The Cars: Studio Album Collection: 1978 - 1987 24-192 HDtracks

[squarebab]

I impulsively pulled the trigger on the HDtracks box set tonight. Here is the Moving In Stereo waveform and spectrogram.

 

 

The DR for this song is 12.

[squarebab]

Dangerous Type 24-192. DR15.

 

[squarebab]

Touch and Go. 24-192 HDtracks. DR12.

 

[squarebab]

Since Your Gone 24-192. HDtracks. DR12.

 

[squarebab]

Magic 24-192. HDtracks. DR13.

 

[SammyU]

Magic 24-192. HDtracks. DR13.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]11501[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]11502[/ATTACH]

 

Excuse my ignorance, but in your estimation, do the second set of graphs indicate there is information above 96kbps?

 

I see these albums are dynamic, but how do they sound?

[Stiv]

But how does it sound?!

[lee59]

Appreciate the pictures- the DR looks nice, but how do these sound?

 

I'm in if this is a true hi-res transfer.

[squarebab]

As far as 24-192 tracks go, it sounds very good to stunning. Excellent detail in all the recordings. The high resolution reveals the good and the bad in the recordings, but it is mostly good. Especially Heartbeat City: John "Mutt" Lange's effort produced one of the slickest pieces of pop ever put to tape. But, despite the perfection of Heartbeat City, I still consider their first two albums as their best works, and their hi-res versions do them justice.

 

I wish they had found a way to include the excellent Tonight She Comes from their Greatest Hits album. I'm sure they'll release that sometime later.

 

Twenty-seven years after its release I still haven't listened to Door to Door. I probably never will, but now that I own it might accidentally find its way into my listening queue.

[SammyU]

As far as 24-192 tracks go, it sounds very good to stunning. Excellent detail in all the recordings. The high resolution reveals the good and the bad in the recordings, but it is mostly good. Especially Heartbeat City: John "Mutt" Lange's effort produced one of the slickest pieces of pop ever put to tape. But, despite the perfection of Heartbeat City, I still consider their first two albums as their best works, and their hi-res versions do them justice.

 

I wish they had found a way to include the excellent Tonight She Comes from their Greatest Hits album. I'm sure they'll release that sometime later.

 

Twenty-seven years after its release I still haven't listened to Door to Door. I probably never will, but now that I own it might accidentally find its way into my listening queue.

 

Nice review. Looks like I'll be picking up the 24/192 as well. Door To Door, while certainly their weakest effort, has some very good songs. "Go Away" is a great Ben Orr track, as is "Everything You Say." Other favorites of mine are "Fine Line" and "Strap Me In."

Thanks again.

[agentalbert]

Thanks for the pictures and comments, squarebab. I'm most interested in Panorama and Door To Door, as there have never been very good sounding releases of these on CD. The original Panorama CD is too bright and the HDCD remaster is too loud/compressed. Door To Door, while dynamic on CD, has always sounded harsh to me. I'm curious to know how these are EQ'd compared to the CD releases.

[testikoff]

Thanks for the pictures and comments, squarebab. I'm most interested in Panorama and Door To Door, as there have never been very good sounding releases of these on CD. The original Panorama CD is too bright and the HDCD remaster is too loud/compressed. Door To Door, while dynamic on CD, has always sounded harsh to me. I'm curious to know how these are EQ'd compared to the CD releases.

The Cars HDCD remasters use HDCD Peak Extend feature and are substantially better decoded.

[KDinsmore]

The problem is getting them decoded and ripped to file. I've never been successful at it.

[sjohnson]

It's been awhile for this thread so my apologies for posting at this late date but I thought I'd post my recent experience with 24/192 version of Heartbeat City. I'm not sure if the separate Heartbeat City album songs are identical to those in the Studio Collection but the sound quality of the HDTracks standalone 24/192 Heartbeat City album is dismal. Makes me wonder if the download was bad but then again I doubt it since all tracks have the same issues. Overemphasized high frequencies, anemic midrange, and 'shallow' soundstage are the main complaints. I have the vinyl which even with a low to mid range level turntable setup is way more musical and listenable than this release. I've had better overall sound fidelity buying $5 CDs and ripping them with DBPoweramp than most of my high rez HDTracks purchases but I went for it since The Cars are one of my favorite 80's bands - a lot of fun to listen to especially Heartbeat City and Greatest Hits.

 

Nonetheless maybe my download did something averse to the files so if there are any thoughts or observations around this release I'd be glad to hear them.

 

 

Thanks

 

Steve

[blaven]

In short- I agree. Sounds exactly like my CD rip

[Stiv]

The AF CD of Heartbeat City loaded into Audirvana plus betters the HDTracks 24/192. Thought the same of the Mofi CD of Candy-O and the DCC of the debut.

[blaven]

Sorry - what is the "AF CD" ?

[Stiv]

Sorry - what is the "AF CD" ?

Audio Fidelity.

[c-eling]

In short- I agree. Sounds exactly like my CD rip

Same here also, comparing to the old US Elektra cd, I won't try with Door To Door, happy with the DMM lp

[jazzy1]

The AF CD of Heartbeat City loaded into Audirvana plus betters the HDTracks 24/192. Thought the same of the Mofi CD of Candy-O and the DCC of the debut.

 

Seems like these findings come up a lot. I assume we may be getting a lot of flat transfers from Warner, that don't have the application of "breath of life" and other audiophile magic.

 

But we may have something equivalent to the raw materials that Mofi, etc started with. An opportunity to go crazy and be your own re-mastering engineer!

 

The other thing is that it seems that re-mastering characteristics trump the virtues of high res audio every time, and high res by itself means very little?

[Drtrey3]

jazzy, I really can't agree with you about high res by itself meaning very little. I do needle drops pretty often and on a well recorded album you can really hear the difference between 24/96 or even 24/48 and 16/44. On compressed or crappy recordings, it does not matter as much. But I have found, in my system, the 24 bits matters more than the higher sampling.

 

Trey

[jazzy1]

jazzy, I really can't agree with you about high res by itself meaning very little. I do needle drops pretty often and on a well recorded album you can really hear the difference between 24/96 or even 24/48 and 16/44. On compressed or crappy recordings, it does not matter as much. But I have found, in my system, the 24 bits matters more than the higher sampling.

 

Trey

 

What you say be may true.

 

But it seems it can't compete with the mastering. The sound of old audiophile redbook versions seem to be prefered.

 

How much better the audiophile versions would sound in high res is open for debate I guess.

[Drtrey3]

Jz1, I agree with you about mastering trumping resolution. High res data from crappy mastering sucks. But man, when we get lots of data from good mastering, that is the stuff!

 

Happy listening bro.

 

Trey

[rudy49]

it would be nice if hdtracks could let you download say 30 seconds of a high res file to hear on my system.  maybe this would violate a contract arrangement with the label however?  does anyone know if the online listening samples are hi-res or just crapy compressed internet downloads.

[firedog]

4 hours ago, rudy49 said:

it would be nice if hdtracks could let you download say 30 seconds of a high res file to hear on my system.  maybe this would violate a contract arrangement with the label however?  does anyone know if the online listening samples are hi-res or just crapy compressed internet downloads.

just compressed downloads. it used to say that somewhere on the site, don’t know if it still does.