Gluino

Good to know, thank you! All the retailers I checked listed only 96/24 audio.

Apparently the Blu-ray only contains 96/24. Can anybody confirm this?

The original bitrate is irrelevant as soon as one modifies the files in any way, be it gain changes, EQ or whatever. One should capture the result at a high bitrate. If the remastering is done in a DAW, one automatically obtains 32bit data anyway. If it is done in the analog domain, surely you don't want to capture the result with a 16bit ADC just because that was the original bitrate? Even if the target medium were just CD, it would be better to capture at 24bit and then dither down to 16bit. If you sell files, you can skip the last step. Some even argue that a higher sampling rate than the original may be beneficial as well, since EQ etc. could produce signals above the original Nyquist frequency.

Probably because it was mixed to a Sony 1610 digital recorder. There exists no analog master. Accordingly, no Plangent Process was employed in the transfer either, no need for it. Of course, Ludwig could have captured his remaster at 96/24, but then he would probably have been accused of upsampling.

So yesterday I purchased the 96/24 version of 1999 from Qobuz, assuming it to be the same as the HDtracks version. The DR values match, but there's a razor-sharp lowpass filter at 22kHz! I wonder whether submitting a complaint is futile since I don't speak French...

The SHM-SACD was released in 2010, whereas according to the booklet the SHM-CD was transferred in 2013. So not the same DSD master.

The booklets of the recent "Disraeli Gears" and "Wheels of Fire" SHM-CDs (and SHM-SACD for the former title) state "DSD flat transferred from analogue master tapes by Seth Foster at Sterling Sound, NY, in 2013."

It is a flat transfer. This has been confirmed by SH Forums member lukpac, who has contacts to Jon Astley.

No, you can't, and that's by design. The DR meter takes into account only the loudest 20% of a track. The idea is to avoid an increase in the DR value due to long low-level intros and such that would counterbalance the effects of severe compression and limiting in the calculation of the DR value, and it's the latter that the tool is supposed to reveal. The name "dynamic range meter" is a little unfortunate since it doesn't measure what most people would call dynamic range. In short, it measures micro-dynamics, not macro-dynamics.

While I fear that I'm derailing this thread even further, I cannot let this go uncommented. Let me first point out that I'm not among the vinyl-is-better-than-digital crowd, far from it. About clicks inflating DR ratings, in my experience (several hundred rips declicked) most clicks and pops do not alter DR values at all. It's only the most serious ones whose amplitude actually exceeds the musical signal that will have any influence, but surely before you take any DR measurements you declick your rip? Moreover, background noise will only add to the RMS value, thereby decreasing the DR rating, not inflating it. At least in theory, in practise typical vinyl noise has - again in my experience - virtually no influence on DR values. To support this argument, I have compared a few HDtracks releases that I'm fairly sure were derived from LP cutting masters with rips of their original vinyl pressing counterparts (the first three ZZ Top albums and Degüello, the Yes albums Tales, Relayer, Going For the One and 90125, and Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell), and in each case the DR values matched to within 1dB. No inflated DR ratings for vinyl. To return to London Calling, here are the DR values for a rip (not my own) of a UK CBS first pressing: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Analyzed: The Clash / London Calling -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR Peak RMS Duration Track -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR11 -0.81 dB -14.48 dB 3:21 01-London Calling DR12 -0.75 dB -14.58 dB 2:09 02-Brand New Cadillac DR12 -1.65 dB -16.22 dB 3:55 03-Jimmy Jazz DR12 -0.72 dB -14.78 dB 2:45 04-Hateful DR13 -0.49 dB -14.94 dB 3:30 05-Rudie Can't Fail DR13 -0.71 dB -15.35 dB 3:20 06-Spanish Bombs DR12 -0.67 dB -15.12 dB 3:55 07-The Right Profile DR14 -1.87 dB -17.86 dB 3:49 08-Lost In The Supermarket DR13 -0.51 dB -15.82 dB 3:50 09-Clampdown DR14 -0.70 dB -16.57 dB 3:12 10-The Guns Of Brixton DR13 -2.15 dB -16.55 dB 3:12 01-Wrong 'Em Boyo DR13 -2.26 dB -16.60 dB 3:56 02-Death Or Glory DR12 -2.74 dB -16.38 dB 1:48 03-Koka Kola DR12 -1.42 dB -15.19 dB 3:53 04-The Card Cheat DR14 -2.18 dB -19.12 dB 4:05 05-Lover's Rock DR12 -0.91 dB -15.23 dB 2:56 06-Four Horsemen DR13 -0.83 dB -16.19 dB 3:07 07-I'm Not Down DR14 -0.70 dB -17.02 dB 5:34 08-Revolution Rock DR14 -0.73 dB -18.50 dB 3:11 09-Train In Vain -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Number of tracks: 19 Official DR value: DR13 No higher than the early CDs.

I bought the first three albums in 96/24 before the set was released and Degüello just the other day. These are quite obviously from EQ copy tapes - which I believe applies to most Warner titles on HDtracks - since they sound virtually identical to the respective original London US LPs (including some tape anomalies on Tres Hombres). Degüello in particular appears to be derived from the original Robert Ludwig master. DR values equal those of my vinyl rips and no cutoff in the spectrum - I'm very happy with all of them and am eagerly waiting for Fandango! to be released individually.

Neither is true for True Blue :-) I'm not at home and can't check, but I don't recall a visible cutoff in its spectrum either. A sample rate higher than the one the tracks were originally recorded at doesn't necessarily mean upsampling. It's not uncommon to mix and/or master digital recordings in the analog domain, and it makes sense to capture the result at high resolution.

In my case it's mostly rock and pop. Sure, if it's a remaster the mastering engineer is usually mentioned, but otherwise that information is often missing.

The majority of my CDs hasn't.

May I suggest to use a linear frequency scale? We're only interested in the utmost right of your plot, where a few pixel correspond to 1kHz or more. Also I'd like to point out that it's not uncommon nowadays (see David Bowie's last release or some of the Rush remasters) to master low-res digital recordings in the analog domain and capture the result at a higher resolution than the original one (which makes perfect sense). Those then look as if they were upsampled, but aren't.