This came out on Sep 29th and its listed as a remaster by Bernie Grundman. It’s on vinyl and in 192/24 from HD tracks. I have downloaded it but not had a chance to listen yet. I am surprised there isn’t some traffic on the boards about this so far. Anyone has a listen? Any feedback?
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It was a minute after midnight on release night download for me. Sounds suburb. It was pretty inexpensive as well the 24/192 was only a little over 14 usd
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It’s also available from the Qobuz store from £5.99 (96 kHz), total length: 00:39:54. This price is for Sublime subscribers.
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So, what‘s the DR rating and how about looking at the spectral contents with MusicScope?
I‘m not holding my breath, yet…
While I love this album and own vinyl, cd, SACD if there was an album that didn’t need “fixing” this might be it. Listened on loudspeaker yesterday and currently on the headphones system via Qobuz. It’s fine but will I purchase it, probably not.
Edit: Now having A/B with my cd rip the new “remastered” version seems oddly flat
I’ll stick with this.
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Yep, and £7.99 for the 24/192. However, I am in the US and the prices are a bit higher for each resolution. But, much lower than the 29.99 USD that HDTracks wants to charge in the US.
15 on Avg. 3 tracks DR 16 3 tracks DR 15 and only “Peg” at a DR 14.
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Since I don’t have a copy of the album, it’s a steal at £7.19.
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Someone already submitted to the Dynamic Range DB. Reportedly, an upsample.
https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/203082
AJ
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Just say no.
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Just ran EBU128 on the 192/24 version and the album has 7.0 LRA, peaking at 0dB, and the 44.1/16 version is just the same, according to these metrics …
Thanks for digging that one up, and using crest factor makes for …
But otherwise it has superb dynamics.
Sounded kinda flat to me ever since and still does …
Anyone‘s mileage may vary, of course.
AJ
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The next digital release of Aja came in 1988, when Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab released a new mastering of the album sourced from the original analog masters (a fact that irked Nichols). As the GIF below shows, the MFSL mastering (orange) has more high-end and low-end, but less midrange, than Hoffman’s mastering (purple):
Perhaps this is the one that I have and prefer? And why I think the new hires sounds a bit flat, I don’t have my SACD at this home to compare with the others.
… and as a stream from Qobuz (both 24/96 and 24/192)
I’ve got a few different versions of Aja. The MFSL Vinyl release, MFSL Gold CD, the Japanese SACD, and a regular CD of uncertain provenance, (only because I’m too lazy to get the CD out of storage.)
I spent a bit of time comparing the versions I had.
The new 192 kHz 24 bit version on Qobuz sounds similar to the SACD. It’s definitely an analog tape master at some point because I can hear print through at the beginning of of most tracks. I hear the same thing on the SACD. There is also some overload in the Sax solo on Aja.
Anyway with the MSFL 1-033 vinyl and SACD variants being pretty expensive right now this 196/24 version comes very close to the SACD. I’d be hard pressed to tell any difference.
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Thanks - this is very helpful
It may be the same (Japanese) analog tape. Steely Dan is on MCA, which is owned by Universal. And, well, there was a fire 15 years ago.
AJ
Another needless release and remaster.
The first pressing sounds stunning already.
Just repress and leave it there.
But that isn’t what these remasters and remixes are about. They are cash-ins.
In my experience they usually sound worse than the original.