I guess you were right, "The First Ten Years" is not louder but a little bit quieter. I think what I had in memory was due to the fact that I always listen to these versions at a louder volume, because they sound so good. By the way, the biggest difference is for the "Piece of Mind" tracks "Flight of Icarus" and "The Trooper", these sound miles better than on the regular EMI CD. But also for TNOTB tracks, I like the EP versions better. Looking at the wave-forms, it looks like the polarity is inverted between the EMI UK CD and the First Ten Years EP. Maybe this has an influence on the sound quality?
O.k., here's a frequency comparison of the song "Run to the Hills" between the EMI UK non-remastered CD and the EP "The First Ten Years". This shows that "The First Ten Years" is indeed a little bit lower in volume (maybe an average of 1 dB). If you adjust the volume (= move the thick horizontal black line from 0 dB to - 1 dB), then this will illustrate the EQ differences.
Roland, I don't think the EMI 2-CD packaging had the the band name like this one. It is indeed the colored side (with the art) and not the tracklist that was printed directly on the back cover/tray insert. Anyway, here's a picture of the Castle 1-disc Powerslave: Note that this is totally different from the current remasters. The picture disc is exactly the same as the 2-CD version. Some single disc versions, like Brian said, with the white back instead.
Brian, as far as I know, the EMI 2-CD sets did not come with a bonus disc insert (the bonus disc information was printed in the back tray on top of an X-Factor background). For Killers, the 2-CD version you want is the Castle since it is the only place where the song Wrathchild from Maiden Japan can only be found on CD! Sorry to deviate from the OP's original intent, but it's sort of a comparison, right?
I replaced the EMI with a CASTLE (2CD), not an EMI (2CD), sorry I didn't put that tidbit in there. Isn't "Maiden Japan" on one of those 1st 10 Years discs?
Maiden Japan is in The First Ten Years set, but it doesn't have Wrathchild because the song was part of Maiden Japan only in the US/North American release. The First Ten Years stays faithful to UK/Europe releases. The EMI 2-CD sets also stay faithful to the UK/Europe releases by omitting Sanctuary from the 1st album and Twilight Zone from Killers, but the songs are included in the bonus discs. Also Wrathchild is not in the bonus disc that has Maiden Japan in it because it wasn't released there.
That is correct, although the EMI version (both original CD and 2-CD set) sounds better than the Castle CD for the main album of "Killers" (the Castle CD features the US Capitol mastering). Another case where you really want the Castle 2-CD vs. the EMI 2-CD set is the first album "Iron Maiden". I like the mastering of the main album much better on the Castle CD compared to the EMI CD (again, the Castle CD features the Capitol CD mastering, which is superior to the EMI mastering for the first album but inferior for "Killers"). All just my opinion, of course.
Actually (and much to my dismay), the Killers EMI 2CD doesn't feature Maiden Japan at all, not one single track... I still have to get me a Castle 2CD for that very reason!
I stand corrected! I only have a couple of the EMI 2-CD sets and Killers is not one of them! I just assumed that it would have the 4 songs off Maiden Japan just like the First Ten Years did.
Figures I sold a better mastering with "Killers". Where's my time machine...I would NEVER get one in the same shape used.
And here's the Piece of Mind table from Roland's thread. Please post matrix numbers, etc to fill it up, also the data for the EMI 2CD UK set.
