HiRez Poll Beck, Jeff - BLOW BY BLOW [SACD]

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Rate the SACD of Jeff Beck - BLOW BY BLOW


  • Total voters
    136
Along with Wired, I'd like to see his Who Else album on SACD.

the only other surround Jeff Beck I know of is the DTS cd of the Beck, Bogert, Appice album.. which I never warmed to as much as BxB or Wired but many rave about!

I'm pretty sure my brother has Who Else, that's a more recent one isn't it? He's got just about everything by JB, he's crazy about him!
 
the only other surround Jeff Beck I know of is the DTS cd of the Beck, Bogert, Appice album.. which I never warmed to as much as BxB or Wired but many rave about!

I'm pretty sure my brother has Who Else, that's a more recent one isn't it? He's got just about everything by JB, he's crazy about him!

Tell him about the BD live show. JB live at a small club. good show.
 
To this one one should listen to really LOUD! Excellent surround mix, the music's funky as hell. A ten.
 
This is fast becoming one of my favorite 70's quad mixes. Great music, fidelity and mix. And the nifty packaging of this new SACD from Japan is the icing on the cake. A 10 for sure.
 
The EQ on this is perfect; Peter Mew could never do a disc like this.
 
This is the next title in my quest to look at all the Sony SACDs sourced from quadraphonic masters. When I was doing the conversion from SACD to PCM to load up in my DAW I had a vague recollection that I'd had issues with the bass on this disc, and sure enough almost 13 years ago (!) I started a thread here about this title called Jeff Beck - Blow By Blow ...where's the bass?

Reading through the old thread, it plays out almost identically to the thread about the recent Opeth Blu-Ray, which had a couple of out-of-phase channels, both in terms of what I was experiencing (muddy/ill-defined bass guitar, lots of bass drum) and what other people were saying (people with full range speakers claiming it was fine). So the first thing I did once I had the album loaded up was look at phase correlation, and sure enough the front left and front right channels are out of phase with the rear channels (and the LFE track). See here:

jeffbeck_oop.jpg

You can clearly see the peaks (arrows placed for convenience by yours truly) for the front channels oscillate in the opposite direction as the rear speakers, which is a definitive visual indicator of phase issues. The LFE track (not pictured) oscillates the same way as the rear channels which tells me that it's the front channels that are the problem. Once you invert the phase on the front channels, all 5 channels are in phase and voila, there's the bass I was missing.

It's also worth saying that I think the phase issues were created during export. The LFE, being derived from the 4 main channels, would have been a phase cancelled mess if the original tracks were out of phase but it isn't. What I think happened is somewhere along the line, this mix went through an analog stage and the front left and front right channels were wired out of phase. I also think this went throught an ADAT (PCM stage) which I'll explain after this. It went one of two ways:

original tapes (in phase) -analog connection, in phase-> DAW (to generate LFE & phantom center) -digital connection-> ADAT (PCM) -analog out, front channels wired out of phase-> DSD workstation to generate SACD master

or

original tapes (in phase) -analog connection, in phase-> ADAT -digital connection-> DAW (LFE/center generation) -analog out, fronts wired out of phase-> DSD workstation to generate SACD master

The reason I think there's an ADAT generation in there somewhere is that spectral analysis shows frequency response cuts off abruptly at 22kHz. ADATs were the industry standard from the early 90's to the early 2000's for digital multitrack - they were 8 discrete channels, and first generation models were 16bit/48kHz and later models were 20bit and selectable 44.1/48kHz. I obviously don't have any conclusive proof, but I believe the 22kHz frequency cutoff makes it most likely this is a 20 bit/44.1kHz ADAT transfer - perhaps this was done initially with a view towards being a source for a DTS CD (which are 44.1/20bit) release that never happened. I just can't see them newly digitizing the master tape at 44.1kHz with SACD release in mind. Here's the spectral analysis:

jeffbeck_spectral.jpg

So to sum up:

Front channels out of phase (accounts for my bass issues)
Sourced from a 44.1kHz master (accounts for some complaints about 'average' fidelity)
If you're re-authoring this in PCM with corrected phase, you can delete the center channel as it's just a mono sum of the front left & right channels

13 year old mystery solved. Feeling mildly smug today. :phones
 
There's plenty of bass once you fix the phase issues - the difference is far more pronounced if you have your speakers set to 'small' (which I do) because all those out-of-phase signals are getting mixed in to the LFE and cancelling each other out.
 
