I agree about the comparisons between the new masters and the older versions. I bought As Falls Wichita (first time listening to it and it's great!) and the First Circle. It does sound clearer and little less muddy than the CD counterparts.
As Wichita Falls, So Falls Wichita Falls is an incredible album. One of Metheny’s best, IMHO. Of course, this is a PMG album in all but a name whether Metheny or Mays wanted to admit to it or not. Glad you enjoyed this album.
Okay. First album and favorite is As Falls Wichita... Saw him and the band once back in the late 80's. Discovered the music through the movie Fandango.
Indeed! I've heard the Travels version of the self titled song but even the studio version sounds good.
That's the version of San Lorenzo that got so much play on local station, KJAZ. They played it a lot before the first LP was released. At the time, I liked it better than the studio version that came out a little later. I just listened to the live recording yesterday though, and - well, I'll have to listen again,
Pat Metheny, great musician and artist, i really like his music, which pressings would be considered best on redbook, for example his 70s and 80s input?
There's only 1 master for his ECM albums. The Geffen CDs have got better dynamic range than the Nonesuch remasters & sound better to my ears. However the Nonesuch remaster of Secret Story has a 2nd CD with additional music.
So the Gold discs are the same as the recent SHM from Japan, original WG etc.? That is good to know, thank you.
I'm not 100% certain about that. Discogs describes the Gold ECM discs as being remasters but there's no mention of this on CD Japan's website. I've recently ordered a gold Watercolours & I'll measure it once it arrives. More importantly I'll listen to it & find out if it sounds any better than my German CD. My guess is that it's a gold version of the German CD.
That will be interesting as the question has been asked a few times with no response. Made me think the gold CD owners did not want to say they sound the same.
I'll definitely let you know. It'll be 2 weeks or so before I can find out 1 way or the other about this. I've read 1 report that the gold discs sound better than the US ECM CDs & 1 report that they might be better but it might be the placebo effect. For what it's worth, my experience with SHM & HQCD CDs is that with identical masters I can hear a small difference due to the special material about 50% of the time.
This is something i would like to know also, has someone compared the GOLD CDs to the original WG or US to see if they sound different, any improvement?
If you look through the archives the question has been asked a few times with no replies of anything definitive. See Musicisthebest's post above though, he will let us know his thoughts in the near future.
You're right, it seems no one has a definitive answer, looking forward to hear from musicisthebest's.
Comparison of Pat Metheny – Watercolors – German v Gold First of all I listened, then I measured. Having listened I decided that I could hear differences but they were extremely small & I would not be confident of being able to tell which was which in a blind test. The differences were far smaller than between the CD & SACD of other Pat Metheny albums. The Gold CD offered very slight extra delicacy, especially on cymbals & greater darkness between notes. I was confident that they were the same master. When I ran Foobar & EAC I found they weren’t. Perhaps 1 is a level shift of the other? If so, am I hearing the difference in level shift or the difference in CD material? Another difference is that the Suite is divided into 2 tracks on the German CD but is 1 track on the gold CD. Pat Metheny – Watercolors – Germany Track 1 Peak level 74.3 % Track quality 100.0 % Accurately ripped (confidence 22) [58CF96F2] (AR v2) Copy OK Track 2 Peak level 54.2 % Track quality 100.0 % Accurately ripped (confidence 22) [0F0D621D] (AR v2) Copy OK Track 3 Peak level 46.3 % Track quality 100.0 % Accurately ripped (confidence 22) [E3C4F7E4] (AR v2) Copy OK Track 4 Peak level 78.4 % Track quality 100.0 % Accurately ripped (confidence 22) [C8401C6C] (AR v2) Copy OK Track 5 Peak level 90.2 % Track