![\"150411_figure_2_side](\"http:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/150411_figure_2_side-B.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFigure 2 – The “Master” tape box for Side B of Tom Petty’s “Southern Accents” album. [Click to enlarge]<\/p>\n
There are a number of important things to notice in these tape boxes. The first is the yellow “post it” sticker that says “Master” on it. And then there’s the label from Stephen Marcussen’s “Precision Lacquer Disc Mastering”, the location where the original mastering work was done. Then there’s the list of tunes and their durations. Of particular interest is the first of the three lines of typed text at the center bottom of the label.<\/p>\n
“30ips eq’d stereo NON DOLBY tape copy”<\/p>\n
This statement caught my attention for a couple of reasons. The tape has been eq’d. At some stage following the recording of the original mixes (which I would assume would be at 30 ips NON DOLBY as well), an engineer has applied equalization or timbral modifications to the tape. According to the notes from the supervising engineer, they used the “best sounding second generation master” for this album and a couple of others. The reason? Because “the original tape is unplayable.<\/p>\n
Therefore, they were forced to use the EQ’d copy from the original mastering from 1976…”so every version of this album that has been released was generated from this tape. This is the sound of this record!” <\/p>\n
What is an EQ’d copy? It’s a transfer from the original mixes that has had some tonal changes from the source mixes AND which has most likely been altered to conform to the requirements for vinyl LP duplication. This means the low end has been folded to mono to overcome negative groove cutting (when a low frequency signal on the left or right forces the cutting head to move above the surface of the lacquer). <\/p>\n
In the notes that accompany the tracks, Ryan’s producers note says, “The Hi-Res (24bit 96K) remastering of the Tom Petty catalog reveals a level of detail that was only previously heard by a select group of musicians, producers and engineers in the studio. It\u2019s as close to the sound of original stereo master as you can get. We\u2019re very happy with the way it came out, and believe it\u2019s an important way to preserve the legacy of this great body of work.”<\/p>\n
I wholeheartedly agree. This is a Master Quality transfer and Tom Petty fans like me will revel in the better sound. But the production of these new transfers required the producers and engineers to accept compromises. The original first generation mixes are “unplayable”…an extremely unfortunate circumstance but not uncommon. The use of an EQ’d master is a compromise that means that we’ll hear the recording they way that is was when it was released on vinyl LP but just imagine if we could listen to the original mixes without the EQ and mono low frequencies. We’ll never know if that might be better or not.<\/p>\n
The dynamic range is improved. As Ryan points out, “To allow for full dynamic range, and to let the music ‘breathe’ the Hi-Res versions have about 6-8 dB less digital level than a typical ‘loud’ peak-limited CD or MP3. To enjoy these albums to their fullest extent, play them back though a good system and turn up the volume.”<\/p>\n
So sit back and turn up your system, Tom Petty is rocking in Master Quality. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I purchased Tom Petty’s “Southern Accents” album from HDtracks yesterday afternoon. There is more dynamic range on these files than<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[657,50,40,172,57,1032,70,640,26,42,298,251,645,638,637,227,643,169,150,944,347,27,786,659,658,660,661],"class_list":["post-4428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dr_aixs_posts","tag-advanced-resolution","tag-aix-records","tag-analog-vs-digital","tag-audio-resolution","tag-audio-specifications","tag-dvd_audio","tag-hd-downloads","tag-hd-music","tag-hd-audio","tag-high-resolution-audio","tag-high-res-music","tag-high-resolution","tag-high-resolution-audio-experience","tag-hires-audio","tag-hires-music","tag-hra","tag-hra-listening-experience","tag-mark-waldrep","tag-pcm","tag-southern-accents","tag-spectragram","tag-spectragraphs","tag-tom-petty","tag-uhd-audio","tag-ultra-hd-audio","tag-ultra-high-definition-audio","tag-ultra-high-resolution-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4432,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4428\/revisions\/4432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"150411_figure_1_side_A\"](\"http:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/150411_figure_1_side_A.jpg\")
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