Platinum SHM-CDs launched! (Disc 3)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by stereoptic, Feb 7, 2014.

  1. oldbsturgeon

    oldbsturgeon RlrrLrll

    Location:
    USA
    Hey, back after a really long vacation from the forums. So I started buying music again, and I found out about these gems and wanted to get in on them. Being a jazz guy mostly, I went straight to what I wanted to hear the most. The 4 Bill Evans Trio recordings. I got them all and they arrived yesterday. All I can really say is they are a huge upgrade from the versions I previously had which were vinyl rips of original monos, though were fairly played and scratchy, so a lot of the little nuances of the albums, especially the 2 live ones, were missed.
    I would almost believe I can make out the conversations in the background now, ha.
    Now I probably won't buy much more as there aren't too many more exciting jazz titles except maybe the Roy Haynes I would want, but could maybe stand to try some of others like the Steely Dan albums if they are good.
    I also noticed Pet Sounds was made as one too.
     
  2. shirtandtie

    shirtandtie Forum Resident

    I bought The Stones Sticky Fingers about a month ago and it blew my mind so much that I bought Exile, Goats and It’s Only RnR. Those arrive today ironically. I’m picking them up at my PO Box later!
     
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  3. Musicisthebest

    Musicisthebest Exiled Yorkshireman

    Location:
    Manchester, UK
  4. oldbsturgeon

    oldbsturgeon RlrrLrll

    Location:
    USA
  5. Time Is On My Side

    Time Is On My Side Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison, WI
    Are they still releasing music on this format? I am seeing a lot of them going out of print. Good thing I got in on The Rolling Stones ones before they quit making em.
     
  6. Musicisthebest

    Musicisthebest Exiled Yorkshireman

    Location:
    Manchester, UK
    Trying to sum up a long & complicated thread, the forum (& my own) favourites for the first 6 Dan albums are the originals mastered by Steve Hoffman in the case of Aja & Katie Lied & Roger Nicholls for the other 4.

    The first 6 Dan albums have been remastered a number of times.

    For each different master each CD that has been identified as having that master is listed.

    Each CD is identified by its catalogue number & its matrix number (this is the number found on the inner ring of the CD).

    Armed with this information it's possible to track down the CD of your choice from Discogs or eBay.

    As for the SHM-CDs, the DR figures don't look good. See Album list - Dynamic Range Database Personally I found them to be bright, a bit louder & slightly uninvolving compared to the originals.
     
    ispace likes this.
  7. oldbsturgeon

    oldbsturgeon RlrrLrll

    Location:
    USA
    Cool thanks.
     
  8. hvbias

    hvbias Midrange magic

    Location:
    Northeast
    As far as I know there haven't been any flat transfer mastering releases in a long time. I was really hoping for Paranoid and Sabotage.
     
    Clanceman likes this.
  9. Plan9

    Plan9 Mastering Engineer

    Location:
    Toulouse, France
    These are not the SHM-CDs were are talking about here. The original SHM-CDs are just the 1999 remasters.
     
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  10. mikeyt

    mikeyt Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Any more opinions on the Bill Evans titles? Has anyone compared to the XRCDs? And are these in mono like the Blue Note titles?
     
  11. Electric

    Electric The Medium is the Massage

    I was thinking of finally picking up Performance by Humble Pie, but not the 4CD. Still available and both using the 2007 mastering are the platinum and non-platinum SHMs. I'm wondering if I should spend the extra 10 bucks for the platinum SHM? Will I hear that much of a difference?
     
    toilet_doctor likes this.
  12. Time Is On My Side

    Time Is On My Side Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison, WI
    The disc material doesn't make a difference. What makes a difference is the mastering used on the disc. Plus the SHM Platinums all have very high quality packaging.
     
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  13. bmoregnr

    bmoregnr Forum Rezident

    Location:
    1060 W. Addison
    Yes and I was going to say that I suppose I've never compared a platinum vs. a non platinum SHM of the exact same mastering, I have for the same mastering style across an artist’s catalog on shm and I can tell you I've never heard a platinum where I said it was the platinum that is making a difference. Good point about the packaging though.
     
    Plan9 and Electric like this.
  14. bbanderic

    bbanderic Forum Resident

    Absolutely no difference whatsoever in sound quality in platinum vs non platinum with same exact mastering. As far as the packaging, you’re going to get the same exact replica LP cover, only difference is the platinum will be housed in a box as opposed to a plastic sleeve in the non platinum.
     
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  15. toilet_doctor

    toilet_doctor "Rockin' chair's got me"

    Location:
    USA
    - from another thread -

    Why does a knife made of the best steel cut better?
    Why tires of multi-ply reinforced rubber with high treads perform better than regular tires?
    Why better made CDs would not?
    Because it *is* down to the remastering, you said.
    Is not it down to a car as well? But better made tires improve the performance of any car. They even called: High Performance Tires.
    Same with everything else, including CDs.

    Yes, mastering is 80-85%, but the rest can be attributed to materials (SHM/HQ, Pt SHM), improvement of the manufacturing process (Blu-spec2, Ultimate HQ) and technological tricks (upsampling, K2HD, etc. or eliminating time domain error and distortion of non-decoded MQA).
    And these discs also have their own name: High Fidelity CDs (and we are talking about red book CDs).
    (Please read Post #3 of this thread.)

    Yes, it is down to remastering.
    Yes, better mastering on a regular disc can surpass a worse one, placed on the best hi-fidelity disc...
    But take this the best master and put it on a better made disc and it will sound even better - you will get the best digital version.

