The first US pressing is the best one that I have heard for the self titled album. The UK first pressings are the best for the rest of the albums from Killers through Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. After those albums I don't think pressings make any difference, but I have not done much comparing after those either.
Someone up there was listening! Maiden's entire catalogue ,is now available Mastered for iTunes. Only had chance for a brief listen to the samples on the UK store, will be buying a few key tracks later. Initial impressions is that they're quieter and more dynamic than the 1998 CD remasters (good). Dance of Death isn't as loud as the original 2003 CD but still sounds fairly compressed. Montsegur at least sounds better (yay!). The studio catalogue is MFiT As are Live After Death and a couple of the reunion era live albums (Rio, Death on the Road, En Vivo). Live/Dead one and Donington 92 aren't showing as MFIT although whether that will change as of Tuesday or not I don't know. Working out at £160 or so for the complete set; need a Floyd Discovery/Ac/Dc stle complete digital box set methinks. Hopefully a redbook or hires lossless release won't be too far behind.
Too bad they went to great lengths to get the best sound in 96/24 and only put them out as lossy compressed files for the moment. I hope the real Hi-Res lossless masters will be available to download.
I suspect the 24/96 files will be available for sale before too long a la Zeppelin. Classic era vinyl: tick, Lossy download: tick. Hires download: now known to exist. CD reissue: ? The multi format reissue success of the Zeppelin campaign (and to a less multi-headed approach, Floyd, Sabbath, Beatles) will hopefully be the pattern Maiden will follow.
I get the impression from Steve Harris' comments that Tony Newton and Ade Emsley did the analogue tape > 24/96 digital capture and mastering. Did the vinyl reissues come with any specific remaster credits either on the sleeve or the discs themselves?
It's happening people! Just downloaded Dance Of Death from HDTracks. It is better than the CD relesase from 2003. Code: DR Peak RMS Duration Track -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR6 -1.28 dB -8.71 dB 3:52 01-Wildest Dreams DR7 -1.28 dB -8.40 dB 3:48 02-Rainmaker DR6 -1.28 dB -9.62 dB 7:22 03-No More Lies DR6 -1.28 dB -8.08 dB 5:50 04-Montségur DR6 -1.28 dB -9.44 dB 8:36 05-Dance of Death DR6 -1.28 dB -8.13 dB 5:12 06-Gates of Tomorrow DR6 -1.28 dB -8.04 dB 5:04 07-New Frontier DR6 -1.28 dB -9.14 dB 8:28 08-Paschendale DR6 -1.28 dB -9.12 dB 6:31 09-Face In the Sand DR6 -1.28 dB -8.96 dB 6:11 10-Age of Innocence DR7 -1.28 dB -9.66 dB 7:06 11-Journeyman -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's 44.1/24 for this one, probably recorded in this resolution.
Just tried a few select 90 second samples from the iTunes store for DOD. Definitely quieter, less to no audible clipping to my less than qualified ears. Still compressed with muddy sounding drums but a great improvement over the 2003 CD, as you say. Worked out it's going to cost me £148 on iTunes for the MFiT specific albums sans the two compilations. 15 studio albums and 2 live. Hopefully some discount iTunes cards will bring that down to £125 or so, comparable to the iTunes Beatles stereo box price wise.
Yes, i'm quite sure there are no compression added to this version of Dance Of Death, it was recorded like this. Org-cd is DR5 and is clipping badly, this one sounds just fine.
Definitely interesting news and will have to check these out. Going to listen some samples and then see if wanna buy these. I already have nice sounding pressings of the albums (lp and cd) but surely those '98 remasters can improved. Old masterings and different editions have been talked around a lot in the forum, so I won't be mentioning too much again here. Maybe it will mean that theres also some comprehensive reissue campaing being planned? Should be logical that later high resolution files or reissues on cd are going to be released?
Rock In Rio was a real disapointment Code: DR Peak RMS Duration Track -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR5 -1.47 dB -7.30 dB 4:42 02-The Wicker Man (Live) DR6 -1.47 dB -8.05 dB 6:48 03-Ghost of the Navigator (Live) DR5 -1.47 dB -8.37 dB 6:07 04-Brave New World (Live) DR5 -1.47 dB -7.71 dB 3:06 05-Wrathchild (Live) DR6 -1.47 dB -8.23 dB 7:08 06-2 Minutes to Midnight (Live) DR5 -1.47 dB -8.60 dB 7:14 07-Blood Brothers (Live) DR6 -1.47 dB -9.20 dB 10:50 08-Sign of the Cross (Live) DR6 -1.47 dB -8.02 dB 4:43 09-The Mercenary (Live) DR6 -1.47 dB -8.54 dB 4:24 10-The Trooper (Live) DR5 -1.47 dB -8.65 dB 9:37 11-Dream Of Mirrors DR5 -1.47 dB -8.78 dB 9:19 12-The Clansman DR5 -1.47 dB -7.75 dB 4:41 13-The Evil That Men Do DR5 -1.47 dB -8.18 dB 7:41 14-Fear Of The Dark DR6 -1.47 dB -8.70 dB 5:56 15-Iron Maiden DR6 -1.47 dB -8.39 dB 5:01 16-The Number Of The Beast DR5 -1.47 dB -8.13 dB 7:24 17-Hallowed Be Thy Name DR5 -1.47 dB -8.10 dB 5:22 18-Sanctuary DR5 -1.47 dB -8.26 dB 5:38 19-Run To The Hills DR10 -1.47 dB -15.65 dB 1:56 01-Arthur's Farewell (Live) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Original cd have slightly better dynamics overall, this one is 24/96 though.
If you buy the albums from MFiT make sure to post DR, i'll wait for them to apear on HDTracks at 96/24. No lossless option at MFiT right?
Will dig out Foobar and plug in. Will more than likely pick up 7th Son first, my fave Maiden album. I have an 80s CD of it and the 1998 CD remaster, the former picked up on account of the ear bleeding sound of the latter. Will run the three of them past the DR meter and post the results. And no, iTunes is lossy 16/44.1 256Kb/s AAC only. Apple make mention of keeping the 24/96 source files for MFiT on file for 'futureproofing' but they don't make them available via the store.
I bought 1 song from the albums S/T, Killers, TNOTB, Brave New World from Itunes store. Sadly they are all DR7. What a waste. Those 1st-cd's just got more valuable
That's better? I'm not convinced either. The multi-channel mix on the DVD-Audio release ranges from DR9 to DR11.
Looks like they did, DR of the 80's albums are worse than 1998-remasters. However these sound powerfull and detailed in comparison to the 1998-remasters. Let's see what happens, mayby HDTracks get different master with better DR for the 80's albums.
Yes ofcourse the DVD-A release sounds better downmixed, it's a completly different mix. However these share the same mix as the CD and sound better.
I honestly only care about the reunion era albums. There’s great sounding versions of everything up through The X Factor already and I don’t give 2 craps about VXI.
Well, seems they saved me some money that I can spend on CDs and downloads with GOOD mastering. My old Maiden CDs will do just fine.
I've waited for a looong time for these to come out, they did everything right (transfer, eq) but they used to much compression
