"So Far Away" from the original Brothers in Arms CD and from the Best Of CD.

I'm glad you started this topic, because I'm interested in seeing where it goes.

I only own the remaster of this record, and while I think it sounds great, I wonder what the differences are from the original, like with any remaster. Could it just be that it's louder? I'm going to try replaygaining them and listening back-to-back a few times again. I figure this way I can see how different the two samples sound aside from just the loudness issue.

XRCD2 So_Far_Away.wv (914kbps ) ?

I didn't download the samples but I imagine it's a case of the newer one being significantly louder. Here's an interesting article....

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/...6256C2E005DAF1C

What format are those samples in? wv?

http://www.wavpack.com/

wavpack
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=333001
edit: sorry, I'm too slow

OK thanks.

These samples are basically identical except for the gain added to the new one. It is nor really remastered at all, just louder. There's no extra compression or anything, as the original had so much headroom. There is a difference of 8.78 dB between the two samples, and that's it. IMO, this is sensible mastering, and not really an example of the loudness race.

C

yeah this is a rather bad example because it's just using a lot of the headroom that the original didn't.

Replaygain says there's no clipped samples, so it's just a louder version? Nothing wrong with that.

Now get your hands on some original masters of red hot chili peppers and you'll have something (if they even exist)

It could be that the chosen section is a quieter section of the album, and thus when remastered just gets louder but without clipping. However, I've got an old mp3 of the famous song from that album, and its max noclip gain is 87.4 dB. So the original (the mp3 is old enough that I'm quite sure it's from the original, plus the gain is so low) must have used all available headroom on some of the sections of some of the songs.

What an excellent read. A lot of that I was already familiar with, but it was brought together nicely in that article, IMO. Thanks for sharing.

I don't remember how I came across that article but I bookmarked it so I could share it every now and then. It is a good read.

Everytime the loudness war is being discussed someone posts a link to that article...

The remastered version IS heavily clippressed (well, just heavily clipped actually). For some reason i can't attach a picture to my post to proof it.

You're right, this is a good remaster. But it's not just added gain, the original had no headroom left (track peak of 0.9978). Also, I was able to abx the two samples easily, suggesting that the second one really was remastered:



The remastered version was more compressed and sounded a little tighter (more modern), but very good indeed, nowhere near the compression and clipping hell we're used to hear nowadays.

Just a thought although it is fairly obvious:

I notice that clipressed CD-s get much poorer lossless compression in my own collection too. No wonder since clipping is such an unnatural distortion that the predictors used in the lossless compressors cannot model it well.

I don't think it is due clipping. IMHO it is of comprerssed sound itself. If you look at spectrogram (for example in FooBar) you'll understand what I mean. I can't explain it tecnically. But looking at spectrum we can see that uncompressed sound has more similar data (zones with low energy - quiet zones).

Lossless codecs compress good if the degree of disorder is low. This can be a completely clipped track (e.g. a flat line at 32767, 1 minute long) or digital silence.
Compression and clipping tend to increase the differences between the samples, thus lead to more disorder.
Classical music is often quiet for long portions of audio and also often lacks drums which cause a lot of "short-time" dynamics. That's why its compression ratios are so effective, usually in the 20-45% range. Well-mastered pop also should be around 50%.

Aren't there two versions of the Brothers in Arms CD anyway? The original, and a ?20th? anniversary remaster? It's ages since I listened.

IIRC the ?20th? anniversary remaster is actually remixed, as well as compressed and louder, but I could be wrong. I don't own either - someone brought them to me to analyse years ago, and I think that's what I found. Sorry to be so vague, but maybe this will jog someone else's memory!

Cheers,
David.

In fact, there are three. The 1985 original (which sounds horribly harsh and bright), a 1996 CD remaster, and the 20th anniversary edition which is an SACD with 5.1 remix.

Just to clear up the discussion a bit, here are waveform graphs of the three different versions of So Far Away I own:

Original 1985 release (ReplayGain: +3.83dB):



1996 remaster (ReplayGain: -2.26dB):



1998 Best Of album, HDCD (ReplayGain: -4.56dB):



While the Loudness Race is apparent here, it's nowhere near the extremes we all know, so this is still rather a positive example. What is more interesting in this case is the sonic difference between the 1985 and the 1996 versions as a showcase of the development of digital mastering over the years.

Current mastering features heavily overloaded drone-bass, bumping against 0dB. Perhaps that's why you call the old master bright.