LED ZEPPELIN Mothership.

Erik Tracy

heiney9 wrote: »

...try and play it on a nice hi-fi, forget it.

H9

Who does that nowadays??? Just strange AR types...

Fongolio

LessisNevermore wrote: »

Thanks for taking the time to do that comparison.
How did you ensure the input levels were equal between the analog and digital sources?

(considering that the cd rip bypassed any A/D conversion, as well as the preamp input) It could explain the difference in volume, as there appears to be similar dynamic range between the two, with the MS (cd) being louder.

I agree that the cd version is louder, but on close inspection the vinyl version appears to me to have better overall dynamic range. The cd version's levels have obviously been clipped which is very evident on close listening.

For John, it could very well be that he has a much less compressed and better mastered version of the LP's. I've never actually heard the LP so I can't comment on that. Just my cd version. I have two copies of Houses of the Holy on vinyl and can say that one sounds way better than the other. The good one is mastered by Robert Ludwig with his initials in the deadwax. It's much more dynamic and has way better sound stage and presence. Not all vinyl is created equal.

Kelvin

unc2701

heiney9 wrote: »

Yeah, I'm going to backtrack a bit on the two wave comparisons in this thread. Unless the same methodology was used for the analog wave as the digital there is no way to directly compare the two.

I assume the digital was a straight rip from the disc, while the analog had to be converted from analog to digital. If step weren't taken to ensure the two wave forms were created exactly the same then a true comparison can't be made. LessIsNevermore just pointed that out to me and after thinking about it, it makes sense.

True, but you can still make a comparison by looking at the density in the tails. I suspect that if you did a comparison with equal rips, it'd end up looking very similar since there's at least one nearly full-scale peak.

PSOVLSK

My favorite Zeppelin is from this DVD: http://www.amazon.com/Led-Zeppelin-Robert-Plant/dp/B00008PX8P/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1276717212&sr=1-1 "Going to California" from 1975 at Earl's Court is simply awesome. Highly recommend this DVD.

Also picked up "In Through the Out Door" and "IV" on vinyl for $2ea at my local thrift shop. Very nice.

As for the original topic, can't comment as I've never heard "Mothership".

unc2701

PSOVLSK wrote: »

My favorite Zeppelin is from this DVD: http://www.amazon.com/Led-Zeppelin-Robert-Plant/dp/B00008PX8P/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1276717212&sr=1-1 "Going to California" from 1975 at Earl's Court is simply awesome. Highly recommend this DVD.

I love watching Page play White Summer where he keeps wiping the sweat off his palms without missing a beat.

vmaxer

PSOVLSK wrote: »

My favorite Zeppelin is from this DVD: http://www.amazon.com/Led-Zeppelin-Robert-Plant/dp/B00008PX8P/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1276717212&sr=1-1 "Going to California" from 1975 at Earl's Court is simply awesome. Highly recommend this DVD.

Also picked up "In Through the Out Door" and "IV" on vinyl for $2ea at my local thrift shop. Very nice.

As for the original topic, can't comment as I've never heard "Mothership".

You sold me, I just ordered it:D
Thanks!!

heiney9

vmaxer wrote: »

You sold me, I just ordered it:D
Thanks!!

I thought everyone owned this DVD.............it's a must have!

hearingimpared

heiney9 wrote: »

I thought everyone owned this DVD.............it's a must have!

I don't have it.:( Is it DVD-A or just DVD?

vmaxer

hearingimpared wrote: »

I don't have it.:( Is it DVD-A or just DVD?

A DVD and the reviews are great, see them at Amazon's link above.

Norm Apter

hearingimpared wrote: »

I don't have it.:( Is it DVD-A or just DVD?

Just regular DVD. Run don't walk to the store (or just order it from Amazon:D).

The two disc set is incredible. There are four main segments, so you get to see the band progress over a decade:

1) Royal Albert Hall (Jan. 1970)
2) Madison Square Garden (July 1973...same filming from The Song Remains the Same)
3) Earls Court (May 1975)
4) Knebworth Festival (August 1979)

Plus all kinds of extras (early renditions of Communication Breakdown on Dutch TV I think)

My favorite part is the first segment from Royal Albert Hall... this was before Page began wearing the dragon robes and poppy suits, but the musicianship is just plain awesome. In particular, Bonzo's solo on Moby Dick at RAH is one of the most amazing bits of concert footage I've ever seen. The term jaw-dropping is used often, but the first time I saw that solo my jaw actually did drop.

