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Anybody here have this?

Given Phil Elliott's revelation that the Ryko aluminum and Virgin disc are derived from the same source, I'm very curious to finally hear the Au20.

Yes, I have it. Was surprised to have found it in a used-CD store not long ago for peanuts.

I no longer have the standard Ryko, but I kept a CD-R of the Virgin before I got rid of it. I haven't played it since I got the Au20 though (which I like well enough to be more than satisfied with).

I have a copy, but it's MP3-derived and therefore useless for WAV comparison purposes. It sounds fine to me, better than the duplicate tracks on the Sound and Vision box.

I also have the Ryko clear vinyl issue. Trippy!

Ryan

J_Partyka wrote:Yes, I have it. Was surprised to have found it in a used-CD store not long ago for peanuts.

I no longer have the standard Ryko, but I kept a CD-R of the Virgin before I got rid of it. I haven't played it since I got the Au20 though (which I like well enough to be more than satisfied with).

...*coughcough*...

PM sent ...

So what about the Au20? Different from aluminum Ryko? Different from Virgin?

Different from the regular Ryko--they don't stay in sync--and thus different from the Virgin, which is either a clone of the aluminum Ryko or is derived from one of the same digital steps. That said, the gold doesn't sound too terribly different...it clearly has the same or similar EQ. In other words, it's like most of the Ryko gold/aluminum Bowie comparisons I've done.

What's meant by 'they don't stay in synch'? They could have slightly different start points for track one but still be the same master. Have you compared, say, the second track from each with some sort of level stats or nulling test?

krabapple wrote:What's meant by 'they don't stay in synch'? They could have slightly different start points for track one but still be the same master. Have you compared, say, the second track from each with some sort of level stats or nulling test?

I think David means "line up the start points and see if they stay in sync".

Yeah, it's more or less a given that different CDs won't have exactly the same offsets/pauses. Lining things up is a given.

krabapple wrote:What's meant by 'they don't stay in synch'? They could have slightly different start points for track one but still be the same master. Have you compared, say, the second track from each with some sort of level stats or nulling test?

Level stats don't help (which is something the sh.tv folk don't seem to get, BTW. Just because one CD is louder than another doesn't mean they're not both taken from the same master). Similarly, nulling only tells you if they've been taken from the *exact* same digital master, with little to no tweaking.

A sync test--in which you line up two "identical" peaks (which can vary in difficulty...although one indication that two tracks might be derived from the same mastering is that they have very similar peak architecture, despite processing) and see if they stay in sync or not--is far more telling. For example, the aluminum Ryko HD and the Virgin HD don't look all that similar at first glance, and they don't null-out to anything special, yet they stay in perfect sync, meaning they MUST be derived from the same digital transfer. By contrast, the two Rykos are clearly running at slightly different speeds, as one slowly "phases" past the other; by the end of the song, they're obviously out of sync.

Level stats help if the tracks are identical, as do null tests. If two tracks pass those, the synch test isn't necessary. But sure, failure doesn't prove that the *sources* are different (only that the masterings are).

krabapple wrote:Level stats help if the tracks are identical, as do null tests. If two tracks pass those, the synch test isn't necessary. But sure, failure doesn't prove that the *sources* are different (only that the masterings are).

Er...how would you do a null test without synching them up?

What I mean is, I would first try nulling them without trying to synch them. If it nulls out on *that*, you need proceed no further.

"Synching them up" means just finding the correct starting point on both files, correct? Without that, you can't do a null test. (Well, you can, but it would be extremeley unlikely that the two would null out.)

Andreas wrote:"Synching them up" means just finding the correct starting point on both files, correct? Without that, you can't do a null test. (Well, you can, but it would be extremeley unlikely that the two would null out.)

If the putatively different CDs in question are in reality digital twins, and you are comparing an entire track, you may not have to 'find the correct starting point'. The two tracks may already *have* the correct starting point. (I'm saying 'may' to allow for the possibility of inequality at the start of track one.)

So, bit-compare or null-compare the two tracks first. If you get an answer indicating 'identity', then you can stop right there. If you get a different answer, you can't conclude 'difference' *yet*: you still need to see if they require synching, then recomparison. If they are still nonidentical after *that*, call them different. See what I'm sayin'?