Jon Anderson: True

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Sonik Wiz

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Elsewhere buried in the Olias of Sunhillow thread, @hi-res_edition mentioned a new album of his in Atmos starting at post #194.
Based on the subsequent comments I was really intrigued about the album & sampling a bit on HD Tracks I knew I had to have it. So DL'ed the 24/96 version. I don't have Atmos, I don't really do music streaming so that was my choice.

Musically it was amazing. You can read a gazzilion reviews on the web about this album but the ones posted here seem the most relevant & to the point. It's rare that I hear something & can't wait to listen to it as soon as possible again. With many of my generations musical heroes getting old & feeble, Jon Anderson's voice rings as clear & strong as forty years ago. I also like that the vocals are quite prominent & not buried in the mix. The compositions on their own sound like vintage Yes at their peak but was recorded yesterday.

Technically it's a bit of a disappointment. I didn't inspect all the songs, just 3, but they all looked just like this:
1724776391839.png


I don't have those nifty tools to quantify DR in single digits, but the picture pretty much tells the story. Severe brick walling & the three songs were normalized uniformly to -.32dB. Nothing wrong with that by itself but you can see how the life has been squashed out of it. Interestingly it doesn't sound as bad as it looks. However once you notice that light tinkling on a piano is as loud as a lead guitar you can't un-hear it.

And even though I bought a 24/96 down load you can clearly see the sharp cut off jus at 22 kHz:

1724776778748.png


I know there's been some good discussion about how HD Tracks does stuff like this. For myself I have many albums from them including the entire Doors discography. On any & all songs I've checked they have all had extended response beyond RBCD specs showing they are real 96kHz sample rates. And then there is this Anderson album, the outlier for me. Who knows if the bit depth is native or just bumped up 16 bit?

Playing it through the Surround Master the rear output was so low I had to walk back to speakers just to make sure they were operating. Yes but I had to bump the rears up by 6dB to make it sound balanced. I have a feeling some pre-synthesis that I've talked about before will help a lot in this regard.

Even tho I don't have Atmos I support it and will buy content in that format because I'm very happy with the way it plays back in 5.1. And of course sometimes there's a dedicated 5.1 mix any way. Like others I certainly hope this is released on Atmos physical media. I would certainly purchase it again.

Edit: The album cover doesn't irk me the way it does other people. Kinda just meh. But give him black hair & a mustache & you can call him Freddy.
 
I heard a song from it on a small radio outside. It sounded amazing like a new album by mid 70s Yes.
 
I know there's been some good discussion about how HD Tracks does stuff like this.
HDTracks don't "do" this; they don't upsample. They sell what they are provided by artists and labels. It is possible—likely, even—that this album isn't even upsampled for the hi-res download. Rather, it could have easily been mastered in the analog domain from a 44.1kHz mix, then captured back to digital at 96kHz.
 
Buying from HDTracks now is a crapshoot! I blame the labels for supplying crappy brick walled masters. HDTracks should show the DR value of what they are selling but that might hurt sales. Ideally they should be rejecting sub standard masters altogether. They are supposed to be catering to the audiophile crowd after all!
 
Buying from HDTracks now is a crapshoot! ...
It really is! Lots of stuff that could be effectively delivered in 8 bit 32kHz with no loss, frankly. Like this new Jon Anderson recording we have here!

This surprised me too with how the band sounds and the level of 1970s prog style playing. This is a better Yes facsimile than the new Yes! And some guitar bits sound more like Steve Howe than Steve Howe does on the new Yes. He sounds like the guy from Dream Theater doing his best Howe impersonation or something. Very high level of accomplished. There are some moments of greatness here and there. The first track and the long one later on had the best parts. One of the more interesting albums I've heard in a while. At 2nd glance the songwriting is weak though in general and the volume war and cheapness sound sure doesn't help.