Here's a teaser in poor Youtube video quality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XnQ5kKmOro&feature=related

PSOVLSK

vmaxer wrote: »

You sold me, I just ordered it:D
Thanks!!

I don't think you'll be disappointed. The music is great, but the concert footage is very...what's the word...nostalgic?? Very cool stuff.

comfortablycurt

PSOVLSK wrote: »

My favorite Zeppelin is from this DVD: http://www.amazon.com/Led-Zeppelin-Robert-Plant/dp/B00008PX8P/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1276717212&sr=1-1 "Going to California" from 1975 at Earl's Court is simply awesome. Highly recommend this DVD.

Also picked up "In Through the Out Door" and "IV" on vinyl for $2ea at my local thrift shop. Very nice.

As for the original topic, can't comment as I've never heard "Mothership".

I picked that DVD up when a local record store was going out of business...it's an excellent DVD, and I'd highly recommend it!! Especially for the 8 bucks I managed to snag it for!!!:D

vc69

heiney9 wrote: »

I thought everyone owned this DVD.............it's a must have!

Absolutely... got it when it dropped and have enjoyed it many, many times over.

heiney9

vc69 wrote: »

Absolutely... got it when it dropped and have enjoyed it many, many times over.

I've had all the footage for years in various poor to good bootlegs. The entire Knebworth concerts and several nights at Earls Court have found thier way out on bootleg DVD in the past 5 years or so.........in excellent quality. As well as the Seattle Superdome concert from 1977.

I remember having a murky, b&w VHS video of parts of the Royal Albert Hall that were barely discernable w/ horrible audio. I also had a hazy version of all the BBC footage, chopped up in some places and very short clip of the Tous En Scene French variety show.

But, when they released the official DVD, even though Knebworth and Earls Court are incomplete, I was in heaven. All the snippets between chapters as well as a couple "Easter Eggs" are priceless footage in my mind.

H9

vmaxer

vmaxer wrote: »

You sold me, I just ordered it:D
Thanks!!

Well, it came in but I have only watched a few minutes of it on my PC. Hopefully this week-end, looks like it will be good!!

George Grand

So the two or three boxes of LZ vinyl that I've got shitholed doesn't sound okay? Good to know. Even better I didn't sell that stuff huh? That was close.


NO PM's.

nooshinjohn

OK.... I picked up an original copy of Zep's fourth album, ZOSO this past weekend. I paid a premium for this copy and it plays as if I was the first to give it a spin. Because I have heard "Stairway to Heaven" at least a billion times in my life, I chose this song and this song alone for comparing the remasters to the original. I do plan on listening to other tracks and comparing them, but I feel that the results will be the same as I have outlined below.



I set up the test to be a simple side-by-side in a darkened room. Sorry to dissapoint, but no pot smoking was involved.(Zep and no drugs... SACRILEDGE!:eek::p) I played the song from ZOSO first to determine the proper volume for the test and once that was dialed in, I did not touch it again. With all the adjustments made, I cleaned both LP's and the stylus, and began my listening, ZOSO first.

What struck me first was the amount of backround noise in the recording. It was not the snap/crackle/pop stuff as the LP plays clean. It is that vacant white noise bleeding through that seems to accompany everything vinyl, and the reason I left the format decades ago, thinking CD's were the answer. (I was wrong) As I listened, what emerged was magic. The depth and presence were something I was not expecting from the music. Vocals were both pure and raw at the same time... The performance had POWER, and aside from the backround noise, it was very clean. I got goosebumps as I listened, and I was drawn in to the music.

I then played the same track from Mothership. This time, I noticed a sharp and appreciable difference in the level of white noise. This recording approached levels of black, empty space that I have come to expect from an AAD recorded CD. Silent, but not quite. Again, the track played beautifully. There was no harshness, or sounding "hot" as has been described here by others. The performances in fact were ALMOST identical to my ear, but there WAS a difference.

