With CD and SACD production back-logs nowadays, it's gotten pretty common for things to be delayed a bit. I don't know if Analog Sparks has a history of being punctual with their releases or not. That's why I wrote supposedly.
I'm curious how authoring would have an impact other than not messing something up. I've just never heard much about it.
SO stoked about this. Already preordered. AWATS is one of my favorite records ever made. God knows how many times I have played it over the years and it never fails to amaze me.
Yes I wonder what it entails as well. I am reminded of the Audio Fidelity Sly Stones Greatest Hits fiasco where it took three tries to get the mono SACD layer right. I still have my original screwed up disc, I just listen to the CD layer for that one.
Noticing that both albums are mastered by Kevin Gray although not sure what this means considering most rereleases use remastering to clean up the sound. Besides weren't AWATS' original source tapes lost? I welcome both rereleases but this sounds like a flat transfer no?
For what it's worth, When I last spoke to Marshall, he still had some corrected discs. That was maybe 2 months ago. He's reachable by phone during business hours.
That is exactly what I was thinking. I was always under the impression that AWATS had inferior sound quality, because the master tapes were lost.
That both releases are "mastered" rather than "remastered" seems to imply that no one found anything. Which could mean something....
The copy says "Mastered from the original stereo tapes", this should be a typical remastering no, they just didn't use the word remastering for whatever reason. Was DBX used on this tape? It seems like it anyway. Maybe Gray has some tricks up his sleeve for that. Regardless I think Gray will make the tapes sound as good as possible, and even if it still sounds not great that is ok with me as this album just gets lumped into the basket of albums that I grow to love the funky sound of them and am not sure what I would think if they ever changed.
I'm staying optimistic regarding AWATS since the ad does say Mastered from the original stereo tapes and Kevin Gray typically does a great job.
A CD layer is limited to 80 minutes (give or take), whereas a stereo SACD layer is limited to 255 minutes, 59 seconds and 74 frames (a frame = 1/75 second).
Original A Wizard, A True Star USA vinyl sounded top ended all treble no bass. The SACD should give the music more midrange magic. Really interested in hearing this version.
"Digitally Remastered" now seems to be a major selling point for most analog reissues that usually includes reequalization to compensate for the digital transfer. That both albums do not say this leads me to believe that Kevin Gray is working with a limited situation that we may learn more about in time. After all, the existing CDs are already "mastered from the original stereo tapes" so I'm not sure how repeating the process (if that's what's happening) would provide sonic improvement. However, if the new releases do sound better I am so down with that.
