[swervedriver]

^ Ouch. Yeah, such a side-by-side comparison makes it all the more dramatic. I guess the same thing happened to HAARHT.

actually, i find it a lot better — specifically, the SYL logo was very poorly implemented in the original. still, the text effect around "City" is pretty bloated, and the original font looked a lot better with the schematic.

but when it comes to the HAARHT cover, i don't find much difference; still one of the ugliest covers i've seen! (how fitting!)

Just a footnote to minotir's photo... the Synchestra vinyl is more of a brown color (kindofa semi-translucent marble brown) and the Ziltoid is more of a reddish-purple/cranberry color in person than they appear in the photo... those colors just don't translate very well into the digital camera color gamut for whatever reason, when I was trying to photograph mine I tried all sorts of white balance settings, lights, etc. and never could get those colors to represent all that well versus the originals, so this is certainly not criticism of minotir's photography skills, just an observation!

I'll post my reviews when I have time to crop/scale/upload photos, which I am too depressed to do right now, but in a nutshell all of the ones I've listened to so far sound pretty good, at least as good as the CD, and to my ears Physicist sounds a little better. It seems to have more clarity and definition between the instruments, and Byron's bass seems to have more punch to it. I'm pretty sure they used the same master as for the CD, but maybe it's just something about the difference in the way the vinyl playback process "conjures" the sound vs. the CD that reacts nicely with the material. This can be debated forever, but I'm just stating what my ears have heard. More later...

Ok, time for the first review, the massive, mighty Synchestra. But first, here is a photo of the equipment used for the reviews. Essentially, a Technics 1200 with a Shure M97xE cartridge going into a monster circa 1980 Technics SA-800 receiver, with a 12-band per channel EQ. The CDs were played using the Panasonic DVD/CD player that the 1200 is sitting on top of.

stereo.jpg

Now, on to the Synchestra LP:

Synchestra_inside.jpg

Synchestra_outside.jpg

The sides are as follows:

Side 1
1. Let It Roll
2. Hypergeek
3. Triumph
Side 2
1. Babysong
2. Vampolka
3. Vampira
4. Mental Tan
Side 3
1. Gaia
2. Pixillate
3. Judgement
Side 4
1. A Simple Lullaby
2. Sunset
3. Notes From Africa*

*And so you can see right off the bat the biggest thing wrong with this release: the absence of the hidden track Sunshine & Happiness.

The LPs themselves are nice and thick as you would expect of 180gram vinyl, with a semi-translucent marbly brown color that reminds me of someone's kitchen countertop... The cover art is sharp and clear, with made from good materials, from a cosmetic/physical perspective this LP set is reasonably well made. The grey paper innersleeves are the only blemish here, as the way mine were glued together they stick out slightly from the jacket even when fully REPLACEed. Yes, a nitpick, but hardcore vinyl enthusiasts will probably be a little annoyed by this, although it's certainly not anything terribly unusual. The jacket also does struggle a little to accommodate the two thick LPs, but not enough to be a problem, especially if you're going to keep your LP in a protective vinyl sleeve.

Upon listening I am near certain that the CD master was used, switching back and forth between the LP and the CD playing through the same stereo was practically indistinguishable. There are some very subtle differences here and there, but no more significant that what you would get if you listened to the CD on two different but comparable stereo systems.

However, I am really annoyed with how they did the side breaks. Yes, I realize that when Devin made this album he didn't plan for vinyl and side flips and all that, and although it would have been ideal for Back on Black to have gotten the individual master tracks (if possible) to allow seamless starts and finishes, as discussed by others earlier, I could forgive not doing so if the tracks were split with care, but these were not. At the end of each side you get a few seconds of the beginning of the next track fading out, then when you flip the LP, it fades back in a repeat of the last few seconds of what you just listened to, rather than trying to cut the track at the end and fade out before the next one begins.

For example, we all know how Mental Tan ends with some trailing chimey synths and so on, and then Gaia fades in with an edgy repeated guitar note "gr Gr GR GR"; they should have faded out Mental Tan while the "chimey synths" were ringing and then begun Gaia by doing a quick fade-in at the beginning of the guitar notes, IMHO. Instead, we get the first 4 guitar notes from Gaia abruptly fading out, flip the record, then get a couple of seconds of the chimey synths fading in quickly and begin again with the guitar notes. If that makes any sense. Anyone with any reasonable level of audio-editing skill could have done better transitions using something as simple as SoundForge or even Audacity.

