"My Little Town" in Quad - The 'Simon' and The 'Garfunkel' versions...

[fredblue]

So, here's a curious one for you all to ponder..

I thought I'd compare the track "My Little Town" from the decoded SQ LPs of Art Garfunkel's "Breakaway" and Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years" albums (as it features on both albums in Quad) just for a laugh.. and blow me down but they're not identical..! :yikes

I'm not tech savvy to know the how's or the why's or the don't mind if you do's.. but... oh, here's some Pics..
and if you can help explain what the dickens is going on (or want to hear clips of the rips to compare them, then just drop me a PM?) I would be eternally grateful..!

Thank you!

 

[fredblue]

Garfunkel Quad version on the Left, Simon Quad version on the Right..



Garfunkel = LEFT... Simon = RIGHT..



Garfunkel version...



Simon version...

 

[fredblue]

In fact.. taking a closer look at the waveforms, is it my imagination, or is one of the entire sets of 4-channel files phase inverted relative to the other set..??

 

[fredblue]

Just for the 'record'... ...these were transferred with the exact same equipment
(Pro-Ject Debut Phono SB Turntable / 2ch => Surround Master SQ Vinyl modded unit / 4ch => Motu interface via FireWire into Audacity)
with the same settings and nothing has been changed about either of them wrt stuff like EQ, channel assignment, etc..
these are almost entirely as they came off the LPs, with some minor manual click removal on the Paul Simon and no click removal on the Garfunkel version whatsoever.

I can't actually A-B them in the strictest sense with my setup but flicking back and forth between one version and the other they do sound different, both in mastering/overall sonics and in how the mixes pan out (as best as one can detect in the SQ stew, that is).. hmm..

 

[fredblue]

Oh also, I have Q8 conversions of both albums and would now like to compare them to these SQ LP transfers..
but cannot work out how to analyse the 4 individual channels of either of them in Audacity
(unless someone here can tell me how to do so with DTS wav files..? they just open up in Audacity as two big old chunky oblong bricks of white noise ..or at least how to successfully convert them into another format that won't just create a load of horrible white noise briquettes..!! :yikes).

Thanks guys, I'm relying on your help and expert knowledge here.. otherwise my Christmas is going to be ruined by many a sleepless night over this one..!!

 

[cupboy]

AF should put out Breakaway on SACD, in quad, just to piss off Simon. And I'd like to hear My Little Town on quad SACD.

 

[bmoura]

AF should put out Breakaway on SACD, in quad, just to piss off Simon. And I'd like to hear My Little Town on quad SACD.

That assumes that you could get artist approval for a reissue from Art Garfunkel - or from Simon & Garfunkel for "My Little Town".

 

[4-earredwonder]

That assumes that you could get artist approval for a reissue from Art Garfunkel - or from Simon & Garfunkel for "My Little Town".

Brian, one would think that with the 'aging' condition of the original S&G analogue masters they, and SONY would be overjoyed to see their mini masterpieces converted to hi res Surround on 'physical disc' for the very first time and hopefully expose them to a whole new generation of listeners. S&G Producer Roy Halee used to frequent my high end audio store in Scarsdale, NY and back in the 80's he told the store's proprietor that the S&G original analogue masters were NOT in great condition [then] due to copious splices, overuse, etc. I'm sure the original QUAD masters are in better condition as they stopped pressing SQ vinyl in the mid 70's so WHAT ARE THEY WAITING FOR?

Frankly, I find this artist aversion to QUAD/5.1 mildly perplexing......unless, of course, it's an outright bastardization of the artist's original 'intent.'

 

[bmoura]

Brian, one would think that with the 'aging' condition of the original S&G analogue masters they, and SONY would be overjoyed to see their mini masterpieces converted to hi res Surround on 'physical disc' for the very first time and hopefully expose them to a whole new generation of listeners.

Sony wouldn't be the issue here. They have green lighted many SACDs - Stereo and Multichannel - in the last couple of years.
As to why certain artists are not inclined to approve reissues of their albums, that's really their call.

 

[fredblue]

Thanks guys for all your help..!

Haha..

I love this place, some days it's like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest re-enacted by The Muppets..!! :ugham:

 

[Philip Spinner]

Perhaps everyone is busy playing all their new surround sound stuff.

 

[fredblue]

Perhaps everyone is busy playing all their new surround sound stuff.

Probably! There's a lot of new stuff to play! :upthumb

..Or they may be spending quality time with loved ones.. and I didn't mean a lack of response in itself btw., more the hilarity of the responses so far, this place just cracks me up!

