drdiaboloco Posted August 27, 2002 Share Posted August 27, 2002 So I'm sitting here on an all-too rare day off with absolutely nothing to do, and I thought it would be a good time to dust off some old CD's I hadn't listened to in a while. The selection of the moment is Pink Floyd's last Roger Waters album, "The Final Cut." Lots of cool audio effects that flatter my SF-2's. Very little of the boominess on male voices that practically every other speaker I have ever owned were guilty of, and the highs are more clear and out front than I remember from the last time I listened to this, which admittedly has been at least five years. But... Boy do those horns make the tape hiss of the source material noticeable! On some of the quieter passages, specifically the segues between some tracks it's pretty noticeable. To be fair, I have the Denon 3802 cranked up to -5 on the volume, which is plenty loud, but all this has led me to ruminate on the topic of the recent spate of "remastered" CD's on the market. The most recent offender I am aware of is one Peter Gabriel, whose entire catalog has been re-released. Now I have all the Peter Gabriel that I could ever want, over a dozen CD's worth, but I am suffering from the gottahaveititis of the remasters, which of course are supposed to be sonically superior to the original CD releases... Is this the wave of the future? Is every CD I own (600 of them!) going to be replaced with a newer, remastered version!? This is going to get expensive... If U2 remasters their whole collection, I am going to pitch a total fit. I have 60 CD's from them alone, including all manner of CD singles, alternate versions, etc. And this doesn't even get into the DVD Audio thing... Or SACD. Or... You get the idea. While I'm wondering along these lines, can DVD audio discs be played on any DVD player? ------------------ -Me fail English? That's unpossible! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougdrake Posted August 27, 2002 Share Posted August 27, 2002 DVD-A discs can be played in any player (CD or DVD), but only in DVD-A multi-channel full-bloom in those that support the DVD-A format. Otherwise, you'll get one of the other formats on the disc, like 2-channel. DD ------------------ My System Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drdiaboloco Posted August 27, 2002 Author Share Posted August 27, 2002 Right, but does the PLAYER have to be a DVD-A player, or will a DD or DTS decoder decode DVD-A as it would for a video DVD? ------------------ -Me fail English? That's unpossible! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted August 27, 2002 Share Posted August 27, 2002 All DVD-A discs also have Dolby Digital tracks. The DD tracks on the DVD-A will decode exactly the same way, with exactly the same players / decoders / receivers / green ink pens that your basic old-fashioned DVD discs used. The DD tracks may be mastered from *COMPLETELY DIFFERENT* masters than the DVD-A tracks... or they may be downconverted from the DVD-A masters... or both DD and DVD-A may be mastered from the same (analog?) tapes, but run through different encoders / mixers with different producers or at least different production objectives. If you buy a bunch of DVD-A discs under the assumption that someday you'll own a player that can play the DVD-A tracks, and listen to them in the meantime on a DVD video player, don't be surprized if you find that the differences in sound between the DD and DVD-A groups (I think that's the correct technical term) on the disc sound *SO* different that it's obvious they couldn't have been made from the same masters. While all DVD-A discs contain DD tracks, only some come with DTS tracks. If you have a DVD-A disc that has both DD and DTS tracks, note that you might have some menu twiddling to do to get the DTS tracks to play. ------------------ Music is art Audio is engineering Ray's Music System Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougdrake Posted August 27, 2002 Share Posted August 27, 2002 "Right, but does the PLAYER have to be a DVD-A player, or will a DD or DTS decoder decode DVD-A as it would for a video DVD?" Just to clarify, the DVD-A audio on a DVD-A disk is not the same as the audio portion of a regular DVD. As Ray indicates, the audio on a standard DVD is coded in Dolby Surround, Dolby Digital, or DTS, but not DVD-A. So, in summary, a standard DVD player will decode the non-DVD-A audio tracks on a DVD-A, but will NOT decode the DVD-A track. For that, you need a player that specifically decodes DVD-A. You probably already knew all this, but I thought I'd write it anyway DD ------------------ My System Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdm56 Posted August 28, 2002 Share Posted August 28, 2002 Concerning "remasters" - Another diabolical trick by the evil record companies designed to suck money out of audiofools and music lovers bank accounts! And boy does it work. Problem is, some remastered CD's sound worse than the originals. Some sound much better, too, and then some, well, just sound different. All in all, I think it's wise to read some reviews, or even better, to make sure you can return the thing just in case the "remastering" ain't up to snuff. ------------------ JDM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drdiaboloco Posted August 28, 2002 Author Share Posted August 28, 2002 Does anyone have these Japanese remasters of the Pink Floyd catalog? I already have the MFSL copies of The Wall and DSOTM, but wondering if the much cheaper Japanese gold CD's are worth the money for some of the remaining titles.... ------------------ -Me fail English? That's unpossible! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LDC Posted August 29, 2002 Share Posted August 29, 2002 I bought one and was very disappointed---another very good bass track is Steve Winwood's Night Train on the Arc Of The Diver cd--MFSL version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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