Rolling Stones London / Bowie RCA

[Rob P]

I don't give a damn about whether noise reduction was used on a mastering or not.

I think we have found the exact point where we disagree.

I agree, well said.

[lukpac]

True enough. I did another Buttons comparison myself, and you are correct ... but I guess I like the SACD because it sounds less like "a copy of a copy of a tape" than the London does. There's a vibrancy there that I don't hear on the London, which to me comes across as just a bit on the dull side. I do like the wider stereo on the London, though.

I'm curious, how would you compare the tracks that don't have any NR on the SACD? Who's Been Sleeping Here? is the only one I can think of at the moment that doesn't have either narrowing or noise reduction, although there might be a few more. Of course, the speed is quite a bit different between the two, so it's hard to do a direct comparison.

[Dob]

I still can't put my finger on Gimmie Shelter (that's just a strange mix/recording), but I think perhaps the "problem" with the SACD is that album just has a kind of strange sounding high end. A bit rolled off. The extra hiss on the London CD seems to mask that a bit.

Do you mean "strange" in addition to being rolled off?

The main problem I had with remastering Gimme Shelter is that the vocals have a lot of (peaky) treble, whereas the music does not...it seems like that track has been given the overdone "hit single" processing.

If you have a chance to compare, I'd be curious to know what you think of the high end of my version of Gimme Shelter, as I did add quite a bit of treble boost...one of the criticisms I heard was that my version exposes too many flaws of the recording.

Monkey Man always stuck out as sounding strange on the SACD to me, but honestly the London doesn't seem much different, other than again, a bit more hiss.

Similar to YCAGWYW, I found the London version easier to fix...it responded well to EQ, whereas the SACD version seemed to sound worse no matter what I did. That's one that does sound *strange.*

And for whatever it's worth, per some conversations we had with someone that worked at MoFi at the time, it is believed whatever they did was a flat transfer, as the CDs were not done in the main mastering studio, but in a duplication area.

Right...that's what I was referring to. Although we only have one person's opinion of what he thought must have happened, it sure sounds credible.

[lukpac]

Do you mean "strange" in addition to being rolled off?

I don't know. It is just somewhat lacking.

The main problem I had with remastering Gimme Shelter is that the vocals have a lot of (peaky) treble, whereas the music does not...it seems like that track has been given the overdone "hit single" processing.

If you have a chance to compare, I'd be curious to know what you think of the high end of my version of Gimme Shelter, as I did add quite a bit of treble boost...one of the criticisms I heard was that my version exposes too many flaws of the recording.

I'd have to listen, but honestly, I usually don't like big treble boosts. If anything I usually take a bit *off* the high end if needed. There are exceptions, of course (Chicago II comes to mind).

Similar to YCAGWYW, I found the London version easier to fix...it responded well to EQ, whereas the SACD version seemed to sound worse no matter what I did. That's one that does sound *strange.*

I honestly didn't think the London sounded any less strange...

[krabapple]

Which is silly.

Btw, has anyone actually ever digitally compared British vs. US editions of the first Genesis CDs? Were they different masterings? Because my incredulity is based on the US editions, which ranged from good (Trick, Selling England) to bad (the first three, Wind & Wuthering).
The remasters were all AT LEAST as good sounding, to my ears, and in some cases quite better (e.g., the Lamb, where going back a tape generation or two removed a background buzz; Foxtrot, where a longstanding speed anomaly was corrected).

Back in the dark days of the internet, I used to be on a digest that did a shootout of the British and US discs and in most cases, the British discs were chosen to be superior over the US discs. I remember getting the British Wind and Wuthering after having the anomaly known as the US version and was amazed by how much better the British disc sounded.

Sorry, I wasn't specific enough. I don't mean the usual sighted A/B crap. I mean either measurements, or DBT/ABX.

[krabapple]

Well, if your talking about the UK discs with the "chopped up" covers, it's been discovered on a least one occasion that a disc made at the Nimbus plant, has a totally different mastering to a pressing from PDO UK or EMI Swindon. For example, Foxtrot is far brighter on a Nimbus press.

How was this determined?

The remastered Foxtrot has a major noise-reduction flaw somewhere along the line; no idea if it's Dolby or No-noise (sounds like Dolby being decoded incorrectly), but a lot of the quieter parts have highs muted at random. Check the hi-hat intro on Watcher Of the Skies. Some of those hi-hat taps are audible, some of them aren't! Any UK disc with a chopped cover is better than this.

Possibly, possibly not. I'd have to hear the two -- the remaster might have virtues that the UK lacks.

[krabapple]

I'm not aware that Sell Out has NR, BTW - Astley didn't master it (or mix it, for that matter).

The thing with NR is, why would somebody use it so lightly that you wouldn't be able to notice? I mean, that's one reason NR is usually fairly easy to spot - the CD has less hiss. Yes, better source tapes are often behind that, and perhaps there are CDs that have less hiss because of NR, but if there are no artifacts, why don't more engineers know about this magic process?

