Not really, I'm unemployed and due to a back injury there's not many jobs in the area I'm actually capable of doing. Also, I spent close to $35 on The Wall despite it being one of my least favourite albums ever, so I'm not exactly thrilled right now. I've just let my OCD win yet again. Still, I don't regret any of the other hi-res Floyd purchases I made. It's been years since I was on a Floyd kick, and I seriously didn't realize how badly I've missed them.
I understand, I also have a strong "collect 'em all" mentality. So far, I've resisted buying any but Animals and The Wall. @c-eling we have been on a lot of threads together and I think I could guess at what you would like. To me, the new Animals 24/192 is a big improvement on the old 32DP and original US CDs. The Wall sounds a little goosed like a modern master, but has less phasiness in the highs than my previous favorite, the MoFi UD1, so it may become preferred for me. I'm not that into the 2011 remasters of DSOTM or WYWH, and the AP SACD never really grabbed me either, though I haven't given either more than a few listens.
I don't want to cause you to make a bad financial decision, but I highly recommend Relics (or at least the six unique tracks). "See Emily Play" and "Julia Dream" sound phenomenal, tremendous upgrades over the previous CDs. Why can't all music of this production vintage be mastered this well?
I have seen your recommendation for that go by, and thank you for the analysis. That will be my next one for sure
To demonstrate the problem with the 2011 CD, here's a comparison between it and the 16/44 download. The CD is lowered in volume by 4.51 dB to match the level of the download; I haven't made any other alterations other than selecting a small section for the comparison. This is the same section of music first from the CD, then from the download, and then the same section with the two alternating every vocal line (starting with the CD, then the download, then the CD, then the download). It's easiest to hear the difference by focusing on the drums, particularly the snare and the ride cymbal. It's clear that this is the same mastering, but something happened during the conversion to CD. PF_Animals_Comparison.wav
Oh, I feel for you. I've had back pains for years and just had to deal with it. Doing mostly jobs that do not require too much stress physically. The back doctors I went to told me I am not bad off enough to have any surgery. And that it might not help me if I did get it. I wonder if I should have insisted?
I just went through this process this morning, did you get the code from: Quick Dark Side of the Moon Pre-Emphasis question ? It took me ages to find the file in question on m Macbook: "EQCurves.xml" basically you have to have it highlighted so you can see the contents (in a columns view) then click before the first piece of code, my computer automatically launched Dream Weaver to let me edit and save the code I copied and pasted, I also renamed it, it took me quite a few attempts to get it right, first time doing this sort of thing
That's good to know. Seems like I keep seeing this referred to as "1996 remstered version". Why is that?
I like the DSOTM grail mastering as it’s pleasant and easy to listen to, but it’s made from a copy tape and does not have the resolution of a mastering made from the original tapes. I long ago swapped in the hi-res from the Immersion set for DSOTM and it sounds like the hi-res download is either the same or extremely close to it, so that is what I would recommend for anyone seeking a top tier digital mastering of DSOTM.
No clue but it's definitely a completely new transfer and remaster. Not related to the old remaster in any way. (Other than being the same tape of course)
Disagree on this. The tape sources for "Julia Dream" and "Careful With That Axe" are noticeably better. I'm also reasonably confident that "See Emily Play" is a different tape as well. The differences in clarity and quality are far too great to be nothing more than EQ.
It's how Relics is labeled on Qobuz, HighResAudio and other European download stores. No idea why, nor why the label isn't present for the same album in North American download stores.
I found a sample of the Dark Side grail mastering in another thread and I pitted it against the hi-res. It's hard to judge based on how small the sample is (about 6 seconds of "Breathe"), but there is much nicer clarity and separation in the body of the song than the hi-res on that CD. The trade-off is that there is a massive treble reduction – I don't know if that was intentional or if that's just what the Japanese copy tape sounds like, but it's a problem. I compared the EQ between the two, and apart from the treble, it's surprisingly similar: from about 1 kHz to 4 kHz, differences are so minor my EQ-matcher didn't even register them. The hi-res mastering has a little bit more bass and a little bit less low midrange – about 0.5 dB at most for both, centered around 125 Hz and 650 Hz, respectively. With those two quick EQ moves, I was able to get the hi-res to sound just the way I wanted it to. So that's my recommendation – get the hi-res download, and do a little bit of EQ to balance the meat of the mix better. (You might also want to play around with the treble a little bit, as it is just a touch bright, but personally I like it this way and wasn't able to find any improvements to the high end in my brief experiments.)
I had tested the album Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse Of Reason. The Ed4 : Streaming Amazon remastered 2011 version has all tracks in 16/44.1 except one track in 24/192. Initial album List of updated songs After the album update, there were 2 track changes (4 and 11) to UltraHD (from 16/44.1 to 24/96), as shown in the graph below (green rectangle). temporary updated spectrogram But, before publishing my article about the update, I did a last check, and there, the update had been removed. This is the limit of the streaming, there can be bugs. But real fixes are also possible as for the streaming album Qobuz Patricia Barber - Clique. A track in 16/44.1 has been corrected to the album format 24/176.4. In this case, the streaming is an advantage.
