Dire Straits SACDs

[MajorFubar]

Fair do's Ben. Pop them on the memory stick I'm sending to you with the films on it and post it back to me. Cheers mate.

 

[6th.replicant]

What a load of feeble generalistion and semantic twaddle.

The days of cash-strapped students or teens taping a pal's LP is one thing, but cynical torrent-downloading when you own Cyrus/Naim/ProAc hi-fi is rather different. Nor was LP-taping so prolific - one LP didn't yield thousands of copies, unlike one torrent.

And I bet most 'cassette pirates' subsequently replaced their C90s with official CDs or LPs, whereas a torrent downloader will not go on to buy a legit version. And justifying torrent-downloading as a means of try-before-you-buy is total cobblers - join Spotify, it's £4/month or free.

Applying the 'everyone does it' analogy re, for example, motorway speeding is utterly facile:

The 70mph limit was decreed in 1965, when the average car - eg, a Ford Anglia 105E, with drum brakes front/rear, nil passive/active safety kit - would rollover/skid/spin-like-a-top if emergency-braked and/or swerved at 70, with obvious lethal consequences. In comparison, today's average car - eg, a Ford Focus, with four-wheel disc brakes, ABS, ESP etc - will merely come to an abrupt halt when emergency-braked at 70, or 80, or 90.

Thus, cruising at 80mph in a contemporary vehicle, when weather/traffic conditions permit, is not wrong in a practical or moral sense, which is why most police turn a blind eye. (Although there is an argument re CO2 output...) Meanwhile, the 70 rule remains to reign-in the inept and idiots distracted by mobiles, ICE etc.

There is, however, no moral or practical justification for illegal downloading merely because 'lots of people do so' - you're still denying artists their livelihood, especially those starting out.

 

[gregvet]

Frankly with spotify/napster (which any self respecting music lover must have by now) I can see no justification for illegal downloads at all. I don't steal any music (I won't even rip borrowed CDs) and I don't accept any of the arguments for such activity I have seen in the above posts.

I have had arguments with friends on the subject before, and I have friends who illegally download everything. I guess we all have different ethical codes. I break other laws that I consider harmless, but I don't intentionally steal from anyone.

 

[Anonymous]

Interesting side track of topic!

So, I have Blue Lines on vinyl and CD. If I were to illegally download* the remastered version, who exactly, am I defrauding?

I will, of course buy it as it's not exactly a fortune, but I've already paid for the license to play/royalties for this music, twice.

Of course, if the original cd had been the quality it should have been, I wouldn't have this dilemma.

I'm not out to rattle anybody's cage here, just posing a question.

*Not condoned or encouraged.

 

[pauln]

Applying the 'everyone does it' analogy re, for example, motorway speeding is utterly facile:

I often wonder if people actually read posts properly or just skim through the first few lines and assume the rest. If you did read my posts you'd know that that wasn't the point I was making. The analogy to other crimes, including speeding, was to point out a hypocritical attitude whereby a person considered that one illegal act was OK and another wasn't.

Neither have I implied that because "everyone does it" it's OK, what I said was:

"Well, I can't condone it because it is illegal and it is affecting the music business but it's also something that is widespread, virtually impossible to police and maybe needs looking at."

Have to agree that someone with the cash to burn on a Cyrus/Naim/ProAc set up should pay for their music.

 

[ReValveiT]

Of course it can sound better than CD. Even if the master is a 16/44.1 recording it is upsampled when recorded onto SACD

No not really, a new remaster might sound better than the original, but it will never have anything to do with it being HD. With albums like BIA which were tracked at 16/44, no upsampling of the master or increasing its bitdepth will genuinely put back what isn't there. It can't. It's not like going back to an analogue recording and re-digitising it with better ADC converters at a higher resolution. The ultimate resolution of digital recordings can never be better than that of the original.

To give you an extreme example, if you rip a 44.1k CD, downsample it to 8K, then upsample it again to 44.1k, you won't get back what you lost and it won't sound the same as the original.

Then what precisely is the point of an upsampling DAC when using a CD transport?

It's what's commonly referred to as 'marketing BS'.

