[Strangelove424]

 
well quality of mastering is a delicate value to put a number on. so I would already be very happy with knowing what master I'm buying when I get an album, an anniversary one, a best of, a japan import, a DSD or some hires version from whatever online service.
so a clear label would help, something like the year/studio/engineer from the master in a really clear way, something we could track, talk about, share the name of someone to avoid after hearing a few of his clipping jobs.
making the ones doing great job famous(really famous, not inside industry famous).
it would be a way to regulate products and push the industry into doing the right thing naturally as they're not all idiots and will always follow the money.
I'm sure this could become a thing like the DR database where we could see what master to look for or at least what master we should run away from.
that's for masters.

I like the idea of crediting engineers (somewhere other than the small print on the inside jacket), but have reservations putting blame on them. If the artist or producer demands things like a louder mix, and the engineer vocally opposes it but is overridden, you can't really blame the engineer. There are engineers who are commercial machines, and grind up and spit up music on their path to sales, but they shouldn't be grouped in with the engineers trying to do good work. Like any collaborative art, influence or responsibility is often hard to parse. I agree that we should put more emphasis on quality masters, and acknowledge excellent work when it comes along. I would like to see music reviews put more emphasis on that, and compare a new master to previous ones using not just subjective analysis but measurement. I don't like that it should come to that, but the music industry has injected so much doubt about these versions that the buying process is a stroll through a financial mine field of worse or same quality masters than our ancient versions on CD or vinyl (I'm almost tempted to include tape). Ultimately, I think it's important that people share honest opinions of a master in communities like this. We are the best regulating force. If you look at what happened with the fan backlash with certain infamously bad masters like Deathmagnetic, it's always the listeners that have the real sway.
 

 
now high res, well I'm not into hires myself so they will not get my money even if they become legit. but forbidding publications of "upscaled" redbook albums would be the very basis of a rule to follow. if they don't have a 24/96 studio copy in good shape to work on, then they shouldn't even think about making an hirez version available for sale. from what I know, making fake products is still not a legit thing to do. yet they do just that and sell it for extra money. it should be possible to have legal actions against thieves making fake products. instead we get a funky "we offer what the studio gave us, we no guilty, you trust!" that sounds just like "I didn't know about the 2kils of cocaine in my bag officer, I thought it was grandma's pudding". so I don't get why the first ones get away with it.

 
Yes, this is purely a scam. If they only have a 16/44.1 export to it 24/96 from their DAWs, then charge twice as much, that should be illegal, regulated, and punishable by law. 

 

[Strangelove424]

  maybe the mastered the hi-rez version on a pair of beats or smtg =P

It made my normally subdued DT880s sound like Beats. I haven't heard that amount of bass even in hip hop, maybe once in an electronica album I listened to called Basspocolypse or something, and even that sounded better. It's 80's pop music, not rap. Don't know what they were thinking,
 
On a more positive note, that 25th anniversary edition is deliciously good, I listened to it twice already. It takes it to a whole new level. Streaming for the win.   

 

[bigshot]

  Yes, this is purely a scam. If they only have a 16/44.1 export to it 24/96 from their DAWs, then charge twice as much, that should be illegal, regulated, and punishable by law. 

 
The joke is, even if they did it properly, there still wouldn't be any audible difference.

 

[Krutsch]

   
The joke is, even if they did it properly, there still wouldn't be any audible difference.

It would be awesome to see that played out in a court case; to watch the defendants argue that there can be no fraud, because there are no discernible differences in either example of the "product", yet, technically speaking, the high-res version has been padded to 24-bits and up-sampled to 96 kHz, so it is as promised to the consumer.

 

[money4me247]

 
It would be awesome to see that played out in a court case; to watch the defendants argue that there can be no fraud, because there are no discernible differences in either example of the "product", yet, technically speaking, the high-res version has been padded to 24-bits and up-sampled to 96 kHz, so it is as promised to the consumer.

hahaah that's too funny if that it goes down like that.
 
"we just padded up the numbers, but yea, there's really no sonic difference so we aren't scamming anyone! they are paying for the nicer looking number" =P

 

[zorin]

  maybe [they] mastered the hi-rez version on a pair of beats or smtg =P

That's a good one.

 

[BlindInOneEar]

  It made my normally subdued DT880s sound like Beats. I haven't heard that amount of bass even in hip hop, maybe once in an electronica album I listened to called Basspocolypse or something, and even that sounded better. It's 80's pop music, not rap. Don't know what they were thinking,
 
On a more positive note, that 25th anniversary edition is deliciously good, I listened to it twice already. It takes it to a whole new level. Streaming for the win.   

Any chance you could use Audacity to capture the differing wave forms between the two recording and post them in this thread so we could see the difference between the two? 
 
For example, here's a comparison between a recent reissue of Loggins & Messina's "Be Free," my current "go to" track when people want to hear what my rig can do, and a "'Special Edition' of 'Bad'."
 