So then...the one to get is the SQ LP ...I doubt that it might be out of phase because the record grooves would be a disaster...Thank you so much Steelydave...as I ,emtioned, we should either start a thread or post the SACD spectrums in 96 K to see which SACDs are real Hi Rez
 
BRING ME THE HEAD OF THE DIPSTICK WHO VOTED THIS A "2"....!!!!!!!!! :howl:flame :mad: :smack: :slap: :mad:@:

Only joking! :D

Though, on a slightly more serious note.. when people come here and vote so incredibly low
on a title that's overwhelmingly voted by the membership as 10's, 9's and 8's.. as this one is (74 votes @ 8,9 & 10 and only 4 votes @ 7 or lower!!)..
and then don't review it or even give any logic as to why they arrived at such a low score that's so out of kilter with everyone else, OOH it grinds my gears!!! Rant over! Apologies! :p
 
There's plenty of bass once you fix the phase issues - the difference is far more pronounced if you have your speakers set to 'small' (which I do) because all those out-of-phase signals are getting mixed in to the LFE and cancelling each other out.

Ah-ha..!!! That explains why I've never felt there's any problem with this one! (y) I have my fronts set to "Large"!

(I know you're not "supposed to" do this.. I've heard all sorts of arguments for setting everything to "Small" and crossing over @80hz letting the sub handle all the low end, no matter how big and capable your speakers are.. but my fronts go down to 34hz before they conk out, I've got them Bi-Amped with 75 genuine wpc x 2 per floorstander, I still keep the sub going for LFE and I much prefer the sound that way.. it helps that my room is small and I only have to listen at modest levels to fill it.. but I've set my REL to within an inch of its life, crawling around the place with an SPL, experimented running it in High Level and low level modes and in both modes together for music and never been as completely satisfied with shutting it off for everything but movies with lots of real LFE content, so "NERR!" :p :D ;) etc..) wow I'm feeling better all of a sudden! I was 'dying' last night! must be the medication :smokin :chill
 
Re: the fidelity on this one, anybody complaining should try the version on iTunes that was my exposure to this immediately before I got the SACD (YUCK-a-Rama..!!!!) :yikes oh and there's an old CD of it that's terrible too, forget which one now but oh my.. love the sound on this SACD, 44.1k and all, it's the natural thing donchya know! (y)

Edit: just had a recap and Blow By Blow is now on iTunes in two incarnations (a quiet horrible sounding standalone purchase, the one I bought.. it's bright, lacks bass and is just so awful.. and a loud horrible sounding one that's part of a multi-album bundle.. BOTH sound super yuuuuuuuck to me!) but.. it's not all doom and gloom as whichever mastering of Wired they have that is available to buy separately on iTunes is very nice indeed, sounds much much nicer than either of the Blow By Blow masterings they have for sale over there. Ho hum.. Just my 2pence on the state of JB's offerings on Apple's D/L music service.. :)
 
So then...the one to get is the SQ LP ...I doubt that it might be out of phase because the record grooves would be a disaster...Thank you so much Steelydave...as I ,emtioned, we should either start a thread or post the SACD spectrums in 96 K to see which SACDs are real Hi Rez

Well, fast forward a few months and I now have the SQ LP (the sleeve is beaten to death but the record inside is in beautiful condition, not a snap, not a crackle, not a pop to be heard).. so, thru the SQ Vinyl Surround Master my simple assessment is.. it is lovelier than I ever remember (bass a-plenty too).. so if the SACDs a 10, then the SQ LP goes to "11".. :eek:

One observation, during the climax of 'Scatterbrain' where there's a sort of "explosion" sound it has a quite different texture to it on the SQ LP.. on the Surround SACD it is much crunchier than the record.. its hard to describe, if I knew how to upload sample clips (is it even possible here!?) I would but trust me its kooky - and doesn't sound more convincing than stamping on a crisp packet in either presentation imho but its kinda quaint in its own way.. I wonder what sort of sound they were going for in the first place...

Oh yeah and I'd dearly love to know who mixed this one into Quad..??
(..its daft that for such a high profile album and a Quad mix thats been re-released more times than JB's had guitar picks, no re(re)release has ever given credit where credit is long overdue.. )
 
I may make this title my next SACD purchase (yeah that's right, I've still never bought this one yet)
But before I do buy it, I have to ask this question.
Does anyone definitively know if there is a difference in sound quality between this version of the SACD and this version of the SACD?

Thanks! :)
 
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