The Dylan Remasters

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I am tempted to get Blonde on Blonde tho. (I notice the inside is not the pictures on my nice CBS double album...

Too much purple, September 22, 2003
There is too much purple. I like purple album covers, but this is not a purple album. The music does not have much to do with the color purple. The original was definitely more red. Dylan did not have purple hair at this stage in his career. If you are thinking of buying this because it is purple please be aware it is really not a purple record. Moby Grape made purple abums with purple covers. Tell your kids this was not a purple record. They may think this was originally purple.

Oh that's all right, I'll just say you should give all the in-store credit from the older versions you'll be selling back to me, and I'll put it to good use.

Wonder if they'll get around to doing "Dylan"

they will never do "dylan" because it was released as an act of vengeance when dylan momentarily jumped ship to asylum (the record label that is), and was shoved under the rug when dylan and columbia made up.

They might be great on SACD, but for poor old me, I don't think I'll be selling up and re-buying for a while yet. Saying that, when I finally get round to buying Oh Mercy, I'll get the remastered one.

At the heart of SACD is the Direct Stream Digital process - samples are taken at 64 times the rate of CD but ascribed single-bit relative values rather than absolute integer values, so that the process effectively maps the waveform in terms of successive changes rather than a more widely-space series of snapshot values.

It appears to be an elegant process which obviates the need for brickwall filtering on playback but there are some problems with actually making it work (loss of noise-shaping is required) and the PCM camp claim that 24bit/192k is essentially transparent, more accurate than DSD and more data efficient.

There's been lots and lots of banter about this on Usenet - just don't look in rec.audio.opinion.

Can someone please break down the difference for me between the 2003 remasters that come in digipaks and those in jewel cases?

Is the sound any different if I don't have an SACD player? Are there better liner notes in one than the other? I found JWH, among many others, priced at $8.99 (jewel) vs. $11.99 (digipak)...why is this?

Help and thank you.

SACDs are dual layer - one layer is the SACD information and the other is normal CD. the jewel case versions would, i'd imagine, just have the CD layer. yes you will notice a difference, the remastering is quite good. i comparemy copies of the remastered 'blonde on blonde' and 'bringing it all back home' to the old 'highway 61 revisited' - the former are clear and punchy, the latter is murkier and the sound level has annoying drop-outs.

I imagine that as far as the ordinary CD layer goes, there's no difference at all between the digipacks and the later versions in clear-tray jewel cases (not the old ones with the blocky red lettering on the spine and the "compact disc digital audio" symbol in the corner on the cover).

right, there is no difference b/w the non-sacd layers on these masterings. the sacd layer, if you have an sacd capable player, does sound better than the normal cd layer. also, the sacd versions are all completely out of print now.

Are they ever gonna do another set of these? New Morning, Basement Tapes...

Still waiting for a remastered and more complete Basement Tapes. I have "A Tree With Roots," which sounds sooooo much better than the 1975 release, but it would be nice to get an official version with proper notes, perhaps even better sound, etc. It's only a matter of time before it's another installment in the Bootleg series.

Ok, this is reassuring...I was looking for an excuse NOT to invest in the (more handsome) digipaks, better to satisfy my anal leanings with an even bank of plastic.

Yass, a redone Basement Tapes would be fabulous, as would a remastered New Morning, imho.

agreed.

has anyone heard the remastered JWH? does it sound as bad as people on Amazon claim it does?

I have the remastered JWH and I think any reviewer that would say it sounds horrible is a bit nuts - sounds fine!

lol at Pabst Blue Rosen

On JWH, there wasn't as much to gain as with the ones before it, as the unremastered CD sounded OK. But the remaster sounds perfectly find too.

JWH remaster sounds great!

hmm, the Amazon reviews complaining about the sound quality seem to have been deleted. wonder what that means.

xp

good to hear; i've been avoiding buying a copy strictly because i was afraid Sony had fucked up the mix/remastering. :^(

Time for a bump.

I was in the record shop today and saw the most recent Dylan remasters, including the Basement Tapes and Before The Flood. Has anyone heard these? How do they compare? I've never bought Before the Flood and was thinking of taking the plunge.

haven't heard these, but will probably get New Morning at least. If you want to hear the Basement Tapes in good sound, seek out that recently surfaced safety reel.

wouldn't it be cool to do a remix of the '60s records replacing the piano and organ and drums with '80s-vintage synths and syndrums a la "empire burlesque"?

Complete Album Collection

Again. Really? At least they priced it well.

still find it amazing that they hired clinton heylin to do the liners for this! his bio of dylan is not exactly flattering, and he always goes out of his way to write about how the curators of Dylan's work are doing a terrible job.

amazon reviewer sez

1. Self Portrait
2. Dylan
3. Pat Garrett
4. Hard Rain
5. Street Legal
6. Live at Budokan
7. Saved
8. Real Live
9. Empire Burlesque
10. Knocked Out Loaded
11. Down in the Groove
12. Under the Red Sky
13. Good as I Been to You
14. World Gone Wrong

are teh newly remastered ones.

all the best ones.
wouldn't mind hearing the remastered hard rain.

wait so slow train has been remastered already?

yeah it was part of the original 2003 remasters, i believe?

huh well good i guess they did what they could with it then

the FLAC version costs more than the CD version? strange.

wow, with this remastering the horrible murky production and terrible songs of knocked out loaded are just so visceral, so palpable

in some of these cases i wish "remastering" had meant "sorry, we accidentally erased all of the copies of this album, including the master tapes. in its place we give you a 40-minute sound collage of bob dylan wheezing"