The Who - Who Are You

[JWB]

Does anybody seriously want me to do Face Dances or It's Hard? (I think for one of those I actually now have POlydor--from JWB--MCA and WB copies).

Why the fuck not?

[lukpac]

FWIW, cddb recognizes my MCA copies of It's Hard and Face Dances as exact matches for "It's Hard - Warner Bros." and "Face Dances - Warner Bros."

I'm not saying they aren't the same, but I wouldn't base anything on CDDB/freeDB/whatever. I made a CD-R of my Die Beatles LP and it actually came up as Please Please Me.

[Andreas]

CDDB and others just use the individual time lengths of the tracks to determine the CD.

The algorithm for that is quite clever (or so I have heard), such that small differences (a few seconds plus or minus) do not matter.

[Andreas]

I already told David that he'd better write a Who FAQ. White Fang is a bonehead and he needs to be stopped.

Right. I'll gladly contribute or read and correct, but I don't feel competent enough to write it. Also, I don't have the box set.

[lukpac]

This is for the original MCA CD, made in Japan at the JVC plant, catalog # MCAD-37003, matrix info MCAD 37003 M3E 12

EAC extraction logfile from 6. May 2005, 10:44 for CD
Who / Who Are You

Used drive : SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-616T Adapter: 1 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure with C2, accurate stream, NO disable cache
Combined read/write offset correction : 0
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No

Track 1
Peak level 88.9 %

Track 2
Peak level 96.6 %

Track 3
Peak level 100.0 %

Track 4
Peak level 93.2 %

Track 5
Peak level 96.1 %

Track 6
Peak level 85.7 %

Track 7
Peak level 88.5 %


Track 8
Peak level 73.2 %

Track 9
Peak level 84.4 %


No errors occured


End of status report

I just checked my two copies:

Manufactured in Japan for MCA Records, Inc.
MCAD 37003 1C11

Manufactured and Distributed in Canada by MCA Records Canada
#01010X04 MCBBD-37003 L386 CINRAM

Same peak levels.

[LesPaul666]

I have the Warner U.S. and WEA Target(really the Polydor red-face with a different label). I'll post some peak levels, but they're rounded off to the nearest percent(Bias Peak).

It's Hard:


Warner U.S.

85%

79%

79%

80%

76%

77%

77%

66%

68%

100%

71%

66%


Target/Polydor Red Face


90%

73%

72%

73%

72%

83%

75%

67%

72%

81%

74%

71%

[lukpac]

I finally am unpacked enough to get down to business...I compared the much-vaunted Polydor original CD of Who Are You to a Canadian MCA copy generously donated by JWB.

Here's what Fang says about this:

CD (original mix) comments: The Polydor (Germany) sounds wonderful. The MCA (USA) is as dull as a door, drowning in artificial bass. The MFSL is "OK", but doesn't sound anywhere as near as good as the Polydor (Germany).

The MCA issue is slightly louder. When normalized, of course, they cancel out completely.

According to Fang, this is impossible, and if you believe differently, you are mentally ill. Thus I can only surmise you are mentally ill.

Did he, like, just make everything up, or does everyone happen to stumble upon "good" pressings of everything?

Back when he actually listened to things...

[lukpac]

The MCA issue is slightly louder. When normalized, of course, they cancel out completely.

Also, to be fair, after adjusting by 0.6 dB and performing the null, there is some signal at -90.3 dB, a mix of noise (mostly) and (very faintly) the actual audio. Presumably due to quantization errors. So they don't null out *completely*...but pretty damn close.

[Rspaight]

"drowning in artificial bass"

[lukpac]

"drowning in artificial bass"

The MCA Who's Next and Quad comments are great too, although at the moment I don't have the stomach to bother searching for them.

And yet he has never acknowledged that there are actually 2 different Polydor masterings of Tommy.

[lukpac]

I thought Xenu would be jumping on this...

[Xenu]

I don't jump. I just traipse.

[lukpac]

Coming back to this...

Dudelsack's numbers are almost exactly my numbers multiplied by 1.0718 (which equals 100/93.3), i.e. the volume increase that is needed to make the CD peak at 100%

I had previously assumed the MCA was simply shifted up by 0.6dB to hit 0dB peak. However, I just noticed two things:

1) The art for the original MCA indicates a 1985 date. The art for the Polydor (my copy, anyway) indicates 1987. *If* in fact the Polydor was not released until then, the "copied and increased by 0.6dB" story seems less likely, and it seems more likely the Polydor was in fact lowered by 0.6dB.

2) The title track continues slightly longer on the Polydor, but just with silence. On the other hand, there's a bit over a hundred milliseconds of additional non-silence at the end of the MCA. That seems to suggest the MCA is (*slightly*) more complete, but it's hard to say if that's the case or if it is a small bit of extra digital noise of some sort. That said, I'm not sure any sort of dithering would have been in use at that point (1985) to create such noise.

In theory there could have been an early digital transfer that was first copied by MCA and boosted slightly, and then later used "straight" by Polydor, but that seems like a bit of a stretch. Thoughts?

Two questions:

1) Does anybody have a Polydor CD with a date earlier than 1987?

2) Does anybody have a Polydor CD that has a matrix that ends in something other than 03?

[lukpac]

One additional thing I just noticed - the peak for the disc appears to be at 3:09 in 905. On the MCA, the peak is 0 dB and there are a handful of clipped samples. On the Polydor, the peak is -0.6 dB, and while it isn't clipped (obviously, since it isn't at 0 dB), the waveform matches the MCA and is also flatlined for a handful of samples. That is to say, it certainly *appears* that the clipping happened on the original transfer, which was used by MCA, and that Polydor simply bumped the level down by 0.6 dB, perhaps *because* of the clipping.

Thoughts?