Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon - Best sounding CD (updated)

Yes, early US DADC's did have the stamp and many (from different labels had the smooths, some still with the Patent Pending stamped on the back of the jewels)

 

Oh it's also stamped in the polycarbonate inner ring on this one.
Impressive how these 38 y/o discs are like "timeproof"

 

Just a short update on the Black Triangle mastering (the first one with pre-emphasis, also on some other discs):

Several people stated that it's probably a transfer from tape copies used for the Japan Pro-Use vinyls. Out of curiosity I looked for a vinyl digitalisation of this series.

The similarities are stunning. I'd definitely agree that this is the BT's source. The general sound is very similar as well as the amount of details.
I'd go as far as assuming that the BT is
a) a flat transfer of these tapes
b) all specific qualities this version has (slightly veiled sound, suboptimal fluidity and details, but "warmer" and smoother; compared to e.g. the UK A3/B3 vinyl) were already present on these tapes, since the vinyl rip is from a very competent source and doesn't sound worn, albeit has the same qualities. Therefore the BT did not suffer from early digitalisation technology, as was speculated here.

Just some thoughts

 

Question—I was ripping the two DSOTM CDs I own tonight. Both have catalog number CDP 7 46001 2. One is a Harvest “Black Face,” with pre-emphasis—matrix reads: CP35-3017 22A6 CDP 7 46001 2. This is the one I’ve had for the longest time (got it for $10 from a brick-and-mortar used record store) and thought it sounded good.

Then, a recent acquisition made me change my stance. I recently acquired an early U.S.-for-U.S. Capitol pressing—mould reads: “Made in USA-Digital Audio Disc Corp [DADC logo].” Matrix reads: “DIDX 226 111A4.” The disc does not have pre-emphasis, according to XLD.

Both jewel cases have smooth edges, so I will infer that both pressings are from before 1986.

Upon ripping both CDs, I performed de-emphasis on the Harvest CD and dropped both into Audacity. The DADC pressing has much more tape hiss; the tape noise is all but absent on the Harvest de-emphasis file. I personally prefer the analog sound of tape noise, so my vote is for “Other”—the DADC CD pressing.

 

Since you used Audacity quite a bit there, why not use it to add the tape hiss to the Harvest CD to improve its sound to your ears?

 

I can’t tell if this is serious
Cheers!

 

Genuine question. You have two CDs and cite tape hiss as a reason for preferring one over the other, so I wonder which you would prefer if you added a virtually identical tape hiss track to the other.

 

I’m also not sure you can qualify “using Audacity’s spectrogram feature” as “using Audacity quite a bit there”

 

I guess that will have to remain a hypothetical question, because I’m not entertaining that as a serious question I’m willing to engage with. Cheers to you, Sir Geordie

 

Kudos to you for your refreshing stance on the DADC master described by others as:

 

Thanks! I personally prefer the warmth of the CD that hasn’t been peak limited or NR’d.

 

Digital noise reduction didn't yet exist when the Harvest CD was mastered. If there's less tape hiss, that's a good thing.

 

Ooh, thank you for the info—I didn’t know that. I appreciate your response. I’ll go take a listen to both again and see which one I prefer.

 

Exactly. I don’t think peak limiting existed yet either, at least at the mastering stage.

 

I have some Target & Target-era CDs that are maxed out at many drum beats (“Brothers in Arms,” “Listen Like Thieves” and “Feels So Good” come to mind), but the peak limiting isn’t as dramatic as modern remasters.

 

"Maxed out" doesn't necessarily mean limited. And clipping was certainly possible on early CDs.

 

Respectfully, if clipping drum beats over a certain volume then normalizing to 0 dB isn’t peak limiting, what is peak limiting?

 

Peak limiting is explicitly *not* clipping. It reduces the amplitude of peaks so they don't clip.

 

Thanks!

 

This has got to be the longest and unhelpful thread I've ever experienced on SHF. Damn! What a freakin' waste of time I've spent today.

There's now a July 2021 SACD Hybrid release and I still don't know which sounds the best because there's no way to compare apples to apples. Youtube has MFSL version and someone posted a vinyl version recorded off of some special equipment that doesn't seem to show any improvement except the beginning has an extremely low end bass beat at around 40-50Hz and I don't know if that's the intended sound. Some others I can tell spike the 2kHz to 2.5kHz so much that it REALLY hurts my ears on guitar wales and I still don't know what remastered version that is.

 

My guess is you just have to buy a copy of each mastering and listen for yourself.

And maybe more helpful: everyone has his/hers own taste. Find a couple of forum members that in other threads expressed to like mastering (of other albums) you own and like yourself. See what the say here, and buy what they like.

Good luck!

 

Thanks for your response but could you tell me if the beginning of Dark Side Of The Moon has a pronounced low end and continuous boom beat you can really feel in the 40Hz to 50Hz region on your copy and if so what mastering. I suspect that this isn't intended but it could be version release specific from how it was mastered.

 

Found the sound sample with the low end boom beat on Amazon...

https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Side-Mo.../ref=tmm_msc_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Looks like it might be the mid '90's 20th Anniversary edition that has this kind of sound on CD and it's less than $20 used.

For quicker synopsis of this entire thread this YouTube vid is easier to follow...

 

The sample sounds compressed, the heartbeat is much louder than on both CDs*) I have. That might be because the original CD is mastered that way, or because Amazon post-processes it’s samples. I have no idea.

*) I have the first pre-emphasis mastering on a Black Harvest disc and the MFSL. I like them both, for different reasons. I know the Discovery remaster and thought it had unnatural bass. I never bothered to listen to other versions, I’m fine with what I have.

 

The heart beat sound becomes more pronounced raising the volume so the voices that come in later can be heard which is another issue I've discovered in this forum when folks say they hear things that others don't without knowing how loud each is playing the test sound. On the Amazon sample I had to raise the volume in order to hear the voices that came in later.

But you confirmed that the heart beat sound is big and massive because I've found some Youtube videos of vinyl playback that sounded thin like this quad mix



But of course it could be due to it being quad and what folding into stereo
did to bass response.

And by the time it gets to 1:40 in it's way too loud on headphones so you can see
the heart beat sound wouldn't even be heard at lowered volumes set for
comfortable listening farther into the song.