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What's the best version on CD?

Edited EAC log of my Polydor It's Hard CD (800 106-2, Made In W. Germany, inner ring: 800 106 2 02).


Track 1 Peak level 90.8 %
Track 2 Peak level 73.4 %
Track 3 Peak level 72.7 %
Track 4 Peak level 73.2 %
Track 5 Peak level 72.7 %
Track 6 Peak level 83.5 %
Track 7 Peak level 75.7 %
Track 8 Peak level 67.2 %
Track 9 Peak level 72.3 %
Track 10 Peak level 81.2 %
Track 11 Peak level 74.4 %
Track 12 Peak level 71.3 %

I think I sent Goodwin a copy of my 03 matrix.

Waiting for Goodot...I mean Goodwin....

I'm at school. I most certainly did *not* bring digital versions of the post-Moon albums up, so any meaningful comparison will ahve to wait until I'm home.

The Warner Bros. WG target appears to have the same mastering as the Polydor:

Track 1 Peak level 90.8 %
Track 2 Peak level 73.4 %
Track 3 Peak level 72.7 %
Track 4 Peak level 73.2 %
Track 5 Peak level 72.7 %
Track 6 Peak level 83.5 %
Track 7 Peak level 75.7 %
Track 8 Peak level 67.2 %
Track 9 Peak level 72.3 %
Track 10 Peak level 81.2 %
Track 11 Peak level 74.4 %
Track 12 Peak level 71.3 %

It would be nice to see an EAC log of some MCA pressings. The gospel says that there was a secret remaster (before the remix).

Andreas wrote:The gospel says that there was a secret remaster (before the remix).

It does?

I had always assumed (perhaps incorrectly?) that the WB and MCA discs were the same.

Andreas, here you go:

MCAD-25986 (matrix MCAD25986 03% made at PDO US)

Track 1
Peak level 70.6 %

Track 2
Peak level 62.8 %

Track 3
Peak level 66.3 %

Track 4
Peak level 70.5 %

Track 5
Peak level 66.5 %

Track 6
Peak level 66.6 %

Track 7
Peak level 66.8 %

Track 8
Peak level 56.4 %

Track 9
Peak level 60.2 %

Track 10
Peak level 73.3 %

Track 11
Peak level 61.5 %

Track 12
Peak level 57.5 %

Thanks. And this means that there really are two different masterings of the original mix on CD.

Xenu wrote:I'm at school. I most certainly did *not* bring digital versions of the post-Moon albums up, so any meaningful comparison will ahve to wait until I'm home.

I thought I sent them in the package you just received?

You sent one version (Polydor?) of It's Hard and Face Dances. That's nice, as I don't have those iterations otherwise. Problematically, however, my *other* iterations are all at home, where I'm notably not.

BTW, I still don't think EAC logs are very useful. There're too many weird contingencies that could produce similar looking EAC logs, and yet signal different masterings, and also *different* EAC logs that could represent the *same* mastering.

But don't you agree that the exact same set of peak levels (unless all numbers are 100%) signifies the same mastering? It is not about "similar looking", it is about the exact same numbers.

And that different numbers signifies that at least something was done different in the mastering?

See the Who Are You comparison. The MCA appears to be exactly (100/93.3) times as loud as the Polydor. This is one example that would be interesting to examine. They could be from the same digital source with a volume increase.

But It's Hard has some qualitative differences. On my Polydor, track 2 is louder than track 4, wheraes on dudelsack's MCA, track 4 is louder.

Lastly, my comparisons of the two Who's Better Who's Best have left me confused if we really can determine anything if the digital data is so different. In those cases, the tracks stayed in-synch and had similar-looking waveforms, but I could not make them cancel out. Of course, the EAC logs were very different, and the Polydor WBWB mono tracks were not pure mono while the MCA ones were.

Oh, it can. I'm just thinking of cases where it wouldn't. Say you played a tape straight through twice, capturing each version to digital. I'd think that peaks, etc., would be exactly the same...but the two passes would be two distinct mastering attempts, as they wouldn't stay in sync.

That's true, of course.
But only if the same tape was played twice on the same playback system with the same volume, and if both of these digital versions were used for CD pressings. I don't think that this happens often.