Steve's Analogue Productions Blue Note SACD/CD Sound Quality Discussion Thread

I think you should provide information that supports your theory. None of this "heard it from anonymous sources" stuff. That's not fair to anyone interested in this discussion. Otherwise, you are perpetuating falsehoods.

If you don't like the sound, that is fine. There's plenty of masterings I don't like that are favored around here.

 

There is a difference between 'not sounding good' and 'not sounding great'

Maybe they are not amazing but I would not say that they do not sound good.

 

My sources wish to remain anonymous and I will respect that.

Sam, do you honestly not hear the soft highs on these releases, especially compared to the LP release? Listen to the Blue Train AS LP. Beautifully dynamic and punchy. The SACD seems to be a completely different mastering-missing highs, murkiness, squashed dynamics. This seems very obvious to my ears. Yet Steve says it was split from the LP...and I believe him so the only thing I can surmise is something went wrong in the authoring stage. My sources tell me that Chad Kassem ordered them to be futzed with.

No one wanted these to sound good more than me. I cannot afford to buy all the MusicMatters titles and get the Acoustic LPs. The SACDs at the lower price of $30 would have been an ideal way to have both while saving some money.

 

I guess I would say they do not even sound average for many the SACDs I have and I have north of 700 titles.

 

Are you Bernstein/Woodward and your informer is "Deep Throat"?

 

LeeS, when you wrote about the difference in sound between the SACD and the LP, that was the most interesting and "convincing" (within the paradigm of not being able to listen for myself). I just want to check - you have both the new LP and the new SACD?

 

I respect your opinion but the suggestion that it's been compressed after mastering sounds strange at least, I doubt steve would give the go ahead to that....

 

If true one would think that the mastering engineer was made aware of the 'tamper' and I assume was okay with it?

Otherwise there would be serious implications here

 

Interesting. Are you saying Chad ordered someone to alter the final master Steve delivered? I wonder if this is related to the hum noise that can be heard during tracks 1-5 of Blue Train. The hum is especially noticable during the silence between songs when listening on headphones.

 

It's happened before, hasn't it?

I'd have to do some searching on the forum archives to try and track down the references, but I'm pretty sure there are prior examples where Steve delivered his mastering work to a label, then they altered it after that handoff. My memory is whispering to me that you could look to the RCA/Buddha jazz remasters that Steve did as examples of that scenario, but I'm not 100% sure (can anyone back me up on that memory? ).

Craig.

 

This is an audiophile forum and no one else is hearing the HUM on the CD layer of the AP "Blue Train??"

Listen during the silence between songs on tracks 1-5. I can't believe no one else is hearing this.

Try listening on headphones.

 

I am not hearing any hum on the BT on either layer, just a little tape hiss . Is there more than one version of this item?

 

It is not present on my copy.

 

There's also hum on Whistle Stop that isn't on the original BN CD. Haven't heard the vinyl of that one yet.

Otherwise, though, I disagree with Lee that these don't sound good. I'd suggest that he simply isn't fond of RVG's "sound," but he claims to find the LPs much better, so I don't know...

 

ditto

 

Have you guys tried listening on headphones. I'll see if I can post a sample of the hum later....

 

It does seem to happen now and then - which doesn't mean I'm saying that it happened here.

Several years ago I was told that a record label ordered massive noise reduction to be applied to King Oliver recordings the late John R.T. Davies had mastered for them, making them sound dead as a dodo.

 

So I'm not crazy!! Someone else is hearing the hum too on these SACDs. The frustrating thing is that the hum is not on the original Blue Note CD or original Lps, so it's perplexing what caused this on the SACD series.

I wonder if the hum is on all of the titles? I ordered Moanin and should receive it this week. I'll report back on findings. For what it's worth the hum was only on the original album tracks of the Blue Train SACD, but NOT on the bonus tracks. Interesting.

 

Not to mince words, but, in fact, I think you misunderstand.

The poster to whom you responded merely pointed out contradictions across your posts. In one, you stated your perception that the sacd's lack dynamic range. In another, you state that they are *too* dynamic.

Now you have settled on the assertion that the discs lack dynamics and *are not good*. Fair enough; most certainly you are entitled to your opinion.

But to issue a blanket post that you and "several others" have arrived at the ironclad conclusion that these sacd's are "not good" - and that those of us here who like them are somehow deceiving ourselves - is in rather poor taste, don't you think?

Objectively, at least two things seem clear:

1) You personally are disappointed in the sound quality of these discs.

2) Based on wave forms, the behavior of these discs in my own system, and the perceptions of numerous experienced listeners here, at a minimum, they are not compressed.

 

I have no hum whatsoever on the Dorham or the Coltrane discs.

 

I'm sorry but "sources" doesn't play well in the Internet world. There is way too much mis-information going around.

 

I have all of these- I have a subscription for the whole series. I'll acknowledge that I've not been "wowed" by any of the first group of releases- I found Steve's Art Pepper SACDs from a few years ago to be much more dynamic by comparison. From my perspective, I think it probably goes back to RGV's sound. I seem to recall Steve commenting somewhere about the difficulties of mastering RGV's tapes and certain adjustments he had to make, so I don't think it's any big surprise...

 

Did you listen on headphones between songs of the original album tracks?

 

there is very low level hum (lower than the tape hiss) more noticeable on the Whistle Stop than BT,
To hear it I had to switch headphones from AKGs (open) to Sony studio monitors (closed) and turn up the volume way high (only try it at the fade outs)

 

That indeed does sound very low level. But again, I fail to perceive this hum, so maybe my hearing has gone South or my system does not have the resolution of others here. I myself am pleased by the sound quality of this series, but just to make LeeS happy, maybe we should start another thread as a poll.