[~misfit~[_2_]]

Somewhere on teh intarwebs UnsteadyKen wrote:
~misfit~ said...

I feel sorry for anyone who might have heard of this brilliantly
mastered, produced and mixed album and how great it sounds and who
buys a current copy. They would wonder what everyone was talking
about (the album appears on many lists of 'the greatest-sounding
albums of all time' on audiophile sites and blogs on teh intarwebs
and often I listen to it as a medium to appreciate the fidelity of
my stereo).

Which version is your new copy, My copy is also made by Record Service
GMBH and has a label number of 7599-27389-2 while the number on the
land round the hole is 256628 SRC-02

OK. My new German CD has the same number on the topside but around the hole
it has: CD-759927389-2.2 V01.

The older, Australian CD that sounds so much better simply has 032962 on the
topside and around the hole has 256628 SRC-02.

It would seem that yours is somewhere in between the two, having the same
top number as my German one but the same number around the centre bottom as
the great-sounding Australian one.

Discogs shows 3 different versions of the CD...
http://goo.gl/X3jL

Thanks, I didn't know of that site. I see that the Australian version isn't
mentioned there and none of the three have the same number on the topside of
the CD.

I bought my copy as Steve Harris who reviews for Hi-Fi News was
continually referring to it but he is using the original vinyl and I
can't say I was blown away by the sound quality or the dynamics on the
CD, is mine one of the ropy ones I wonder?

It could well be, in fact more than likely I'd say. I originally owned it on
vinyl but, a year or so after CDs became the default media for album
releases I went 'overseas' for nearly two years and left my extensive vinyl
collection with a friend.

(On my return to New Zealand I took some duty-free whisky around to his
place to spend an evening re-acquainting myself with some of my old
favourite albums. I was horrified to find most, if not all of them scratched
to one degree or another, some to the extent that they were unplayable. I
was a bit peeved (to say the least) and told him to keep them all, I really
didn't want them back in that condition. I wished that I'd ignored his
pleading and promises and just put them into storage as I'd planned. Anyway,
when I re-started my audio collection I bought CDs, hundreds of which were
copies of my old vinyl albums.)

Anyway, I didn't notice much difference between the two recordings, likely
partly due to my new CD-based stereo being better quality. (I also bought
some audio equipment duty-free. In those days you could save a lot of money,
or buy better equipment for the same money, if you bought duty-free.)

The recording doesn't feature a lot of low bass other than the kick drum and
that is brilliantly clean, the drumming is, IMO some of Steve Gadd's better
work, and that's really saying something. (I wonder how much of that is down
to the production / mixing though?) It's crystal-clear in the high bass,
mids and treble and is great for assessing a sound system. For instance, I'm
used to hearing it on silk dome tweeters and it sounds quite wrong to me on
most metal diaphram tweets. Way too harsh. Likewise the mids and bass really
sort out the good systems from the also-rans.

The dynamics are great on my older CD. For instance Rickie goes "uhuh uhuh
uhuh" in a very breathy whisper along with some of the bass at the start of
'Easy Money'. That's not apparent on this newer CD and if I didn't know it
was there I wouldn't have heard it.

May I suggest that you try to find an older copy in a second-hand record
store? You might just get lucky, it's well worth it.
--
Cheers,
Shaun.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche