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 Post subject: Billy Joel - 52nd Street
PostPosted: 02 Apr 2014, 16:31 
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So I finally picked up my first SACD - Billy Joel - 52nd Street. It's also kind of a full circle thing, seeing as how this was one of the first albums I remember my mom playing on the turntable when I was a kid, and it was also the first commercial Compact Disc release ever!

I haven't heard the LP in a long time, and I've always felt that the CD sounded kinda crappy, so I looked forward to hearing this SACD remaster with much anticipation. So how does it sound?

Well, it sounds good, but it wasn't the leaps and bounds increase in quality I was hoping for.

I compared it, using the 2-channel mix on the SACD to the CD release that I have with the Pioneer Elite DV-45A playing the SACD connected to my VSX-27TX receiver via some Acoustic Research audio cables into the 27TX 6-channel analog input (that way no extra processing is performed on the audio), with my Runco LJR-I playing the CD connected to the 27TX via optical cable with the 27TX's Burr-Brown DAC doing the processing of the audio.

First listened to "Until the Night" (which is also my favorite Billy Joel song) and the SACD definitely sounded better than the CD. I could make out each voice when they were singing in unison much more clearly, and the castanet sounds were much more prominent than what the CD could produce. Still, I expected better.

The I listened to "Big Shot." Again, some instruments and vocals were more delineated than what the CD could do, but not by a whole lot.

All in all, this wasn't the leap in quality I heard over something like the difference between Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Brain Salad Surgery" on CD and DVD-Audio.

Is it possible that since the CD didn't sound all that great to begin with, that the masters were just not that great quality either?

I'll give it another shot with the multi-channel audio, when I get home tonight.
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 Post subject: Re: Billy Joel - 52nd Street
PostPosted: 02 Apr 2014, 17:40 
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this album was also the very first compact disc ever pressed, IIRC...
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 Post subject: Re: Billy Joel - 52nd Street
PostPosted: 02 Apr 2014, 18:01 
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Some versions of 52nd Street (and other early CD's) have pre-emphasis, I think some later CD players ignore that, which would make the CD sound a bit... off.
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 Post subject: Re: Billy Joel - 52nd Street
PostPosted: 02 Apr 2014, 20:09 
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tasuke wrote:
this album was also the very first compact disc ever pressed, IIRC...
Yup . . .
elahrairrah wrote:
So I finally picked up my first SACD - Billy Joel - 52nd Street. It's also kind of a full circle thing, seeing as how this was one of the first albums I remember my mom playing on the turntable when I was a kid, and it was also the first commercial Compact Disc release ever!
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 Post subject: Re: Billy Joel - 52nd Street
PostPosted: 01 Sep 2014, 16:57 
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elahrairrah wrote:
Is it possible that since the CD didn't sound all that great to begin with, that the masters were just not that great quality either?
.


I haven't listened to any Billy Joel stuff in years, but I suspect that what you're hearing is just the (in my opinion) poor quality mixes that Phil Ramone seemed to be doing around that time (given his background in engineering, and especially in being a mixdown engineer, I'm going to assume he handled the mixes himself on these albums)...If you listen to Chicago's "Hot Streets", or especially their 13th album, you'll hear the mixes sound very similar, especially in regard to the over-emphasis of high frequency information. I don't know what it was about those albums (I'll include "The Stranger" here as well, since I remember it having similar mix qualities), since the stuff I've heard from Phil Ramone both before and after that period didn't exhibit the same problems.
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