Nevertheless, I'm glad I bought this, it's great to have Devin in my record collection, which is something I never thought I'd see, and I hope that he will make his future releases available on vinyl and have a more direct hand in how the mastering is done. I'm also hoping that I will get a new job soon, that I will win the lottery, and that I will live happily ever after... but in the meantime I'll be enjoying Devin's music and looking forward to what he comes up with next.

thank you for that Voradin. i suspect most of the vinyl has side splits like that; still, it's good to have confirmation.

I got my soundcard setup again. Here's a 1 minute recording of "Truth". I might have messed up the ambient part at the start.

24 bit, 96khz FLAC. Ripped with a Pro-ject Debut III into an M-Audio Firewire 410. No de-clicking or effects added, other than normalisation. I'll remove it if anybody has any problems.

http://www.mediafire.com/?9b9cjf9u1x9e3r7

[Blazingmonga]

I'm a bit dismayed by the mixed reviews of all these vinyls.

It's a shame really as they are the first thing that I haven't added to my collection ASAP. I just cant justify the cost unless they are super good.

Now, if they come out on minidisc...

Ok, time for the amazing sci-fi epic Physicist.

physicist_lp.jpg

physicist_front.jpg

physicist_inside.jpg

In a nutshell, if you're only going to get one of Devin' albums on vinyl, this should be the one (unless you don't like this one, for whatever reason). The sound quality is excellent... I doubt that anything other than a CD master was used, but despite that this does have a different flavor to it than the CD; the bass seems to be more punchy, the hiss from the cymbals and snare seems to be dialed back a good amount, and overall the mix just seems to be clearer, at least to my ears. I cannot offer a scientific audiophile explanation for how this can be the case other than to theorize that there is something different enough about the physical transmission medium to account for the difference. Vinyl does tend to mellow the sound a bit, which in this case was really helpful because as much as I've always loved this album, the high-end frequencies (4k-12k range) are too pronounced and unpleasant to my ears, ultimately leading me to rip the CD and remix the EQ on the resulting wav files before re-burning and encoding to AACs for the iPod. But with the vinyl I can just put it on, drop the needle, and let my mind drift away into visions of what Tokyo will be like 500 years from now, far away planets with alien life and endless rainstorms, and contemplate the nature of the universe in regards to everything wrapping around to its opposite at its own extremes and so on, as opposed to "damn, the percussion is hurting my ears". Again, this is my personal experience, I cannot guarantee that your ears will hear the same (or any) differences... but to me there is a noticeable difference here, unlike with the others that I have listened to so far.

Plus, there is no issue with the sidebreaks because there is only one LP, and the break between sides is a clean one with no crossfading involved. And to top it all off, this record seems to average about $10 cheaper than any of the others... so like I said, if you only want or can afford to buy one, this is the one I would recommend.

Ok, time for the amazing sci-fi epic Physicist.

physicist_lp.jpg

physicist_front.jpg

physicist_inside.jpg

In a nutshell, if you're only going to get one of Devin' albums on vinyl, this should be the one (unless you don't like this one, for whatever reason). The sound quality is excellent... I doubt that anything other than a CD master was used, but despite that this does have a different flavor to it than the CD; the bass seems to be more punchy, the hiss from the cymbals and snare seems to be dialed back a good amount, and overall the mix just seems to be clearer, at least to my ears. I cannot offer a scientific audiophile explanation for how this can be the case other than to theorize that there is something different enough about the physical transmission medium to account for the difference. Vinyl does tend to mellow the sound a bit, which in this case was really helpful because as much as I've always loved this album, the high-end frequencies (4k-12k range) are too pronounced and unpleasant to my ears, ultimately leading me to rip the CD and remix the EQ on the resulting wav files before re-burning and encoding to AACs for the iPod. But with the vinyl I can just put it on, drop the needle, and let my mind drift away into visions of what Tokyo will be like 500 years from now, far away planets with alien life and endless rainstorms, and contemplate the nature of the universe in regards to everything wrapping around to its opposite at its own extremes and so on, as opposed to "damn, the percussion is hurting my ears". Again, this is my personal experience, I cannot guarantee that your ears will hear the same (or any) differences... but to me there is a noticeable difference here, unlike with the others that I have listened to so far.

Plus, there is no issue with the sidebreaks because there is only one LP, and the break between sides is a clean one with no crossfading involved. And to top it all off, this record seems to average about $10 cheaper than any of the others... so like I said, if you only want or can afford to buy one, this is the one I would recommend.