My favorite Iron Maiden CD masterings – song by song: All 8 tracks from self-titled “Iron Maiden”: US Castle 2-CD (or US Capitol) Sanctuary: US Castle 2-CD (or US Capitol) Burning Ambition: US Castle 2-CD (or The First Ten Years Vol. 1) Drifter (Live): US Castle 2-CD (or The First Ten Years Vol. 1) I’ve Got The Fire (Live): US Castle 2-CD (or The First Ten Years Vol. 1) Women In Uniform: The First Ten Years Vol. 2 Invasion: The First Ten Years Vol. 2 Phantom Of The Opera (Live): The First Ten Years Vol. 2 Twilight Zone: The First Ten Years Vol. 2 The Ides Of March: EMI UK/WG/Japan Wrathchild: The First Ten Years Vol. 2 Murders In The Rue Morgue: EMI UK/WG/Japan Another Life: EMI UK/WG/Japan Genghis Khan: The First Ten Years Vol. 3 Innocent Excile: EMI UK/WG/Japan Killers: EMI UK/WG/Japan Prodigal Son: EMI UK/WG/Japan Purgatory: The First Ten Years Vol. 3 Drifter: EMI UK/WG/Japan Running Free (Live – Maiden Japan): The First Ten Years Vol. 3 Remember Tomorrow (Live – Maiden Japan): The First Ten Years Vol. 3 Wrathchild (Live – Maiden Japan): US Castle 2-CD (only source) Killers (Live – Maiden Japan): The First Ten Years Vol. 3 Innocent Excile (Live – Maiden Japan): The First Ten Years Vol. 3 Invaders: EMI UK/WG/Japan Children Of The Damned: EMI UK/WG/Japan The Prisoner: EMI UK/WG/Japan 22 Acacia Avenue: EMI UK/WG/Japan The Number Of The Beast: The First Ten Years Vol. 4 Run To The Hills: The First Ten Years Vol. 4 Gangland: EMI UK/WG/Japan Hallowed Be Thy Name: EMI UK/WG/Japan Total Eclipse: The First Ten Years Vol. 4 (or US Castle 2-CD) Remember Tomorrow (Live w/ Bruce): The First Ten Years Vol. 4 (or US Castle 2-CD) Where Eagles Dare: all original masterings I’ve heard sound very similar and not that good Revelations: all original masterings I’ve heard sound very similar and not that good Flight Of Icarus: The First Ten Years Vol. 5 Die With Your Boots On: all original masterings I’ve heard sound very similar and not that good The Trooper: The First Ten Years Vol. 5 Still Life: all original masterings I’ve heard sound very similar and not that good Quest For Fire: all original masterings I’ve heard sound very similar and not that good Sun And Steel: all original masterings I’ve heard sound very similar and not that good To Tame A Land: all original masterings I’ve heard sound very similar and not that good I’ve Got The Fire: The First Ten Years Vol. 5 Corss-Eyed Mary: The First Ten Years Vol. 5 To be continued.
Here's a frequency comparison between for "Piece of Mind". The tracks on "The First Ten Years" sounds so much better, the regular mastering is just way too bright in my opinion and is missing the nice lower midrange. You can also see that the JPN Pastmasters and the US Castle are based on the same original analog to digital mastering and have just a 0.2 dB level difference.
It's not that hard. The chart illustrates the EQ differences between two (or more) different CD masterings. If you have a CD with the same mastering but simply a level shift of 0.2 dB, then the result should be a horizontal line on the chart. Just look at the blue line, it shows a horizontal line when you subtract the level values for each frequency, in this case the "US Castle 2-CD" minus the "JPN Pastmasters". The "US Castle 2-CD" is 0.2 dB louder over all frequencies, so when you subtract one from the other, the result is a constant 0.2 dB. You do the following in Excel: (CD mastering 1) minus (CD mastering 2) for each frequency When you do this for other masterings, you do not get a horizontal line. If the value for a certain frequency value (x-axis) is above 0 dB, it means that the (CD mastering 1) has "more level" for that frequency than (CD mastering 2). For a smiley-faced CD mastering, you would get a similar curve as the red/green one if you subtract a flat transfer (without EQ) from it.
Could somebody create a EQ profile for CoolEditPro which would compensate the EQ for the green or red mastering to get something close to the mastering of "The First Ten Years" set. Something like: - 2 dB below 100 Hz + 1.5 dB around 400 Hz - 3.5 dB around 2.5 kHz - 3.5 dB around 13.5 kHz with respective slope/bandwidth values so that the result would make the green/red curve close to 0 dB. I don't know how to do EQ changes in CoolEditPro, but I would like to try it on this mastering to see if it does sound better then.
In this case, no, because we don't know how the master tape sounds. A line does not represent a mastering but the difference between two masterings. For the blue line it simply means that these two masterings are basically the same (same frequency response, just a 0.2 dB level shift).
