Pink Floyd Discovery Box is here... (part2)

and what's your opinion, which is better? i have the 2007 (3cd's package) and the 2011 itunes one... so far IMO the 2007 sounds better.

 

Hmmm. Those used Japanesse Mini lps are pretty expensive. I may just change course, and make all about the music. That being the case, i'd skip ANY box set, and just get the 4 or 5 2011 titles I really care about. Of course, now I just have to decide on srtandard, experience, or immersion!

Btw, How did Guthrie screw upthose 2003 masters so badly, and now in 2011 is a mastering genuis? Was there outside forces in 2003, or was he having a bad week?

 

Way off my friend Waters sang and it is debatable whether Barrett even played guitar on Let There Be More Light !!

 

Ufff, I don't know. Maybe for me is the 2011 one slightly better

 

Thanks for your answer.

 

Which ones are you referring too?

The Guthrie 2003 “DSOTM” SACD DSD 2.0 remaster is one of the best available. The excellent SACD 5.1 mix is apparently the source for the Blu-ray. The SACD redbook layer was just pushed to hard in volume - but who listens to that one when you have the DSD 2.0 version?

 

I agree Scott. For two channel, the SACD is King.

 

Whatever buddy, I could not care less - it's Pink Floyd as far as I know and it sounds like a typically great Floyd tune to me, don't care if Johnny Winter played guitar...lol

 

In regards to the 2011 iTunes version of Piper you're referring to... Is this an MP3 you bought from iTunes? I didn't know that iTunes sold full wave files.

 

Me. Because I listen on an audio server only.

 

Then you’re missing the 2 reasons to own the disc - the DSD 2.0 and the 5.1.

I primarily listen to music ripped to a server too, but I don’t let that stop me from enjoying the benefits that SACD can offer. I now have the DSD of this album converted to hi-rez PCM on my server and it is superb.

 

The 2011 Pink Floyd catalogue on iTunes is advertised as being specifically 'Mastered for iTunes'. The tracks are dynamically compressed compared to their physical CD counterparts. (Nick's drums at the beginning of Set the Controls all being of uniform volume/loudness for example) - the mastering is different to the physical CDs.

I downloaded five of the tracks from the digital Discovery box on the iTunes Store; Set the Controls (Saucerful), Cymbaline (More), If (AHM), Wots The Deal (Obscured) and High Hopes (TDB) to compare the mastering to the Oh By The Way CD set. All dynamically squashed relative to OBTW.

Wound up buying the physical Discovery box

 

Ah... So Smiths22 was comparing apples with moldy rotten oranges, eh? I would have never guessed that the 2007 Piper CD would have sounded better than the 2011 compressed files downloaded from iTunes.

 

Interesting message from Amazon:

While this item is available from other marketplace sellers on this page, it is not currently offered by Amazon.com because customers have told us there may be something wrong with our inventory of the item, the way we are shipping it, or the way it's described here. (Thanks for the tip!)

We're working to fix the problem as quickly as possible.

 

I remember them doing that with the big Miles Davis box.

 

Any idea what the issue might be?

 

Loose discs would be my guess.

*Edit: Just realized this is the Discovery thread. Not sure then.

 

I love the box. My one big gripe (and perhaps it's cause I'm a Syd-head and I love this album) are the wrong recording dates in "Saucerful". It states "Recorded Jan-April 1968 at Abbey Road", which is clearly wrong information...or at least only partly true, as anyone who knows anything about the Syd-era realizes he wasn't even involved with the band at the point.
Seems like a lazy job done by the research team, no? I mean, if you're making this the "definitive" version of each album, you'd think the info would be correct.

 

Do you think counterfit DISCOVERY boxed sets will eventually be an issue like they was for the "And Oh By The Way" boxed set?

 

Yes, all the big boxes from the more popular acts seem to get counterfeited at some point. I can't think of any big Rock act that has been immune to it. Usually the only groups left alone are the less popular ones. Though I have seen counterfeit Nick Drake and Pentangle boxes, so maybe even being obscure is not enough.

 

Well syd was involved in atleast 3-4 of the tracks on this albums playing guitar, so the record dates are right + also some of it was recorded in 1967.

Remember in the studio Floyd was still a 5 man band almost until the very last days before Syd on 6 April 1968 "left" the band. If I remember right during this early months of 1968 they also recorded some Barrett songs meant for A Saucerful but never got into the final record.

 

Other albums in the box have incomplete recording dates in the booklets, and some mention no recording dates at all. Why single this one out?

 

This was the first one in particular that I read the liners in depth and it jumped out at me. Again, it's just odd that they wouldn't make everything uniform and complete. It seems lazy to me. I know, the audio comes first, and it's wonderful to say the least, but I'm trying to look at this as a complete package, and it irks me, and I assume others.

 

The box is available on Amazon again, complete with a nice price hike.

 

I just checked the Saucerful 2011 remaster, and it still has that patch at 2:28 2:35

I wonder what happened to the master tape?

It seems that the "Works" version is the only CD version of "Set The Controls" without that patch/edit around the 2:30 mark. The version from "Echoes" has it too.