[Brent Hutto]

So I'm listening to my Money for Nothing compilation CD on the iPod while working at my desk. After a while it dawns on me...on most tracks the sound sucks. I don't have any recent-vintage Knopfler recordings. What are some suggestions for one or two that might sound better than the old Dire Straits stuff seems to through headphones. Funny, that CD always sounded pretty good in the car but up close it's dead-sounding and not particularly clean.

How about that live EP titled "One Take Radio Sessions"? I thought about trying the Shangri-La album but maybe the live EP sounds better...

 

[markl]

Hmmmmmmmmmm... on my rig, the Dire Straits remasters sound great (haven't heard that compilation so can't comment on that). There is a more recent SACD of Brothers In Arms that people are raving about. In fact, all the Knopfler stuff I have sounds incredible, all 3 of his recent solo albums, Sailing, Ragpicker's Dream, and the latest one. Really well done sonically. Also, not sure how well the iPod as a source is going to be at revealing differences in sound quality, especially if you've compressed those files.

 

[Brent Hutto]

This Money for Nothing CD is dated 2000 so it's contemporaneous with the remasters but it is not labelled as such. I think it's probably just an inferior chop-job that wasn't remastered.

I'll try the remastered Brothers in Arms since you say that batch sounds good and maybe just add Shangri-La for starters.

Admittedly, my iPod and PX200 isn't the best delivery vehicle for that kind of music but several of the tracks on Money for Nothing sound much worse than, for instance, any of the REM songs I have ripped. I'm also carrying around on the iPod some Page & Plant stuff that sounds OK. All of these are at 256kpbs AAC ripped with iTunes. I'll plug the headphones into the CD player tonight and make sure it's not just artifacts from my source.

 

[markl]

Can you describe why it doesn't sound good? Problem is, Brothers In Arms is an early digital recording. So, it has that peculiar washed-out sterile sound of early digital. Their earlier albums sound much better (recorded on good old analog tape). Personally, I like Ragpicker's Dream best of the recent solo stuff, Shangri-la the least, but YMMV. Good luck!

 

[soundboy]

"Money For Nothing" compilation? That title has been long out-of-print. It was released in the late 80s. You must be referring to the more recent "Sultans of Swing" compilation.

Shangri-La is also available on SACD.

I don't think any recording of MK or DS sound horribly bad....even the "Live at BBC" CD was OK.

 

[Brent Hutto]

soundboy,

Actually, mine is the old Money for Nothing c. 1990 or so. It was one of the first CDs I bought when I got a CD player which was in 1990, IIRC.

markl,

I'll listen straight from the CD when I get home tonight but "washed-out sterile" is probably a good description. I just think it sounds dead, sort of like movie outtakes that haven't been color-timed. A couple of tracks sound good, such as Sultans of Swing. The ones that sound worst are my favorites, Private Investigations, Telegraph Road, Brothers in Arms. My other favorite Romeo and Juliet (shouldn't that be everybody's favorite Dire Straits song?) sounds OK.

 

[cosmopragma]

I have a nice sounding "Brothers In Arms" XRCD.
Are a bit expensive, these XRCD remastered versions, but in this case I don't regret it..

 

[Scrith]

I saw him in concert a couple of weeks ago...that sounded pretty good.

I'd check out Shangri-La, Ragpicker's Dream, or Sailing to Philadelphia. I find myself listening to these albums as much as the old Dire Straits stuff (I tend to prefer the albums before Brothers in Arms, though I listen to them all).

 

[Brent Hutto]

I did listen a while straight from the CD player last night. The sound is certainly better (although only a tiny bit) but I'll stick to my original assessment. The tracks vary in quality but none of them sound really good. The vocals and various instruments are not well integrated, there's an unpleasant roughness to some of the upper midrange and highs and it's just all very mid-fi sounding. Probably limitations of the original source material as markl suggested.

