[Eleven13]

Hey everyone,

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but lately I've been debating whether to get Opeth's Still Life remaster or track down the original CD.

I've read that the remaster CD is pretty compressed and overall worse than the original, but that the DVD, if downmixed, can yield the best possible sounding version of the album.

I don't really have much prowess when it comes to technical audio stuff, so I was just wondering if I do purchase the remaster, would it be possible for me to figure out how to do the downmixing myself and rip the DVD tracks (via dbpoweramp) to FLAC for archiving and use on my iPod w/ rockbox?

This is the thread I was reading from a while ago but I couldn't quite follow it that well.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/449663/opeth-still-life-5-1-remaster-2-0-wav

Thanks for any help!

 

[MindsMirror]

The DVD audio definitely does sound better than the CD. Ripping the DVD is not too difficult. All you need is a software like DVD Audio Extractor or AudioMuxer (those are the ones I have used) to rip the AC3 or DTS audio from the DVD and convert it to multi-channel WAV, then use dBpoweramp to downmix that to stereo and encode to FLAC. I haven't used dBpoweramp but I know how to do it with the foobar2000 converter.
 
If you do get the DVD and can't figure it out, come back to this thread and I will try to help.

 

[Eleven13]

Awesome thanks a lot for the help, I think I am going to go with the CD/DVD so I definitely plan on trying this out. I'll look into programs you suggested and let you know when I'm going to give it a shot, I appreciate the help!