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Thread: Remasters and Audiophoolery?

  1. Back To Top    #21

    Re: Remasters and Audiophoolery?

    alright, you Rage Against the Machine fans...

    Stop what you're doing now. Buy this album:
    https://audiofidelity.net/product/ra...gainst-machine






    Yes, it's SACD. BUT it's Hybrid SACD which means it has two layers: one SACD and one audio CD. This means it will play on regular CD players as well.



    This came out in June and I had no idea until recently. I finally ordered it last week and have been listening to it back and forth over the weekend compared to the original and I have to say I love this version. This one is more dynamic than the original album and is less bright on the top end. It sounds incredible. Steve Hoffman, the dude who owns the forum I've linked and discussed in my OP is the dude who remastered this album and he did a heck of a job. You can find discussion here:
    http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thread...coming.530305/

    He said this:
    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Hoffman, post: 14210246, member: 2
    I enjoyed mastering this.

    DSD right from the September, 1992 original analog masters from Quantum Sound Studios, Jersey City, NJ!



    Here's the DRDB info for the various S/T albums:
    http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/li...st+the+machine

    Look at how this Rage Against The Machine (Hybrid SACD, CD Layer) version rates higher than any of the other CDs; about 2dB better than the original disc.
    *Especially note how bad the DR of the "HD Tracks" version is... Looks like it is the same version as the 2012 20th anniversary release that is brick walked to hell). that really bucks the notion that the HDTracks 24-bit stuff is the absolute best in every case, but that's a different post for a later time.

    If the link above is out of stock, I advise you look at eBay or Discogs. If you're a die-hard RATM like I am, this is a no-excuses-must-own version. This was a limited, numbered run of 5000 copies and I'm not sure that Audio Fidelity will do another run. I'm considering buying a backup copy just to keep as a collector's edition.
    Last edited by erinh; 09-10-2016 at 06:20 PM.

  2. Back To Top    #22

    Re: Remasters and Audiophoolery?

    I was super disappointed the high res formats didn't take off. I invested in a player that would play both, figuring one would stick around........then watched both formats completely flop......I've got several discs of sacd, and DVD audio, somewhere......gathering dust since that player got replaced with a blue ray compatible device......

    Nice find on the rage sacd!

  3. Back To Top    #23

    Re: Remasters and Audiophoolery?

    I didn't get invested in to the high-res stuff (SACD, DVD-A). I really just couldn't afford it at the time it came out.

    It's kind of funny that I've gotten more and more in to collecting different masters of albums. But I tell you, some of them are flat out gems. And it keeps my demo discs interesting to me because it drives me to pursue better versions than the ones people are used to hearing. I still have people comment to me about demo discs I made years ago and I get a kick out of that. Cool knowing people enjoy those discs years later. Wish I could share them more freely but that's not quite legal so... lol.

  4. Back To Top    #24
    Noob naiku's Avatar
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    Re: Remasters and Audiophoolery?

    Quote Originally Posted by BigAl205 View Post
    I'm one of those guys who hated to buy a whole album for just 2-3 good songs
    Funny thing is I am the complete opposite, or at least was. Typically in the UK it would cost about £2-£3 for a CD single, while I bought a ton of those I usually preferred to spend the £10-£12 on a full album in the off chance there might be other songs I liked. Made for some pretty dud CD's in my collection, but also some other songs I did not know about. At some point it would be nice to pull all mine out of storage and rip them properly, most are MP3 of 128kb - 320kb but it would be nice to rip them all to FLAC.

    Quote Originally Posted by erinh View Post
    And it keeps my demo discs interesting to me because it drives me to pursue better versions than the ones people are used to hearing. I still have people comment to me about demo discs I made years ago and I get a kick out of that.
    I love getting the different demo discs from the meets, its always interesting to me hearing what other people like to listen to and especially finding something new. I should also add, I really appreciate the time people take to make a demo disc, I wanted to make one for the meet I had last month. Got as far as putting together about 6 songs I wanted to include, but it can be tough figuring out exactly what to put on there, especially when you have almost 10,000 songs to look through (and then in my case would have to hunt down the CD in order to rip those particular tracks).
    Another white wagon.
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  5. Back To Top    #25

    Re: Remasters and Audiophoolery?

