[Marzie]

The album that gave birth to the head-fier in me was DSOTM. I couldn't have been much older than 4 or 5, and my babysitters son (who, in retrospect, seemed like kind of a stoner) was always listening to his headphones. I always begged him to let me hear what he was playing. Finally, one day, he put the headphones on me during the transition between Speak to Me and Breathe, and I heard the laughing and sound effects, but when the wailing started I thought someone was trapped in the vinyl trying to escape, so I ran over to the turntable and dragged the needle across the record. I didn't know much about records but I knew that would at least stop it. He flew off the handle, but after he calmed down, he explained how it worked, and played me some more of the album. Soon after, my mom got a stereo system (I'm still bugging her to give me her old turntable) and many years after, here I am on the forums. Reading this thread made me start listening to it again (second album for my new DT 770s) but now my amp needs new batteries.

As far as why I like it, right now I like it because this album reminds me of that day years ago when I dreamed of the day when I would have something of my own that could play the music that I was hearing. And now I can experience this album as an adult on equipment of my own, and maybe some day I can share this hobby with someone else. It reminds me to keep dreaming about the future because "one day, you find 10 years have got behind you..." and the day you were dreaming about has arrived.

 

[Otto]

Dark Side Of The Moon is good.

But when I'm in the mood for Pink Floyd it's usually,
Wish You Were Here

 

[makasin]

|m| Wish you were here is tasty.
I love Dark Side though, definately got me into critical listening.

 

[fraseyboy]

Listened to it again...

Now I'm beginning to like it. I can see how revolutionary it must have been in its day. It doesn't sound THAT old now.

Mmm its kinda freaky, listening to the lyrics. Theres that bit in that song (can't remember lol) about hearing Voices in your head, when a freaky voice appears RIGHT in the middle of your head and says something like 'I don't know what to say' then laughs insanely

 

[tru blu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marzie /img/forum/go_quote.gif Soon after, my mom got a stereo system (I'm still bugging her to give me her old turntable) and many years after, here I am on the forums.

Awesome, awesome post...won't change my opinion on the album, but great reading nonetheless. Now run, don't walk, to get those batteries.

 

[Marzie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tru blu /img/forum/go_quote.gif Awesome, awesome post...won't change my opinion on the album, but great reading nonetheless. Now run, don't walk, to get those batteries.

Thanks, I've been waiting for an appropriate time and place to share that story. And don't worry, just got the 10 pack of 9 volts from Sam's Club.

 

[pne]

try roger waters- amused to death. much better than DSOTM imo.

 

[golgi]

Try listening to the album under the heavy influence of ________ and then come back and report your results Fill in the blank with whatever you think may fit there.

 

[Marzie]

After reading this thread last night, I bought A Momentary Lapse of Reason today. I've always loved Learning to Fly, this thread gave me an excuse to get another Pink Floyd album. I think the strength (or presence?) of the guitar throughout the course of this album is better than the other Floyd albums. Not that the other ones didn't have great guitar riffs. Bringing the post back to DSOTM, there are great guitar riffs, there is just a lot more effects on said guitar and a lot of vocals and sound effects thrown in with them, making them take a backseat. With the great variation between sound effects, guitar and vocal effects, etc, I think making the tracks flow together as well as they do must have been a great challenge, and they did it very well. I might just have to pick up that "making of" DVD.

After replaying a few tracks, I am going to give WYWH another listen (then maybe Animals, followed by a few choice tracks off The Wall, then another go round of DSOTM

Might as well burn the new Beyers in on some tasty jams, vs winamp on shuffle, right?)

 

[tru blu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by golgi /img/forum/go_quote.gif Try listening to the album under the heavy influence of ________ and then come back and report your results Fill in the blank with whatever you think may fit there.

No disrespect, but that reminds me of the old joke about Grateful Dead fans:

Q: What do Dead-heads say when the drugs wear off?
A: "This music sucks!"

 

[Seidhepriest]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hciman77 /img/forum/go_quote.gif but, as has been discussed elsewhere, there is evidence to suggest that a DVD-A or SACD to 16/44.1 downsample i.e AD/DA degrading stage produces no readily audible difference under normal circumstances with even critical listeners. 16M levels is great and probably better for recording and mixing but at the point of delivery it may be superfluous. The AES back in the 1980s even demonstrated that the presence of brickwall filters at 18K and 16K was next to impossible to detect even when playing material with 20K+ components. Ivor Tiefenbrun couldnt detect a Sony PCM-F1 inserted into the analog stage from a turntable. Dont get me wrong, big numbers are great but sometimes they are just numbers...

