OT Technical from Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon - 50th Anniversary Atmos mix in 2023!

[Owen Smith]

SDE is reporting a new Dark Side 2LP picture disc to be released in April. I guess the band isn't done milking every last penny out of the 50th anniversary celebrations. I mean, I guess it looks cool, but we still don't have surround mixes for The Wall, The Final Cut or many of the early albums.

Clear vinyl means it will likely sound worse than normal vinyl. As I understand it any colour other than black is harder and has more surface noise.

 

[The Pink Floyd]

The pictures are applied to the non-groove sides and shouldn't effect the quality of the sound on the groove sides.

 

[svengaleekie]

.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Clear vinyl means it will likely sound worse than normal vinyl. As I understand it any colour other than black is harder and has more surface noise.

I have many picture disks. I don't play them ever. They are a display item. YMMV.

 

[Sal1950]

I have many picture disks. I don't play them ever. They are a display item. YMMV.

Good idea!
This is 2023, vinyl became obsolete sometime around 1985.
Fun to play with maybe, but for sound quality digital rules.

 

[Owen Smith]

Good idea!
This is 2023, vinyl became obsolete sometime around 1985.
Fun to play with maybe, but for sound quality digital rules.

I agree completely. But I'm struggling with the concept of them putting out a release that ideally no-one will actually play. Seems mad to me.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

I agree completely. But I'm struggling with the concept of them putting out a release that ideally no-one will actually play. Seems mad to me.

I've always been mad, I know I've been mad
Like the most of us have
Very hard to explain why you're mad
Even if you're not mad

 

[pat bateman]

Good idea!
This is 2023, vinyl became obsolete sometime around 1985.
Fun to play with maybe, but for sound quality digital rules.

Them is fightin words, let’s go outside.

But in all seriousness, digital has the capability to be superior - it’s not even a contest. Buuuut, vinyl cannot be dynamically compressed and *can* (not always) be a much better 2 channel listening experience. If you think multichannel music is niche, you should see the vinyl community with all the different talk around pressing houses, UK vs JPN, etc, EU vinyl quality was superior from year X to X, stuff like that. There’s a guy out there who uses a 15K rig to rip these different pressings, and many of them sound completely different from each other. It’s an interesting deep dive that I’m currently chest deep in.

 

[Owen Smith]

vinyl cannot be dynamically compressed

Yes it can. Admittedly not to the level of excess that can happen with digital audio.

 

[GOS]

SDE is reporting a new Dark Side 2LP picture disc to be released in April. I guess the band isn't done milking every last penny out of the 50th anniversary celebrations. I mean, I guess it looks cool, but we still don't have surround mixes for The Wall, The Final Cut or many of the early albums.

View attachment 100948



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You all laugh. Yet, I can't help myself. Ordered!

 

[LuvMyQuad]

You all laugh. Yet, I can't help myself. Ordered!

Laughing

 

[privateuniverse]

You all laugh. Yet, I can't help myself. Ordered!

Damn right I'm laughing! And I'm gonna keep laughing and laughing and laughing.....until that moment approximately four to six weeks from now (I'm thinking it will be a Friday) when, in a moment of weakness, I order one. Or two. . It's inevitable, but for now I can delude myself into believing that I won't get sucked in! I mean, she's a purdy lil' picthya disk.

 

[Electric Moo]

So if that’s true, why would AP do their UHQR pressings on almost clear virgin vinyl which is not carbon black. I’ve got some really good and quiet coloured vinyl. Picture disks on the other hand are usually crap sonically. This is not the same as a picture disk by the sound of the description on SDE and should sound very good….. hopefully. I might even buy this because it’s an unusual version.

Agree: All my picture disks have terrible sound quality, lots of noise. Even modern ones: I thought maybe they'd figured out how to mfr them with SQ equal to regular vinyl by now, but no.

The clear, coloured, and dyed records I've bought are fine though. I wonder how they pressed these.

 

[Sal1950]

But in all seriousness, digital has the capability to be superior - it’s not even a contest. Buuuut, vinyl cannot be dynamically compressed and *can* (not always) be a much better 2 channel listening experience.

It can be dynamically compressed, just like digital.
It's all done in the master.
If you were around in the 60's and 70s, we were all complaining about the lack of dynamics on vinyl.
And companies like DBX and Phase Linear were building products to add them.

 

[Sal1950]

I agree completely. But I'm struggling with the concept of them putting out a release that ideally no-one will actually play. Seems mad to me.

People enjoy the collectable of all sort of things.
That's perfectly kool. I read a article somewhere that said it's estimated that
50% of all vinyl sold is never played, just collected and displayed..

 

[DrKlahn]

Yes it can. Admittedly not to the level of excess that can happen with digital audio.

It makes me wonder if the loudness wars were never inflicted on us if vinyl would have had the resurgence it has.

I haven't gone down the vinyl rabbit hole because I think I would spend entirely too much time and money chasing perfection. I have heard great vinyl setups, but agree with Sal1950 that with the same quality mix digital is better. Still anything that keeps people buying and appreciating music I can get behind. If that's vinyl for someone, that's great.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

It makes me wonder if the loudness wars were never inflicted on us if vinyl would have had the resurgence it has.

I haven't gone down the vinyl rabbit hole because I think I would spend entirely too much time and money chasing perfection. I have heard great vinyl setups, but agree with Sal1950 that with the same quality mix digital is better. Still anything that keeps people buying and appreciating music I can get behind. If that's vinyl for someone, that's great.

Early CDs weren't severely compressed. The problem then was the less than perfect DACs found in the early consumer gear. I think I had a 14 bit Philips CD player?

 

[DrKlahn]

Early CDs weren't severely compressed. The problem then was the less than perfect DACs found in the early consumer gear. I think I had a 14 bit Philips CD player?

The loudness wars to me didn't really take off until the mid-late 90's. Vinyl's resurgence has been in the last 10-15 years. Both of these are well past DAC quality being a problem. So I'm just wondering if people started buying vinyl again to escape the overly compressed digital option? I'm sure there is some nostalgia and collecting contributing to it as well.

 

[DuncanS]

I agree completely. But I'm struggling with the concept of them putting out a release that ideally no-one will actually play. Seems mad to me.

Especially at around £65

 

[Bill B]

Early CDs weren't severely compressed. The problem then was the less than perfect DACs found in the early consumer gear. I think I had a 14 bit Philips CD player?

The other problem was that the record companies didn't exactly take their time to find the best copies and clean up the recording. In many cases they grabbed what was easiest/cheapest and rushed it out to market.