I can't disagree with you there.....
I guess "natural" is a bad choice of verbiage..... the cymbals do sound a bit smoother than in real life..... but I guess they sound "appropriate" to the music to me.... to me they seem to sound "like they should sound".
I certainly do find the sound of that album to be "somewhat distinctive".
And, to me, on some other versions of that album, the guitars and cymbals sound somewhat indistinct to me (for example, the wire brush sounds more like the hiss of a steam valve than wires hitting metal).
I also find that distinction to be quite obvious on some equipment - but to be almost entirely inaudible on other equipment.
Explosions in movies rarely look like a real explosion. most of which just look like a flash of bright light if you film them, yet we still have a sense of "what a movie explosion should look like", and some "seem to look better than others".
(And, even among the CGI explosions we often see, on some the flames and bluster seem much more "realistic" than on others.)
To be quite honest, whenever I've actually listened to real live cymbals, I've found them to sound a bit annoying.... but I find these "pleasant".
However, even though I've never taken the time to analyze that recording, I find that the guitars and cymbals have a "clear detailed sound" - which seems to NOT be properly reproduced on some equipment.
Perhaps it's just the way they were EQed... but there is a distinct sense of shimmer and inner detail which, to me, seems intentional... and, on some equipment, seems to be :blurred over" or lacking.
(When I see two versions of a photo, one sharp and one blurry, and the details in the sharp version seem natural, I assume that the sharp version is "the better version", even though it's possible that the blur was deliberately added for some reason.)
Regardless of how you define the terms - by their product listings and pricing - the 24/192k version is "the best version HDTracks sells" - it is "the premium version of the product".
Therefore, however many times individual tracks have been resampled, or what sample rate or bit depth the most final version of the mix was produced at, I have little doubt that the 24/192k version got the most attention.
So, if there is a difference, I would expect it to be the one that "they made sure to get right" - by however they define that statement.
I see this simply as an extension of how the markets for most equipment and products operate - from audiophile electronic gear, to speakers, to cars, to dishwasher detergent.
If a product is available in several versions, the "premium" version will usually have more features, and better performance, than the "low cost" version.
This may happen because there is a cost difference involved in including the extra features or better performance.
But, equally often, it happens because details, or minor performance niceties, are
DELIBERATELY OMITTED from the "low end product".. to provide the customer incentive to upgrade to the more expensive version.
In this case, I would expect them to expend more effort in making sure the highest resolution, and most expensive, version sounds really good.
And, if there really is no audible difference, it wouldn't surprise me if they were to deliberately "down-grade" the lower cost versions to sound slightly inferior.
For example, I might expect them to deliberately roll off the high end on the "CD quality version" to meet people's expectations that "the high-res version will have a better high end".
I am quite convinced that one of the major reasons the SACD layer on hybrid SACDs often sounds quite different is that, in some instances, someone told the mix engineer:
"The SACD layer is the audiophile version. Make sure it sounds smoother, and clearer, and more like what audiophiles expect, than the regular version."
My point is that there are many reasons why a difference might exist... many of which are out of our control as a consumer.
If it turns out that the 24/192k version sounds better because they deliberately added more compression to the CD version, it makes no difference to me whether they did it to make the CD version "less desirable",
or whether they really believe that "the low end market prefers more compression".
Either way I'd rather have the better one.
(And, once I've got it, the space I'd save by converting it to 16/44.1k myself is so negligible that I wouldn't bother.)
With that album, the best I hope for is a compromise between, "the best quality possible considering the analog masters available" and "some alterations to the sound of the analog master to make the result more like what the producers and musicians intended".
And, yes, I realize that there is going to be some "artistry" and some "opinion" involved in that goal.
However, assuming I trust the folks who did the remaster to have done a good job, I would prefer to have the most accurate rendition of
THEIR final product possible.
And, yes, I'd probably be willing to pay an extra $10 to get the 32 bit or 64 bit file off the console.... because it would be one step closer to the original....
(Which is find to philosophically be an improvement... with no need to agonize about whether it's audible or not.)
I have no trouble playing those sorts of files... so why not?
Just to be perfectly clear.....
I have found many of the remasters sold by HDTracks to sound really good - and quite different than the originals.
To me this justifies purchasing them.
While I most certainly find the question of whether they sound better because they're high-res files to be of academic interest...
It makes no difference in my purchasing decision.
1. That's odd, the plucked guitar and cymbals sound distinctly unnatural to me, they sound distinctly produced. I'm not saying the song is poorly produced, far from it, but it is produced. It's also entirely possible that the "produced" sound was achieved mainly with mic choices/positioning but I'm pretty certain there's at least some EQ in there and there would definitely have been compression/limiting applied. Certainly though, there are many recordings where the guitars and/or cymbals sound less "natural".
2. At that time (the mid '70's), some studio mics topped out at about 20kHz but most topped out somewhat or significantly lower. Plus we're talking about more than one generation of analogue tape and routing through various other analogue equipment which also added HF noise and reduced HF linearity. For it's time, it had good HF response but not "excellent" compared with what could be done later.
3. It is NOT the case that it was mastered at 192/24, because it has never been possible (or desirable) to master at 192/24! Most likely it was mastered at 192/64 or possibly 192/32 and also, it's likely that it has been resampled several times, either via trips in/out of the ADC/DACs, by plugins which resample internally or both. Whatever the case, the distribution master will have been re-quantised, either to 24/192 or some other depth/rate. Therefore, the versions at the lower depth/rates are NOT "one generation further away from the master", they are exactly the same number of generations away from the master as the 192/24 version (IE. One generation away)!
G
