Van Morrison Rhino Remastered/Expanded Astral Weeks and His Band and the Street Choir

In addition to the album-by-album thread, there was a Van on cd thread that got into the data. The thread died before we got through the whole catalog because there weren't enough different masterings, there were too few people who had listened to more than one mastering, and I (the driver of the thread) lost interest when I got a turntable

In brief: 1st 3 WB albums had the same mastering worldwide. For the remainder of the 70's albums European Polydors and U.S. WBs have different masterings (Japanese Polydors may offer a third mastering, but good luck finding one. I have one and it is indeed different, but I have no idea if others are). The thread ended at Into The Music if I recall correctly, but the Japanese Polydor I have is Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart, so I never did post any information about it.

 

So what software do I use to measure EAC Peak levels?

Can you point me to the relevant VM thread?

Also, is it possible that there are hidden remasters of HSASC? It seems odd that several forum members report dull sounding Warner CDs while others, myself included, report natural sounding Warner CDs. My recollection of a dull sounding Warners CD from many years ago I've put down to my ears expecting a treble boosted master but perhaps I was correct & I DID once own a dull sounding CD?

 

Perhaps more light forthcoming on the mystery of Astral Weeks. https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifesty...s-book-deal/bmejKbbU37oYSfjXbfTr1L/story.html

 

I'm actually talking about your album-by-album data thread (I actually linked to it in my first post). I doesn't really cover His Band in enough detail unfortunately, obviously for the reasons you mention. Maybe you discovered more detail offline? (you said in a post there that some converstation was offline). Either way we may as well clear this up - ie provide evidence in a way that people are happy with. I expect you are right, but it does bother me a bit how far my ears differ here.

 

It is a pit puzzling. I've linked to the thread in the post above (it's actually the one I linked to some posts ago). Re EAC, I've found this site - http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/ - which I'll research later today. It looks like it could do the trick.

Curbach seems convinced so I expect he's right, but we may as well go the whole hog and do it properly.

 

Exact Audio Copy (EAC) is free shareware. Note that it is not available for Mac, only PC.

Here's the old thread: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-van-morrison-cd-thread.144082/

If there was a hidden remaster of HB&TSC, I think we would have seen evidence by now. Different impressions of the sound are just that. Depends on what kind of sound you like and what you compare it to. It's certainly a quiet disc, so I suspect how well a system goes loud plays a role in determining preferences, too. It ain't mastered for iTunes

Edit: thanks for the EAC link, mattdegu. I think you posted while I was "composing" mine.

 

Moondance is a great album, great songs, and Van is there all the way, but Astral Weeks is an album by which to judge all other albums, the very top, damn thing will break your heart..

 

I'll take the procession of great songs from Moondance. The sound or 'experience' of Astral Weeks has just never personally made me weak at the knees. How can it be the benchmark album for all others when it's quality is so subjective? It's that rather-extreme level of over-rating that that converstation you quote from was all about (from my side anyway - and nobody was calling any opinion illegitimate btw, it's all just opinion).

 

I hear Astral Weeks as a kind of follow-up to TB Sheets... and I don't think it is over rated one little bit, I have been listening to it for about 30 years now, and never once thought it was anything but top notch (I don't really think about "all others" all that much, general consensus is usually not the way to find quality, and I don't think Astral Weeks ever sold that well when it came out), it is a very different kind album though, and I could see why some people not like get it.musically for the audience it was aiming at, it seems very adventure some....but I love his singing, the songs, and the arrangements, wouldn't change a thing, including the recent longer versions, which I don't really think work better than the original edits..
It is a MUCH darker album than Moondance....Astral Weeks has a dream like quality to it that the arrangements with the vibes and strings help enhance...it strikes me as very personal album in a way that John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is, very direct, pouring their heart right into the record (though the truth might be different)...Neil Youngs Tonight the Night, Robert Johnson,'s stuff and Springsteen's Nebraska strike me that way as well...

Quality in art is always subjective to a certain degree (not just referring to Astral Weeks)...and all that matters is does it work..for you...

Nothing against MoonDance though, I have listened to that just as long as well, and it is a great album...love it..

 

Ok, After spending a good while scratching my head (I couldn't the right kind of help anywhere on doing this in EAC) I tried "Test selected tracks" in the Action menu...

Track 1
Peak level 85.3 %
Track quality 99.8 %
Accurately ripped (confidence 45) [EEFBE8B4] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 2
Peak level 60.9 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Accurately ripped (confidence 46) [66514DE3] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 3
Peak level 72.7 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Accurately ripped (confidence 46) [F36B34CF] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 4
Peak level 69.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Accurately ripped (confidence 45) [E8A9CEE2] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 5
Peak level 67.4 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Accurately ripped (confidence 46) [4A51FC68] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 6
Peak level 69.3 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Accurately ripped (confidence 46) [67E6455D] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 7
Peak level 62.9 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Accurately ripped (confidence 46) [FF2C161E] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 8
Peak level 53.0 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Accurately ripped (confidence 46) [61F348E6] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 9
Peak level 72.6 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Accurately ripped (confidence 46) [704A514E] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 10
Peak level 60.5 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Accurately ripped (confidence 46) [89288FD5] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 11
Peak level 58.7 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Accurately ripped (confidence 46) [3F4454CA] (AR v2)
Copy OK
Track 12
Peak level 55.3 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Accurately ripped (confidence 46) [FD7044A2] (AR v2)
Copy OK
All tracks accurately ripped
No errors occurred
End of status report

When looking for help on it I did some caveats even for this 'peak level' method, but it will have to do for me right now.

