Hi-Res Download News (HDTracks, ProStudioMasters, Pono, etc.) & Software/Mastering Part 12**

The Norah Jones could have been the famed original PCM sourced Blue Note SACD...which caused a lot of vitriol, and yet again caused much mistrust of the record companies.

 

How does tracks topping out at -3.5db have anything to do with the sound? You can peak the world’s worst mastering job at -3.5dB.

 

I was trying to illustrate that the Edsel masterings were not pushed to the bleeding edge. simple as that. We have all seen clipped masters.

Please scroll back and see that several people commented on the Edsel CDs WITHOUT ever hearing them.

 

also expecting Led Zeppelin "How the West Was Won".

 

Thanks for that. I blew a small fortune last night on Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder tracks. So far I'm not liking the Mitchells I bought last night (For The Roses, Don Juan's Reckless Daughter and especially Court & Spark) as much as the ones I grabbed a couple of years ago (Blue, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns and Hejira). Court & Spark in particular seems a bit flat and dull and lifeless, compared to both the HDCD remasters from around 2000 and especially our host's DCC master from the '90s. Don Juan seems the best of the bunch.

Listened to Stevie's Talking Book last night and it's good but doesn't blow me away. Sounds a lot like the remaster CD from the early 2000s, which isn't bad but isn't worth paying $18 for as a high res download. But I only listened casually. Bass seems better than on the CD, but that's something I notice with pretty much every high res edition if it's even halfway decent.

The only new (to me) album was In Square Circle, which sounds very '80s and digital but not awful as those things go. However, just previewing the tracks, I think I'm gonna like it more than I would have thought. Lots of mello '80s Stevie - maybe I'll get bored - but it feels more enjoyable than Hotter Than July for some reason. We shall see...

 

Meanwhile I got 3 more early Tom Waits albums (debut to Blue Valentine) and they are all fantastic, sharing the aforementioned qualities (with less forward-sounding vocals, so more balanced).

 

Sorry, not familiar with this story... care to explain or provide a link? many thanks.

 

Has Blue Note ever corrected the Norah Jones Come Away With Me SACD?

 

Then just say that. You can compress and clip the crap out something - and then set the peak at any level you want. The peak level in and of itself is meaningless.

And FWIW there are DCC’s that peak at zero and have digital overs.

 

It would make no sense to squash the dynamic range and lower the gain...at lest to me..

Which DCCs? I own quite a few.

 

It makes no sense to squash the dynamic range OR lower the gain. Yet both happen.

Right off hand...try McCartney Venus and Mars. A few minor digital overs in the final mastering isn’t audible.

My point is that peak levels are not indicative of anything. You can have squashed mastering peak at a low level and dynamic mastering peak at a high level. Squashed and limited is squashed and limited - at any peak level. And dynamic is dynamic at any peak level.

Now back to the HDTracks sale...

 

I picked up Inner Mounting Flame and Light as a Feather both 24/96 remasters with the HD Tracks sale. I have been sitting on those totals for awhile waiting for a sale that I can wrap them into. Yay.

 

THIS WEEK on HDtracks...

Led Zeppelin - How The West Was Won (Live) [Remastered]
Grateful Dead - The Best Of The Grateful Dead (Live) [Remastered]
Moody Blues - Days Of Future Passed Live
Miles Davis & John Coltrane - The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6

Plus much much more...

 

So? Will you be using your crystal ball again soon?

 

I know some of the Deep Purple's on HD Tracks were mastered this way. The sense, from the perspective of the labels, is that in lowering the gain post brickwalling they can fool DR meters and thus possibly fool some buyers into thinking they're getting a mastering with good dynamics. In short, typical unscrupulous record company business as usual.

 

...still makes no sense. The whole idea behind squashing remasters is so they are as "loud" as current music...lowering the gain
would go against that goal. Oh well.

 

Well I'll be damned. glad I hadn't bought it.

 

Changes in gain don't affect DR meters. So, they would have to be both unscrupulous and stupid, which of course is not out of the question.

 

For HDTracks, I got a coupon for $10 off of a $40 purchase or more, but I don't see the usual 10% or 15% off of new releases, does anyone have a coupon code? I want to get the new Miles Davis bootleg, and it was not out when they were running the 25% off sale earlier this week. I tried that code and the march madness one but both are expired, as expected.

 

I am in the same boat. The cool thing is is that the miles set for once is actually cheaper than buying the CDs on Amazon.

The downside is needing to spend another $8-9 to get $10 off, and most HD Tracks releases are $17.98 So in a fact I am spending about eight more dollars then I would be just to save 10 oh well.

 

For whatever dumb reason I didn't expect this to be on HDtracks, so instead I ordered it from Amazon UK where it ended up being $23. I still have a wait for it to arrive, and I already have 3 of the shows from old boots. However had I known it would have been on HD I would have gone for that as you note it's cheaper than Amazon US. (For whatever reason when doing Miles searches on the HD site the Bootleg releases didn't show up, even though at least one past ones is available). Anyway, when it comes to CD releases that qualify as "boxes", many times Amazon UK is cheaper than the US Amazon and HDTracks, although the latter has the potential to be better than Amazon US or UK.

 

Same here, but I don't think the reasoning was dumb, but because volume four and volume five did not have highres version. So, I have an Amazon UK version and will get the hdtracks version too.

 

So, I realize this is a different vendor, but I asked and got this very interesting (and appreciated) response from Acoustic Sounds

Thank you for contacting us about these titles. I can shed some light on the situation. When the SACD for Come Away With Me was originally produced, a 16/44kHz source was used to author it. This is the root of the concern and rumors regarding the DSD release of this title. However for our DSD we did not use the SACD cutting master, we had Kevin Gray go back to the original analogue master tapes.

Not Too Late and Feels Like Home were likewise authored by Kevin from the original analogue master tapes. The Fall was originally recorded in 24/88kHz and Broken Little Hearts was originally recorded in 24/44kHz. For these titles the 24bit PCM source was used to create the upsampled DSDs that we offer.

That leaves the Covers album, which is the real oddity here. This compilation features a career spanning collection of tracks recorded at different times and formats by different engineers. Some of these tracks were sourced from 16bit files. This is the only Norah Jones DSD titles that we offer that includes any 16bit sourced material.
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So, based on this I will purchase "Come Away w/ Me" in DSD, but would likely buy the others as FLAC files at their original source rates.

 

Yes, this is exactly what I thought. The AP SACDs have been available as DSD DSF downloads form AS for a while now. This would NOT be available on
HDTracks. So what ever HDT had was NOT the AP remasters.

The First three albums were analog, and then, as they note, she moved to digital recording, and the SACDs of those albums are pretty much a waste of money.

My two cents..I prefer the 24/192 PCM downloads of the first three albums to the SACDs. The SACDs are too quiet, lack any excitement, and are
are kind of dull. The 24/192 is much more vibrant to my ears. It may have been that in producing the SACD box they were too cautious in the mastering.
Again, just my take.

 

I have that DSD issue of Come Away With Me. It is beyond excellent sounding.