    I make my discs with music I like and I try my best to find the highest quality/best remasters of them. I know a lot of the 'audiophile' mixes have stuff I just plain don't listen to. Others might, but it's not my preferred music. I figure if I put music on that I enjoy then maybe others will dig a few of the tracks as well. Most of the stuff is 80's but some of it is newer. It's a pretty wide variety.

    The way I pick the songs is to simply keep a 'note' on my iPhone that I update as I hear or think of a song that would be fun to put on a demo disc. Right now I've got a lot of tracks ready for my next meet disc. Some I've used before but they are different masters. For example, "Take the Power Back" by RATM. I've been using that for years (2008 at my first GTG) and have found a lot of people using it as well. With the new remaster I posted about above, I'll probably either put that track on my new one or pick a different one off that album.

    Same thing goes for the latest CD I bought: The Cars - Heartbeat City, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Hybrid SACD version. It came out in July, I believe and I just got it Monday. So far, I'm really happy with the purchase. I'll probably use either "Drive" or "You Might Think", both of which I've used in the past but this version is different enough to warrant re-using them.
    https://www.musicdirect.com/store/th...on-hybrid-sacd

    Basically, if it's on my disc, it's something I'm digging at the time either because it's new to me or I have 'rediscovered' it and I try to use the best version of whatever song it is that I can find. I really do put a lot of effort in to making my discs... song choice wise I know people don't dig them all but my goal is to provide the best version they could possibly hear.

  6. Back To Top    #26
    Noob naiku's Avatar
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    Re: Remasters and Audiophoolery?

    Exactly how I planned to make a disc, stuff I listen to that I figured would be fun to put on a CD for others. Same method as well, keep a note on my phone of things I hear while driving that I think would be neat to use for one reason or another.
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  7. Back To Top    #27

    Re: Remasters and Audiophoolery?

    Quote Originally Posted by erinh View Post

    Same thing goes for the latest CD I bought: The Cars - Heartbeat City, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Hybrid SACD version. It came out in July, I believe and I just got it Monday. So far, I'm really happy with the purchase. I'll probably use either "Drive" or "You Might Think", both of which I've used in the past but this version is different enough to warrant re-using them.
    https://www.musicdirect.com/store/th...on-hybrid-sacd

    I finally got some time to listen to this album tonight. My family went to bed and I have been sitting on the couch in the dark listening to this on my iPod through my IEM's and am in auditory nirvana. Lol.




    This is an incredible remaster. I have the original version in ALAC and compared the two. I don't think the new SACD is necessarily light years ahead but goodness, it's certainly better, IMHO. Everything about it sounds so dang good. I'm not in the industry at all. I don't know all the terms (heck, I had to google remaster vs remix earlier when I was talking to Chad just to make sure I knew the difference when Chad asked me about the disc). But I do really appreciate music and the way that the nostalgia of it can really put a smile on my face. So here's my humble-enthusiast take on this remaster.

    The bass lines are sharp and defined. Kick drums have great impact at varying volume levels. I hear distinct separation in instruments and an expanded soundstage ... (Maybe one of these aspects has improved and causing me to feel the other has as well. Either way, that's the impression I'm left with.).

    Take, for instance, "Magic". The panning effects at the beginning define the acoustic boundary. The kick comes in and sounds smooth. Bass pluck is crisp and defined (I will say that in my head I would imagine the kick drum should sound louder than the bass guitar but it doesn't on the track and I'm probably wrong for this assumption anyway). Ric's little click-clock sound with his mouth at ~1 minute mark pans out wide on the left and is a cool example of the little extras I enjoy in music. Tons of layering effects throughout that really set the imaging cues to make the stage seem large.

    Just really cool stuff here. I'm digging the heck out of this album. It sounds so good that even the songs I didn't necessarily care for have gotten multiple plays tonight.
    Last edited by erinh; 09-19-2016 at 07:56 AM.
    -- SQ is great, but sometimes nostalgia is greater. --


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  8. Back To Top    #28

    Re: Remasters and Audiophoolery?

    Quote Originally Posted by ErinH View Post
    Look at how this Rage Against The Machine (Hybrid SACD, CD Layer) version rates higher than any of the other CDs; about 2dB better than the original disc.
    *Especially note how bad the DR of the "HD Tracks" version is... Looks like it is the same version as the 2012 20th anniversary release that is brick walked to hell). that really bucks the notion that the HDTracks 24-bit stuff is the absolute best in every case, but that's a different post for a later time.