Again: it is a matter of resolution. If you'd ever finished an electronic music mix that took days of tweaking and shaping to get the sounding, and then converted it do 44.1/16-bit and the presence/power were gone, it'd be painfully obvious what it's like.

Part of the psychological base for CD master companding is that the 24/32-bit masters simply sound more powerful; when transferred directly into the limited 96-dB CD audio format, that power is lost unless a direct transfer without normalising is done. Which cuts off the peaks of waves and creates a kind of square distortion...

The higher dynamic range of 32-bit/24-bit gives more headroom, more space for peaks to extend, more power to the music itself (dynamic range in terms of digital audio musicality is a matter of perceptible power) and more definition for instruments.

Also, as you ought to know, being a member of this forum and all, it is the transducer that makes the most difference. Did they have the same gear in the eighties? Out of what's here, the K-240 Monitor does sound transparent, clean and all (in fact, more pleasant than the new model), but it does have a smaller soundstage and less frequency bandwidth definition than the new K-240 Studio.

Just the same, a single listen won't make a difference jump right in - it takes a trained perception, but what a sound engineer may hear consciously, the public hears half- or un-consciously, as "presence", "body", "texture", etc.

In the end, it's all about the transfer of vital power of music; and in those terms, the CD format has been around for too long - compressed CD masters have become so ubiquitous partly because there's already not enough definition in the CD audio format.

There's no "purism" in sound engineering and recording - everything has to stay as pure as possible, it is the nature of the task itself; any degradation is a blow to the clarity of music.

Why is it that anyone is most impressed with the first hi-fi record playback? Simple, because the more subtle aspects of unnaturalness of a hi-fi reproduction system haven't gotten through. With time, however, everything becomes subtly noticeable; but, commonly people are not likely to pay attention to deformations/distortions, "listening through". The mind adapts to the whole music reproduction system. But that doesn't mean it doesn't take away those bits of sound detail that are present in the real performance.

With the current state of technology, a lot can be improved to carry over the power of original performance, just a few: better dynamic range (>20-bit) improves definition and perception; with the current digital processing, Blumlein recording technique and shuffle can be easily implemented; customised EQ adjustment to one's own hearing when listening with headphones (already implemented in the AKG Hearo, by the way), etc.

The 16-bit CD audio copy may sound similar to the 96/24 original, but it will not retain the same power or definition. Many people won't notice that consciously (as they won't know what to pay attention to - yet, until the mind focuses on the new), but in their spontaneous reaction they will.

The 30th anniversary hybrid SACD makes the difference between 96/24 and CDA obvious even when compared between the 96/24 and other CD editions (the 30th anniversary CDA master was compressed).

As for 16/18 KHz lowpass... Well, you're quite welcome to repeat the same experiment with an editor - that same Audacity ought to be capable of bandpassing.

 

[Callaghan]

DSOTM, for me, is a magnificent achievement in so many ways.. it gathers more than enough sounds/instruments, styles/influences along with varied and new technique to keep it interesting throughout. My favourite track on it changes with each new year but almost always I'll just sit back and appreciate the whole thing as a piece.

I think Dark Side edges WYWH out because it has even more of that magic ingredient that takes you beyond the music.

 

[Aman]

Dark Side of the Moon is a good album, but hugely overrated. It's largely an album that musically-dumb people use to stretch their legitimacy.

It's got its moments, but there are much better Floyd albums (basically, anything after DSotM is overrated and too Waters-dominated). People for some reason parallel Pink Floyd with a manner that should be given to those like Beethoven or Stockhausen.

And come on guys, the album doesn't sound THAT good. The mastered release is largely compressed due to all of the analog effects processing that they used to achieve many of their sounds (don't even get me started on all the over-dubbed interview conversations that cut additional word-length). It's a nice test for details, I suppose, but the dynamic range itself, as well as presence, are lacking quite a bit.

 

[Seidhepriest]

"Wish You Were Here" was not recorded by Alan Parsons, and it shows - it lacks the creative light present in the DSotM engineering, much more bleak.

Also Waters as a somewhat tyrannic and conflictive fellow ("my way or no way") was starting to dominate and tire out others, culminating in Wright's firing and re-hiring as a session musician past "The Wall".

The original DSotM master sounds way different from the release version; ironically, compression and pre-release EQ (?) gave it its "rock punch" and dark glistening. The quadro master sounds like a hospital - white, clean, sterile, and with a lot of emptiness, air. Sounds brighter than the release version, too.

 

[leng jai]

I'm in the same boat - I can't see what everyone is raving about.