The 2011 remastered CD for A Momentary Lapse Of Reason has some noticeable compression, unlike the other CDs in the series. "Terminal Frost" is an example, where there's a decent amount of headroom, but the actual music itself is quite compressed. I'd be curious if the new download has better dynamics (since the pre-Final Cut titles only had peak limiting on the CDs).
I wonder if this was the version of "Learning to Fly" from A Foot in the Door? And if so, why does it have content above the 22k cutoff?
I finally got around today to constructing extended 'Pulse HD Deluxe' in 24/96, basically recreating what I did in 16/44.1 a while back. To do this you need the new Pulse HD download in 24/96 (which now already includes 'One Of These Days' as an extra track of course), plus the original DVD release of Pulse, The Later Years box set and the 24/96 download of The Later Years highlights album. You also need some DVD/Blu Ray audio ripping software (eg DVD Audio Extractor) and some audio editing software (eg Audacity). You then rip the Soundscape audio from DVD 2 of the original Pulse release from 2007 (which is included as audio for the photo gallery feature), available in 24/48, which is fine as it's not live music, to use as the intro track up-sampled to 24/96 just for consistency of formatting. This then blends into SOYCD as track 2. Next you need the Pulse 'restored and re-edited' Blu ray from the big box, to rip the 24/96 audio for 'Take It Back'. You have to convert this from 6-channel surround sound down to 2-channel and normalise the volume to match the other tracks, and then insert it between 'Keep Talking' and 'Coming Back To Life', being careful to seamlessly blend the transitions. Next comes the 'Lost For Words' 1994 tour rehearsal version recorded at Earls Court, which I chose to insert between 'High Hopes' and 'Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)'. This is trickier to pull off because you need to 'fly in' some additional audience noise at the beginning and end of the track to make it sound like it was actually being performed in concert, and the volume again has to be normalised to match the other tracks. Once done it sounds very much at home as part of the overall performance as it was after all recorded on the Earls Court stage with the same instruments and musicians used on the rest of the tour. No need to add OOTD this time as it's already part of the official HD download, but I chose to blend the audience noise at the end straight into 'Speak To Me' to create a continuous 'performance'. The finished 24/96 product comprises 28 tracks and runs for 2h 53min, with a file size of 3.93Gb in Apple Lossless format: Soundscape 6:45 Shine On You Crazy Diamond 13:09 Astronomy Domine 4:21 What Do You Want From Me 4:11 Learning To Fly 5:16 Keep Talking 6:58 Take It Back 5:56 Coming Back To Life 6:57 Hey You 4:39 A Great Day For Freedom 4:33 Sorrow 10:49 High Hopes 7:57 Lost For Words 5:32 Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) 6:48 One Of These Days 6:53 Speak To Me 2:29 Breathe In The Air 2:34 On The Run 3:48 Time 6:48 The Great Gig In The Sky 5:53 Money 8:37 Us And Them 7:18 Any Colour You Like 3:22 Brain Damage 3:46 Eclipse 2:39 Wish You Were Here 6:36 Comfortably Numb 9:31 Run Like Hell 8:38 A fun project for a cold wet Saturday...
This might be a little bit off-topic, but I can't really find a thread on it and don't feel like starting one. I've just compared three different CDs of The Final Cut (1994 EMI, 1997 Columbia, 2011 EMI/PFR) and want to share my findings, for anyone who's on the fence about the hi-res. The 1997 CD won the blind test set up by @grandegi a few years ago – unfortunately, the links to the samples in that thread no longer work, so I wasn't able to compare the original '83 Japanese CD. I've had the 2011 remaster since February of 2014, I believe (funny how I can remember when I got it, yet I can't remember what I ate last night), and my first attempt to acquire the 1997 remaster ended up yielding the '94 EMI CD instead. That went back and I finally obtained the correct CD, which is in shockingly beautiful condition except that the data side of the CD is pretty cloudy. Oh well, it ripped perfectly, so I'm not going to cry. (Well, over the condition of the CD, anyway – this is still The Final Cut we're talking about...) First of all, the 2011 CD has some compression on it. All of the 2011 CD titles from Piper through The Wall have reduced dynamic range due to peak limiting, but the difference between the quiet sections and the loud sections is the same as it is on the non-limited hi-res downloads. But The Final Cut has not only peak limiting, but also compression, which lowers the loud sections and raises the quiet sections. It's not horrible – I would never have guessed that there was compression had I not compared it back-to-back with two releases that aren't compressed – but now that I know what it should sound like, I don't really want to listen to the 2011 CD again. Now, since I didn't buy it, I don't know for certain, but I would guess that the hi-res download is, like all of the previous titles (excluding Relics, that is), a less limited hi-res version of the 2011 mastering. If that's the case, then the compression would still be present. Having gone