The Van Morrison cd thread

I guess there's not much point concluding that there are different masterings of an album without trying to get an idea of which one might be superior. We know that the WB and Polydor Tupelo Honey are different and that Roland prefers the WB. I've learned to respect Roland's ear as well.

We also know that the masterings are different for Saint Dominic's and Mal suggested there are some problems with the Polydor. He has the WB as well - Mal can you pick a clear winner between these two discs?

I'll PM the Hard Nose levels to you Craig - it'll be easier to read if all the levels are available in one post. Tim do you have EAC? Could you PM the It's Too Late levels to Craig?

 

That's the key, and it seems not many people have heard both versions of any given title. I was hoping this thread would flush out a few more listeners.

I found this thread in the archives (I had vague memory about someone stating a preference for the Hard Nose Polydor, and lo and behold it was Mal):

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=69325&page=3&highlight=morrison+hard+nose

Is that still your opinion, Mal?

 

Certainly can, the WB wins

 

I'm liking that people prefer the WBs. It seems so rare that a humble U.S. disc is the best

 

I thought that might come back to haunt me.......

Since upgrading my gear I've had a closer listen to the two versions and have discovered that the Polydor also has the strange warbly sound that the Warner Bros disc has on "Snow In San Anselmo" - must be the way the master sounds I guess. I'm not sure why I thought the Polydor didn't have the same problems as the Warner disc before, maybe the processed sound of the the Polydor helped mask it on my lesser system?....

Anyway, now I am firmly on the side of the Warner version

In fact, having compared all these, the original Warner beats the original Polydor on each case:

Saint Dominic's Preview
Hard Nose The Highway
Veedon Fleece
Into The Music
Common One

There seems to have been something done to the original Polydors - they all sound a little artificially processed in some way. In contrast, the Warner CDs all sound very natural and unprocessed to my ears......

 

Oh, I think I'll be joining you in regretting older decisions. I used to be firmly of the opinion that the WB of Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart was too muddy. It's the only WB I ever replaced with a Polydor remaster and I thought it was a good move at the time. Nowadays the remaster sounds way too bright for me. I have recently acquired an unremastered German Polydor which is definitely better than the remaster, but I need to reacquire the WB (fortunately still in print and easy to find). I suspect the WB will end up "back on top". . .

 

Just to clarify for the newbies at this thread and Van cd sounds in general, so if I want to collect all the WB cd of Van's I'm safe buying 'any' WB cd, new or used, as they were never remastered and all sound sweet, right?

cheers,


PS: Is there a difference in Astral Weeks cds between the standard Cd still available, the ones that say Original Masters on the spine, and the originals?

 

You are correct, Mr. Bill, although some titles sound sweeter than others. At the very least, I think all the WBs were made from reasonably good tapes and have not been excessively EQ'd or compressed. Not to say some of them couldn't sound better, but IME the Polydor remasters are not an improvement, and according to forum members who have compared it seems the original Polydors are not an improvement either. NB: a lot of members are claiming to hear differences among cds that measure the same in EAC. Make of that what you will, I posted some thoughts earlier in the thread. . .

AFAIK, those "Original Masters" discs are just repackagings of the same mastering.

 

Great, thanks for this. Damn, now I am torn. I was looking forward to exploring Van's catalog as the remasters came out, I bought Tupelo, TLTSN, and Wavelengths, and just last week, Sense of Wonder. But the bonus tracks are pretty paultry, and the sound gets no rave reviews round here, so maybe I'll just fill in my 1967-1980 slots as the original WBs as they come my way used...

I did get T/B Sheets used last week, as I was advised that the He Aint Give You None was the original there, but not the same on the Bang Masters... What's the deal with the various pressing of this lost gem of an album?

cheers,

 

I deliberately skipped TB Sheets for purposes of this thread. I'm not too fond of it and the material has been released about 1 million different times. I have seen positive comments about the Mastersound Gold disc from forum members.

 

that sounds great Tim. I prefer my vinyl on this title as well. this is a canadian pressing?

 

Yes, purchased new in Montreal in 1977.

Tim

 

Sadly when the remasters came out I went and bought them all selling my original Warner releases. What a mistake! The Polydors aren't bad but they do sound so artifical...I kept my original Warners for the three titles that weren't re-released on Polydor.

YOu're right by the way I can't detect any difference between my original Polydors and the new remasters. I was hoping for an improvement but that just didn't happen. THe only good thing are the bonus tracks which, sadly, you can't get anywhere else unless you want to go down the illegal route.

I'm probably going to eventually get rid of all of my Polydors and rebuy the Warners where I can (just found a nice original "Wavelength" and "Into the Music" is still plentiful).

 

Hard Nose The Highway
U.S. WB 2712-2
Matrix: 1 2712-2 SRC-06 M155

60.6
67.3
66.6
54
71.8
79.3
51.7
66.6

"Warm Love" opening acoustic guitar left
"Bein' Green" horn left

German Polydor 839 163-2 (Courtesy of Russell)
Matrix: 834 329-2 02 /

88.3
83.9
96
85.4
97.7
95.2
68.6
89

 

It's Too Late To Stop Now
U.S. W.B. 2760-2
Disc 1
Matrix: 1 2760-2.1 SRC-02 M3-S2

79.2
88.8
73.2
74.5
81.4
78.8
72.3
50.8
72.9
71.9

"Ain't Nothing You Can Do" piano right, horns right
"Wild Children" guitar left

Disc 2
Matrix: 1 2760-2.2 SRC-03

80.8
78.2
79.5
76.2
73.1
74.7
82.3
81

"St. Dominic's Preview" piano right, guitar left
"Caravan" piano right, guitar left

Someone mentioned in another thread that they were about to be able to do a shootout between the U.S. WB and the German Polydor for this one. I'll make sure they post something in this thread. . .

 

I have a nice WG Moondance. Gorgeous sound.

 

Yes, that is a good one. The Warner Too Late is also worth the search.

 

Curbach,

if it not to much trouble, coule you give an idiot a brief explaination of just what all these numbers mean? what's a good number a bad number, etc..
how do you get the numbers? are the numbers a good guide to? etc...

thanks \

mrbill

 

The peak levels, as seen by the ripping software ExactAudioCopy.
No good/bad numbers, but if all levels are at 100&, hmmm, it may be Compression City.

 

Thank you, that helps... a bit....

 

Generally speaking if you see at least one peak approaching 100% and reasonable variance in the rest of the tracks (ie not all of them reaching the same high level), the chances are it's a good mastering, lack-of-compression-wise. Of course it depends on the nature of the music, and there may be other issues with the mastering.

 

Yeah, the numbers don't really mean a lot in and of themselves. They are just useful for identifying within a reasonable degree of certainty when two discs have the same mastering (i.e., the numbers match).

 

The Polydor matches the WB channels.

This WB looks like it's pretty quiet Craig - not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that.

Mal says he now definitely prefers the WB for this album, so all we need is an opinion from the It's Too Late shootout and we can move on...unless somebody wants to throw in a Canadian pressing or something.

 

I've never thought of it as a particuarly quiet disc, but then it's not one of my favorites so I don't listen to it very much. It does appear that the Polydors have higher peak values than the WBs pretty much across the board.

 

Thanks for the peak levels education gentlemen. I have a better understandig of what I'm looking for in those nunbers now...

Now I really must dig out that The Healing Game Cd and spin it a la curbach...

ps: anyone else notice how these excellent, standard WB Van Cds seem to be disappearing rapidly as a 'new' CD?