I think it is a placebo created by simply transferring the digital files to analogue. You should be able to achieve the same result with a good CD player and some eq.

^ i suspect the difference is in the mastering. vinyl can only handle so much bass and represent the high end only so well (in fact, the reason people usually say it "sounds warmer" on vinyl is because the high end isn't represented as accurately as on digital formats), so the format tends to bring out the "sweet spots" in the frequency range that people respond to quite well.

i'm glad Physicist worked out well, anyway. i don't think i'd buy it, though, in any format (sorry Dev!). but if it was re-mixed...

Thanks for the review Voradin. Keep them coming.

I got my soundcard setup again. Here's a 1 minute recording of "Truth". I might have messed up the ambient part at the start.

24 bit, 96khz FLAC. Ripped with a Pro-ject Debut III into an M-Audio Firewire 410. No de-clicking or effects added, other than normalisation. I'll remove it if anybody has any problems.

http://www.mediafire.com/?9b9cjf9u1x9e3r7

just saw this post now. thanks a lot for taking the trouble of ripping, encoding and sharing!

after A/Bing it with the original CD version (at the same relative volume level), i was going to say it's definitely just the remastered CD audio... but then i looked at the spectrum:


long story short, if it was the CD audio, the frequency range would cut off at 22.05kHz. instead, it extends fully into the 48kHz frequency ceiling (the limit a 96kHz sample rate will keep) — you can't just magically add those frequencies to the CD audio. once they're gone (i.e. the audio is dithered to 44.1kHz for the CD pressing), they're gone. this means that the source for at least the Infinity vinyl is of higher quality than a simple CD transfer.

it may still be remastered from mastered audio (i.e. the source files, though of higher quality than CD audio, may have already been brickwalled like the CD audio, just at higher quality; mastering engineers maintain that quality until it has to be reduced to send off to the pressing plant to make regular CDs), but i'll be damned — they're not just a CD transfer!

and considering the side transitions on the Infinity vinyl are very easy to edit even from the final sequencing (i.e. they wouldn't have to fade out the start of the next track, like on Ziltoid), it seems the Infinity vinyl is actually a quality buy, which surprises me and makes me excited for the Ocean Machine vinyl, which would hopefully get at least this kind of treatment, if not a full-on master straight off The Dev's multitracks.

(i know, that was a lot of i.e.'ing)

Nigel Here

When are Terria and OM going to come out on vinyl??


Ta

I got my soundcard setup again. Here's a 1 minute recording of "Truth". I might have messed up the ambient part at the start.

24 bit, 96khz FLAC. Ripped with a Pro-ject Debut III into an M-Audio Firewire 410. No de-clicking or effects added, other than normalisation. I'll remove it if anybody has any problems.

http://www.mediafire.com/?9b9cjf9u1x9e3r7

just saw this post now. thanks a lot for taking the trouble of ripping, encoding and sharing!

after A/Bing it with the original CD version (at the same relative volume level), i was going to say it's definitely just the remastered CD audio... but then i looked at the spectrum:


long story short, if it was the CD audio, the frequency range would cut off at 22.05kHz. instead, it extends fully into the 48kHz frequency ceiling (the limit a 96kHz sample rate will keep) — you can't just magically add those frequencies to the CD audio. once they're gone (i.e. the audio is dithered to 44.1kHz for the CD pressing), they're gone. this means that the source for at least the Infinity vinyl is of higher quality than a simple CD transfer.

it may still be remastered from mastered audio (i.e. the source files, though of higher quality than CD audio, may have already been brickwalled like the CD audio, just at higher quality; mastering engineers maintain that quality until it has to be reduced to send off to the pressing plant to make regular CDs), but i'll be damned — they're not just a CD transfer!

and considering the side transitions on the Infinity vinyl are very easy to edit even from the final sequencing (i.e. they wouldn't have to fade out the start of the next track, like on Ziltoid), it seems the Infinity vinyl is actually a quality buy, which surprises me and makes me excited for the Ocean Machine vinyl, which would hopefully get at least this kind of treatment, if not a full-on master straight off The Dev's multitracks.

(i know, that was a lot of i.e.'ing)

Infinity is the one vinyl record where I can say without hesitation it was sourced from something other than the CD. It blows away the CD recording in every shape possible.

It took them longer to make it too (the release date was delayed), so I guess that explains it why...