Elton John Diamonds (SDE Blu-Ray #31) Dec. 27th, 2024

[esimms86]

My copy is currently sitting in the sorting station in Flushing, New York. Hopefully, they’ll get their sorting hats on soon and then send it my way in Massachusetts.

 

[barfle]

I can tell you from my experience in banking that this is by design as a customer courtesy. For example, issuers of MasterCard-branded cards likely enroll in its Automatic Billing Updater service. Many consumers forget to update their billing details, so this service (if utilized by a merchant) will do so automatically thereby preventing things like missed payments or service cancellation.

While I appreciate the bank checking the transaction and rejecting it, I’m a bit miffed that I can’t find out the new number myself. In my app, I can see new last four digits, but I can’t seem to find the whole card number or the security code, which means I’m likely to miss out on the restock of “Who’s Next.”

 

[Bobby Martini]

Don't know if this has been posted before but I found an interesting article from Dynaudio on Greg Penny's Atmos studio in California. Kinda reminds me of Cribs when the celebs get to the bedroom and say "this is where the magic happens"! Love the fact he's got a Vespa in there!

https://dynaudio.com/magazine/2022/december/studio-masters-greg-penny

Nice find
Thanks

 

[GOS]

Usually my SDE stuff moves really fast, this one seems a bit stuck. Not that New Years would have anything to do with it.

 

[PurpleMoustache]

Mine arrived stateside in California this morning. Hopefully next week (but I have a big ol stack of Christmas/my own purchase surround titles to get to, so take your time USPS!)

 

[rtbluray]

first poll of 2025: https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/john-elton-diamonds-blu-ray-audio-dolby-atmos.36958/

as always, please do not post in the above thread until you actually have the disc and have played it!

 

[Tres Discrete]

Mine has just arrived too, Happy New Year postman!

Sometimes I am really jealous of you folks across the pond…mostly during the entire fortnight of Wimbledon!

 

[DuncanS]

Resolution is made up of two factors: Sampling rate (frequency) and bit depth. It's the X and Y axis in a waveform. It's common for hi res audio to have a higher sampling frequency than CD's 44.1 kHz. And given that many of these tracks are analogue recordings, they should have content above 22 kHz.

I'm an Electronic Engineer, so to me Resolution is bit depth. By high rate sampling and decimation you can increase resolution i.e. the number of bits as sampling is essentially modulation, and all the information is there. Which is how DSD works, although it needs a lot of noise shaping as it is based on single-bit convertors.

Also, you would find that analogue tape machines have filters to limit the High Frequencies going to tape, so no content above 20KHz should not be a surprise, especially as Noise Reduction like Dolby A would be used.

 

[DuncanS]

Sometimes I am really jealous of you folks across the pond…mostly during the entire fortnight of Wimbledon!

Thats when I'm jealous of you lot on the other side of the pond

 

[JulesRules]

The X axis in a waveform is time. The Y axis is amplitude (bits used). Waveforms don't show frequency content.

Frequency is the inverse of time. And I was not talking about the frequency of specific sounds but about the sampling frequency.

A waveform, with the X-axis time and Y-axis value is on the analogue domain, and nothing to do with Digital domain concepts.

This makes as much sense as saying that "resolution is a digital concept, you cannot apply it to artwork". Except that digital artwork needs to have a resolution, and so does a digital music file. The waveform is a good way to visualize why those two parameters (sampling rate and bit depth), together, make up the resolution of a sound file (at least in PCM, I admit I don't know much about DSD).

Have you ever zoomed in and looked at the individual samples of a digital audio file in Audacity? The distance between each sample on the x-axis directly corresponds to the sampling frequency. If the file has a sampling frequency of 48kHz, for instance, it means that there are 48,000 samples per second, and the time between each sample is 1/48,000 = 0.0000208333 seconds.

So this is the "resolution" for the time axis of a waveform. (While the smallest distance possible between two amplitudes defines the resolution for the amplitude axis.)

The content on analogue recordings above 22 KHz would be surely noise from analogue equipment and not musical content.

Some instruments do produce overtones in the ultrasonic range but whether it is musical content or isn't is beside the point, which is that a cut-off like what we're seeing in the spectral view here does not correspond with what a 48k transfer of an analogue recording should look like.

The only time I've seen something like that on a supposed hi-res release was for 80s albums like Songs from the Big Chair that went through digital stages which cut everything above 22k or thereabouts. There are many hi-res releases of older recordings which don't have a cut-off like that.

