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Not another Nightfly!

 
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hardlok



Joined: 02 Aug 2011
Posts: 17

PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 5:21 pm    Post subject: Not another Nightfly! Reply with quote

Yup, the umpteenth version of my favourite jazz pop album will be release Sep 14.

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=WPCR-14170

Does any Nightfly fan here feel that the SACD will sound about the same as the definitive DVD-A/DualDisc high definition pcm release? Or perhaps the 24/48 resolution of the 3M digital master really can benefit from transcoding to DSD? In which case, maybe I will do this on my own, now that Korg Audio Station allows this. Burning to SACD-R will allow me to test out a possible theory (not mine) that DSD does something to make music sound "better".

Any comments welcome!
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The Seventh Taylor



Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 401

PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 5:31 pm    Post subject: Re: Not another Nightfly! Reply with quote

hardlok wrote:
Yup, the umpteenth version of my favourite jazz pop album will be release Sep 14.
...
Does any Nightfly fan here feel that the SACD will sound about the same as the definitive DVD-A/DualDisc high definition pcm release? Or perhaps the 24/48 resolution of the 3M digital master really can benefit from transcoding to DSD?

I seriously doubt it. I think DVD-Audio is perfectely suited for giving back what has been captured in 24/48 PCM.

Yet, I may buy it. Not because I'm a completist (though I do tend to be) but because I still haven't got any of the other high-res/multichannel reissues.

See http://dvd-a.net/nightfly.html

And it does remain one of my favourite albums.

Quote:
... will allow me to test out a possible theory (not mine) that DSD does something to make music sound "better".

Interesting thought but I don't really buy it. I read an interesting statement about loudspeakers the other day:

The best speaker is not the one that gives the most but that takes away the least.

I think it's exactly like that with codecs, or with any element of the whole sound reproduction chain for that matter (cables, amplifiers, etc.)
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hardlok



Joined: 02 Aug 2011
Posts: 17

PostPosted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:09 pm    Post subject: Re: Not another Nightfly! Reply with quote

The Seventh Taylor wrote:
Yet, I may buy it. Not because I'm a completist (though I do tend to be) but because I still haven't got any of the other high-res/multichannel reissues.

And it does remain one of my favourite albums.

Interesting thought but I don't really buy it. I read an interesting statement about loudspeakers the other day:

The best speaker is not the one that gives the most but that takes away the least.

I think it's exactly like that with codecs, or with any element of the whole sound reproduction chain for that matter (cables, amplifiers, etc.)


Thanks for your thoughts. At a whopping $38 excluding shipping, this Japanese re-release makes me hesitate to be a completist, much as I would love to own this title. Or should I just wait for the SHM-SACD edition which I am SURE they will trump up next? Or the SHM-HQ SACD iteration?

Regarding the statement about loudspeakers. it has some truth in it, but there is also subjectivity in generalizing on the word "best", because some music lovers prefer loudspeakers that are romantic, editorializing and even artificially euphonic in character. And the loudspeakers that take away the least from the music, will still be at the mercy of the room acoustics. Some audiophiles/audio engineers have been known to tame a room's peculiar acoustic deficiencys with loudspeakers having complementary colorations!

Anyway, that's the sound reproduction part of the equation, so people can choose whatever type of coloration they prefer in their equipment. But as far as source music content/recording formats go, I guess both dvd-a and sacd don't compromise on neutrality and frequency response flatness. Over the past decade, it seems though, that there are unquantifiable (or just unaccounted-for factors) qualities in the sacd sound that audiophiles find more alluring. Well, as long as my limited hearing abilities can't discern those traits, then the point is wasted on me. But there's always a nagging doubt the I just haven't trained my ears well enough to hear the difference!
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The Seventh Taylor



Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 401

PostPosted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 11:54 am    Post subject: Re: Not another Nightfly! Reply with quote

hardlok wrote:
Thanks for your thoughts. At a whopping $38 excluding shipping, this Japanese re-release makes me hesitate to be a completist, much as I would love to own this title. Or should I just wait for the SHM-SACD edition which I am SURE they will trump up next? Or the SHM-HQ SACD iteration?

