Post by onebit July 18, 2008 (71 of 88)
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Tootsie said:
Hello,
I don't know DCD. Which title is good to discover and start by?
Thanks
I would say Aion is a good place to start. A great intro to their later period sound. Superb recording too.
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Post by Barbazul July 21, 2008 (72 of 88)
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Johnno said:
My box arrived yesterday. The monogrammed velvet sliptop box with the Japanese mini sleeves is in a while cardboard box. The discs themselves are also in separate sleeves, like LPs.
As far as I'm concerned, the whole presenetation oozes quality and I'm sure you love it.
I intend listening to at least one of the discs tonight.
Mine arrived last saturday, you're so right Johnno: this box set oozes quality in every sense!! I compared the CD layer for the first two albums (Dead Can Dance & Garden of the Arcane Delights) with the old RBCD versions and the difference is simply amazing! What a perfect job Mo-Fi has done here, it brings a sense of space and you can listen to every little sound there. The SACD layer in both albums are outstanding in general, fidelity and warmth is very clear, but in some tracks I can't hear the difference between the CD and the SACD layers... just a more clear sound but almost unperceptible. This was just in a few tracks from Dead Can Dance album.
Any way, I have 7 albums left to rediscover, I like to put the old versions and then the SACD new version... huge and remarcable improvements can be heard.
I'm very very happy fan of DCD =)
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Post by Tobias July 27, 2008 (73 of 88)
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I’m afraid I cannot share the enthusiasm.
These remasters are unbelievably compressed. After I had listened to “Garden of the Arcane Delights” (which runs just fifteen minutes) , my ears hurt so much that I had to turn off everything and enjoy the silence for a while (no, I hadn’t turned up the volume excessively).
You can actually hear the compression when, for example, the snare drum is hit on “The Arcane” and all the other sounds (bass, guitar, voice) are smothered for the instance of a moment.
(A minor quibble is that “Garden of the Arcane Delights” runs slower than the old CD; whether the old master was too fast or the new too slow, I cannot tell.)
I can only recommend to stay away from these if you actually care for the music.
Of course, the box could make a fine investment to sell once it has sold out.
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Post by Karlosak July 27, 2008 (74 of 88)
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Thanks Tobias for your input,
I've been sitting on the fence and now I'm quite sure I won't be ordering the box set. Could others who ordered some of the DCD remasters confirm this?
It's a shame that remasters of pop/rock albums became an universal ticket for compressed, tiring and lifeless sound, even in the SACD arena. If they are catering to the audiophile market, how could they get away with this?
On a side note, could anyone explain the high price tag of the box set? Individual albums can be ordered for about $15, the whole set for $250 (9 albums). When ordering a boxed edition, I do this to save some funds, not to pay twice as much!
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Post by Tobias July 27, 2008 (75 of 88)
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Karlosak said:
[...]
On a side note, could anyone explain the high price tag of the box set? Individual albums could be ordered for about $15, the whole set for $250 (9 albums). When ordering a boxed edition, I do this to save some funds, not to pay twice as much!
I suppose that’s because the box (as opposed to the separate SA-CDs) is a limited edition of 1500 and thus a collector’s item; in fact only a die-hard collector will want it once he has listened to it.
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Post by amatala July 27, 2008 (76 of 88)
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Karlosak said:
Thanks Tobias for your input,
I've been sitting on the fence and now I'm quite sure I won't be ordering the box set. Could others who ordered some of the DCD remasters confirm this?
It's a shame that remasters of pop/rock albums became an universal ticket for compressed, tiring and lifeless sound, even in the SACD arena. If they are catering to the audiophile market, how could they get away with this?
On a side note, could anyone explain the high price tag of the box set? Individual albums could be ordered for about $15, the whole set for $250 (9 albums). When ordering a boxed edition, I do this to save some funds, not to pay twice as much!
I only listened to the first album, "Dead Can Dance" and I do confirm that sound quality is not very good - not only it does not sound like an SACD should, it does not even sound as good as a well mastered CD...
This really is a pity because as far as I am concerned the only real big advantage of SACD over redbook CD comes from the quality of the mastering (SACDs are normally addressed to a niche audiophile market so they often receive much better treatment than normal CDs do)...
If pop/rock SACDs start getting the same bad treatment as the vast majority of CDs do (and this seems to be the case with the latest SACD releases, like the Genesis catalog), then I do not see any advantage in buying these SACDs...
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There could still be the benefit of multichannel but not for the DCD reissues.
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Post by Barbazul July 28, 2008 (78 of 88)
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Tobias said:
I’m afraid I cannot share the enthusiasm.