Just for a random example, look through the spectrograms of Animals by Pink Floyd: https://magicvinyldigital.net/2022/...qobuz-tidal-original-remixed-2018-stereo-5-1/

If sampling frequency was immaterial, why are Pink Floyd or Mark Knopfler selling 24/192 recordings? It's true that either value exceeding the CD standard is treated as hi-res, yes. But from my observation, hi-res proponents are generally frowning upon upsampled hi-res files.

 

[madscot]

Usually my SDE stuff moves really fast, this one seems a bit stuck. Not that New Years would have anything to do with it.
View attachment 112352

Gene, sorry I have bad news, it looks like the fbi have taken it

 

[AYanguas]

This makes as much sense as saying that "resolution is a digital concept, you cannot apply it to artwork". Except that digital artwork needs to have a resolution, and so does a digital music file. The waveform is a good way to visualize why those two parameters (sampling rate and bit depth), together, make up the resolution of a sound file (at least in PCM, I admit I don't know much about DSD).

I understand “resolution” (as defined somewhere) as a measure of the ability to separate and see two structures as two separate structures rather than as one fuzzy dot.

For me, this concept develops its meaning and usefulness in the world of digital signals.

In the world of analog signals, resolution means the smallest change in an input signal that causes a change in the output or can be detected by a sensor. This concept, for analogue domain, bears little resemblance or is applied in a different way to the world of digital sound and its "resolutions" CD-Audio, Hi-Res, etc.

Have you ever zoomed in and looked at the individual samples of a digital audio file in Audacity? The distance between each sample on the x-axis directly corresponds to the sampling frequency. If the file has a sampling frequency of 48kHz, for instance, it means that there are 48,000 samples per second, and the time between each sample is 1/48,000 = 0.0000208333 seconds.

Yes, of course. I know and use Audacity.

So this is the "resolution" for the time axis of a waveform. (While the smallest distance possible between two amplitudes defines the resolution for the amplitude axis.)

I understand a “waveform” as a continuous wave in the analogue domain.
The “fake” waveform that is a representation of a digital signal, is an approximation of the expected output of a DAC with particular filters applied, etc.

The “digital signal” is Not a waveform, is just a collection of numbers located in their corresponding time-stamps to be able for a decoder/DAC to work as expected in the time.

The “Resolution” of a digital signal is mainly (the most important) the bit-depth. The sampling rate is less important, while a DAC with the proper filters can recover the expected analogue signal with accuracy, within the human hearing frequency range.

Some instruments do produce overtones in the ultrasonic range but whether it is musical content or isn't is beside the point, which is that a cut-off like what we're seeing in the spectral view here does not correspond with what a 48k transfer of an analogue recording should look like.

The ultrasonic range sound produced by an instrument, of course, IS musical content. But the human hearing cannot perceive it.

That ultrasonic frequencies recorded or not in a tape, and transferred or not to digital support, are usually filtered to avoid collateral effects. So that’s why I always say the big frequency in spectrums above 20kHz are, or can surely be, noise of electronic equipment, or noise induced by the amount of “resolution” cumulative errors in the transfer/conversion processes. But it is Not original musical content that probably could not be recorded with fidelity.

If sampling frequency was immaterial, why are Pink Floyd or Mark Knopfler selling 24/192 recordings?

Because there are believers in the benefits of the final format for the consumer in Hi-Res.

I still believe in the much greater importance of a good master (after a good mix) over greater Hi-Res at the final consumer format.

It's true that either value exceeding the CD standard is treated as hi-res, yes. But from my observation, hi-res proponents are generally frowning upon upsampled hi-res files.

Hi-Res is important for all the production process chain, in order to get the better possible Master.

But for the final consumer product, an artificially upsampled Hi-res, that does not come from an original Hi-Res recording, I would say it's just a scam.

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Sorry for this long off-topic. Coming back on topic…

My Diamonds SDE Blu-ray has already arrived… to my wife office. She is on vacation now. I will not get it until 10 days later.


Happy NEW YEAR to all !!!!!

 

[Juggsnelson]

My copy just got delivered to Long Island NY!!!! I should be able to listen to this later on tonight. I have all of the previous multichannel Elton releases so i am very interested in the 80's hits that I.love. Nikita will be my first listen....seriously lol!

 

[4-earredwonder]

Thats when I'm jealous of you lot on the other side of the pond

Gnome de Plume: The Bitch IS BACK!

 

[MrMarty]

I wonder if the delay has anything to do with my credit card issues. Some grinch tried to use the number just before Christmas, so they cancelled the card and are issuing a new one. In ten working days, which means that along with the holidays, I can be confident about getting my replacement by Valentine’s Day.

Wierdly, my monthly Apple charge went through with the new number, but I still don’t know it yet. I can get the last four digits, but that’s not helping anything.