No, because
a) it would be stereo only (though that's personal)
b) Warner doesn't do SHM-SACD, only Universal Music does.
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hardlok



Joined: 02 Aug 2011
Posts: 17

PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 5:11 pm    Post subject: Re: Not another Nightfly! Reply with quote

Don't understand point a).
You mean that the upcoming sacd will feature stereo only, or the shm-sacd if it ever got produced by universal?

Anyway, with many steely dan shm-sacds already out by universal, I assumed the nightfly would be in the cards too. But surprise surprise, the master is owned by warner!

Have you ever compared a straight sacd and its shm-sacd version? Yet another marketing gimmick? I don't buy the shm-cd tech although I really really wished it would be a panacea.

The Seventh Taylor wrote:


No, because
a) it would be stereo only (though that's personal)
b) Warner doesn't do SHM-SACD, only Universal Music does.
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hardlok



Joined: 02 Aug 2011
Posts: 17

PostPosted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 9:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here's a thought: the original Nightfly was recorded digitally at 16/50.
So, it would be logical to assume that, in the SACD remaster, he would simply have to take the original digital master tracks, and transcode them to DSD. Another way, of course, would be to go back to the mixing boards and redo the mixing digitally in PCM or DXD before the final DSD mix, but I think that is unlikely.

So, assuming the SACD will just be a transcode job, I could just take my copy of the DVD-A's 24/48 stereo and mch tracks, and do the same! Which is what I did. Added a slight gain of 0.9dB during the conversion with Philips Pro Tech converter. The resultant dst-compressed SACD-R has been tested on a DVD+R and it works great.

Now I'll wait patiently for comparison with the actual SACD.

Comments welcome. Very Happy


Last edited by hardlok on Fri Aug 26, 2011 9:39 am; edited 2 times in total
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The Seventh Taylor



Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 401

PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 8:59 am    Post subject: Re: Not another Nightfly! Reply with quote

Sorry I missed your previous post. You wrote:
hardlok wrote:
Don't understand point a).
You mean that the upcoming sacd will feature stereo only, or the shm-sacd if it ever got produced by universal?

The latter -- the upcoming SACD will be hybrid stereo+multichannel but all SHM-SACD are single-layer stereo-only.

Quote:
Anyway, with many steely dan shm-sacds already out by universal, I assumed the nightfly would be in the cards too. But surprise surprise, the master is owned by warner!

Exactly, Donald Fagen is on Warner label. That's why all his albums so far appeared on DVD-Audio only.

Quote:
Have you ever compared a straight sacd and its shm-sacd version? Yet another marketing gimmick? I don't buy the shm-cd tech although I really really wished it would be a panacea.

I have not, but there is a sampler out for doing precisely that. It's the only SHM-SACD release that also (on a separate SACD) includes a CD layer. The hybrid disc (stereo only) is made from different mastering than the SHM version.

Welcome to the Top of the World SA-CD SHM version compilation
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hardlok



Joined: 02 Aug 2011
Posts: 17

PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 9:37 am    Post subject: Re: Not another Nightfly! Reply with quote

The Seventh Taylor wrote:
The latter -- the upcoming SACD will be hybrid stereo+multichannel but all SHM-SACD are single-layer stereo-only.

Oh I get it now. Sorry for my lack of familiarity with SHM-SACDs and how universal chooses to position their releases. I would gather that SACDs that are single-layer-only, stereo-only releases must be made from old titles that don't benefit from multichannel treatment. That would justify the lack of multichannel content which SACD normally offers as a bonus and a bait.

Anyway, I'm currently still trying to evaluate my DVD-A version against my homebrew SACD-R version. Initial impressions are that DVD-A is my preference. The DSD transcoding software I used seems to have rounded off some of the punch and transients a little. If the actual SACD release is also just a transcode job without any tinkering of the tonal balance or other sonic aspects, I suspect it won't sound much different from the DVD-A release.


