Best sounding Peter Gabriel So CD

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by J_D__, Apr 18, 2009.

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  1. Dan Steele

    Dan Steele Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago suburbs
    I only have this one version of So that I picked up recently. I would be interested to know where this falls in the pecking order of sound quality for this album. On other threads I have seen people recommend the early Virgin Charisma versions, which is what I am assuming this is, but didnt see any mention on this thread. My local has several early US DADC versions for $4 if that is better than this one. I thought this sounded good although there was a weird sound on Excellent Birds that almost sounded like feedback (in one part).
    VJD-32010 Made in Japan

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2018
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  2. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    Nice find Steve! No idea on that one, how's Big Time on it?
     
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  3. Dan Steele

    Dan Steele Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago suburbs
    Big Time is ok, it sounds a little veiled compared to others if you know what I mean. The songs that did wow me for sound were Red Rain, Don’t Give Up, and This is the Picture.
     
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  4. Ere

    Ere Senior Member

    Location:
    The Silver Spring
    Does the back insert have a barcode?
     
  5. Dan Steele

    Dan Steele Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago suburbs
    No, does not have a barcode.
    On back insert at bottom, MADE IN JAPAN BY VIRGIN JAPAN LTD, 1987
    Matrix on disc VJD-32010-1-A1E
    According to discogs it is the 2nd Japanese pressing
     
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  6. Yost

    Yost “It’s only impossible until it’s not”

    And according to Discogs it does have the barcode “4988037000292”, which was probably on the obi.
     
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  7. Dan Steele

    Dan Steele Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago suburbs
    Probably, I am without obi :cry:, which is expected from used bin find
     
  8. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    Is there a bad sounding SO? I just had the ordinary original cd and that sounded great
     
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  9. Dan Steele

    Dan Steele Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago suburbs
    Good question Mark. I know little about this album which is why I posed my question. Reading this thread I think it is the typical obsession common on this forum of wanting the absolute “best” sounding version (which I am guilty of as well :hide:). The black triangle seems to be the most desirable version but good luck finding that
     
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  10. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    I wasn't trying to be flippant or anything, but i used to use the plain old original cd as a test cd for speakers (with others) ... this was a long time ago, but it just had such a great sound (at the time). If there is something significantly better, it sure would be interesting
     
  11. Dan Steele

    Dan Steele Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago suburbs
    a lot of people seem to like the early DADC US versions so maybe you had that. Again I’m not knowledgable on Peter Gabriel but the albums I have of his seem a little like Steely Dan and Dire Straits in that he probably took great care in the recording part of the process, that’s just a guess though.
     
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  12. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    Oh he definitely did. Even at his most unusual he had a bit of a perfectionist bug ... My personal faves are 1,3,4,so and us ,,, just sensational and always reaching, always a little unusual ... I know that's most of his albums lol, I just really like what he was doing.
    Personally i think secret world and growing up may be two of the most striking concert dvd's out there, particularly secret world
     
  13. The_Windmill

    The_Windmill Forum Resident

    Location:
    Italy
    There's a rarer japanese mastering with shriller sound


    Same mastering as most of the common CDs out there. But hey, you get the OBI.

    Check out the other Gabriel Mastering thread. There's all the info you need on So, I guess
     
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  14. The_Windmill

    The_Windmill Forum Resident

    Location:
    Italy
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2018
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  15. petertakov

    petertakov Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sofia, Bulgaria
    I have compared a number of CD releases of this album and the one I kept for being the best sounding has the exact same peaks. I have since ripped all my CDs and I am not sure which exact version that is. It sounds slightly cleaner than all other NON-remastered versions, all of which sound much better than the subsequent remastered releases, including the 25 Ann HiDef release.

    My guess would be that the 75.8 db is an exact copy of the original digital transfer and it has been "normalised" for the subsequent non-remastered releases (the DR remains the same).
     
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  16. The_Windmill

    The_Windmill Forum Resident

    Location:
    Italy
    It is. They are the same. But here's the thing. The mastering is slightly clipped, so the 100% version could give problems of intersample distortion, unless the player takes care of it by lowering the volume before feeding the DAC (some do). Moreover, many amps work better with the volume raised, so finding a CD that allows you to do that is a plus in those cases.