 
 
As you would expect, the Loggins & Messina cut is full of dynamics and frankly leaves your jaw hanging, while the Michael Jackson cut simply has you turning down the volume. 
 
It IS possible to get good sounding music in this day and age, you just have to look for it.  Perhaps if more of us could band together in posting visual evidence of crap we could sway the powers that be to produce more good sounding music. 

 

[Strangelove424]

Sure, this is the waveform comparison of Bad (HD is on top, CD on the bottom, unfortunately with the streaming version I can't import to audacity so can't include that in comparison): 
 

 
The CD version clips at one point, but it's still quieter than than HD version. I don't find loudness to be the only issue though, and I think that might be a limitation only looking at the waveform. The HD version was definitely a little louder than CD, but the bass/treble-boosted frequency balance also added to my perception of loudness, or atleast harshness.
 
I would be willing to bet the 25th Anniversary Edition I streamed was louder than CD but it still sounds good to me because they made it a balanced sounding mix between highs/mids/lows. And even being relatively louder than CD, it still has some dynamics. Unfortunately I can't confirm any of that in the graphs because I'm streaming it. Subjectively, it may have become my favorite version, or atleast a close tie with CD.  

 

[castleofargh]

 

  It made my normally subdued DT880s sound like Beats. I haven't heard that amount of bass even in hip hop, maybe once in an electronica album I listened to called Basspocolypse or something, and even that sounded better. It's 80's pop music, not rap. Don't know what they were thinking,
 
On a more positive note, that 25th anniversary edition is deliciously good, I listened to it twice already. It takes it to a whole new level. Streaming for the win.   

Any chance you could use Audacity to capture the differing wave forms between the two recording and post them in this thread so we could see the difference between the two? 
 
For example, here's a comparison between a recent reissue of Loggins & Messina's "Be Free," my current "go to" track when people want to hear what my rig can do, and a "'Special Edition' of 'Bad'."
 

 
 
As you would expect, the Loggins & Messina cut is full of dynamics and frankly leaves your jaw hanging, while the Michael Jackson cut simply has you turning down the volume. 
 
It IS possible to get good sounding music in this day and age, you just have to look for it.  Perhaps if more of us could band together in posting visual evidence of crap we could sway the powers that be to produce more good sounding music. 

ask DR database for an option to add a waveform thumbnails of the first songs?  \o/
and if that went "viral" on the net, we would then see new albums with amazingly dynamic first 3 songs (like unmixed intro of guys talking) to pass the "test" and the usual loudness crap for the rest of the album. like GFX cards that try to perform well in the tests instead of simply performing well ^_^.  I'm evil.

 

[sonitus mirus]

I have a way to capture the Google Music Play streams, I will grab MJ's "Bad" 25th Anny Edition (the 2102 remaster), and import it to Audacity and post the image when I get home this evening, around 7pm EDT. 

 

[Strangelove424]

Looking forward to it, I'm curious what it looks like. 
 
Edit: Actually I just googled how to capture a stream in Audacity, and recording the wav stream from my soundcard is super-easy, I'll have the waveform up soon. Thank you for bringing this to my attention Sonitus, this is amazing and I did not know it was possible. 

 

[esldude]

   
It IS possible to get good sounding music in this day and age, you just have to look for it.  Perhaps if more of us could band together in posting visual evidence of crap we could sway the powers that be to produce more good sounding music. 

The one way to get results is the market.  If badly recorded, compressed music stops selling and well recorded music starts selling you won't see anything of the loudness war in short order.  Good luck with that!

 

[Strangelove424]

Technology these days is amazing. These are the waveforms for Bad, 25th Anniversary streaming on top, then HD, then CD.
 

 
You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between HD and streaming by looking at the waveform, they are both more compressed than CD. That would indicate to me other factors are at play to make the HD version sound especially bad, probably frequency balance being a major contributing factor. If I could have the mastering of the Anniversary edition at the CD's loudness levels that would be ideal for me. 
 
BTW,  That CD is old, like dawn of CD age old, I have no idea what a newly released version sounds like, by Google Play's indication even the regular Bad CD is now derived from 2012 re-masters. 

 

[OddE]

Technology these days is amazing.

-Bet they said that in 1514, too...

 

[sonitus mirus]

I use Discog's site to identify the CD I am looking for by release date and mastering.  At least, that is where my research typically begins.
 
The original Bad was first released in the US on CD by Epic in 1987.
 
http://www.discogs.com/Michael-Jackson-Bad/master/8517
 
You can get additional details about each release.  If I can determine which CD I want, usually Amazon will show the label's catalog code, and obviously once you get the CD, you can see which version was delivered.  Most of the time I get what I ordered, but other times I have had orders lost in the mail and sometimes they package a completely different CD, both album and artist.  I used to get lots of cheap, used CDs, and lets just say they sometimes have inventory/catalog issues. 
 
I see the 1987 Europe release of Bad on sale at Amazon for under $20. (only 1 left in stock)
 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00002643V