about $250 over my monthly music buying budget, I'm not in any rush to buy the hi-res edition, so if anybody who has it can confirm, I'd appreciate it. Now, let's talk EQ. I volume-matched all three CDs and did some A/B comparisons. The 1994 CD drops out of the running pretty quickly; it's not bad (it's hard to screw up an album this well-engineered), but there is, compared to the others, a murky haze that makes the vocals sink back, and the dozens of explosive loud sections never really have the bite the music demands. The 2011 CD (which, by the way, runs noticeably faster than the other two) has plenty of bite, and there's a lot better clarity than the '94, but during quiet sections, the low end is rather muddy and the vocals sound a bit swamped. That leaves the '97, which in my opinion hits the sweet spot: the vocals are front and center without ever being over-bearing, the instruments all sit nicely in the soundstage without feeling crowded, and the tonal balance throughout is just right. That's not to say the '97 is perfect; there's a decent amount more sibilance here than either of the other two, and unfortunately there's some peak limiting on "The Hero's Return" and "The Fletcher Memorial Home". It's far less aggressive than the 2011 CD, but it's there. I don't detect any on "Not Now John" or "The Gunner's Dream", as postulated on a previous page. At some point I'd still like to hear the "holy grail" original Japan mastering, but the price of that disc is, uh, enough to convince me that I'll be more than satisfied with my '97 disc. I realize this post has nothing to do with hi-res audio, but since there appears to be some issues with the new download for The Final Cut, I wanted to offer a reasonably-priced alternative. The 1997 CD (Columbia CK 68517) has superior EQ to the 2011 CD, which is probably the same as the hi-res download, it offers the original running order of the album, and it sounds great despite some peak limiting... which, allegedly, the hi-res download also has as well. Hope this was useful to someone. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go depress myself by listening to this album on repeat for a while.
From whom ears I trust I was told not to waste time and money on tracking down the old Japan pre-emphasis disc (The Final Cut) Just stick with the old DADC (1st non PE mastering) It is a nice natural sounding mastering.
Thanks for the input! I like depressing music My assumption about "Gunner's Dream" being limited was based on the '85 Canadian CD having a slightly higher peak on the big snare drum shot right after the line "hear their standard issue kicking in your door", and I also noticed a few higher peaks during the guitar solo in "Not Now John"... could just be something else affecting those transients, and they don't have any of the peak-limiting 'signature sound' to them on the '97, by any stretch
Great post - thanks for that. Have you heard the 2004 remaster of The Final Cut, and if so, how does it compare to the ones you've mentioned here? That one was the first to include "Tigers". Here it is on Vernon's site: Pink Floyd Archives-U.S. CD Discography And here it is on Discogs: Pink Floyd – The Final Cut (2004, CD)
Here are the DR values for the 24/96 version of The Final Cut. I actually like the sound, it is more clear than my CD version and still seems to have that 3D audio feature. foobar2000 1.5.4 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1 log date: 2021-11-28 14:37:37 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Analyzed: Pink Floyd / The Final Cut -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR Peak RMS Duration Track -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR11 -0.15 dB -17.37 dB 3:00 01-The Post War Dream DR10 -0.05 dB -14.90 dB 4:23 02-Your Possible Pasts DR9 -7.78 dB -20.29 dB 1:15 03-One of the Few DR10 -3.48 dB -17.36 dB 3:18 04-When the Tigers Broke Free DR12 -0.15 dB -15.77 dB 2:43 05-The Hero's Return DR11 -0.14 dB -16.87 dB 5:18 06-The Gunner's Dream DR13 -0.68 dB -19.15 dB 3:42 07-Paranoid Eyes DR13 -0.04 dB -18.81 dB 1:17 08-Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert DR10 0.00 dB -14.10 dB 4:09 09-The Fletcher Memorial Home DR12 -4.34 dB -20.72 dB 2:09 10-Southampton Dock DR9 -0.07 dB -13.38 dB 4:47 11-The Final Cut DR10 0.00 dB -12.23 dB 5:00 12-Not Now John DR12 -1.16 dB -17.35 dB 5:18 13-Two Suns in the Sunset -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Number of tracks: 13 Official DR value: DR11 Samplerate: 96000 Hz Channels: 2 Bits per sample: 24 Bitrate: 2930 kbps Codec: FLAC
I have not heard the 2004 CD, but I know it's the loudest and most compressed/limited of all the editions. Some people have described it as "shouty". I would guess that the 2011 remaster is a dramatic improvement (and the hi-res would be an improvement over that). I should also point out that the most dramatic improvement of the 1997 remaster over the 2011 CD is the bridge of "Two Suns In The Sunset". The compression on the latter is extremely noticeable; I had to boost the section by about 3 dB to re-introduce the punch of the crescendo. Although the vocals in that section are a bit low in the mix, the 1997 CD sounds like a door being blown off the hinges when the electric guitar kicks in – as it should.