    That's why the 75% is the safer choice. Of course, you could just take the 100% and normalize it down yourself.
     
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  17. petertakov

    petertakov Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sofia, Bulgaria
    Unfortunately, normalising and "de-normalising" are not "lossless" processes (unless you multiply and divide by an integer of 2 (~ 3db), for exemple, and there is no clipping, dithering or other processing involved).
     
  18. The_Windmill

    The_Windmill Forum Resident

    Location:
    Italy
    A simple test to do.

    Take a wav file.
    Lower the volume to a reasonable amount (say 70%).
    Save the file.
    Open the file.
    Get it back to its original loudness (exactly the same as before).
    Now do an inverted phase test with the original file and the processed one.

    What you get is pure silence. The delta file has nothing.

    Been there, done that.
     
  19. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    Japan JVC for US
    Analyzed: Peter Gabriel / So
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    DR Peak RMS Duration Track
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    DR11 -0.17 dB -12.97 dB 5:40 01-Red Rain
    DR11 -0.06 dB -13.55 dB 5:16 02-Sledgehammer
    DR11 -0.28 dB -15.91 dB 6:33 03-Don't Give Up
    DR12 -0.30 dB -15.66 dB 4:53 04-That Voice Again
    DR12 -0.12 dB -15.56 dB 5:30 05-In Your Eyes
    DR12 -1.12 dB -18.73 dB 6:21 06-Mercy Street
    DR12 -0.15 dB -13.55 dB 4:29 07-Big Time
    DR12 -0.20 dB -15.95 dB 3:22 08-We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)
    DR14 -0.20 dB -16.81 dB 4:19 09-This Is The Picture (Excellent Birds)
    All others I have-
    US JVC 100% all but 1
    Daio Kosan Japan For US 100% all but 1
    US DADC 100% all but 1
    Euro DADC Austria black CD face art 100% all but 1
     
  20. Jack_Straw

    Jack_Straw Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wichita, KS
    My understanding is that this is true, as long as 1) it is done entirely in the digital realm with no other processing, and 2) there is no clipping in either the source file or the "processed" file.

    For example, each sample in a 16-bit/ 44.1kHz file (44,100 of them per second of audio) has a numeric value of somewhere between −32,768 and 32,767 (65,536 possible values).

    A digital level change is just changing ALL those values by a factor of x, and when that process is reversed, those values should be right back where they started. If it is done properly and no clipping is introduced or other "noise" from some other process, it should be completely non-destructive.
     
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  21. The_Windmill

    The_Windmill Forum Resident

    Location:
    Italy
    Exactly. In this specific case, first they clipped, then they normalized to 75%. If you change the volume of either one, the two waveforms overlap perfectly. So there is no better information on the 75% mastering compared to the 100% mastering but quite likely the first one is gonna get better handled by most systems/players.
     
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  22. gregorya

    gregorya I approve of this message

    Or do some sound just So-So?... ;)
     
  23. WiWavelength

    WiWavelength Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    For a scalar quantity, such as voltage, a 2x integer change is a ~6.02 dB change.

    What you are talking about is rounding that can occur from a non integer change. But that rounding is at the residual LSB level, and if you are worrying about it, you are worrying about the wrong thing.

    AJ
     
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  24. WiWavelength

    WiWavelength Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    If the digital samples can be stored as floating point values, then an original amplitude -> level adjustment -> inverse level adjustment -> original amplitude process may be bit for bit lossless. But if floating point values are converted to integer values at any stage in that process -- such as a CD with a level adjusted mastering -- then rounding/truncation may not allow the exact original samples to be restored. As I mentioned in the previous post, though, any rounding errors are at the residual LSB level.

    AJ
     
  25. Thievius

    Thievius Blue Oyster Cult-ist

    Location:
    Syracuse, NY
    Uh yeah. Spend 3 or 4 bucks on the old 80s Geffen and you're good to go.
     
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