 

[JonUrban]

@fredblue: I will get into all of this when I get back to my PC and my life.


Soon (hopefully)

 

[JanBakker]

Oh also, I have Q8 conversions of both albums and would now like to compare them to these SQ LP transfers..
but cannot work out how to analyse the 4 individual channels of either of them in Audacity
(unless someone here can tell me how to do so with DTS wav files..? they just open up in Audacity as two big old chunky oblong bricks of white noise ..or at least how to successfully convert them into another format that won't just create a load of horrible white noise briquettes..!! :yikes).


Thanks guys, I'm relying on your help and expert knowledge here.. otherwise my Christmas is going to be ruined by many a sleepless night over this one..!!

Adam I only saw this just now. I always convert dts wav files to flac with Foobar (dts component installed) but audiomuxer can convert to flac as well. Audacity reads the individual channels in flac. I hope I understood your problem, if not :couch I'm sorry.

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

Wait - what were we talking about?? Hee!

Anyway Fred, if you're familiar with Foobar2000 I'd second Jan's vote. With the available dts component installed, it will decode the stereo white-noise into a normal multichannel FLAC file without much fuss, so long as the proper boxes are checked.

Now get some sleep, young man! If Santa catches you up diddling with your 'puter, he's going to put a pack of pocket-protectors in your stocking!

-- Jim

 

[JanBakker]

Wait - what were we talking about?? Hee!

Anyway Fred, if you're familiar with Foobar2000 I'd second Jan's vote. With the available dts component installed, it will decode the stereo white-noise into a normal multichannel FLAC file without much fuss, so long as the proper boxes are checked.

Now get some sleep, young man! If Santa catches you up diddling with your 'puter, he's going to put a pack of pocket-protectors in your stocking!

-- Jim

I hope we just saved his Christmas :brew or maybe not :xp:

 

[steelydave]

You can also do this with AudioMuxer in the 'Audio Conversion' section. Conversion with Foobar is slightly more straightforward, but AudioMuxer can properly convert DTS at rates higher than 16bit/44.1kHz. Mainly this is good for DTS 96/24 material, but even DTS CD's are 44.1kHz 20 bit. If you convert DTS using Foobar, DTS CD's will come out as 16/44.1 and DTS 96/24 will come out as 48/24, whereas AudioMuxer will give you 20 (in a 24bit container)/44.1 for DTS CD's and full 96/24 from DTS 96/24.

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

You can also do this with AudioMuxer in the 'Audio Conversion' section. Conversion with Foobar is slightly more straightforward, but AudioMuxer can properly convert DTS at rates higher than 16bit/44.1kHz. Mainly this is good for DTS 96/24 material, but even DTS CD's are 44.1kHz 20 bit. If you convert DTS using Foobar, DTS CD's will come out as 16/44.1 and DTS 96/24 will come out as 48/24, whereas AudioMuxer will give you 20 (in a 24bit container)/44.1 for DTS CD's and full 96/24 from DTS 96/24.

True dat. (I was assuming Fred's file is 48K since it wasn't a commercial release.) I just wish I could remember how to do this properly in AudioMuxer - for some reason I have to futz around with it every time before I get it right. Of course I could type up some notes one of these times for future reference, but that makes too much sense...

-- Jim

 

[JanBakker]

You can also do this with AudioMuxer in the 'Audio Conversion' section. Conversion with Foobar is slightly more straightforward, but AudioMuxer can properly convert DTS at rates higher than 16bit/44.1kHz. Mainly this is good for DTS 96/24 material, but even DTS CD's are 44.1kHz 20 bit. If you convert DTS using Foobar, DTS CD's will come out as 16/44.1 and DTS 96/24 will come out as 48/24, whereas AudioMuxer will give you 20 (in a 24bit container)/44.1 for DTS CD's and full 96/24 from DTS 96/24.

And I was assuming that Adam was talking about dts wav's taken from dts cd's (I know he has got some of them ) but you're right of course, that's why I mentioned Audiomuxer in my first post but I didn't want to make things too complicated.

 

[Fourplay]

In fact.. taking a closer look at the waveforms, is it my imagination, or is one of the entire sets of 4-channel files phase inverted relative to the other set..??

Based on a simple Photoshop comparison, the difference is definitely Not a simple phase inversion. Photoshop can't really verify what the difference IS, but it can demonstrate what it is not. If I had the software you have, I would copy one of the same channels from each mix and paste these into a new stereo mix (with Simon LR & Garfunkel LR, for instance), and play it back to listen for differences. Could be interesting.

Good luck!