Universal DECCA Blu-Ray/CD Editions

[Stunsworth]

I had no idea that Blu-ray players could play SACDs. I have quite a few of these and have often considered splashing out on a player, rather than just relying on the CD layer.

So I tried it, and the display confirmed the disc was an SACD, and played it faultlessly.

Most Blu-Ray players cannot play SACDs, or to be more accurate they can’t play the SACD layer. Some universal players such as the Oppo can play the SACD layer, as can some of the Sony players, but most players will only play the CD layer.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Most Blu-Ray players cannot play SACDs, or to be more accurate they can’t play the SACD layer. Some universal players such as the Oppo can play the SACD layer, as can some of the Sony players, but most players will only play the CD layer.

Ah! I was lucky then. Mine is a Sony.

[richardfinegold]

Ah! I was lucky then. Mine is a Sony.

Blu Ray players can be had for the price of a dinner and a cheap bottle of Chianti at your neighborhood Italian restaurant, or one can pay more than a thousand pounds for them, particularly the Oppos. The cheaper ones do a fine job with video but do not have decent DACs. They typically pass the Audio untouched via HDMI to a receiver, relying on the latter to do the digital to Audio conversion. The quality of the sound will be determined by the DAC in your receiver. Most BDPs can also pass the audio from an optical cable to a DAC, but you still need to connect the HDMI to either a receiver or direct to the television to see the video, and you need to configure the BDP in the set up menu to do this.
The Oppos and their competitors have much better DACs and will sound great either connected digitally or analog to your amp. They will also play SACD, DVD-Audio, but perhaps more importantly their good sounding DACs can be used to play downloads from usb sticks or from a computer . Quobuz and other streaming services can be played from a PC into the BDP DAC

[mahlerei]

I reviewed one of the first Decca/UMG BD-As - Britten conducting the War Requiem - and, to borrow HD's phrase, it's 'astonishingly good'. Amazing what can be winkled out of those mastertapes. However, subsequent releases aren't without flaws, as this review of Solti's Elektra points out:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Sep/Strauss_Elektra_4831494.htm

Also, UMG's High Fidelity Pure Audio Blu-rays are much less flexible than Pure Audio Blu-ray Discs - as offered by 2L and Sono Luminus - with their proprietary mShuttle feature. Here's an article I wrote about the format a few years back:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2013/Dec13/Bluray_audio_DM.htm

[richardfinegold]

I reviewed one of the first Decca/UMG BD-As - Britten conducting the War Requiem - and, to borrow HD's phrase, it's 'astonishingly good'. Amazing what can be winkled out of those mastertapes. However, subsequent releases aren't without flaws, as this review of Solti's Elektra points out:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Sep/Strauss_Elektra_4831494.htm

Also, UMG's High Fidelity Pure Audio Blu-rays are much less flexible than Pure Audio Blu-ray Discs - as offered by 2L and Sono Luminus - with their proprietary mShuttle feature. Here's an article I wrote about the format a few years back:

http://www.musicweb-international.co...y_audio_DM.htm

That is an interesting article there.
I didn't want to go into the issues that you raised when I posted #18 because I viewed this more as a newbie kind of exchange--it seems that he forumites that have posted here are largely unfamiliar with Blu Ray Digital and Audio . However, since you've opened the Pandora's box...
I have many Blu Ray Audio discs and while they are nice I am frustrated that the format rarely exploits the ful sonic potential of the BD. The Naxos discs are particularly infuriating in this regard; in my system I have trouble distinguishing much of an advantage of them vs Naxos "CD Quality (16/44) downloads. The @l discs otoh are stunners and the Tacet discs are optimized for surround sound but dow clearly sound better to me than the Naxos, or the Kleiber Beethoven, Bohm /Bruckner 4 and Karajan /Mahler5 discs..
My preferred way of obtaining High Resolution Music is High Resolution downloads or SACDs (I output the DSD layer from my Oppo via HDMI to a Bryston DAC that accepts HDMI). As you suggest in the article, the Audio companies are doing a fine job of killing any potential of Blu Ray Audio by underutilizing it's capabilities and lack of standardization. It will die for the same reason that SACD and DVD-A failed to catch on, namely that the average consumer won't perceive a benefit and will also be to confused by the bewildering lack of standardization

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

However, subsequent releases aren't without flaws, as this review of Solti's Elektra points out:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Sep/Strauss_Elektra_4831494.htm

Quite a few Decca analogue to digital transfers have suffered a similar fate. If the transfer engineer can't (or doesn't) read a score, then how will he/she know how an eliminated side join should be fixed? For example, the Decca CD transfers of Ansermet's and Schmidt-Isserstedt's recordings of the 3rd movement of Beethoven's 9th both leave a hole at the former LP turnover point. (However, these are nothing when placed alongside the Konwitschny recording of Eine Alpensinfonie, where a side change contains an overlap of several minutes, and when this doesn't work, the engineer inserts a lap-dissolve, presumably in the hope that no-one notices (but that wasn't Decca).

[Dave2002]

Quite a few Decca analogue to digital transfers have suffered a similar fate. If the transfer engineer can't (or doesn't) read a score, then how will he/she know how an eliminated side join should be fixed? For example, the Decca CD transfers of Ansermet's and Schmidt-Isserstedt's recordings of the 3rd movement of Beethoven's 9th both leave a hole at the former LP turnover point.