 

I've listened to it on and off for over 30 years too. If I put it on it tends to be to remember my teenage years as much as anything. Personally I wouldn't compare the album to anything unless really prompted to (like I was above with my earlier post having prompted the post you responded to(!).

Clearly Astral Weeks has a romantic and mystical, perhaps almost religious vibe to many people. It's only really the peak level of comparions that I find it 'over-rated', the rest of its praise I accept is purely subjective, and I pass by. I really do understand why people love it, I just don't think it's the album to judge all others by. As much as anything, it's far too unique isn't it?

 

To me the Call Me Up In Dreamland (take 10) bonus tracks makes this reissue of Street Choir essential.

 

You'll have to wait a little while for the results from the 7599-27188 HBATSC CD as my DVD drive has just broken! I'll hopefully get it repaired next weekend. I was hoping that I could use EAC to get readings from a disc that I'd previously ripped but I can't see a way of doing this. If there is please let me know. Like you I've not used EAC before.

 

There's no hurry on my side. I've actully ordered the new His band anyway, as I've said. I did see something somewhere on rips (when searching for peak eac levels), so I'll have a look again later.

I also saw this on here (http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/a-little-help-with-comparing-eac-peak-levels.162741/), which could be useful if the results turn out to be different. It's a clever calculation to see if different results are just down to a uniform volume-boost applied to essentially the same master on one of the CDs - ie just different in volume. It's a good post, as it shows that it's clearly easy at first glance to see the two examples it gives as coming from different masters, when they essentially derive from the same one. If that's the case with us, any issues would - as previously suggested - probably come down to certain systems being weaker on really 'quiet' CDs, that need to be raised substantially for certain aspects of the music to be balanced. That is certainly the case with my His Band regardless of any difference in its mastering. I raise it right up, as I do one or two other cds I own, but can never get this one sounding at all 'balanced' to my ears, as so much of the audio on the Cd (inc his voice) is in the same often flattened-sounding area anyway - though clearly not all of the music. Its been a real headache to me whenever I've bothered putting it on. It's one extreme Cd!

So it could be possible that your Cd is a just a volume-increased version of mine (a sensible enough thing for them to do).

 

So what is the bottom line on the new Street Choir.......a buy or not?

 

The consensus seems to be that it is much worse, and much better than, and pretty well exactly the same as, the old CD, and that the bonus tracks are essential and a waste of time.

 

Great.... I guess I may or may not buy it or might keep or sell my original cd.
Thanks for the info.

 

Also, welcome to SHTV

 

Each bonus track has something about it that differentiates it from or adds something to the album track. I happen to think most of those differences or additions are enjoyable ones. More than one listener has posted they like the remaster more than a previous cd version. Go with the opposite of scarcity. Roll with abundance and enjoy the choices you have with His Street Band and Choir . Worst case, you can always list it in the Classifieds?

 

Get it and Astral Weeks too.Better than the old Warner cd's.

 

Do you have a copy on Cd already?

It's probably not going to be as easy as a forum consensus saying "Buy this album". You'll probably just have to weigh it up and work it out for yourself according to your tastes/needs. You might want to wait a bit for more information though about the alternatives, though it could be for a while.

The new edition is hardly expensive though, so if you don't have it, want it now, and you are not super-fussy on making sure of the best and you don't mind a couple of extra tracks - I'd go for it. Why not? Nobody has really slagged it off as far as I can see. I decided to order it even though I'm normally inclined to wait for more data on these things. The advance mp3 tracks sound good enough to me.

PS, Musicisthebest - I found that thread link but it seemed to say you can't get peak values off a rip, at least using EAC. I think there's another program that does do it if you have the cue info - I've just lost the link again now! edit - http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/how-can-i-check-the-peak-levels-of-a-flac-wav.253496/

 

My DVD Drive is working now but I'm finding EAC to be INCREDIBLY slow. EAC estimated it would take 7 hours to process the first track & 99 hours to process the entire album & this was after setting Error Recovery Mechanism to Minimum to speed things up! Interestingly enough FOOBAR didn't take very long to rip this CD which is brand new & so should have few errors. Am I misusing EAC?

I don't have the time at the moment to try to understand CUETOOLS. Hopefully someone will point out how I can speed up EAC! I take it I should be using the Test Select Tracks option?

 

I agree with your take on Astral Weeks. I would add only that Tim Buckley's 'Happy Sad' and some of John Martyn's work have a somewhat similar vibe.

 

I just picked up a used copy of the Japanse remaster of 'Astral Weeks' for 8 bucks. I've listened to it twice and it definitely sounds more detailed than the original WB pressing.

I haven't gotten the new, expanded 'Astral Weeks' yet, but I'm sure I'll get it at some point.

 

and that was before anyone actually heard it!