I played the tracks back to back, alternating between the two, five times each. The impression I was left with was that the ZOSO version was superior to Mothership. It seemed to me that the darker backround on Mothership was the result of "cleaning up" the master tapes. I have never been a big fan of the Dolby process used on audio tapes as I felt it compressed the sound, and did more to alter the soundstage and imaging of a recording than it ever did to reduce "hiss". I prefered the hiss.

The Mothership LP set is beautifully done, and is a great value for having Zeppelin's greatest hits all in one place. It is not "hot" as has been described, nor is it amped up. Rather it comes across as somewhat flat and less dynamic as the original LP's. There is an appreciable loss in soundstage and depth due to a rather heavy-handed attempt to clean up backround noise and clutter. I am happy with the set, however, and that is all that counts.:)


John

hearingimpared

Good stuff John. You last sentance says it all.:)

I do have one comment though. This "white noise" you describe, are you referring to surface noise, i.e., the stylus running through grooves? I don't get that with my vinyl rig unless the LP is quite worn out.

I don't remember what TT/cartridge/tonearm you are running with, but I think if you are using a high output MC cartridge, you should check the resistive loading in the preamp. Also a contributing factor could be that the gain in the preamp is set too high. If you are using an MM cartridge, you may want to check the capacitive & resistive loading in the preamp and again check the gain to see if it is too high. Other contributing factors to this "white noise" you spoke of is that the zenith of the stylus is off thus the stylus isn't running through the grooves properly more like it is running "sideways" through the groove.

Just some thoughts I have when you describe this "white noise." I hope it is helpful.

unc2701

I think that he's actually describing the other half of compression.

Overaggressive compression takes everything over a certain threshold and boosts it to a higher level with a more limited dynamic range- things below the threshold are zeroed out. Most people are more sensitive to the boosting, but it sounds to me like he's sensitive to the thresholding.

F1nut

unc2701 wrote: »

I think that he's actually describing the other half of compression.

Overaggressive compression takes everything over a certain threshold and boosts it to a higher level with a more limited dynamic range- things below the threshold are zeroed out. Most people are more sensitive to the boosting, but it sounds to me like he's sensitive to the thresholding.

Agreed.

hearingimpared

unc2701 wrote: »

I think that he's actually describing the other half of compression.

Overaggressive compression takes everything over a certain threshold and boosts it to a higher level with a more limited dynamic range- things below the threshold are zeroed out. Most people are more sensitive to the boosting, but it sounds to me like he's sensitive to the thresholding.

F1nut wrote: »

Agreed.

I agree to an extent fellas . . . he also said the original ZOSO LP had this same "white noise." Now I have several mass produced pressings of ZOSO as well as audiophile pressing of the same and I do not get this compressed phenomena on my vinyl rig. The only time I hear it as I said is on worn out or damaged (from mold mostly) vinyl, in fact I have Red Hot Chile Peppers's "Stadium Arcadium" which is terribly compressed and I still don't hear this "white noise" that John describes. This is why I suggested checking his set up.

Could be that I'm not as sensitive to the thresholding as stated above but I doubt it as I can hear phono pre hiss coming through music when the gain on phono stage is set too high. Most that have come to my house including you Jess don't notice this except between tracks.

nooshinjohn

hearingimpared wrote: »

I agree to an extent fellas . . . he also said the original ZOSO LP had this same "white noise." Now I have several mass produced pressings of ZOSO as well as audiophile pressing of the same and I do not get this compressed phenomena on my vinyl rig. The only time I hear it as I said is on worn out or damaged (from mold mostly) vinyl, in fact I have Red Hot Chile Peppers's "Stadium Arcadium" which is terribly compressed and I still don't hear this "white noise" that John describes. This is why I suggested checking his set up.

I should have mentioned that the turntable used was my Yamaha PX-3, and the cartridge installed is a Denon DL-160 with about 300hrs on the stylus. The table was checked for level, tracking force and angle and was set up properly. The noise I am describing sounds like "tape hiss". I may have been wrong to term it white noise. I was only trying to describe the backround noise differences between the two recordings, which is significant. As I stated in my comparison, along with a reduced backround noise, the soundstage on Mothership collapsed as well.

vc69

I think he's describing the overly faulty "compressed and eq'd" sound we all have come to hate. Frankly, I think John's ears have some training to do. He is hearing the difference, he just hasn't quite figured out what causes those differences or how detrimental to good hi-fi those differences can be.

nooshinjohn

vc69 wrote: »

I think he's describing the overly faulty "compressed and eq'd" sound we all have come to hate. Frankly, I think John's ears have some training to do. He is hearing the difference, he just hasn't quite figured out what causes those differences or how detrimental to good hi-fi those differences can be.

