HiRez Poll Bowie, David - ZIGGY STARDUST [SACD]

[fredblue]

Well, that means the DVD 5.1 has been significantly remastered. The 5.1 SACD channels are definitely *not* overdriven or clipped. At all. Here's the whole album. Bravo Ken Scott.


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could be, i'm only going by my DVD's DTS rip to MultiCh Flac, where the Fronts appear to have been maximised and clip in Audacity. it is possible something went awry in the process of transcoding but i'm doubtful since that would likely happen more often than it does with other discs that get ripped by the same process if there were a problem.

tbh i haven't been anywhere near my Ziggy SACD in years but it could be time to get it out and give it another play and a fair crack of the whip if as you demonstrate it hasn't been futzed with.

that said, you can clearly see in your screengrab there is a lot more activity in the Fronts.. a lot less happening in the Centre, despite there being dry lead vocals in there they don't add anything to the mix as they are mixed at such a low level.. and a minor thing, the LFE takes a big dip after track 1 and never gets that active again, it really achieves little in the mix and you could happily enjoy the 5.1 without it imho.
the Fronts are almost all of the time the most dominant channels (as perhaps they should be) but they have way more actual content mixed into them than any other channel which for me makes the mix, on the DVD at least, feel too front-centric, flat and unexciting for my liking.

meantime i've nothing to lose giving the SACD another airing, which i hope to do soon. thanks for the info.

 

[fredblue]

As for actual mixing choices, what matters in the end is how the mix sounds in aggregate, not how Center 'should be used' or whatnot, and not what channels sound like in isolation or pairs. YMMV.

i never said it's what they sound like in isolation, its how elements are mixed into certain channels more prominently than i feel they ought to have been when listening to the mix as a whole.

i really don't like the engineers' approach to the all-round vocal mixing on Starman, for instance.. Bowie's too loud in the Rears, it just doesn't do it for me. if he was mixed a tad lower in the Rears i'd be more into it - and this is with overloud Fronts on my DVD rip. still "6" til i try the SACD again.

 

[ssully]

could be, i'm only going by my DVD's DTS rip to MultiCh Flac, where the Fronts appear to have been maximised and clip in Audacity. it is possible something went awry in the process of transcoding but i'm doubtful since that would likely happen more often than it does with other discs that get ripped by the same process if there were a problem.

Correct, that doesn't happen without user intervention.

To test this, using Audiomuxer I converted the SACD mix (which is DSD--> 88.2/24 PCM) to DTS (PCM-->DTS) , then back again to .wav (DTS-->PCM). No apparent change in the channel levels.

So something was done to the DVD mix. Having remastered, highly compressed front channels is certainly going to be a different audio experience than the SACD 5.1, unless alll the other channels have been equally so treated (assuming, too , that no EQ changes were made beyond that. These are things I can check too.)

For now, I'd scrap the DVD mix and stick with the SACD. It's almost certainly closer to what Ken Scott intended.

 

[musicmemorabiliashoppellc]

I would love that too. Unfortunately, the Bowie camp seems more interested in overpriced boxed sets that have no new content and 7" picture discs. It's criminal, especially when you consider how much unreleased audio & video are sitting in the vaults.

I'm waiting for the official release of the 1980 Floor Show otherwise known as his appearance on "The Midnight Special" from back in the 70's on a Friday Night on NBC. There were once boots of the show with multiple outtakes which I'm still looking for myself, but would rather have an official release by far!!

 

[ssully]

For now, I'd scrap the DVD mix and stick with the SACD. It's almost certainly closer to what Ken Scott intended.

Though the bonus tracks are only available 'remastered'....

 

[ssully]

Looking at the DVD ...all channels have certainly been raised in level, but it's hard to say from 'looking', whether the SACD balances between channels have all been maintained. FWIW on Soul Love , the front L/R are the loudest channels, followed by the surround Right channel. This is true in both formats. So maybe yes?




However, the front L/R have been 'maximized' (one or the other channel has been made to peak at 0dbFS) in every track , whereas in the SACD, the peak values vary from track to track..... if nothing else, that could change the experience if you listen to the whole album -- the 'quiet' tracks could seem just as loud as the 'loud' tracks.

It's not 'brickwalling', though. Zoomed in, I don't see a series of consecutive samples all slammed up against 0dBFS . I see the traces either just touching 0, or slightly going beyond it. I'm not sure anyone would hear clipping distortion here. Just loudness....

Oh, and the DVD version (38:32) is ~14 seconds shorter than the SACD (38:46) version! They seem to start at the same point...and there doesn't seem to be 14 more seconds of silence at the end....speed/tuning appears the same..so, shorter silences between songs? I don't know.

 

[fredblue]

the DVD "looks" dreadful to me, which is how it sounded to me this morning.

the SACD waveforms are prettier (still a helluva lot more going on in the Fronts than anywhere else) but i expect the SACD to be a pretty thing when played at maximum volume.

i note how closely the LFE on the futzed-with DVD resembles the SACD.

track 1 seemingly an exception where the SACD has what appears to be higher LFE level than the DVD.

thanks for the pics.

 

[fredblue]

Though the bonus tracks are only available 'remastered'....

how are the waveforms for the 5.1 bonus tracks?

 

[ssully]

Same: not terrible, just not as good as they could be, dynamics-wise.

 

[skherbeck]

I originally gave this an 8. Listening again, I just don't think it's that great. There are many elements that I'm used to hearing more prominent in the stereo mix that are somewhat buried in the surround mix. The surrounds are used pretty sparingly for musical elements, while the lead vocal is pretty prominent in the surrounds. The fidelity is quite clear, but the bass is pretty anemic on many songs. I hope we get a redo of this someday (would love to hear SW get a crack at the Bowie catalog). I'm lowering my vote to a 7

 

[Sashaaa]

The one I really would love to hear in 5.1 is STATION TO STATION...plays interestingly in DPLII, as some of Bowie's albums do. Would be great fun!

ED

What should've been

 

[somethingcleveridunno]

Mix doesn't detract from the material, and the material is unimpeachable. It's a conservative mix in general, but there are playful moments like the guitar solo on Suffragette City. A more aggressively discrete and creative mix would be an instant 10.