13 posts
I'm thinking about grabbing this - https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&ialbum_id=14296. Anybody have any experience with hdtracks.com?
That's a good price for 5 albums. If you look on Amazon, four of those Rush albums are $5 (as CDs)... exit stage left is $10... so buying actual physical albums would run you $30. So HDtracks essentially does the ripping to FLAC or WAV for you for another $5. Personally, I'd buy the discs, but I like having discs, and discs are so friggin cheap nowadays...
Right, I'm thinking in terms of the remastered analog and recaptured at 96/24... buying them in that format. These are supposedly from the original analog masters, from what I've read in interviews with Alex. I have those CDs already, but the levels they printed those discs at back in the 80's were pretty low, think they could have brought them up some without any clipping, without even adding any compression. I don't want smashed, but I'd love to have those at a higher fidelity than I do now. Just wondering if it is noticeable.
RectoZilla — Jul 16, 2013Right, I'm thinking in terms of the remastered analog and recaptured at 96/24... buying them in that format. These are supposedly from the original analog masters, from what I've read in interviews with Alex. I have those CDs already, but the levels they printed those discs at back in the 80's were pretty low, think they could have brought them up some without any clipping, without even adding any compression. I don't want smashed, but I'd love to have those at a higher fidelity than I do now. Just wondering if it is noticeable.
Oh... I'm definitely the wrong person to ask... I'd take the dynamic range of those original albums over most everything mastered since the volume wars started... and even in very good listening environments I am 50/50 at picking 96k vs 44.1 blind.
I couldn't get the link to open when I tried. Will try again.
Not really sure exactly what this is, but i will say this. Exit Stage Left is one of the greatest albums ever. It is also one of the absolute WORST sounding recordings I have ever heard. HORRIBLY squashed, completely lifeless, and if not for the brilliant material, almost unlistenable bad fidelity. That was one of the first ( boldly advertised tight on the disc "all digital recording." I have the album and CD, and on my very nice (cough) stereo system, one of the worst sounding recordings I ever heard on it. I would pay a premium to get that redone with some actual fidelity.
I will be checking this out tomorrow!
I never cared much for the live album, but to me, Moving Pictures is just about perfect. I've listened to the 2009 "remaster" which I assume this comes from and everything I heard was a step backwards in terms of the mix... more compression, more mids and high-highs. "Modern"--woohoo!
I'm with you on Moving Pictures. One of the greatest albums ever.
I remember getting "Exit.." and on the package they were proudly proclaiming the "all digital recording" thing... That was back in my audiophile days (ducks) and I was reading The Absolute Sound and Stereophile magazines. They used to just slam the CD players of the day. Anyone remember the advertisements claiming "perfect sound forever" when CDs first come out.... only barely a year later to have significant improvements in CD players sound quality?
Anyway, I got Exit on CD first (so I could listen in the car of course) and was just in love with the album, but the sound was horrible. I quickly bought the album hoping it would be much better. It had the "all digital recording process" stickers on it as well. It sucked too!
I would hope that if the source material is not beyond help, that any remasters would actually open it up some, not compress it more. I don't think it CAN be squashed any more. I remember distinctly a friend of mine who heard my system often (he would come over just to listen to new albums on my system) and he was a Rush freak like I was. (Side note, of the 22 times I've seen Rush, he was with me at almost all of them. KMA KEV!) He heard "Exit and half way through the first song he said "this is great but this is the worst sound I've ever heard on your system." Untrained ear, only hear higher end stuff at my house, but immediately knew something was amiss. I told him it was all digital and explained again that it "wasn't perfect sound forever." I'll never forget how disappointed he was in the sound though. I remember him saying "I come over here just to hear them on a great system but I might as well listen to this in my car." You will probably only get this if you have some knowledge of the audiophile scene at the time but he was so disappointed, that after the album he said "Put on that James Newton Howard and Friends album so I can hear the REAL system." It was a Sheffield 1/2 speed master recording album I had that was stunning. The Rush sound was so bad he wanted to listen to it after "Exit" just so he didn't leave with that being the last thing he heard on my system!
Anyway, I'd be interested to hear how this sounds. If it's BETTER, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
Just browsed a thread about this http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/rush-at-hdtracks.318029/ and I'm not touching these. LOL...
RectoZilla — Jul 17, 2013Just browsed a thread about this http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/rush-at-hdtracks.318029/ and I'm not touching these. LOL...
This cracks me up.
More posts about waveforms and DR values than about whether or not they sound good. Come on folks!
I think the fact that the "Exit-Stage Left" remaster has RMS values hovering in the -7 to -9dB range actually tells you a lot. Like, "this didn't sound very good so we made it REALLY FUCKING LOUD." Note that Moving Pictures, which already sounded so good as source, got the lightest "remaster" treatment--it's hovering in the -12dB range RMS... which, to me, is still a very loud master.
DTR, I got lost somewhere in that story... was the point that digital recordings suck? Dire Straits' "Brothers In Arms" was all digital and I still find that to be a hauntingly beautiful album. Don't confuse the medium with the medium... it's possible that Rush just doesn't sound as good recorded with a bunch of SM57s on mobile rigs in all sorts of different arenas as they sounded when recorded in a studio. The studio is an instrument too.
Charger, sorry about the side show. The point was not that digital sucks. It was that EARLY digital sucked. The sampling rates were too low. The playback devices were inadequate... I have several other CDs from that time that were flaunting "all digital recording and mastering" that are dull, lifeless albums. And, I'm not talking about the same thing you are. I don't just mean that they are slammed. They SOUND very synthetic. Not real at all. To go back to Rush, while Alex often used a heavily processed and compressed guitar sound during this era, it still sounded good. But on the other albums, Geddy's bass always had a certain bounce too it and needless to say Neal's drums (when acoustic" always sounded huge and of course the playing was phenomenal. Exit was an extremely synthetic sounding album. The bass didn't have the normal character, nor did the drums.
No CD back then sounded as good as an album on a good turntable, but even this album sounded BAD. One of my favorite albums, and one of the worst sounding I've heard.
keep in mind, all of these observations are based on listening through a pretty high resolution system, but it also applies even to every car stereo that I've played it on.
Adding to that is the fact that any manipulation back then would cause "rounding" errors to basically make it a 14 or 15-bit recording!
The one thing I didn't know that came up in that thread--Moving Pictures was mixed to a 16-bit, 44.1k master. Interesting because, to me, this is easily the best-sounding Rush album. And it's not even 24 bit! And also interesting because any "HD" remaster of this starts with CD-quality audio... so essentially there's nothing in the remaster that's going to go above the Nyquist limit of the original source at 22k, except induced noise. The remaster is working with the same files you have on your CD from 1981!