You are correct on the bold part, but I don't need to train my ears to know that compression sucks.:D:p

gimpod

heiney9 wrote: »

As well as the Seattle Superdome concert from 1977.

H9

I know this is off topic but i can't help myself (I'm sick and need help:o)
Seattle never had a superdome, We use to have the "King Dome" which some of us local's use to call "The Doomed Stadium" because from the alaska way viaduct it looked like it was tilted like the leaning tower of pisa, besides it had REALLY crappy acoustics.

heiney9

gim54pod wrote: »

I know this is off topic but i can't help myself (I'm sick and need help:o)
Seattle never had a superdome, We use to have the "King Dome" which some of us local's use to call "The Doomed Stadium" because from the alaska way viaduct it looked like it was tilted like the leaning tower of pisa, besides it had REALLY crappy acoustics.

Yep, just mixed the name up and yep, lousy acoustics based on some of the recordings I've heard. The Kingdome is one of the few places in 1977 they used a projection screen and that's why there is professionally shot footage available. But it would have been shot for the projections screens not to be edited later for release.

One of the reasons I believe we will never see the entire Earls Court tapes or either Knebworth concert is because these were shot and recorded specifically for the projection screens. In the case of Earls Court there are a lot of close ups, head shots, etc all from the same vantage point. Jimmy has even said the reason they weren't included in their entiriety is because of the lack of distance shots and only a few vantage points.

I have to agree. These recordings which are available on very high quality DVD bootlegs are for more hardcore fans as they just were never meant to released. Angles are awkward, shots are cut abruptly and the vantage points aren't well thought out. Of course this was 1975, 1977 and 1979 respectively and using a projection screen especially on 1975 was very primitive compared to today.

The 1977 King Dome concert is very sloppy and unispired and even more for the hardcore fans. That's one of the reasons it wasn't included on the official DVD.............pretty poor performance for ZEP and not up to the standard of the rest of the material on the DVD.

Anyway...............sorry for the derail

H9

heiney9

I encourage everyone who owns the DVD to go back and re-read the booklet. It tells of the extreme process they (Jimmy Page and Dick Currthers) went through to rescue and resurrect the tapes which were in really, really bad shape. They had exactly one chance to transfer the stuff digitally. Until they started work on the DVD the technology wasn't available to resurrect the recordings. Jimmy stated he had wanted to do it years earlier but the technology just wasn't there.

Much of the material was gone through painstakingly frame by frame.

H9

Norm Apter

heiney9 wrote: »

The 1977 King Dome concert is very sloppy and unispired and even more for the hardcore fans. That's one of the reasons it wasn't included on the official DVD.............pretty poor performance for ZEP and not up to the standard of the rest of the material on the DVD.
H9

Yeah, wasn't Jimmy strung out on heroin through the '77 tour (hence, the infamous white poppy suit he donned on stage)? Page's sloppiness, presumably from his heroin habit, seems to be one of the reasons why they were off -- also Plant's voice really changed after '73 and perhaps Plant couldn't really get back to his level of focus after he suffered the tragedy of his son's death in '75.

I've seen a pic of Page sitting next to U.S. tour manager Richard Cole on the Zep's private jet in '77 with these movie star-like oversized sunglasses, a large drink in his hand, and a devious grin on his face. It seems to sort of capture the state of mind he was in at that time.

Some say that it was still possible for Zep to turn in a good performance in '77, but these were few and far between.

headrott

The L.A. June 21st 1977 was absolutely one of these great perfomances. One of the best Zeppelin shows I have heard, period. Check it out if you have the chance.

Greg

Norm Apter

headrott wrote: »

The L.A. June 21st 1977 was absolutely one of these great perfomances. One of the best Zeppelin shows I have heard, period. Check it out if you have the chance.

Greg

Is that the one known as "Listen to this Eddie" in certain circles? If so, I have it on my hard drive but haven't burned it to CD-R yet. I know many have spoken fondly of that show, and yeah -- from what I've heard -- that would be an example of how they could really still turn in a great performance here and there.