On my next Amazon order I'll put Ragpicker's Dream (a favorite here), Shangri-La (gets great reviews) and a copy of the remastered Brothers in Arms. I'm not saying my old Money for Nothing compilation is unlistenable, I just want to get some better-sounding recordings of one of my favorite musicians.

 

[Riordan]

i hated everything about that "money for nothing" compilation when i borrowed it from my brother - the cover, the track list, the sound quality.

the original albums' remasters sound great, especially the debut (dire straits) and 'communique', but i remember that very compilation to sound even worse than the original cd issues.

for a nicely recorded live album, get the gem that is unknown to many dire straits fans: 'live at the bbc' - imo it's much much better than the bloated, overblown & overrated 'alchemy'. it's from their earliest days, the setlist is mostly from their debut. it has pub atmosphere, fresh and energetic playing instead of bombast and pathos - and the sound quality is incredible...

 

[Brent Hutto]

I saw "live at the bbc" on Amazon and was tempted. Now it's on the list. Glad to hear I'm not the only person to find Money for Nothing abysmal. I used to love my vinyl records of Brothers in Arms and...memory fails...must have been Alchemy.

I had a cassette tape of Brothers in Arms that I just about wore out commuting between Charlottesville, VA and Columbia, SC back in 1985 and then between Charlottesville and Washington in 1987 (although by then I had added Stop Making Sense).

 

[Wmcmanus]

I listened to the Shangri-La SACD disc on my Orpheus system the other night and could barely stand up afterwards. It was so good that it made my knees weak!

As mentioned already the BIA disc on SACD is also pretty amazing. Most of the raves about this have been with respect to the multi-channel mixing. Apparently they're done an awesome job with it, although I don't have a multi-channel system set up at the moment, so I haven't yet checked it out myself (other than the 2 channel version which is considerably better than any of the BIA redbook remasters that I've got lying around).

 

[Brent Hutto]

So how does this SACD work? Does the CD player decode it into several audio channels and output it to a bunch of RCA connectors? Or does is it more like Dolby Digital or DTS coming off a DVD via coax or optical?

If my ancient Adcom CD player ever bites the dust I've been assuming the next one will be SACD but that's just for future-proofing. Are you saying you can output regular two-channel line-level audio to a regular two-channel amp and speakers and still get better-than-Redbook sound?

[EDIT]

A quick Google answers my question. The multichannel stuff plays through a regular old home theater receiver. Hmmm, interesting. Of course my Adcom stereo amp and big old A-D-S speakers sound a heck of a lot better than the little Polk speakers in the home theater room.

 

[soundboy]

I have the SACD of "Brothers In Arms" and it sounds amazing even on the CD layer. The SACD is a multi-channel hybrid SACD, meaning that it has a regular CD layer, the 2 channel stereo SACD mix, and a multi-channel SACD mix. I don't have a surround sound system, but the stereo versions, whether it's the regular CD or the hi-rez, just sounds real good. Although it's unmarked, the CD layer of the SACD is HDCD-encoded, which I don't believe the remastered CD is.

Since Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler are both signed to Warner Music in the US, the SACDs of their albums have to be imported (Warner Music markets the other hi-rez format, DVD-A). In fact, "Brothers In Arms" was just released on DualDisc that featured the album in DVD-A.

 

[Brent Hutto]

I checked out the local "funky record store" yesterday and picked up the remastered editions of Brothers in Arms and Love Over Gold. As expected, the classic tracks are much cleaned-up on the remastered CDs as compared to my old Money for Nothing compilation. Not the epitome of audiophile sound by any means but very listenable.

I also impulse-purchased Knopfler's One-Take Radio Sessions EP for nine bucks and listened to the first few tracks before bedtime last night. I just love his laid-back, conversational approach. Especially with headphones there's a great sound and feel to songs like Back to Tupelo and Song for Sonny Liston (which I've been hearing in my head ever since).

And all them sluggers went down...like...lead.