Thanks to the extreme generosity of another QQ member who wishes to remain nameless, I was able to get my hands on a copy of this album so that I could do one of my reviews/technical audits on it...oh and maybe enjoy the music as well.
I'll save the pictures and graphs for later just in case you're the kind of person who tunes out on that kind of stuff - in a nutshell, my findings indicate that this SACD (contrary to what I was expecting) is from an entirely new hi-res transfer compared to the old DTS CD, and to my ears it's a very substantial (I wanted to say huge, but lets not go crazy
) improvement over the old DTS CD. I've owned the DTS CD since it was released, and this new SACD is so much better that at times I felt like I was listening to a new mix - it addresses both of my major misgivings with the original DTS CD, one being that it was a bit 'hollow' in the bass and muffled in the top end, and that the sound field was a bit unbalanced, namely that the rear left speaker was too quiet. I know this is an expensive disc to buy but if you like this album, or Jeff Beck, or hard rock in general in surround, this is worth buying even if you own the old DTS CD. When I originally got this as a DTS CD 15 years ago, I remember being pretty disappointed with it and thinking that it sounded like they'd just taken the stereo version and done a 'set it and forget it' mix with the rhythm guitars in the rear speakers. The SACD reveals (to me at least) that this isn't the case at all - there are all kinds of discrete things in the rear speakers in addition to the rhythm guitars, and some tracks even feature the drums spread over all 4 speakers (main kit in the front, cymbals in the rears).
The quad mix was done by Don Young, who also did the quad mixes for the self-titled Jeff Beck Group albums (get it on SACD!) and Rough And Ready (hopefully on SACD someday soon) and I think this mix is definitely in the same league as the self-titled album quad mix, but maybe with a more consistent approach toward instrument placement from track to track compared to the self-titled album.
Some observations about this disc, in random order:
1.This is a 5.1 disc, but the center channel is so low in volume it doesn't really interfere at all with he 'quadness' of the playback or the front soundstage. In fact, the level of the center channel relative to the other channels is even lower than the center channel on the DTS CD.
2.There's way more bass on the new SACD version than the DTS CD, but it all comes from the .1 channel. If you turn off the .1 channel, the low end frequency response is almost identical to the old DTS CD. Having said that, I think the SACD sounds way better and way more 'full range' than the old DTS CD. The LFE track on the SACD starts to roll off after about 120Hz, versus the DTS CD which rolls off after 60Hz - the result is the SACD LFE track has a lot more bass guitar in it, whereas the DTS CD LFE is primarily just bass drum.
3.The top end is much smoother and better defined than the DTS CD. There are weird 'notches' in the frequency response of the DTS CD above about 12kHz (presumably due to the lossy DTS codec) that aren't present on the SACD, and from a more subjective viewpoint, there were a bunch of moments where things popped up in the rear speakers of the SACD, including guitars, piano, and especially vocals, with such clarity that actually made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
4.The dynamic range of both the 5.1 and 2.0 layers is excellent, measuring 11 on the DR meter. I compared the SACD stereo layer to my old late 80's/early 90's unremastered Epic CD (EK 32140) and a while few of the tracks on the CD have 1dB more dynamic range, but the difference is so small that EQ choices (ie more bass) could easily account for that difference. The quad mix seems similarly unmolested (5 of the tracks are DR11 and 3 are DR12) and the waveforms don't look crushed at all, not to mention that it sounds great and powerful to my ears. If they've done anything to this album dynamic range-wise, it's so minimal as to be inaudible.
5.The SACD appears to be from a completely new digital transfer vs. the DTS CD. Not only is there frequency response over 30kHz (you'd expect to see a sharp cutoff at 22.05kHz or 24kHz if this was from a 44.1kHz or 48kHz ADAT transfer) on the SACD, I lined up the waveforms from both the DTS CD and the SACD of the first track (Black Cat Moan) and they're slightly different in duration, which indicates that they're from different playbacks of the original analog tapes.
Spectrogram of track 1 (Black Cat Moan) showing frequency response easily up to 30kHz
Compare that to a spectrogram of a track from the Jeff Beck 'Blow By Blow' SACD - note the way the frequency spectrum is 'buzzcut' at 22kHz with nothing above that except for ultrasonic noise from the DSD process
Waveform display of the 5.1 channels from Track 1 (Black Cat Moan) on the SACD - a few things of note here versus the DTS CD: the lower volume of the center channel, and the higher volume of the LFE track and left surround (LS) channel.
SACD - Track 1
DTS CD - Track 1
If anyone has any questions about this disc feel free to ask. And I don't think there's a poll thread for this title yet, but if there is one, or one is created mods, please feel free to move this post with my blessing.