The mix is hot garbage unfortunately and delivered at -8.5 LUFS for full volume war experience. The entire top dynamic and transients are effectively erased and the whole thing is choked. And loud! Very fatiguing to listen to and you start scrolling ahead by the middle of the album. The mix has the vocal way in front like a "music as 2nd class background to the vocal" style mix. Then just brutally squashed and the whole thing blasted out.

I'd have to find a preview of the 12 channel mix. (No, not the lossy streaming version!) Maybe it's night and day a different mix? That would be great and maybe even kind of save the whole thing. Sure not going to take a chance after hearing this stereo mess!

At least check this out though! I think you'll be glad you did.
 
That's a shame. Maybe if they do a vinyl release they'll master it to more sane levels.

Glad he's still putting out music though: I recently bought his 70s "Olias" LP & like it a lot.

Or better yet put out a standalone BD with a not-overly-compressed Atmos mix (and 5.1).

Olias is his Masterpiece imo. He got it right on the first one. He's had some great ones since then, but also some not so great...
 
Quite some time ago I went into detailing a process I call stereo pre-synthesis. Playing stereo over a matrix type decoder it gives the user more control over how it decodes into surround. I recently did this with the True album & it was an immense improvement. The rear channels came alive with a fair amount of direct sounds & not only was the depth increased the left/right front soundstage seemed wider. I did this in good 'ol AA 3 using the Expand function in the Pan & Expand tool. First I drop the level by -6dB & set Expand at 250. Then Normalized back to -.38 dB like the original. There's one peak on the left ch that's quite high that probably kept the over all level looking lower. That could be fixed.

1725056336763.png


Another benefit to this is dynamic range is improved as this is a dynamic variable effect of expansion. Compare this pic to my previous one & the improvement is easy to see. I haven't decided if I want to make EQ or other changes yet. Right now I'm just super happy with the way it sounds through the Surround Master, Involve/QS mode!
 
A quite sad release technically from both Jon and HDTracks.
I listened to the Atmos mix on Apple Music tonight and just going by a subjective feel I don't
expect it to be much better. For whatever reason it sounded a bit hard and edgy but that maybe the result of DD+ compression? We can only hope if we get a BluRay of this, it follows what seems to be the norm and has some dynamics left in it. :(
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analyzed: True (2ch HiRez 96k) / Artist: Jon Anderson & The Band Geeks
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR Peak RMS Duration Title [codec]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR6 -0.29 dB -8.58 dB 5:49 01 - True Messenger [flac]
DR7 -0.30 dB -9.25 dB 4:16 02 - Shine On [flac]
DR6 -0.28 dB -9.54 dB 9:50 03 - Counties And Countries [flac]
DR6 -0.30 dB -10.57 dB 3:18 04 - Build Me An Ocean [flac]
DR6 -0.31 dB -8.14 dB 5:00 05 - Still A Friend [flac]
DR6 -0.25 dB -9.13 dB 6:05 06 - Make It Right [flac]
DR7 -0.30 dB -9.85 dB 3:31 07 - Realization Part Two [flac]
DR6 -0.26 dB -9.21 dB 16:30 08 - Once Upon A Dream [flac]
DR6 -0.30 dB -8.47 dB 3:48 09 - Thank God [flac]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of files: 9
Official DR value: DR6

Sampling rate: 96000 Hz
Average bitrate: 2906kbs
Bits per sample: 24 bit

Dr14 T.meter 1.0.16
 
HDTracks should show the DR value of what they are selling but that might hurt sales.
Yea, come on HDTracks and grow a pair, stand up for true 21st Century High Fidelity recordings, which is the claim you've built your company on. Give us some numbers like the DR and true FR then let us make our own decisions. Maybe a campaign like this will nudge the labels in the right directions. We could only hope!

I should mention that I do love the music! The 16:31 minute Once Upon A Dream is a really beautiful song that would have been right at home on a 1970s album. Jon's voice sounds fantastic, you'd never guess he'll be 80 this year! He made a great move pulling The Band Geeks off the internet and promoting them to stardom as a 2024 Yes replacement.
 
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