Last edited by hardlok on Fri Aug 26, 2011 6:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
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The Seventh Taylor



Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 401

PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 10:34 am    Post subject: Re: Not another Nightfly! Reply with quote

hardlok wrote:
The Seventh Taylor wrote:
The latter -- the upcoming SACD will be hybrid stereo+multichannel but all SHM-SACD are single-layer stereo-only.

Oh I get it now. Sorry for my lack of familiarity with SHM-SACDs and how universal chooses to position their releases. I would gather that SACDs that are single-layer-only, stereo-only releases must be made from old titles that don't benefit from multichannel treatment. That would justify the lack of multichannel content which SACD normally offers as a bonus and a bait.

They are target at paleo-conservative audiophiles as omnipresent especially in Japan. Obviously not the ones stuck with vinyl or RBCD but still skeptical of any form of multichannel (even if it's high-resolution, full-bandwidth, discrete and uncompressed), and who are suspicious of any 'compromise' like a hybrid disc must be in their eyes.
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The Seventh Taylor



Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 401

PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 10:40 am    Post subject: Re: Not another Nightfly! Reply with quote

hardlok wrote:
Have you ever compared a straight sacd and its shm-sacd version? Yet another marketing gimmick? I don't buy the shm-cd tech although I really really wished it would be a panacea.

I don't have any SHM-SACD yet, and there is also no SACD of which I own multiple masterings yet.

I'm hardly interested in stereo-only SACDs (I only own an handful, literally -- I'm much more interested in multichannel audio than in high resolution) and of the few artists of whom multiple SACD masterings exist I'm hardly interested enough in any of them to buy multiple versions.

The only one for whom I'd currently consider doing that is Stan Getz. I own all of his latin jazz/samba RBCDs but not a single SACD version of Getz/Gilberto yet (I believe there are 3 SACD editions of this), nor the other title released on SHM-SACD (though that one's never been issued on SACD before).

The only other SHM-SACD on my wishlist is Dire Straits' Love Over Gold, even though it's stereo only and two years ago I gave up hope it would ever appear on SACD and bought the RBCD...
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hardlok



Joined: 02 Aug 2011
Posts: 17

PostPosted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 6:36 pm    Post subject: Re: Not another Nightfly! Reply with quote

The Seventh Taylor wrote:
The only one for whom I'd currently consider doing that is Stan Getz. I own all of his latin jazz/samba RBCDs but not a single SACD version of Getz/Gilberto yet (I believe there are 3 SACD editions of this), nor the other title released on SHM-SACD (though that one's never been issued on SACD before).


Did you know that HDTRACKS has the hires version of Getz/Gilberto in flac format? Maybe you can give it a spin if you haven't already bought it. Smile
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hardlok



Joined: 02 Aug 2011
Posts: 17

PostPosted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 4:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, the disc is in hand now. My personal opinion, based on the same playback equipment used for comparing the DVD-A and SACD at the same playback level: almost indistinguishable except for the subtlest tinge of added smoothness in the SACD which I attribute to the SACD format. But by the same token, DVD-A always seems to sound slightly more detailed and edgy/punchy. It's a toss-up and neither format is clearly superior or more musical, to my ears, on my current system. (If any remixing or tweaking of the sound was involved for the transfer, I could not detect it, as the case should be.)

Last thing to try is to analyse rips with a fullrange closed headphone, just for academic purposes. Razz

Ironic that the very 12+4bit/50KHz technology that made this recording sound so clean and great in the 80s is now a possible bottleneck in how studios can glean the most of the DSD or 24 bit/192KHz format from the master. Can we please lay it to rest now? Let's just sit back and enjoy the musicianship and witty lyrical commentary and stop releasing yet another version of it! Razz
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The Seventh Taylor



Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 401

PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 10:57 am    Post subject: Re: Not another Nightfly! Reply with quote

hardlok wrote:
Did you know that HDTRACKS has the hires version of Getz/Gilberto in flac format? Maybe you can give it a spin if you haven't already bought it.

Thanks, but I'm terribly old-fashioned when it comes to owning music: I strongly prefer to have physical media (and not self-recorded). Unless the music is unavailable as such or there's really just a single track of an album I'm interested in I'll pass on downloads.
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