The q8 must be absolutely incredible, because to my ears the SQ version is one of the most discrete lp's within the format.
OK, I'm reviving this thread cause at last I listened to my conversion of the SQ LP and I was totally blown away.
Far out stuff that sounds like random jamming but it's very organized -I would've loved to see the charts for these songs
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It sort of reminds me of a very early incarnation of John Zorn's "Naked City" regarding the looseness of the music (NOT the energy , Zorn's cd is for listeners with specially adapted ears and brains, since your head may explode while listening to it)
"Rain Dance" is my favorite; synth bops and squeals with a bit of "Naked City" sections with the metronome at 240+.
"Hornets" just drags on for way too long with the same motif, but still interesting...
Surround wise , it's a real treat, great panning of instruments and reverb and EXTREMELY discrete; several elements are anchored in the corners and remain so EVEN WITH other instruments in other channels. I have had very good results with the AA 2.0 script and I can hear plenty of separation in dbs-(especially in my "Caravanserai" SQ LP conversion in which the bass is totally isolated in LF with almost no leakage).
I must also say that I got a great looking LP which would have fooled me: no spindle marks, no scuffs , much less hairlines(!),
BUT,
It was a B*TCH to clean up!!!
Dang , those Columbia pressings were ...how can a say this?...not good??...
The same happened with my MDavis "Bitches brew" SQ LP I bought SEALED and I'm not even halfway done with the cleaning up, what a crappy pressing. It looks as though Columbia had to save $$$ so they used the SQ stampers way longer than they should have...
I personally like to clean my LP clicks/pops manually because all of the "signal cleaning" programs I've tried take out a lot of the music along with the noise.
Anyway, my conversion sounds heavenly and I'm very proud of it...
Now I can't wait to clean up "Thrust"...it'll probably be done by next year