Cat Stevens - Tea for the Tillerman HDTracks

[Matias]

Ok so I finally compared the Mobile Fidelity 16/44 version with the 24/192 HDTracks version. First of all the HDTracks is a little louder (compressed) as was said before, and I felt it also a very little bit brighter sounding, that is, more highs and air. But after adjusting volumes, the voices, guitars and keyboards are clearly more resolving, more focused and overall better sounding in the HDTracks version. The MoFi was very good, the HDTracks is excellent. Great release from HDTracks, highly recommended.

 

[RF Power]

No complaints from me either except that they could have mastered it 4-5dB lower to avoid peak level clipping, but the dynamic range is still excellent. The big imporvement with this master is likely due to the quality of the playback deck and front end analogue preamps.

 

TFTT is an all time classic album and this is hi-res remastering is simply outstanding. This is really is about as good as it gets.

More please.

[Tinytim]

No complaints from me either except that they could have mastered it 4-5dB lower to avoid peak level clipping, but the dynamic range is still excellent. The big imporvement with this master is likely due to the quality of the playback deck and front end analogue preamps.

 

TFTT is an all time classic album and this is hi-res remastering is simply outstanding. This is really is about as good as it gets.

More please.

 

I stumbled upon these comments whist look at Hi Res stuff.

 

Now I wanted to add my pennies worth to the bandwidth debate. It does not matter whether it is transferred to 192 or 96K as you will not extract anything above 20 KHz from the master tape.

I handled this tape at Island back in 1985 when they were doing some re-issues. It was two reels and all the recording dates and other information was noted inside. Now the big point is that this was / is a quarter inch 15 ips stereo tape that has been recorded with "A" Dolby encoding so was the 16 track multi track lay down also had "A" Dolby on all tracks then mixed to the stereo quarter inch tape.

Now the problem is the Dolby units of that period had 36 dB / octave filters to avoid bias and these are in both record and playback so it accumulates. these are set in the early units to be dead flat to 20K and roll off from 24 K so the master has had at least 4 steps on the way so there is nothing above 20 KHz period. Like clutching at straws. The tape is indeed very good for other reasons and well mixed tidily but there are very large dynamics and many so called mastering places do not any longer care to be accurate about peak levels.

 

Later "A" Dolby units were supplied modified to 30 KHz before roll off.

 

Hopefully this will be noted and many other recordings are of the same process. I find the amount of pontificating slightly amusing.

Tinytim.

[firedog]

The DSD version at Acoustic Sounds is a direct transfer from the analog master; so it should definitely have all of what's on the tape

[Tinytim]

The DSD version at Acoustic Sounds is a direct transfer from the analog master; so it should definitely have all of what's on the tape

 

Yes, but with the proviso that their tape machine does not have the extended bass response of the machine at Mobile Fidelity. Or for that matter the machine used at Island records back then.

 

Therefore DSD or PCM makes no difference to total content. Just what flavour do you like.

[jzahr]

I stumbled upon these comments whist look at Hi Res stuff.

 

Now I wanted to add my pennies worth to the bandwidth debate.

...

...

 

I find the amount of pontificating slightly amusing.

Tinytim.

 

Thanks for this very interesting info about filtering.

 

Jorge

[Tinytim]

Thanks for this very interesting info about filtering.

 

Jorge

 

No worries. Just setting record staight.

[gabeg]

Ok so I finally compared the Mobile Fidelity 16/44 version with the 24/192 HDTracks version. First of all the HDTracks is a little louder (compressed) as was said before, and I felt it also a very little bit brighter sounding, that is, more highs and air. But after adjusting volumes, the voices, guitars and keyboards are clearly more resolving, more focused and overall better sounding in the HDTracks version. The MoFi was very good, the HDTracks is excellent. Great release from HDTracks, highly recommended.

 

Those who say the HD version is more compressed than the mofi don't know what they're talking about. Louder doesn't necessarily mean compressed. In this case, the mofi was mastered at a lower level than it needed to be. The hd version is mastered so the peaks just miss digital zero - as is the correct thing to do. Furthermore if whether measuring dynamic range using the flawed (but still somewhat useful) dr method or the proper R128 method, the hd version is slightly more dynamic than the mofi verision. For instance, with Wild World for mofi's version measures DR12/ R128 8.0LU while the hd version measures DR12/ R128 8.2LU. Minor differences even if in hd's favor.

[Matias]

gabeg, you are right.

[Boris75]

What's the R128 method for measuring dynamic range? How can it be implemented easily?

[Milt99]

The DSD version at Acoustic Sounds is a direct transfer from the analog master; so it should definitely have all of what's on the tape

Just my 2 cents.

I bought the AP SACD of this and was a little bit disappointed. Very good but I was expecting more maybe unrealistically.

Someone at the QQ forum opined that the DSD download sounded better to him than the SACD.

Apparently the SACD was mastered from a PCM transfer and the download is straight DSD.

I reluctantly downloaded the DSD version and was happily surprised that it does indeed sound "better".

In fact it sounds like I expected the SACD to sound.

Trust me this is not a self-fulling bias as I was highly skeptical there would be an easily discernible difference and many times different is not better.

It was simply the guy's opinion that convinced me to try it as we seem to agree about many things.

IT worked out this time happily.

[Ice]

Isn't it possible that the different sources (Mobile Fidelity 16/44 , 24/192 HDTracks) sound different because your hardware (e.g. Mytek 192 DSD Stereo DAC) reproduces them different?