They do. Really, go on some pro sound boards and ask around. So, when you compare two remasters, and one has less hiss, how do you know whether it's due to NR or to sourcing, or both?

I'll admit I sometimes have to crank the volume to hear the various artifacts. But that doesn't change the fact that they are there and can be heard.

If they can only be heard when you crank the volume to levels you wouldn't normally use, is it reasonable to complain?

I suppose a blind test is in order.

[krabapple]

The Who's Next Deluxe Edition is one example that a CD with some noise reduction can sound good. But it would still be better if there weren't any noise reduction. It is not the best digital version of the album, and certainly not the worst.

Again, why? If you have boosted the S/N, why is that necessarily bad? Is it that you hear artifacting (other than, of course, less noise), or is it that NR is bad in principle?

The stipulation here seems to be that there can be no perceptible boosting of S/N without degradation of the music.

Which is odd since NR is used during hte analog recording process, as well as in mastering.

[lukpac]

Again, why? If you have boosted the S/N, why is that necessarily bad? Is it that you hear artifacting (other than, of course, less noise), or is it that NR is bad in principle?

Yes.

The stipulation here seems to be that there can be no perceptible boosting of S/N without degradation of the music.

You disagree with that?

Which is odd since NR is used during hte analog recording process, as well as in mastering.

As I've stated before, NR such as Dolby is totally different from the digital NR we're talking about. Systems like Dolby work on the principle that the sound is changed during recording, and the inverse of that change is made during playback. The idea being that the limits of the tape can be more fully utilized.

With digital NR, though, there's nothing to "undo" or reverse.

[lukpac]

They do. Really, go on some pro sound boards and ask around. So, when you compare two remasters, and one has less hiss, how do you know whether it's due to NR or to sourcing, or both?

Well, normally if there's less hiss there's also artifacts. When there aren't, well, I'm assuming a better tape was used. And I think that's usually a pretty safe assumption to make, especially if you have other things to compare to.

Case in point: the SACDs of Between The Buttons, Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed all have less hiss than their London CD counterparts. BTB has obvious NR artifacts. BB and LIB don't. Since these were all done at the same time, by the same people, I think it's pretty safe to say that if there are easily identifiable NR artifacts on one disc, there would be on the others as well if NR was indeed used.

Of course, in the above case, there are also other indications (like stereo separation) of a better source tape. And that's actually often the case.

If they can only be heard when you crank the volume to levels you wouldn't normally use, is it reasonable to complain?

Why not?

I suppose a blind test is in order.

For what? To see if a difference can be heard at "normal" levels? Because I've already established that it's quite easy to hear the differences at high levels.

[lukpac]

They do. Really, go on some pro sound boards and ask around.

Links?

[Andreas]

or is it that NR is bad in principle?

Yes.

[Phil Elliott]

Well, if your talking about the UK discs with the "chopped up" covers, it's been discovered on a least one occasion that a disc made at the Nimbus plant, has a totally different mastering to a pressing from PDO UK or EMI Swindon. For example, Foxtrot is far brighter on a Nimbus press.

How was this determined?

I've had all three of them in my hands at some point. The Nimbus pressing isn't even close to the other two. In fact it has a glitch that the other two don't - the intro to Timetable fades in abrubtly.

The remastered Foxtrot has a major noise-reduction flaw somewhere along the line; no idea if it's Dolby or No-noise (sounds like Dolby being decoded incorrectly), but a lot of the quieter parts have highs muted at random. Check the hi-hat intro on Watcher Of the Skies. Some of those hi-hat taps are audible, some of them aren't! Any UK disc with a chopped cover is better than this.

Possibly, possibly not. I'd have to hear the two -- the remaster might have virtues that the UK lacks.

Good idea.

[krabapple]

They do. Really, go on some pro sound boards and ask around.

Links?

Prosound Web has a dozen or so forums, all run by recording engineers and audio component engineers

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/

[krabapple]

Again, why? If you have boosted the S/N, why is that necessarily bad? Is it that you hear artifacting (other than, of course, less noise), or is it that NR is bad in principle?

Yes.

The stipulation here seems to be that there can be no perceptible boosting of S/N without degradation of the music.

You disagree with that?

Yes, unless you define 'degration' with something like 'changing the waveform'. I don;t believe lossy compression necessarily degrades the music either.

Which is odd since NR is used during hte analog recording process, as well as in mastering.

As I've stated before, NR such as Dolby is totally different from the digital NR we're talking about. Systems like Dolby work on the principle that the sound is changed during recording, and the inverse of that change is made during playback. The idea being that the limits of the tape can be more fully utilized.[/quote]

With digital NR, though, there's nothing to "undo" or reverse.

True, but Dolby NR is a method of perceptibly raising the S/N without necessarily degrading the music.