New from HDTracks: Frampton Comes Alive 24/96

Some of you may be interested in this.

 

Got that email too. Interesting. Mastered by Doug Sax. They have some cool jazz titles and Plant/Krauss as well.

 

That is interesting. I don't have the multi-channel DVD-A/SACD. I am wondering if the mastering on the stereo layer is the same as this new offering?

 

Notice A Love Supreme & Soap Opera in there? I like my SACDs just fine, however.

 

Yeah - and you get a physical product for less money too.
Love the fact that these hi-rez dowloads are available, but I really do not understand the pricing here. Same with Linn downloads. $10 and I'd be buying a lot more.

 

I've actually never owned the Frampton and I'm going to get the download. Don't yet have the full 24/96 playback capability though. But whatever. Eventually I will.

I like HDTracks a lot. It isn't cheap but for some items their prices compare well. I'm also getting an ECM record for $12 that seems to be available only as an import for $19.

The real good thing about HDTracks is that you hardly miss not having the physical product, because you get a .pdf of the booklet. All in all I think it's easier to look at the info on the computer and pull up the record on the Squeezebox than it is to take something off the shelf and stick it in the player. So I'm down with it.

 

Just bought this one, am listening at work on crappy computer speakers. Will give my impressions later.

 

A sonic mess

Well, color me disappointed. I had high hopes with Doug Sax having a good reputation with the Pink Floyd stuff. Before I give my comments a few words....

Frampton Comes Alive came out when I was 8 years old and as anyone who remembers knows, it was all over the radio. My folks played it on the big Zenith console. I remember the sound of the album very well, and have acquired pretty much all the versions of the album out there. What I've always liked about the album was that it really felt like a live album - the crowd was mixed pretty loud, and there was a very real sense of space from the venues. It sounded live, with all the rough edges that come from live performances - e.g., Frampton's proximity to the mike would reveal itself in loud & softer bits here and there. It's a show which was recorded very well and has plenty of dynamic range.

I just can't understand what they were going for with the 24/96 Sax remaster. It's loud, oh yes - and everything has smushed into a two-dimensional mess. The ambience of the venues is gone, for instance. Oddly enough, the crowd noise seems to be suppressed in places where it was prominent before - it doesn't rise & fall as much as with the previous versions. It is a very modern sounding mastering. I can understand the modern approach and I have found that sometimes it works, but for a live show like this one, it really seems to have failed. Try as I might I cannot find songs that sound better with the remaster. In short, another loudness war casualty. There are also other issues which may be related to EQ but they may be also partly due to the compression. The bass isn't as punchy in the remaster. It sounds like a wall of mush.

It's kind of sad that on hdtracks.com you can see a brief interview with Frampton about why he chose them and how he is a proponent of hirez and how it makes such a difference. In this case, you have a poorly mastered hirez recording. You might as well mix it straight to mp3 for the fidelity that's in the music, in my opinion.

So I wish I had spent the $18 on beer or something, because I doubt this will get any more time on my stereo. Such is life.

 

Any other opinions on this? I am thinking about the 24/96 FLAC download and don't own any other version.

 

Just FYI, the top is the HDtracks 24/96, the middle is MFSL, and the bottom is the original A&M CD release. To my ears, it sounds like it looks here. All three are the first song of the album.

 

I've looked into this a bit more and I discovered that the newer releases of FCA are a remix. I had not known that, and it does explain why I was hearing the crowd noise and ambiance differently, beyond the obvious compression. So I believe a fair amount of my criticism isn't just the compression, but the remixing. My brain is just used to the original mix.

 

I was just gonna ask if this was a remaster of the new "remix" i bough that on cd a few years ago & it really ruined the Album , they should have left it alone ..... what a bummer this is not good , thanks for the warning !

 

Wow, eighteen bucks for:

* no disc or case
* no physical artwork or liner notes I can hold in my hand
* no compensation for my time required to download this and burn it to a dvd.....after learning HOW to burn it to the dvd format.....and hoping the dvd's dye lasts more than just a few years; plus I also get to pay for the disc it's burned onto (for music playback I use portable audio players AND home component systems).

I am glad that companies are offering hi-res downloads - I truly am. But the usual prices I keep seeing for them are ridiculous IMO. To me, eight to ten dollars is much more in line with what the customer is receiving.

 

Agreed about all of that... but what do you think of the sound, do you think the sound is representative of the sonic advantage of the 24/96 format?

 

I agree with much of what you say, but the idea with HDTracks is that you play the music off a server, not that you burn the tracks to a DVD. Of course you can do the latter, but that is not really the intent.

 

Wow, that waveform above is pretty stark.

Finally got around to listening closely to this download this morning. Nothing to write home about in terms of sound IMO. I don't know this recording very well, except for having heard portions on the radio four million times, like every other American, but I wonder how much there was in the source material to work with in terms of sound quality (dynamic range, body, etc.).

EDIT: Just reread Leigh's in-depth review above. Assuming he's right that previous versions had much more range and sense of space (I don't know), yeah, this has got to be a disappointment.

 

Shortly after my last post in this thread I went out and got a used copy of the original LP on ebay and that's what I prefer now. The early CD masterings are pretty faithful to the LP, FYI. I think I like the MFSL the best of the CD releases.