These remasters are unbelievably compressed. After I had listened to “Garden of the Arcane Delights” (which runs just fifteen minutes) , my ears hurt so much that I had to turn off everything and enjoy the silence for a while (no, I hadn’t turned up the volume excessively).
You can actually hear the compression when, for example, the snare drum is hit on “The Arcane” and all the other sounds (bass, guitar, voice) are smothered for the instance of a moment.
(A minor quibble is that “Garden of the Arcane Delights” runs slower than the old CD; whether the old master was too fast or the new too slow, I cannot tell.)
I can only recommend to stay away from these if you actually care for the music.
Of course, the box could make a fine investment to sell once it has sold out.
IMO to recommend audiophiles to stay away from these sacd's is a little excesive. Maybe if you give a try to Aion, Within The Realm Of a Daying Sun or Into The Labyrinth, you'll change your mind. But I'm not an expert, my collection of sacd's is about 20 discs and only 2 of them are classic. Even when Beck's Sea Change is for me an example of how sacd's should sound, in both stereo and mulch, I wouldn't say that this DCD sacd's are a mistake, one really can hear an improvement compared to the old rbcd's. But Tobias, could you give more examples of this compression you perceive in this sacd's? It would help me to see what are you talking about. Thanks!
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Post by Johnno August 3, 2008 (79 of 88)
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I have held off commenting on the boxed set until now for two reasons: firstly, I had only heard the one album "Aion" previously and therefore that was obviously the only disc I could compare against the corresponding SACD. Secondly after playing a number of the discs, I was almost shocked at how level-sensitive they appear to be. This has nothing to do with playback level, as such: rather, it concerns the output level from one's SACD player and overload margins in the electronics that follow. My preamplifier has separate level controls at its very input for balance and there is a master volume control further on in the chain. I have found that I have to have the input controls set very low and the master volume control correspondlingly higher than usual when playing these discs. Failure to take this precaution results in breakup on the voices and often severe intermodulation distortion with low frequencies that is total unacceptable. I can't recall ever striking this problem before.
It was with some relief that, when I took the set up to a friend's place last night who has a multichannel setup, I experienced exactly the same problem there. I built a multi-control box for him some time ago, where the individual levels of the front and rear channels to his amplifier can be controlled and after playing "Toward The Within" (which sounded absolutely ghastly), we then listened to "Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun" and I suddenly had the idea of reducing the front channel levels on the box I built and turning up his master volume control. We both agreed that it resulted in a distinct improvement in the sound with the elimination of both breakup and IM distortion..
Exacty why the output levels from the respective SACD players would seem to be so critical I cannot say. I would rather like to find someone who could examine the waveforms from these discs under certain conditions as I think it might prove a very interesting exercise.
For the record (no pun intended), I have never been aware of such level dependence when playing the RBCD of "Aion" and I have played it on a variety of equipment and never been unhappy with the sound. I will say, however, that when I was able to set the levels satisfactorily for the SACD of it, I have noticed instrumental detail that I have not previously heard on the corresponding RBCD and it has made me appreciate the album even more, musically. Indeed I have been really impressed with everything I have so far heard from a musical point of view. Most of it is glorious. I guess it shows just how talented Lisa Gerrard, Brendan Perry and others contributing to the albums were.
I will definitely be keeping the box. I just wish it could have been better sonically.
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Post by Johnno August 9, 2008 (80 of 88)
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Having made the comments above after listening to some of the SACDs through my top system and them listening to two discs that I hadn't heard before through a friend's multichannel set-up -- and been singularly unimpressed by the sound through both systems -- it was with considerable relief and pleasure that I listened to a number of the discs again through my second system last night and can report that the sound was splendid. The breakup I had experienced before was totally absent and the sound had the sort of pristine quality one has come to expect from good SACDs. Even when the individual voices were close and loud, as in parts of "Toward the Within", the sound remained totally clean and uncongested. There still appear to be some balance problems between instruments and voices on occasions but I assume that stems from the original recording sessions. Not knowing most of the albums in earlier releases means I have no means of knowing if that assumption has merit. Those who have the original LPs or CDs will have a better idea about that.
My second system comprises a considerably modified Sony XE597 multichannel SACD player, a second hand octave equaliser that I have modified which allows me to tailor the LF response from the speakers, a kitset current dumper amplifier (as per the QUAD 405) that I assembled myself and speakers housed in concrete enclosures.
Exactly why this considerable difference in sound quality exists between my two systems is something I will need to address and it would now appear that I have been unfairly harsh on the SACDs themselves. I have my suspicions about one item of equipment in my top system and will need to look into it and see if its signal handling ability is as good as it once was.
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