 

[BigColz]

Hahaha if we all buy an album, after the record company takes its 95% of course we might be able to russle up enough for a gram of coke and a bottle of wine for them to enjoy in their mansion.. 120 million + album sales.. No I don't care and neither do they.. Small amazing punk bands driving around the world in a shitty van with no money purely for the love of music i support, go to their shows buy their albums and merch and sometimes meet them after gigs and buy them a beer. :cheer: Nice to know you 'think' you're making a difference tho hey (pats on back)

 

[Deliriumbassist]

Hahaha if we all buy an album, after the record company takes its 95% of course we might be able to russle up enough for a gram of coke and a bottle of wine for them to enjoy in their mansion.. 120 million + album sales.. No I don't care and neither do they.. Small amazing punk bands driving around the world in a shitty van with no money purely for the love of music i support, go to their shows buy their albums and merch and sometimes meet them after gigs and buy them a beer. :cheer: Nice to know you 'think' you're making a difference tho hey (pats on back)

I was signed to a record deal. I was in a band that toured. The record company does not take 95%- a lot of the mark-up is the distributor and the shops. The bands on the label that sold more records got the better touring support- labels fronted the money for the tours, and all monies paid were more a bet than a loan, so the labels are in a pretty high risk part of the industry. A lot of music pirates try to justify by saying "oh, I'lll go watch the band live, buy the merchandise" etc. Unfortunately it's getting more expensive to transport bands and gear, hiring rates are going up, and people aren't going out to the smaller gigs anymore. There will be a point where national gigs just stop happening, and part of it is because of people not putting the money into the bands via record sales. That will creep up. Sure, the mega-artists like U2, Rihanna and Pearl Jam will still keep touring no matter what happens, but I can see everything up to those bands just starting to break through being the most affected, the ones where playing music is starting to transition from being something they love to a career (and the two are definately not mutually exclusive).

Not having a go, just putting out how I see things from my end.

 

[Deliriumbassist]

double post

 

[relocated]

Given his kit list, and the 'justification' he's provided, I don't think bigcolz has the excuse of poverty. So I don't see your point? People should never reform if they did something in their past? People shouldn't point out wrongdoing? We all love music and what bigcolz does is not only illegal but damages our hobby in the long term. We can't stop people stealing music but surely we should abstain from it ourselves and point out that it's wrong when others do it?

Well, I can't condone it because it is illegal and it is affecting the music business but it's also something that is widespread, virtually impossible to police and maybe needs looking at. There's certainly something wrong with a system where it costs more to download a compressed version of an album than it does to buy the CD. Where does the saving from not having physical media to manufacture and transport go to? I believe the consumer is getting ripped off just as much as the record companies are.

(A quick look on Amazon showed Communique as £5 with free delivery for the CD vs £5.49 for the mp3 download)

My point was that the (over)reaction of the major smacked to me of sanctimony...

So because lots of people have done it in the past, lots of people do it now and it's difficult to police it should be ignored? Just think about your argument in the context of any other crime (people have been getting raped forever and it's really hard to convict people, so don't worry about it / jimmy drove whilst drunk when he was 17 so it doesn't matter if he keeps doing it), and you'll realise how stupid it is. +1 to the major for this being described as an overreaction. If one person reading this thread realises what a **** they're being then it was worth it.

The prof has set out previously some good reasons why downloads cost so much. Just think of the infrastructure, staff, security, electricity etc used to build and maintain the servers etc. Btw, the price will come down if there were more legitimate purchases.

No problem with your post apart from as bolded. I doubt very much that prices would drop, the music industry has always milked consumers for as long as they possibly can. As has every other industry until competition/new product etc has weakened their position.

 

[Al ears]

Perhaps now might be the time to move this tedious 'ripping off the music industry' thread / slanging match elsewhere so people can get back to answering the OP's original question.

 

[hammill]

Returning to the original question, what has not been mentioned is that the Dire Straits SACD has a 5:1 track and it makes good use of all the channels, sub woofer included. I really like 5:1 versions if done well and I certainly prefer the 5:1 SACD to the stereo original (and I have one of the early, supposedly good stereo CDs).

The only music I would torrent is that which is unavailable to buy. These include a large number of Genesis bootlegs (which were freely discussed on the old official Genesis forum and were ok as long as they were free) and the best ever Yes recording (BBC live at Wembley). I have every official live recording from both bands and would buy official copies if available. If you can buy it you should.

 

[Al ears]

"what has not been mentioned is that the Dire Straits SACD has a 5:1 track "......

That's because the items the OP is asking about are SHM-SACD's which are stereo only!

 

[hammill]

"what has not been mentioned is that the Dire Straits SACD has a 5:1 track "......

That's because the items the OP is asking about are SHM-SACD's which are stereo only!

It does not say SHM-SACD in his first post, just Japanese. The ONLY Brothers in arms SACD on the acousticsounds website is hybrid multi channel, so it is the only one we can sensibly discuss.

 

[pete321]

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[pete321]

Will do Major, ta. I'm in town tomorrow anyway so I thought I might just pop into HMV and grab a handful of CDs. I wouldn't buy them normally anyway, so it seems fair enough.

That's assuming that the discs you want haven't been deleted by the record company. In particular, mainstream SACD's are very hard to come by these days in the shops or at online retailers, most were quickly deleted after issue.