases of Frank's catalog. We've got a great OTL and a very decent Nice 'N' Easy. Now, if we could possibly get good, dry monos of Come Fly with Me, SFSL and Wee Small Hours, I'd be very happy. I have little doubt (honestly) these will be released...eventually.

 

The best sounding Sinatras I have heard are the occasional needle drop excerpts posted by members of this board. So here's an idea for anyone at Capitol who is reading this. Why don't you just hire someone to do really good needle-drops of the best pressings, and then sell them directly through a website. It would cost you nothing and you'd make some money.

 

The mono albums? I only have SWINGIN' LOVERS from a broken up set sold eBay, but from memory, the first two albums are the 12" "expanded" versions of each, and come from the tampered dubs. WEE SMALL is fine. SWINGIN' LOVERS! is sourced from from the '87 Walsh master (as is ONLY THE LONELY, but that's stereo). Not sure about the others.

 

That's why I asked earlier if anyone had ever compared the "Dell" CDs to the "Dell" LPs. Fred claimed to have done that ([post=4929512]post #161[/post]), but that conflicts with Martin's description for some albums ([post=4933614]post #213[/post]). It can't be both ways: The 1998 CDs cannot be sourced from the 1984 LPs *and* the 1987 Walsh CDs.

 

I only have LOVERS from the CD box. In the past, if they got their source correct, someone put up a clip of "Angel Eyes" from supposedly the UK 21CD box. That clip had Larry's mix on it, which didn't exist in 1984. The '84 UK LP has the original stereo mix on it. It's not bad sounding, but to my ears mastered a little brighter than necessary.

I really have to question that the actual mastering of any of the CD's in the UK box has anything to do with the '84 LP version of the set. I have doubts they would use 1984 digital masters for the CD version of it. We already heard in clips posted related to WEE SMALL that the masters used on the '84 UK LP and the UK CD box version are different, and in this case, superior on the CD version. I think this set was more of a "lets reissue this box on CD, and include Alan Dell's notes" thing.

 

I agree.

 

Based on what you read on this forum, you'd think the Norberg CDs distorted the sound into oblivion, sped up his voice to Chipmunk pitch, re-recorded everything with a heavy metal band, added drum solos, etc etc

Could anyone briefly explain what it really is that makes these so bad?

 

I would say that the brief explanation is the excessive use of so called "no-noise" technology, a digital process used to remove tape hiss and other imperfections. Norberg, IMO, did more than a few things right, but his efforts were totally undercut by his excessive use of no-noise technology, which makes his Sinatra sound like the factory forgot to install the tweeters in your speakers. The hiss is gone alright, but so are the highs and the transients, eg, the ring of the cymbals, the shsss of the brushstrokes, the snap of the tom-toms, the breath in Frank's voice, and everything else that makes music sound alive. Unsophisticated consumers hate tape hiss, which is why engineers use no-noise. Unfortunately, its impossible to remove the hiss without taking the life of the music with it. Which is why most of the people on this board don't approve of the Norberg mastering.

 

I can understand your suspicion, as there are certainly times when members here cross over the line into hyperbole in characterizing problems with CD remasters. That is not the case here. "Distorted the sound into oblivion" would only be a mild overstatement.

The problem, in short, is the aggressive and unnecessary use of digital noise reduction. Norberg used NR to the point that many songs sound like 64 kps MP3s, or worse. This may not be true of all the Norberg remasters, but certainly Songs For Swingin' Lovers and In The Wee Small Hours stand out as horrible hatchet jobs. Some may be better than others, but I stopped buying them after I heard the first few.

To be clear, this is not a case of people complaining that the CDs were not mastered to purist audiophile standards, or were not done exactly the way Steve Hoffman would have done them. It's also not a case where you need the finest, most resolving audio equipment to hear the problems with these CDs. The issues are easily audible on any level of system. It is not in any way shape or form audiophile hair splitting. These CDs plain sound bad by any standard.

There are probably problems with Norberg's mastering beyond the aggressive use of NR, but the issues resulting from that are noticeable enough to make any other problems (or virtues) irrelevant.

I know Matt has a clip from the Norberg version of Wee Small Hours up, if you listen to it, you will easily recognize the problem.

 

While I agree with you, I would add that the clearly audible distortion that was left behind by the NR is even more problematic than the music that was taken out. There is a clearly audible digital "residue" left behind in place of the noise and music that was removed by NR.

 

Thanks guys, I appreciate the info!

 

Yes, I heard this when I checked the Some WSH tracks on Napster. Granted, that service uses WMA but I rarely ever hear artifacts in them but those Sinatra tracks sounded like circa 1999 MP3s encoded at 64kbit/sec and badly at that! So it's not NR reduction of highs so much as what's left.

I wouldn't say that (perhaps you didn't intend it, but that "unsophisticated" sounds very snobbish ). I hate tape hiss and as I think most people here do, but sometimes it's inevitable with old recordings. Other times, proper alignment of the master tapes and use of the originals instead of copies ensures the minimum of hiss. I dislike any sound that wasn't heard in the room at the time of the original performance. However, if the alternative is space monkey's, I'll choose the hiss and hope NR techniques improve. They already have moved light years beyond what Norberg used but there's still a way to go yet.

 

Here's the "less-than-brief" explanation:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=14835

 

When it's the clean, non-grainy kind, it's the most welcome sound to me.

 

Back around 1997 EMI issued 3 Sinatra albums on vinyl for their Centenary anniversary. They were: Swingin Lovers' from the wrong tapes in Mono, and Come Fly and Come Dance in Mono as well(but with nothing on the sleeve or records indicating stereo)> I had all three and remember how odd I thought it was that the latter two were Mono. Also, Come Fly omitted Road to Mandalay and substituted It Happenned in Monterey, just as the original was released in England because of a problem with the Kipling estate.I wonder if Capitol just borrowed those LP tapes and used them for these issues, especially if Come Dance is in Mono. I think that Come Fly in Mono is more desirable anyway, since the stereo mix was flawed and inferior. Maybe MMM knows a little more about this.

 

The EMI Centenary LPs you're decribing were issued in the UK, not the US, so the use of the original album tapes from that country makes sense. (Capitol-EMI catalog no. 7243 8 21573 11 for CFWM.)

Note some recent discussion of the UK substitution tracks and the Kipling lawsuit in this thread: [post=4937156]What LPs covers have been reissued/changed because of implied lawsuits?[/post]

 

I have the 21 disc UK set and I'm quite happy with it. But how can I upgrade from the version of Young Lovers/Swing Easy! included the box? Is the Walsh release from the late 80s better in people's opinion? Thanks for your help.

 

I just played the Walsh release last night and it sounds fabulous! As I was listening, I said to myself that this is of audiophile quality, up there with the MFL OTL. If there is added echo or widening, which mars some of Walsh's other mono sets, I don't pick it up on this. I do think that several of Walsh's CDs are quite good, but this is the best, even over Swingin Affair, which is well-regarded on this board. But I can't offer a comparison to the 21 disc UK set, which I don't own.

 

I remember MMM saying that that CD was remastered very well, but from dubs. It does sound good.