Rush MOFI SACD's on the way!!

snowdog
snowdog
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So, my Rush album collection nears completion. Having discarded all my original CDs in favour of the remasters, I've recently bought up a replacement set of Mercury Atomics, etc. to go with the remasters, along with the deluxe anniversary boxes, the DVD & blu-ray versions of Moving Pictures & the prestige live sets of Clockwork Angels, R40, etc. I've also got the Sector Boxes & the Studio Albums box set, just for the hell of it.

Leaving aside the Japanese "Different Stages" which includes "Force Ten" as an extra track, but which tends to be prohibitively expensive, all that remains are the MFSL discs (2112, Moving Pictures & Signals, I think) & 3 SACDs, Presto, Counterparts & Hemispheres.

Much as the completist in me wants it all, I just read the following review of the Counterparts SACD. I work with digital imagery so I'm very familiar with the concept of there being no benefit to up-scaling a JPG & this is, in principal, appears to be much the same.

So, I wonder if there is anything to be gained from buying the SACDs? Is everything this reviewer says on the money, of are there ways in which digital audio differs to digital imagery?

Here's the review:

"I talked to Kevin Shirley personally (July 2, 2014), he was the original recording engineer for Counterparts.
He told me that he used the new Studer 48 track digital multi-track recorder which was a 24 bit/48kHz machine, but mastered at 20-bit/48kHz. So it's still a low-resolution recording. Even AF abandoned using 20-bit for their HDCDs since it was not much of an improvement.

Audio Fidelity, Rhino Records, HD Tracks, Analogue Productions, and others are playing on the ignorance of their customers.
People are ignorant about digital recording so they fall for the crap "professionals" sell them. All it is is greed and trying to make people believe they are getting something that they aren't.

The first 24-bit/96kHz recording was made in 1996. So AF HAD TO use low-resolution digital masters!! There ARE no analog tapes from Rush after the recording of Moving Pictures!!

So trying to make an SACD of this recording is ridiculous as all you get is a very detailed COPY of a low-resolution original recording!!!!!!

Some facts on using old digital recordings to make new digital "HD" discs:

Fact 1:
NO ONE can change or undo the original recording resolution of any digitally recorded music. They cannot retrieve the missing pieces of music that were left out / by-passed / ignored during the original digital recording session to a low-resolution format. Those are gone forever.

And the original low-resolution digital recording is very compressed to begin with. You cannot undo that either!!

Fact 2:
If they are starting with music data that has a very low 16 or 20 bit depth (and relatively low amount of music data)....... that's all it will ever be. Sure, you can increase it to 24 bit but all you're doing is "increasing" the bit-depth of 16-20 bit data!! You are still missing music dynamics information from the original performance! It was never captured/recorded!!

And again, the original digitally recorded music is very compressed to begin with. You cannot change that!!

It's not at all like starting with an analogue tape, which is the ONLY way anyone can get a true High-Definition mastering.

To recap:
NO ONE can undo the original 16-bit bit-depth or low-resolution sample rates of old digital music recordings. It's impossible since music information and dynamics are completely missing from what you're using to make the new "high-definition" masterings..... no matter what fancy name you might give your magical process!!

All you end up with is a very detailed COPY of a low-resolution recording!!
And I won't even get into the loss of more of the music data that is seen when re-sampling a sampled recording.

It's kind of like taking a Volkswagen automobile and putting a Rolls Royce body on it. The original engine is still what it's based on!! You can rebuild the Volkswagen engine to run a little better, but it will never be a highly-crafted Rolls Royce or sound like one. It's an illusion.

The ONLY way anyone can make a true High Definition recording, or master, is by using an analogue source of music.
If you're using a digital source to make a digital recording, all you get is a detailed copy of that digital source."

Thanks.

Emlyn wrote: »

Rush released most of their albums in high resolution download 96/24 or 48/24 formats on HDTracks back around 2013. Was a little annoying at the time because they released 96/24 remastered versions after having had 48/24 versions of the first few albums available for a couple years before.