I took a break yesterday from my Rush marathon to listen to this in full and honestly, I am not hearing any audible distortion on the remaster that wasn't present on the channel-matched HDTracks version I have - and while both are fantastic in terms of sheer fidelity I give the remaster the edge again for more satiafying low end and a bit tamer high end to make it more crankable than ever before - in my own opinion of course! Considering the fantastic job with this I am really stoked to see what they will do with SOTT. That is an album that can really benefit from a bit of tasteful remastering such as this
Streaming off Amazon Music Unlimited HD. You can get DR numbers for vinyl as well. Vinyl is often cut from the same horrid compressed masters used for the CD and digital download. Have no idea how the 1999 vinyl sounds or if it was taken from the same compressed master.
Right, but DR numbers would be higher for the vinyl due to artifacts or whatever. I should have known you were talking about the digital files. I won't give the main album a listen for distortions, but I'll use my HP for the Vault discs and see what I hear.
Amazon. If amazon.com doesn't have it anymore, amazon.co.uk , amazon.fr and amazon.it still have it. I'm listening to the first Vault CD at this very moment. Got this set this weekend (from amazon.it). It also seemed to be scarce from Dutch retailers, so I did have to look around a bit to get it.
They currently list it as Back Order and are accepting orders so I imagine they are expecting more in. They usually take titles down pretty quickly if there's no chance of a re-stock.
Only issue being those locations support the PAL video format. But I don't see a region lock warning which is hopeful.
I got the 2LP version and it sounds awful compared to the original WB pressing. Not sure on the source but I'd wager it's from the same masters.
Electric Fetus in Minneapolis has it on their website for $69.99 and showing it in stock: Prince - 1999: Remastered [Super Deluxe 5CD/DVD] | Electric Fetus
The USA seems to be the only country that's tech-locked in this way. All through Europe and most of the rest of the world, almost all players and televisions can handle both PAL and NTSC.
My only nitpicky bits are: A) the DVD could have been handled better. I have a 20-year old copy with the drop-outs fixed. WB could have EASILY done that. B) Sides 5-8 could have seen some better shuffling of the tracks as opposed to same songs being back-to-back Regardless, it's definitely a must-own! VERY glad to have great sounding vault tracks as opposed to the low-gen copies floating around on my Prince drive. (Yes, he has his own 1TB drive over here )
Amazon US only has an EU import box for $160. Got a US copy for my wife locally for Xmas for around $55.
My local has unexpected bargains on occasion. Got a NM purple Capitol White Album w/inserts for $10 awhile back.
Exactly. Then I'd go with ad180's suggestion of Electric Fetus at $70 if I was in DIRE need. Ultimately, NOTHING of this magnitude goes out-of-print given the estate's hand-over-fist intentions. 'Originals' Deluxe Purple Vinyl was strictly limited edition blah blah and that sold-out instantly only to reappear several weeks later and is at this moment available. This issue is just a post holiday depletion. Just a little patience....yeaaaah, yeah....
I keep looking for new ways to listen to those great outtakes, so I've also taken the opportunity to reprogramme Controversy with some of those late-'81 outtakes. Controversy has always seemed to me like a mish-mash of Prince's best work to date (the title track, 'Sexuality'), stuff that had been sitting on the shelf a couple of years and, after Dirty Mind, now sounded old ('Do Me, Baby', 'Let's Work'), and throwaways ('Ronnie, Talk to Russia', 'Jack U Off'), so I ditched two-thirds of the album and came up with: Side One: Controversy Sexuality V*g*n* Feel U Up Side Two: Wouldn't You Love to Love Me? Make Up Annie Christian Rearrange Which will do me (baby) until the Controversy deluxe set arrives and I get to do it all over again. Don't worry, all the displaced album tracks from this album and 1999 have found a home as non-album b-sides on my Prince 1981-1983 singles cryptodiscography! I also finally got around to compiling a Purple Rain soundtrack double album, which I guess a lot of fans will have done a long time ago. This is my version: Side One: Let's Go Crazy Jungle Love - The Time Take Me With U - Prince & Apollonia The Beautiful Ones Side Two: Computer Blue Modernaire - Dez Dickerson Possessed Darling Nikki Side Three: Father's Song (trimmed down to under two minutes - just the piano and piano / synth iterations of the theme before 'When Doves Cry' crashes in. Needed to be cut to make an under twenty minute album side and allow the whole thing to fit on a single CD, plus I didn't want to drag this side town with two lengthy instrumentals) When Doves Cry Sex Shooter - Apollonia 6 (album version faded to deal with the abrupt ending) God (Love Theme) (UK 12" b-side instrumental) Side Four: The Bird (Single Edit) - The Time (used the edit in order to preserve side and album length) I Would Die 4 U Baby I'm a Star Purple Rain [plus I added the 'Darling Nikki' coda, unreversed, as a hidden track at the very end, to give both discs rhymed endings.)
