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Topic: So, what's the other side of the coin? (Read 31090 times) previous topic - next topic
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So, what's the other side of the coin?

Reply #50 –
Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon
(Pink floyd is for me a definition of a "well-produced" music. This is their first album I've heard, and it's probably my favourite.)

Elusive - Destination Zero
(Norwegian production, a well-rounded gothic cliche album, which sounded plain perfect when I first heard it.)

Queen - Innuendo
(My favourite band ever and forever, and this album is a mixture of a lot of good stuff they create. The quality of their production is just like the Floyd's, at least to me.)

Iron Maiden - The X Factor
(Giving a very dark ambient, this conceptual album has been one of my favourites for a long time.)

Iced Earth - The Dark Saga
(Same as Queen and Pink Floyd, but in the heavy metal way.)
Only the best is good enough.

So, what's the other side of the coin?

Reply #51 –
The best mastering process for CDs is the one employed by JVC to produce the
XRCD discs: http://www.xrcd.com/

They have remastered old RCA Living Stereo classical recordings from the late 50's and early 60's resulting in CDs with incredible sound.
I recommend the Reiner/Rimsky-Korsakov/Scheherazade:
http://www.xrcd.net/shopping/shopexd.asp?ccode=JMCXR-0015
and the Munch/Berlioz/Simphonie Fantastique:
http://www.xrcd.net/shopping/shopexd.asp?ccode=JMCXR-0001
discs as outstanding remastered CDs.

There is also an extensive jazz and blues collection.

In Japan, there are remasterings of popular music such as Dire Straits/Brothers in Arms using the XRCD process: http://www.amusicdirect.com/products/detai...sku=CJVC5483572

So, what's the other side of the coin?

Reply #52 –
sliberman,

Could you post replaygain figures. Usually reliable way to judge the compression.

More importantly can you confirm that they do not use brickwall limiter (ie clipping). The easiest way to find this out is looking at the max sample values. Generally if the max sample values vary from track to track, then there is no clipping.

If both look positive, I will consider them.

Many thanks in advance.

Triza

So, what's the other side of the coin?

Reply #53 –
Personnally, I really love the remastering of Wendy Carlos' "Switch on...". It's a great 4CD box and Carlos made an incredible at cleaning up and making the sound better and clearer while still preserving the charm of the original recordings.

Yves Rechsteiner also has a great pedal harpsichord recording called Johann Sebastien Bach - Fantasia cromatica, sonatas & transcriptions. It's thrilling both musically and technically!

So, what's the other side of the coin?

Reply #54 –
Coil — 1999 — Musick to Play in the Dark, vol. 1
replaygain_album_gain = -0.69 dB
replaygain_album_peak = 0.999969

Coil — 2000 — Musick to Play in the Dark, vol. 2
replaygain_album_gain = -0.14 dB
replaygain_album_peak = 1.000000

Great results, eh?
By the way, these two albums are truly a masterpiece among all the experimental music of the last 20 years. And another thing: there are a couple of tracks (e.g. “Where Are You?”, “Are You Shivering?”) with repeating cracks and pops, which tend to be noticeably smeared by MP3, providing some good pre-echo samples.
Infrasonic Quartet + Sennheiser HD650 + Microlab Solo 2 mk3. 

So, what's the other side of the coin?

Reply #55 –
Newly remastered, Japanese pressings of Earth, wind & fire's:

"faces" MHCP 406
"raise" MHCP 407

So, what's the other side of the coin?

Reply #56 –
From the "golden era" of digital audio mastering in the early 1990's, Metallica's "black album" is one of the crispest-sounding discs that I've ever heard. Maybe too crisp - part of it is just production values. But the mastering is really good, and replaygain value is around 5.5 if I remember correctly.
God kills a kitten every time you encode with CBR 320

So, what's the other side of the coin?

Reply #58 –
I bought some of the Dire Straits albums (I had only on cassettes before) They are dated 1996. I do not know the replaygain values, yet, but boy they sound very well.

So, what's the other side of the coin?

Reply #59 –
Quote
Sting's The Soul Cages (1991 original issue) is pretty near perfect, too.

A well-done DDD master. Quieter than the mastering year suggests. Track "When the angels fall" has really more than 20dB headroom, but the highest peaks are still very slightly clipped (inaudibly). How much headroom do natural dynamics need ?...

Many CDs from the 80s are good, here are two newer ones:

Portraits * Vangelis (1996) - highly recommended. No compression at all and many tracks are also perfectly unclipped. Contains his hits "Conquest of paradise", the main theme from that movie, and "Chariots of fire".
Songs of sanctuary * Adiemus (1997) - not even a single clipped or compressed sample. Contains the hit from the Delta Airlines advertisement.
I know that I know nothing. But how can I then know that ?