So we've found that for Piece of Mind: 1. Japan CP32 black triangle 2. Japan Pastmasters II 3. original UK EMI 4. and Castle 2CD Are most probably all the same. Castle 2CD and Pastmasters, based on Roland's graph, are certainly the same, only a slight level difference. Only the Capitol differs by levels, which are not repeated on any other CD, but if you calculate the ratios it turns out it is the same for all tracks, i.e. the Capitol is about 4.6-4.7% quieter than the CP32 for all tracks and about 2.2-2.3% quieter than the Pastmasters, again for all tracks. Based on this I believe we can safely conclude that Piece of Mind uses the same mastering for all CDs in the colour table, only levels differ a bit. To be 100% sure we also need to put all of them on a graph to see if the EQ is the same, but my guess is that it is. The 2 tracks from The First 10 Years use a different mastering. Can't say if I like it better or not, listening on my PC system, which is not hi-fi at all. When I get an external DAC+Amp in the next 2-3 weeks I will be able to make more precise listening and plug in my analytical Etymotic in ear monitors.
Wow - surprised to see that the US Castle doesn't match the US Capitol in this case and instead mirrors the UK EMI. Guess that one is the same as the one I had before (the only EMIs I owned were the previously mentioned KILLERS and PoM, plus LIVE AT DONNINGTON which I never replaced as Castle didn't put out an expanded edition).
Live At Donnington wasn't worth bonus tracks, Live Maiden at its worse, unenthuastic and very unhappy, I know I was there
Here comes: IRON MAIDEN / Piece Of Mind EMI 7243 8 35871 2 4 UK: CDEM 1573 MATRIX: EMI 8360392 CDM01 / 1-1-3-NL Marketed And Distributed By EMI Made In Holland Total time: 0:46:01.37 Pista 1 Nombre de Archivo 01. Track01.wav Nivel Pico 80.9 % Calidad de Pista 100.0 % Test CRC 8BF4BF0B No se puede verificar como preciso (confianza 33) [E8ABAEAD], AccurateRip devuelto [220AA0C8] Copia OK Pista 2 Nombre de Archivo 02. Track02.wav Nivel Pico 81.6 % Calidad de Pista 100.0 % Test CRC 2A920FAB No se puede verificar como preciso (confianza 34) [01903144], AccurateRip devuelto [60EBCA37] Copia OK Pista 3 Nombre de Archivo 03. Track03.wav Nivel Pico 83.1 % Calidad de Pista 100.0 % Test CRC 4F41B198 No se puede verificar como preciso (confianza 35) [157444BE], AccurateRip devuelto [138F44CA] Copia OK Pista 4 Nombre de Archivo 04. Track04.wav Nivel Pico 83.1 % Calidad de Pista 99.9 % Test CRC FFBAE3F8 No se puede verificar como preciso (confianza 34) [0CD90DF1], AccurateRip devuelto [C996C1DA] Copia OK Pista 5 Nombre de Archivo 05. Track05.wav Nivel Pico 82.9 % Calidad de Pista 100.0 % Test CRC 93CAAF1F No se puede verificar como preciso (confianza 35) [4A3D914E], AccurateRip devuelto [897A62C3] Copia OK Pista 6 Nombre de Archivo 06. Track06.wav Nivel Pico 83.1 % Calidad de Pista 100.0 % Test CRC 1FFBDD07 No se puede verificar como preciso (confianza 35) [08E6DCDB], AccurateRip devuelto [E6C2F104] Copia OK Pista 7 Nombre de Archivo 07. Track07.wav Nivel Pico 83.1 % Calidad de Pista 100.0 % Test CRC 628328D0 No se puede verificar como preciso (confianza 34) [4A24DBDD], AccurateRip devuelto [D2A32A26] Copia OK Pista 8 Nombre de Archivo 08. Track08.wav Nivel Pico 75.0 % Calidad de Pista 100.0 % Test CRC 292BF813 No se puede verificar como preciso (confianza 33) [C5F67291], AccurateRip devuelto [3A6554A8] Copia OK Pista 9 Nombre de Archivo 09. Track09.wav Nivel Pico 78.7 % Calidad de Pista 100.0 % Test CRC 75703399 No se puede verificar como preciso (confianza 34) [3D28ECF6], AccurateRip devuelto [D8C9BDC7] Copia OK No se verificará ninguna pista como precisa Puede que tengas una edición diferente a la(s) de la base de datos Sin Errores Final del Informe
