Blu spec CDS

[richardfinegold]

Has anyone heard any of these discs/ They are mant for the Japanese market and are imports here. Apparently Sony is mastering some of their back catalog in their Blu Ray manufacturing plants, producing CDs that will play on any player ,all with super enhanced sound, etc. A Fanfare clinic gave the predicted "revelatory' praise to a remastering of Walter /Mahler 2. They are very expensive--one could buy two of the recent Sony Walter /Mahler boxes featuring this recording andm nay others for what one recording would cost.

[Ferretfancy]

Has anyone heard any of these discs/ They are mant for the Japanese market and are imports here. Apparently Sony is mastering some of their back catalog in their Blu Ray manufacturing plants, producing CDs that will play on any player ,all with super enhanced sound, etc. A Fanfare clinic gave the predicted "revelatory' praise to a remastering of Walter /Mahler 2. They are very expensive--one could buy two of the recent Sony Walter /Mahler boxes featuring this recording andm nay others for what one recording would cost.

Are we talking here of Blu Ray CDs? The de luxe Decca Ring includes in its bumper box a single Blu Ray DVD disc of the entire cycle, as well as the standard CDs. The sound quality is stunning, with significantly improved voice quality and a wonderful dynamic range. However, this is a Blu Ray DVD and not compatible with standard players.It sounds as if Sony have dreamt up something different.

[jayne lee wilson]

When I compared the blu-spec CD of Messiaen's Des Canyons aux Etoiles/Salonen/London Sinfonietta with the Sony SBK, there were clearly audible gains in scale and depth, definition, presence and dynamics. Very exciting, but almost certainly down to any remastering carried out (which might be stated in the Japanese text...), rather than the blu-ray type shorter wavelengths used to create the disc (which can only improve error correction). It is still a redbook CD.

You might well enjoy the result, but as with SHM-CD the official reasons offered for sonic improvement seem dubious.

[PJPJ]

If you rip an ordinary CD and its Blu-spec or SHM-CD cousins and then stream the resulting files through the same high quality streamer the files ought to sound the same.

If they don't, they weren't the same to begin with, i.e. the recording has been mastered differently.

And, as Blu-Spec and SHM-CD discs originate from Japan, it is highly likely some tweaking of the sound prior to pressing will have taken place. Like Jayne, I was astonished a few years ago by the difference in sound quality between some local EMI pressings, and the Japanese EMI releases remastered in Japan. The depth and detail of the original recording newly revealed by the remasterer in Japan is enormously exciting.

Blu-Spec (BS?) and SHM haven't made an impact, haven't got a market, outside Japan. If you have very revealing equipment you may notice an improvement in sound quality due to more efficient error correction.

Then again, if you have revealing equipment you are more likely to buy high resolution downloads (I mean 24 bit) which don't rely on very expensive plastics.

[richardfinegold]

When I compared the blu-spec CD of Messiaen's Des Canyons aux Etoiles/Salonen/London Sinfonietta with the Sony SBK, there were clearly audible gains in scale and depth, definition, presence and dynamics. Very exciting, but almost certainly down to any remastering carried out (which might be stated in the Japanese text...), rather than the blu-ray type shorter wavelengths used to create the disc (which can only improve error correction). It is still a redbook CD.

You might well enjoy the result, but as with SHM-CD the official reasons offered for sonic improvement seem dubious.

I've read some consumer reviews of these recordings on Amazon, and the reviewers suggest that the same gains in sound would be realized if the recordings were remastered in DSD and released on SACD. One of the recordings on Blu Spec is the Heifetz stereo recording of the Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn, which I own in the SACD incarnation (and CD, and lp). I'd be tempted to compare if the asking price wasn't so high.

[richardfinegold]

If you rip an ordinary CD and its Blu-spec or SHM-CD cousins and then stream the resulting files through the same high quality streamer the files ought to sound the same.

If they don't, they weren't the same to begin with, i.e. the recording has been mastered differently.

And, as Blu-Spec and SHM-CD discs originate from Japan, it is highly likely some tweaking of the sound prior to pressing will have taken place. Like Jayne, I was astonished a few years ago by the difference in sound quality between some local EMI pressings, and the Japanese EMI releases remastered in Japan. The depth and detail of the original recording newly revealed by the remasterer in Japan is enormously exciting.

Blu-Spec (BS?) and SHM haven't made an impact, haven't got a market, outside Japan. If you have very revealing equipment you may notice an improvement in sound quality due to more efficient error correction.

Then again, if you have revealing equipment you are more likely to buy high resolution downloads (I mean 24 bit) which don't rely on very expensive plastics.

I've had a less than satisfactory experience with High Res downloads to date. They take forever to download and I get annoying dropouts. My home Internet connection may be to blame, but I had the same problem when I tried to use my work connection, which is supposed to be a much better. Standard res downloads such as itunes are not afflicted.