quality 100.0 % Accurately ripped (confidence 22) [4ACAC14D] (AR v2) Copy OK Track 6 Peak level 83.7 % Track quality 100.0 % Accurately ripped (confidence 22) [A8711029] (AR v2) Copy OK Track 7 Peak level 52.7 % Track quality 100.0 % Accurately ripped (confidence 22) [8FEFD042] (AR v2) Copy OK Track 8 Peak level 78.1 % Track quality 100.0 % Accurately ripped (confidence 21) [FEADE412] (AR v2) Copy OK All tracks accurately ripped No errors occurred End of status report foobar2000 1.5.1 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1 log date: 2020-08-15 17:41:25 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Analyzed: Pat Metheny / Watercolors -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR Peak RMS Duration Track -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR12 -2.57 dB -18.20 dB 6:30 01-Watercolors DR13 -5.30 dB -23.23 dB 6:09 02-Icefire DR11 -6.68 dB -22.03 dB 4:06 03-Oasis DR12 -2.11 dB -17.07 dB 4:47 04-Lakes DR14 -0.89 dB -17.46 dB 4:58 05-River Quay DR14 -1.54 dB -19.29 dB 2:33 06-Suite: I. Florida Greeting Song DR15 -5.55 dB -24.92 dB 2:32 07-Suite: II. Legend of the Fountain DR12 -2.14 dB -19.94 dB 10:18 08-Sea Song -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Number of tracks: 8 Official DR value: DR13 Samplerate: 44100 Hz Channels: 2 Bits per sample: 16 Bitrate: 1411 kbps Codec: PCM ================================================================================ Pat Metheny – Watercolors – Gold Track 1 Peak level 71.0 % Track quality 100.0 % Accurately ripped (confidence 4) [AF57CDA6] (AR v2) Copy OK Track 2 Peak level 49.2 % Track quality 100.0 % Accurately ripped (confidence 4) [E08026EF] (AR v2) Copy OK Track 3 Peak level 46.8 % Track quality 99.9 % Accurately ripped (confidence 4) [5EA31F26] (AR v2) Copy OK Track 4 Peak level 81.4 % Track quality 100.0 % Accurately ripped (confidence 4) [435FEE5B] (AR v2) Copy OK Track 5 Peak level 92.1 % Track quality 100.0 % Accurately ripped (confidence 4) [CBD61308] (AR v2) Copy OK Track 6 Peak level 90.2 % Track quality 100.0 % Accurately ripped (confidence 4) [7AD03A98] (AR v2) Copy OK Track 7 Peak level 72.0 % Track quality 99.9 % Accurately ripped (confidence 4) [7C5F974B] (AR v2) Copy OK All tracks accurately ripped No errors occurred End of status report foobar2000 1.5.1 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1 log date: 2020-08-15 17:48:36 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Analyzed: ? / ? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR Peak RMS Duration Track -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR12 -2.97 dB -18.66 dB 6:33 01-CD Track 01 DR13 -6.16 dB -24.21 dB 6:11 02-CD Track 02 DR11 -6.59 dB -22.43 dB 4:07 03-CD Track 03 DR12 -1.78 dB -17.52 dB 4:48 04-CD Track 04 DR14 -0.71 dB -18.02 dB 5:01 05-CD Track 05 DR15 -0.89 dB -21.71 dB 5:07 06-CD Track 06 DR12 -2.85 dB -20.63 dB 10:19 07-CD Track 07 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Number of tracks: 7 Official DR value: DR13 Samplerate: 44100 Hz Channels: 2 Bits per sample: 16 Bitrate: 1411 kbps Codec: PCM ================================================================================
I saw Pat Metheny Group in 1989, and Pat with a piano trio last year in a small venue (Blue Note, Waikiki). I was introduced to Pat's music by an older friend and the album Travels. My favorite album is Pat Metheny Group with Letter from Home being a close 2nd.
No. This is partially due to financial constraints (gold PM CDs aren’t cheap) and partially because I’ve already got SACDs of all my other favourite PM ECM CDs. I am intending to put the peak values of the first 5 tracks and the last track of the 2 versions of Watercolors into a spreadsheet and see if the percentage difference in level is the same for each track. This should give me more of an idea if the 2 masters are related. I won’t be doing this until the weekend. If anyone wants to do this before me I won’t object. After issuing PM CDs on gold the Japanese later issued them on SHM. I assume they used the same master that the gold CDs used. In an ideal world this would be looked into. I don’t know whether SHM is supposed to offer better sound quality than gold but I’m sure it’s cheaper.