Remasters and Audiophoolery?

[Kevin K]

That's funny Robert. Thanks Erin for sharing...now go work on your car.

[astrochex]

Thanks Erin, I now feel totally inadequate by merely walking into BestBuy and picking up Gary Clark Jr's latest CD because it was there.

But it does give me the idea to search deeper for versions of some Jethro Tull and ZZ Top CDs I have that seem to sound disappointing.

[erinh]

Cool! Yea, all I was trying to do is to make people aware that a 'Remaster' isn't the only version of an album that can be different. There can be numerous version of the same album released in the same year and have differences in the mix.

[astrochex]

That hoffman site is very very dangerous for my usage of time and my wallet. Its great, thanks!

[erinh]

Just a word of caution on something I forgot about until recently...

Sometimes sellers on Discogs will be located overseas. You'll notice it by the shipping price because typical domestic shipping is only a few bucks where international shipping is more than $7-10. If you are looking for a disc in a hurry make sure you check the seller's location. I ordered a disc nearly two weeks ago. It was shipped 9 days ago and it still hasn't arrived. Luckily, I wasn't in a hurry.

[erinh]

a new discovery for me...

I'm a fan of Madonna. Her singles that were played on the radio back when I was a kid were and have always been 'fun' to me. I've used her song "Live to Tell" from the greatest hits album The Immaculate Collection (TIC for short) on a few of my demo discs because of the large sense of space in the recording. I noticed the track doesn't sound the same on the album it was originally in: True Blue. Now I know why...


I got to researching her music and found out TIC was remastered in Q-Sound and I found this blurb on the SH forum which came from allmusic.com:

Everything on the collection is remastered in Q-sound, which gives an exaggerated sense of stereo separation that often distorts the original intent of the recordings.

So that would explain why I hear a difference in that track and others on TIC vs the original album versions, beyond the obvious remixing of sounds and track lengths. Just another example of how re-releases, greatest hits, etc tracks can be different from their originals.





For those who don't know, Q-Sound I pulled this from their site (http://www.qsound.com/):
"QSound’s proprietary audio algorithms truly deliver a fuller, more natural and immersive audio experience - users hear the difference!!"

Wiki link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QSound...d_in_QSound.22

As far as I can tell, the Q-Sound purpose is to basically emulate surround sound, of sorts. Apparently some recording engineers hate it, judging by this thread started by Steve Hoffman himself:
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thread...lready.238632/

For those interested, here's a list of Artists who use QSound in their recordings:
http://www.qsound.com/spotlight/user...ng-artists.htm

That list doesn't appear to be complete, however, because this link shows others that aren't on the list above. For example, Michael Jackson's Dangerous... another track that I like to use for the sense of space (the beginning guitar riff sounds WAY out there). Makes sense now that I know how it was mixed.
Further discussion regarding this album's original 1991 release vs the 2001 Special Edition release here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thread...s-2001.307016/


Alright... brain dump off.

[pocket5s]

I too had The Immaculate Collection cd and enjoyed the music of that time. I remember Vogue being one of those must have bass demo tracks that everyone had

[Babs]

I'll have to dig up the jewel case for the Dire Straits BIA remaster I have. Intrigued now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[erinh]

keeping this going...


I'm a huge fan of Matchbox Twenty (or Matchbox 20, depending on what year you're talking about ). I have been since I heard "Push" off their first Album Yourself or Someone Like You. But they really got their claws in me when I heard "Real World" for the first time. I bought the CD that day and it was the only CD I took with me on my trip to Europe that summer. I never got sick of it.

I have lots of great memories shared with their various albums over the years. The first concert my wife and I went to turned out to be the night they were filming their DVD "Show". So that was a really great time and helluva show.



I recently found a Japanese CD pressing of Yourself or Someone Like You, catalog # AMCY-2325, on eBay which I haven't seen before. Knowing how expensive this album can be (seriously, the LP sells for $350 (used) to as much as $750 (new)!) I decided to go ahead and buy this CD and see if it had a different or better master than the one I already owned. I didn't realize it when I ordered it but it turns out it's a Japanese Sample which are provided to radio stations and are not meant to be sold. There's actually a collector's market for these. Being the fan I am, I find it really cool that I inadvertently found one. Some people call it fate. LOL.


I ripped the disc using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) as I do with all these albums and then ran it through the Dynamic Range Database's (DRDB) Dynamic Range (DR) scanner. This does what you probably think it does: scans your songs and provides you the dynamic range information that you see on the DRDB site. You can download the tool for the PC/Mac via the "links" button at the top right of the DRDB site page. I posted a link to the DRDB results for this album here:
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/114709

Which you can compare to the original version here:
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/6996


Though, my DRDB results yield similar results to the others already posted there, it does seem mine has ever-so-slightly more DR on the majority of tracks (by about 1dB if that). I also did some spectrum comparisons between the Japanese disc and the US version I have. I compared "Real World" and "Back 2 Good" and at most, the difference was about 0.1dB and typically above 10khz. I found that interesting, but not convincing enough to think that this may just be pressing differences and not at all related to the mastering process. So, basically, I wasted $30 trying to get a 'better' version of the disc but ultimately I got a Japanese Sample which has a market in it's own right. Kind of cool!





I did a high quality scan of the cover at work so I can have the Japanese OBI* as part of the cover for my album art instead of the standard album cover. I also scanned the disc to show you what I mean about it being a Sample. Look at the inner ring and you'll see "Sample" written on it.
*Note: OBI is the insert that is slipped in the CD wrapper on the left of the CD case. The Japanese CDs with the OBI usually run a bit more than the ones without simply because they're a collector's piece as well.


Cover in the CD case:




Cover without case:





Disc:

[erinh]

just to show what I mean about why I scanned the album cover with the OBI, this is what I see when I play this on my iPhone:








As opposed to this:







I just plain think it's cool to see the Japanese strip on the side. I know, I know... nerd status.