An evening with Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea

[audiovkk]

 

I got this from ProStudioMasters although HDTracks also has it. It appears that this is barely CD quality although sold at 192khz. I'm doing this for the first time so feel free to point out any errors.

 

[Musicophile]

To be fair, piano music often has little high frequency content. But this really lolls like a hard filter at 22khz. Something fishy going on there apparently.

[CatManDo]

It's an early digital master from 1978.

 

"Mastered with the new Sony PCM digital mastering equipment"

 

I don't know why they keep reissung this on SACD and hi-rez downloads.

 

 

https://www.discogs.com/Herbie-Hancock-Chick-Corea-An-Evening-With-Herbie-Hancock-Chick-Corea-In-Concert-1978/release/5749832

[firedog]

You can make a good rationale for reissuing tape from the 50's - 70's in high res. But early digital recorded in 16 (or maybe even 14) bit? No reason to sell it upsampled to hi-res.

 

I suggest pointing this out to HDT and ProStudioMasters; at the least they should note on the album page that it was recorded in non-hi res digital. In reality, they should refuse to sell it labelled as hi-res.

[CatManDo]

Sorry, I've confused the two Corea/Hancock albums on Columbia and Polydor.

 

My remarks were about the Columbia album lead by Herbie Hancock, which is available on SACD and as a 24/96 download

 

An Evening With Herbie Hancock & Chick Corea In Concert (Live)

 

 

The album mentionned in the first post is lead by Chick Corea, released on Polydor.

 

Both albums come from recordings made at the same 1978 tour, by the same staff. The covers look very similar too.

 

But the Polydor album does not mention the Sony PCM mastering stage (maybe the Columbia album just does that because of the corporate link with Sony)

 

"Remote facilities: Filmways/Heider Recording. Remixed and mastered at The Automatt, San Francisco."

 

https://www.discogs.com/Chick-Corea-And-Herbie-Hancock-Corea-Hancock-An-Evening-With-Chick-Corea-And-Herbie-Hancock/release/2093162

 

 

Concerning hi-rez reissues of early digital recordings by Herbie Hancock for Columbia, there are a few more:

 

- Directstep (1978) Directstep

 

- The Piano (1978) The Piano

 

- Herbie Hancock Trio with Ron Carter & Tony Williams (1981) Herbie Hancock Trio with Ron Carter & Tony Williams

 

- Quartet (1981) Quartet

 

- with V.S.O.P. : Five stars (1979) V.S.O.P. The Quintet: Five Stars

 

- V.S.O.P. Live Under The Sky (1979) V.S.O.P. The Quintet: Live Under the Sky

 

A hi-rez remaster from an early digital recording is not necessarily pointless, because the original CD mastering could be bettered, but if you already have the recent Hancock CD set with these remasterings, it would not make sense to upgrade them with hi-rez versions.

[audiovkk]

I added a wider db range. It displays more frequencies, but there is a steep fall off around 20khz implying possibly it's sourced from an earlier 44.1khz recording as pointed above vs analogue. I'm not an expert so some with more experience may determine better. To my ears however, the recording is not as full and deep sounding as I expected a 192/24 recording to be and what prompted the analysis in the first place. The Joe pass actually sounded ok, but the analysis threw me. I guess trusting one's ears is the most important thing to start with.

 

[jazzy1]

Perhaps a digital recording transferred to analog for mastering/mixing, etc, and now back to digital. There is clearly some kind of tape bias or other analog anomalies going on above 22KHz.

 

You still may have the best digital transfer available.