    Everyone should know:
    The same digital file placed on a different carrier sounds different.
    (Former Atlantic sound engineer, Barry Diament, did not believe it himself. But after conducting the test, he changed his mind.
    Plan9 noticed that the HDTrack's file and SACD with the same mastering have slightly different sounds).

    Another thing is to catch this difference.
    Hi-End system makes it much better. (The Chevy Corvette will benefit from high performance tires more than the Chevy Aveo).

    As for the regular system, it better detects technological and manufacturing improvements than materials.
    Especially "picky" is Platinum Reflective Coating, which strongly depends on the system configuration and the player itself. We even have two reports, and I experienced myself twice in different hi-end systems with underpowered speakers, when the non-Pt disc sounded better than the Pt version. Put on a more powerful amp, and Pt shines.

    There is no difference in the sound between Pt SHM and non-Pt SHM versions in a regular system.
    Nevertheless, when it comes to Japanese Limited Ed. collectables, I always recommended:
    Stick to Platinum - it has great potential and in terms of value, and in the case of a system upgrade in the future.
    I did it (upgrade) myself in the right moment (Post #1088, page 44) and it pays off now.

    Ultimate HQCD (UHQCD) - new CD format, King Crimson on UHQCD and more
     
  16. Time Is On My Side

    Time Is On My Side Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison, WI
    It makes as much difference as coloring the edges of the disc with green markers.
     
  17. toilet_doctor

    toilet_doctor "Rockin' chair's got me"

    Location:
    USA
    Thank you very much, Time Is On My Side.
    For what?
    For do not mentioning the "snake oil".
     
  18. Time Is On My Side

    Time Is On My Side Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison, WI
    The disc material makes no difference. It doesn't depend "on my system." Show me one, single blind test where someone was able to reliably determine that the disc material affected the sound quality. You know what don't answer the question. I'm not going to engage in an endless debate over what people think they hear and then have my findings invalidated because I don't have a system that costs $1,000,000.
     
  19. bbanderic

    bbanderic Forum Resident

    [in your mind]
     
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  20. toilet_doctor

    toilet_doctor "Rockin' chair's got me"

    Location:
    USA
    In my mind there are no doubts, since I tested them...
    But I was talking about professional opinion.

    Here is what Barry Diament, sound engineer and producer said about his SHM-CD, HQCD and Blu-spec CD experience:
    (Sorry, but I have to repeat this for those, who didn't read it in a first place).

    "A friend sent me a bunch of 2-disc sets that contained one SHM CD and a plain "vanilla" version, one Blue-spec and a plain version, one HQCD and a plain version. My expectations were not high as I figured these were marketing inventions. Then I listened.

    Listening to Mile's Davis "Round Midnight" on one set, I started to think it went beyond marketing. I thought that like all too many other "comparisons" I've heard, there were actually two different masterings. The sonic differences were so obvious, I was pretty sure they were done by different engineers, with different EQ.

    So, I set about to "prove" this to myself by extracting samples from both discs to the computer and running a "null" test. In a null test, the two files are synchronized - to the sample - and the polarity of one file is inverted. By mixing the two together, everything the files have in common, i.e., what is identical in both files, gets cancelled (or nulled). Only what is different between them remains.

    Much to my surprise, what remained was dead silence - all the way down. To me, this proved the two files were identical. When listening from the computer, as I've found in all cases where I've heard differences from different pressings played in a CD transport or CD player, the sonic differences were gone.

    This is what I've found when comparing CDs to the masters from which they were made. In all the years I've been creating CD masters (since January, 1983), I've never heard two from different plants that sound like each other and neither sounds indistinguishable from the master used to make it. To be clear, this has been my experience when the discs are played via a transport or player (*any* transport or player).

    Extracting the data to hard drive removes the differences and all the results sound (to me) indistinguishable from the master used to make them.

    So, my view is it depends on how you're going to listen. If you're going to extract the discs and listen via the computer, if the mastering is the same, a good extraction will sound identical to the master and there is no need for a "super" pressing. On the other hand, if you use a CD transport or CD player, the differences between different manufactured discs can range from subtle to (as in the case of the Miles Davis example I cited above) not at all subtle - actually quite obvious.
    That's my experience anyway.


    As with anything in audio, it depends on a combination of the resolving capability of the system and the individual listener's sensitivities.

    Best regards,

    Barry"
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2019
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  21. Veni Vidi Vici

    Veni Vidi Vici Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    So... the data on the discs is identical yet they sound quite different.
     
  22. toilet_doctor

    toilet_doctor "Rockin' chair's got me"

    Location:
    USA
    Yes, as strange as it seems.
    And you don't need 1 mil bucks system to verify that.
    Just take Pt and non-Pt versions in your local Hi-End store and try.
     
    Linger63 likes this.
  23. Claus

    Claus Senior Member

    Location:
    Germany
    The comparison tires vs pits is so funny. I have made a few comparisons on my high end system.... pt-shm vs non-pt (files on my MacBook Pro) and I could hear no differences!
     
    Time Is On My Side likes this.
  24. toilet_doctor

    toilet_doctor "Rockin' chair's got me"

    Location:
    USA
    P.S.
    I just want to thank Barry for taking his time and teach us, amateur people.
    I learn from his posts a lot.
     
  25. I've never seen an audio discussion go anywhere but into the gutter when double-blind comparison tests are brought up. Many experienced listeners believe these formats have something extra to offer over standard formats. Sure, the magnitude of the effects are probably exaggerated by manufacturers for their own benefit. But the gains in ultimate transparency achieved in the past few years show a consistent, if small, improvement. It's hard to pin down exactly where the improvements are all coming from in these Japanese discs.
     
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