Has anyone listened to the Queen: "Night at the Opera" reissue from EMI? Half-speed mastered, 180 gram. Does anyone know who mastered this or where it was pressed? The master tape is only mediocre, so I'm not prepared to pay the premium price for the oop DCC reissue of this, but I'd love to have a better sounding copy than my old domestic US pressing. . |
Rush I have not heard it or know who mastered it but someone on Steve Holffman's site stated they could not get through more than two songs. It is supposedly extremely bright sounding. More than likely it's been remastered in a digital workstaion, transferred to a DAT and cut from that. I would save up for the DCC and if that's not possible look for a UK original which is much cheaper. I also believe that it was issued a few years back when EMI was celebrating their 100th anniversary. They released various titles with some being from analog tapes and others from digital masters. According to some info I just found The EMI Millenium series LP CENT 1 TO 20 are digital and LP CENT 21 and on are analog. Queens's ANATO would be from a digital master since it's catalog number is LP CENT 12. Here is a partial discography for this title excluding the latest 30th edition. LP EMI EMTC 103 UK LP EMI DC-10 (France white vinyl) LP EMI 5C 06297176 (Netherlands white vinyl) LP EMI EMTC 102 (Israel, Hebrew text) LP ELE 7E-1053 (US, Australia) LP EMI P 10075 (Japan) LP MFSL MFSL 1-067 (US, half speed remaster) LP EMI LPCENT 12 (EMI 100th anniversary 1997, remastered) Tom |
Rushton, I'm delighted to hear the improvement was that palpable. From what you and quite a few others have said about the handy work of Lloyd Walker in past, I'm not surprised that it took 10 seconds or the fact that Ann and yourself are not looking to try a myriad of other ideas. My approach was a blend of what a local friend was doing (that worked) and some of the information from an old lengthy set of threads from redkiwi concerning shelf design experimentation from back in 2000 on AÂgon that made a lot of sense. I truly believe that itÂs a matter of coupling or decoupling depending on the circumstance and a variation of sorbothane seems to do the trick for me under the amp maple block platforms. One major improvement is weÂre hearing a level of low frequency textural detail from RalphÂs amps now that was not fleshed out before, and by the way, I have never heard from any other valve or SS power amp in my house regardless of set up! I donÂt see myself as a real big tweaker, but that said, my amp set up stands in contrast with my use of a Neuance Platform and wall mounted, spiked rack for the Linn Sondek Lp12 and Aurios classic isolation bearings under the chassis of the Aesthetix Calypso and Rhea. These forms of isolation I have tuned out to what IMHO is a very fine resolve, a group of very different isolation philosophies that all have their place. I will be looking forward to hear how things work out for you two with this amp stand project, as it seems in this hobby, there is always something more to learn and I just want to hear how good things sound over at your place too. Cheers! As for the Queen "Night at the Opera" I can't speak for the EMI version at all. I was on a real DCC kick back when the records were prevalent and of course... it sounds spot on. I'll leave it at that and spare you the details. It is truly hard to buy one of everything nice... |