[PJPJ]

I've read some consumer reviews of these recordings on Amazon, and the reviewers suggest that the same gains in sound would be realized if the recordings were remastered in DSD and released on SACD. One of the recordings on Blu Spec is the Heifetz stereo recording of the Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn, which I own in the SACD incarnation (and CD, and lp). I'd be tempted to compare if the asking price wasn't so high.

I think the recording quality of the Mendelssohn is poor. No amount of DSD encoding can rescue what is fundamentally flawed.

[PJPJ]

I've had a less than satisfactory experience with High Res downloads to date. They take forever to download and I get annoying dropouts. My home Internet connection may be to blame, but I had the same problem when I tried to use my work connection, which is supposed to be a much better. Standard res downloads such as itunes are not afflicted.

I have had little problem with downloading high resolution files totalling a gigabyte and more. And a recent upgrade to a fibre optic connection gives me even faster download speeds. The files should not have drop-outs - I don't think that is a result of a slow connection, rather a faulty file, but may be talking through my hat. The only problem I have had, and this is some time ago, was with a slow connection to HDTT when some tracks had to be downloaded again as they got cut short.

That said, I would prefer to have my high resolution music on SACD as it's less of a PITA to manage. At the moment, someone is dealing with one of my two NAS drives set up as RAID and recovering the data. The unit has failed so the drive and its backup cannot be accessed. Of course, I ought to have kept a backup of the backup.

[johnb]

Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to emphasise that, despite the impression to the contrary, NAS boxes set up as RAID are not a satisfactory backup, as PJPJ has found. They only protect against loss of data if one drive fails, and that only in certain RAID configurations. An independent backup is still needed to protect against the box failing, being stolen, fire, etc.

Also, the last time I looked into NetGear NAS boxes I found that they used their own proprietary format for the HDDs, which further complicates matters with that manufacturer.

[jayne lee wilson]

I've had a less than satisfactory experience with High Res downloads to date. They take forever to download and I get annoying dropouts. My home Internet connection may be to blame, but I had the same problem when I tried to use my work connection, which is supposed to be a much better. Standard res downloads such as itunes are not afflicted.

Are these dropouts on playback or on the file itself? You might get problems trying to stream 24-bit files wirelessly, quite a lot of Googled evidence for that, I've only ever listened to them hardwired via optical (usb asynch is fine too of course). Anyone else successfully streaming 24-bit here? Do tell...

1GB downloads usually take under 30 minutes here from eclassical or TCS. It used to be much longer but their onsite download managers are much better now.

But yes, storing them can provoke some thought. I've just been researching a scenario with a mac mini running ssd for 24-bit only, hardwired close to the dac and controlled by an iPad... one can dream...

(I've been enjoying Dausgaard's Schumann Orchestral survey on 24/44.1 BIS, yet here am I with the recently-arrived CDs as well! Don't do this often... I just wanted the comparison, will try to report back...)

[johnb]

I can stream 24 bit files wirelessly to my Squeezebox Touch without any glitches. However, I suspect you need very good wireless signal strength to do that (mine is ~90% at the Touch), otherwise hard wiring is the answer.

[PJPJ]

Anyone else successfully streaming 24-bit here? Do tell...

The Musical Fidelity CLiC streams up to 24/96 wirelessly in my house, even though the signal has a long way to travel. With the unit used wired downstairs there are no gaps between tracks where the music should be continuous, but wireless use doesn't always cope with this. It is a lot to expect.

The engineer reclaiming my files can test whether using the mains as a wired conduit is possible - for it to be so, the router and the CLiC need to be on the same wiring circuit so that the signal can travel from one unit to the other. It's obvious when it's obvious!

[johnb]

You can easily tell whether the sockets you are thinking of are suitable to be connected by powerline-type devices. My understanding is that they should be on the same 'ring main' circuit. Each ring main circuit is protected by its own fuse/circuit breaker. So you just need to make sure that the relevant sockets are be protected by the same fuse/circuit breaker in your mains consumer unit (fusebox). (The circuits should be clearly marked in the consumer unit.)

[Dave2002]

You can easily tell whether the sockets you are thinking of are suitable to be connected by powerline-type devices. My understanding is that they should be on the same 'ring main' circuit. Each ring main circuit is protected by its own fuse/circuit breaker. So you just need to make sure that the relevant sockets are be protected by the same fuse/circuit breaker in your mains consumer unit (fusebox). (The circuits should be clearly marked in the consumer unit.)

Maybe. That may mean that, for example, the upstairs and downstairs of your house cannot be connected by powerline units. That's the situation in our house, though it could perhaps be due to less than optimal wiring. The upstairs and downstairs go into the same consumer unit.

[johnb]

Maybe. That may mean that, for example, the upstairs and downstairs of your house cannot be connected by powerline units. That's the situation in our house, though it could perhaps be due to less than optimal wiring. The upstairs and downstairs go into the same consumer unit.

My understanding is that (for powerline devices to work to their potential) the important factor is that the sockets are on the same ring main, not whether they are supplied by the same consumer unit. It seems that they might still work if the sockets are on different ring main circuits, but at lower speeds.