Blonde on Blonde SACD - Oh My God!

[GoldenBoy]

I just got it the other day and have been listening to it all day. all I can say is - OH MY GOD! :D This disc COMPLETELY blows the Mastersound Gold version out of the water. Gone is all the tinniness and harshness. In is a more full-bodied, warm, distortion free sound. I don't have a copy of the regular release CD to compare it to, but who cares? I'm in love. ;)

[Paul L.]

This will be no surprise to you, but the standard version CD is not even close in quality to the SACD version.

[RicP]

hee hee hee

welcome to the SACD Revolution. :D

[Richard Feirstein]

Well, its an all new mix from the 4 track master. They allegedly tried to mirror the stereo mix but actually used a later stereo mix as their model and not the mono mix that Bob himself had a hand in mixing. Sounds great even on CD-R but I like the SACD playback best. The Gold version is OK but lacking in bass.

[Rspaight]

Whew -- glad you like it after I hyped it up for you!

I just sat there the first time I heard it, wondering if I'd ever heard this album before...

Ryan

[GoldenBoy]

Originally posted by Rspaight
Whew -- glad you like it after I hyped it up for you!

I just sat there the first time I heard it, wondering if I'd ever heard this album before...

Ryan

Ryan,

I know what you mean. This disc is a different beast entirely. It is a revelation. I don't think I HAVE heard this album before. ;)

[Richard Feirstein]

Do run out and buy the mono vinyl remaster when it hits the street very soon. I don't know if they patched all the guitar mistakes Bob did on the official mono release that were not followed on any of the stereo releases.:p

[GoldenBoy]

Originally posted by Richard Feirstein
Do run out and buy the mono vinyl remaster when it hits the street very soon. I don't know if they patched all the guitar mistakes Bob did on the official mono release that were not followed on any of the stereo releases.:p

Richard,

There's a mono release coming out on vinyl? When is that supposed to happen?

I'm not really a vinyl man myself, I pretty much gave up vinyl in '89 when I got my first CD player, but I have recently been purchasing a few new releases on LP as well as CD and am probably going to purchase a turntable soon. I haven't had one for, oh, maybe nine or ten years now. Nothing expensive, certainly not anything over $200, and then I can pull out all my old records and compare them to the CD versions, and play those new records that I have sitting around now.:)

[Beagle]

Is that Sony or Sundazed releasing that on vinyl?

[Richard Feirstein]

Sundazed, authorized by Bob and licensed by Sony.

[RDK]

Is the new SACD domestic or Japanese only? Also, does it have a normal redbook cd layer as well? I'd pick it up in a heartbeat if it did, but i don't yet have a SACD player.
Ray

[Ronflugelguy]

The Sundazed HW-61 is out , I don not have anything to compare it to, but I like the Sundazed "times They Are a Changin" better. the sound is cleaner and clear as a bell!

[PsychFan]

Yep, so far Sundazed has issued cheap ($12 - $15) mono LPs of Freewheelin', Times They Are a-Changin', Bringing it All Back Home and Highway 61. I've bought and listened to them all, and they're all wonderful ...

Blonde on Blonde is next ...

[Paul L.]

RDK,
The SACD of Blonde on Blonde is domestic.
It will play only on SACD players. It is not a hybrid.

[RDK]

Bummer... looks like i won't be getting that one for a while.

[patricku]

I just receive three B. Dylan....ALL warped...

[Claus]

It's not fair, when you compare Sony's Mastersound Gold CD with the SACD. First... Blonde on Blonde was remixed for the SACD mastering... so it makes no sense to compare both pressings. They are completely different... anyway the SACD is the best version. Period

[Paul L.]

Claus,

It *is* fair to compare the Mastersound and the SACD in one sense because both were made from the multi-track master. Same source tape. Both are remixes. It's just Michael Brauer did a great job on the SACD, and Mark Wilder's Mastersound simply wasn't as good.

Brauer was given a lot of time, so that may account for some of it, and Wilder seems to have made a new mix to his taste rather than reference the LPs.

If you mean it isn't a fair way to compare the benefits of SACD over regular CD, you are absolutely 100% correct. Such a comparison proves nothing about the format because there were so many different things done in the mix and the processing. Too many variables.

[Mick Jones]

I would have thought that it is entirely fair to compare the Mastersound gold CD and the SACD of 'Blonde on Blonde', because they were both remixed. Sony (Columbia really) have apparently lost the original stereo masters. Leaving aside the superior sonics of SACD over CD, the SACD remixing is just done so much better.

[Richard Feirstein]

This month's Stereophile has an interview with the head of Sundazed. He disclosed that the mono and stereo pressing masters were more worn out, including their safety copies, than lost. He has found the boxes with all the sound elements, apparently. Perhaps more than just the 4 track master. Let's see what he does with his new mono mix for vinyl.

I have the SACD and a CD-R made from that SACD. Both sound great, I like the sound of the SACD better - don't know why.:D

[Mick Jones]

The pressing masters are surely not the original master tapes, they will have been equalised (and probably compressed) for lp production, won't they?

[Steve Hoffman]

At Columbia, the original master tapes WERE equalized and compressed for LP cutting! :(


And that was what was used to cut the East Coast pressings, until the tape started to wear out and was copied, and so on, and so on...

[Paul L.]

Can you expand on this and clarify a bit more, Steve?

The Highway 61 Revisited master you used was marked Do Not Use. This tape was made directly from the multi-track, right? And then other masters for LP and reel-to-reel were made from this Do Not Use tape, correct? You were the first to use the Do Not Use tape itself, yes?

So shouldn't there be a Blonde On Blonde Do Not Use tape as well?

[Steve Hoffman]

"So shouldn't there be a Blonde On Blonde Do Not Use tape as well?"


They used it----up!

Same thing happened to the first three Simon & Garfunkel masters; used for East Coast Columbia cutting and recutting until the tape started wearing out. They made a copy of that tape and used it for East Coast cutting until IT started to wear out. It was recopied to a third tape (now third generation) and IT was used for East Coast cutting, etc.

Most companies did that, but since the middle 1960's Columbia stuff was on Scotch 200 series tape and not 100 series, the tape just wore a lot faster. Just history.

BTW, the "Highway 61" tape was wearing out too, so it must have been used at some point in the East Coast cutting process. Thank God it still sounded great!

[Paul L.]

Steve,
I hate to be a lawyer about this, but . . .

Clip from your interview with Doug Hess, discussing Highway 61 Revisited:
"And when I said that I still hadn't gotten the master yet they said, 'Well, we have one more reel left that's marked 'DO NOT USE,' and I said, 'That's it.' And they argued that it was marked DO NOT USE and I said, 'You have to look closer, why is it marked that way?' The person then found that it really said DO NOT USE FOR CUTTING LAQUERS-USE EQ COPY. And I said, 'That's the master, they didn't want you to use the master for cutting LPs 30 years ago.'

So I was always under the impression from various interviews you gave that the Do Not Use tape had, indeed, NOT BEEN USED! But now it sounds like you're saying it WAS used, almost used to death.

Surely, just by listening to the bass on your DCC Gold release, one can tell the tape wasn't used to cut LPs directly!?!