I didn’t realise that. I have LP and CD versions of all those, though I don’t listen to the slow movement of the 9th too often.

[richardfinegold]

Quite a few Decca analogue to digital transfers have suffered a similar fate. If the transfer engineer can't (or doesn't) read a score, then how will he/she know how an eliminated side join should be fixed? For example, the Decca CD transfers of Ansermet's and Schmidt-Isserstedt's recordings of the 3rd movement of Beethoven's 9th both leave a hole at the former LP turnover point. (However, these are nothing when placed alongside the Konwitschny recording of Eine Alpensinfonie, where a side change contains an overlap of several minutes, and when this doesn't work, the engineer inserts a lap-dissolve, presumably in the hope that no-one notices (but that wasn't Decca).

I don’t know if it has anything to do with what you have cited, but one of the problems encountered by transfer engineers with analog recordings is tape rot. Many master tapes, even if optimally stored, have become sticky and break during the transfer process. The irony with the lp revival is that due to the tape problem most lp reissues are using early digital transfers as the “master file”.
As for Konwitschny, perhaps it was the Conductor himself that got lost in the score? His players used to refer to him as “Kon-whiskey”

[Bryn]

Have you ordered any of the XTC CD/ BluRay reissue packages ? They look very tempting but I don’t have a bluray player, ( although I guess at some point I will) so I haven’t bothered yet.

Missed this at the time it was posted. I have the Drums and Wires, Oranges & Lemons, and Nonsuch Blu-rays. I have now ordered Black Sea and Skylarking.

[Bergonzi]

Quite a few Decca analogue to digital transfers have suffered a similar fate. If the transfer engineer can't (or doesn't) read a score, then how will he/she know how an eliminated side join should be fixed? For example, the Decca CD transfers of Ansermet's and Schmidt-Isserstedt's recordings of the 3rd movement of Beethoven's 9th both leave a hole at the former LP turnover point. (However, these are nothing when placed alongside the Konwitschny recording of Eine Alpensinfonie, where a side change contains an overlap of several minutes, and when this doesn't work, the engineer inserts a lap-dissolve, presumably in the hope that no-one notices (but that wasn't Decca).

Even when one can read a score it's easy enough to mess up. Only yesterday I did an edit on some old material which we had recorded, and could not find the score. When the score came to light I realised I had edited and missed a whole beat out on the piano part. So another re-edit!

I've heard a lot of bad edits on re-issues of commercial CD's. At one time virtually all engineers had a music background and could read scores well enough. These days, who knows?

[BBMmk2]

Even when one can read a score it's easy enough to mess up. Only yesterday I did an edit on some old material which we had recorded, and could not find the score. When the score came to light I realised I had edited and missed a whole beat out on the piano part. So another re-edit!

I've heard a lot of bad edits on re-issues of commercial CD's. At one time virtually all engineers had a music background and could read scores well enough. These days, who knows?

I'm always doing that on my projects. We are all human!

[mikealdren]

Even when one can read a score it's easy enough to mess up. Only yesterday I did an edit on some old material which we had recorded, and could not find the score. When the score came to light I realised I had edited and missed a whole beat out on the piano part. So another re-edit!

I've heard a lot of bad edits on re-issues of commercial CD's. At one time virtually all engineers had a music background and could read scores well enough. These days, who knows?

Sorry, there's no excuse. It's not just the engineer, there must be some sort of production team who commission the CD and listen to the results before releasing it. If no one is listening and approving before release, it probably explains why so many badly transferred disks are getting through.

[Bryn]

Sorry, there's no excuse. It's not just the engineer, there must be some sort of production team who commission the CD and listen to the results before releasing it. If no one is listening and approving before release, it probably explains why so many badly transferred disks are getting through.

'Snot always down to the engineer(s). A friend recorded the complete solo piano works of a 20th Century composer over a period of a few years. In one of the sessions the recording engineer made a right dog's breakfast of editing one of the works, and I was sent the results to try and resolve the issue. It proved to be impossible with the material so wrongly edited. It had to be referred back to the errant engineer to re-edit from the original takes. However, during a later recording session, a year or so after, my friend missed an indistinctly marked instruction to repeat one note several times. He played it just the once. I think the engineer on that occasion may have spotted the mistake since there is a brief hiatus after said note on the CD issue. However, the error was not communicated to the pianist, so no retake took place. Said pianist has since made another recording of the work in question, this time 'live', and very much more to his satisfaction. However, I have since edited the earlier recording and, with subtly varied dynamics for each iteration, finessed a correction to the omitted repeats; this for my own future listening to the recording. I think Supraphon may have done something similar with the end of the Ancerl recording of Oedipus Rex, since the final timp notes omitted from the LP release are there in the Ancerl Gold CD version. Then there's the infamous EMI Barbirolli Mahler 5 missing four bars of horn obbligato . . .

[Bergonzi]

In the final count there must be one person who knows the piece(s) well who can supervise the edits and then check the whole CD before it is released for production. In the BBC this used to be the producer - but these days, who knows? Even so, mistakes can get by.