The attention to detail is amazing. I can only listen in 7.1, but I hear things I've never heard before. Definitely a milestone in recording. Worth the wait - and worth having my system shut down for 2 hours before it fixed itself. Wow, (I have a vaulted ceiling, so no real atmos available).

 

[Juggsnelson]

So I started with the 80's tracks. Wow these mixes are blowing me away and I'm only listening to the Atmos mix on a 5.1 system.

I know these sings extremely well and it is good fun hearing guitar lines that had previously been buried under synths ( Im Still Standing) or being able to audibly discern each of the backing vocalists on certain songs like Nikita and Little Jeanie.

Excellent mix choices as well....like keeping George Michaels "backing" vocals in Nikita up front.

 

[JulesRules]

the bit-depth.

...and we don't know if the so-called hi-res stereo on this disc is actually 16-bit as advertised. Ammonia Avenue by The Alan Parsons Project was supposedly in 24-bit on the Blu-Ray but apparently isn't. Anyone able to check? Given the frequency cutoff, it doesn't seem unlikely that these tracks are simply from the CD production masters and were then (pointlessly) upsampled.

EDIT: Although the DR numbers of the BD stereo posted here and the original 2017 CD here aren't entirely identical (though similar).

I understand a “waveform” as a continuous wave in the analogue domain.
The “fake” waveform that is a representation of a digital signal, is an approximation of the expected output of a DAC with particular filters applied, etc.

The “digital signal” is Not a waveform, is just a collection of numbers located in their corresponding time-stamps to be able for a decoder/DAC to work as expected in the time.

You seem to be intent on misunderstanding what I'm saying. The digital signal can be represented as a waveform, and that visualization is what I mentioned because it has two axes, which illustrate how resolution is considered to be made up of two components - similar to the resolution of a two-dimensional image file or computer/TV screen.

I know and use Audacity.

But if you do, you should also have noticed that zooming in to individual sample level does NOT show an approximation. It shows you every sample on its own, and you can even change them with the draw tool. It's a 100% accurate representation of PCM.

Because there are believers in the benefits of the final format for the consumer in Hi-Res.

I still believe in the much greater importance of a good master (after a good mix) over greater Hi-Res at the final consumer format.

Again, maybe I'm not making myself understood well but this is not my point. Somebody pointed out that these 24/48 recordings have likely not been in 24/48 through the whole mastering process. My point is that if you're going to advertise something as hi-res with both numbers, one cannot then say (like Duncan did here) "actually the sampling rate doesn't matter" if it's been used as a selling point. The evidence is that hi-res files are sold with different sampling rates. You can buy Mark Knopfler's recent releases as downloads in CD quality (16/44.1), 24/96 or 24/192, each resolution increase making them more expensive. Imagine if it turned out that the 24/192 was just an upsampled 24/96.

I know there are hi-res downloads that are transparent about this: Vapor Trails by Rush (the original mix remastered) was sold in 24/96 but it was explained that only the mastering was done at that level. The original mix was at a lower resolution, probably 16/44.1. The 24 bits can still have some benefit in that scenario (since mastering means changing the amplitude of things) but the 96kHz surely doesn't, as there was no content whatsoever above 22kHz in the files to begin with.

 

[barfle]

Sometimes I am really jealous of you folks across the pond…mostly during the entire fortnight of Wimbledon!

I was in London during Wimbledon, not realizing that I would be there when traffic was at its worst. I didn’t try driving there, but even the cabs and buses were stuck in the traffic.

 

[MrMarty]

Believe DR 17..!!
crikey o'baba reilly
Are You Ready For Love & Philadelphia Freedom DR 16..!?
figures Pinball Wizard would be DR 10

Quite the mix! Sounds I have never heard in 50 years popping out of the speakers. My Atmos folded down into 7.1 nicely. This is truly a great collection of songs. Did not get "Cold Heart" in this set.

Got the Alan Parson Pyramid disc-not too happy, sound is impeccable, but the songs are somewhat dated - I should have known. Can't wait for the next "Who's Next' release!

 

[Perp]

Quite the mix! Sounds I have never heard in 50 years popping out of the speakers. My Atmos folded down into 7.1 nicely. This is truly a great collection of songs. Did not get "Cold Heart" in this set.

Got the Alan Parson Pyramid disc-not too happy, sound is impeccable, but the songs are somewhat dated - I should have known. Can't wait for the next "Who's Next' release!

I’ve been trying to figure out, since you brought up a couple of days ago, why Pyramid sounds outdated to you. What’s outdated about it? If you want to hear outdated sounding music, try listening to some of the stuff that came out in the 80’s.