    So now it's a later time and I'm ready for a different post.

    As I said above, it's often assumed that HDTracks.com has the best versions one can get of an album but this isn't always the case. For evidence, just look at the DRDB results for the RATM S/T album.

    Original 1992:
    http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/5073


    2012 anniversary reissue:
    http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/56873


    HDTracks 24-bit:
    http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/113401


    2016 remaster (SACD/CD Hybrid):
    http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/112871


    You can clearly tell the HDTracks version is just the 20th anniversary release. It's actually 3dB LOWER than the original album. And 5dB lower than the new remaster. Those who spent $20 on that download wasted their money, IMHO. You'd have been better off just keeping the original disc in it's "inferior" 16-bit state.




    However, on the other hand, I purchased a Matchbox Twenty's North album from HDTracks because it's about 4dB more dynamic than the CD. Here's the proof:
    http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/li...ty&album=north

    As you can see, the HDTracks version is about 4dB more dynamic than the original CD pressing.


    Those are just two examples, then. As you can imagine, HDTracks is hit or miss as far as getting the best quality version of an album.

    I'm telling you guys, when it comes to that site it really behooves you to do some research. Even just a quick search on the DRDB site can save you money. I found that out the hard way.

    You expect something when you buy from them. But that's not always what you get. It's not necessarily their fault, per se. It's just... Maybe a bit disingenuous. But now you've been warned...


    -- SQ is great, but sometimes nostalgia is greater. --


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  9. Back To Top    #29

    Re: Remasters and Audiophoolery?

    RIP George Michael. This quote/bump is for you!


    Quote Originally Posted by erinh View Post
    I'm gonna give another example, real time, about my 'process' here. I may be making too big a deal about said 'process' but it kind of gives a clearer example to the ADHD above.


    Last night I was listening to Apple Music's mix playlist of 80's hits and George Michaels' "Faith" came on. I flat out just dig this song. Side note: if you haven't noticed it, the intro to "Faith" has a throwback to GM/Wham's "Freedom" song via pipe organ.








    Now, I already have a ripped version of the original US album but it got me curious if there may be a different version or two out there that might be noticeably different. So I pull up the Steve Hoffman forum and do a search. I get quite a few hits. Notably these:
    http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thread....160779/page-2
    http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thread...t-2010.223185/

    The first discusses the SQ of GM's first two albums and the latter discusses the 2010 Remaster release. I do a bit of digging in the threads and find that for the original release, the preferred versions are 32•8P-231 (original Japanese pressing) and the original US version (catalog number/barcode number CK 40867/074644086720).

    As for the 2010 remaster, it's received pretty well. I didn't find a consensus on the remaster being excellent but just some posts here and there saying they liked it. So... yea.

    With all that said, buy the one that fits your needs best. I wound up getting the Japanese pressing for about $8 shipped (it was the last one they had at that price).



    The cool part about doing this process is the other things you run in to. For example, I found this article discussing the recording of the album that was really quite cool:
    http://www.soundonsound.com/people/c...-michael-faith

    And if you read through the 2010 Remaster thread linked above you'll find all sorts of little nuggets. For example, this post:
    http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thread...#post-11816079
    -- SQ is great, but sometimes nostalgia is greater. --


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  10. Back To Top    #30
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    Re: Remasters and Audiophoolery?

    Saw the last post about GM and remembered how much I used to demo "Faith" when I worked in AV back in the 90's. I had itunes up on my computer and searched and was surprised that I didn't have a copy of it. So, I did a quick search and picked it up on discogs for about $6 shipped. One of my other favorite demo songs for rock back in the day was "Dancing in the street" by Van Halen off of Diver Down. I have it on one of the VH greatest hits compilations but always felt that it was compressed to hell. After reading this thread several weeks ago I searched the loudness wars site and found that the original Diver Down pressing was the one to get. Quick search and discog and I had a mint copy a few days later.

    Thanks for the info Erin! I had been in the habit of buying anything new on HD tracks but had found that some of the "remasters" sounded worse than the original CD on the home system. The loudness wars site helped to confirm my suspicions and saves some money. HD tracks needs to do a better job.

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