The Petra Zone

The older U2 albums were what I had in mind regarding night and day transformation from remastering. Boy, October, War, Live Under a Blood Red Sky were all much better. Anyway, I’m looking forward to hearing the remaster of Back to the Street. Original CD is quite thin and harsh sounding.

https://girdermusic.com/collections/pre ... this-world

A post was made from Petra and Girder on Facebook with the title "Oh Yes We Did"

This leads me to believe that we could see remasters of "Back to the Street, "On Fire" and "Captured In Time and Space" next year.

bakersfieldpethead wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 05, 2021 4:08 pm

This leads me to believe that we could see remasters of "Back to the Street, "On Fire" and "Captured In Time and Space" next year.

Back to the Street and On Fire preorders start October 8th.

I’d love to hear someone review the quality when they get their copies. New updated versions are overdue, especially separating WWT and NSD.

Buy some of these and tinker with them until you like the results. Learn how to use it and bring new life to all of your recordings.

https://www.izotope.com/en/products.html

Or, pay for some other guy in a bedroom studio to do it. That's what is happening here. The guy doing it is not in a mastering suite with a high res monitor system, precision mastering EQs and dynamics, etc. True, you get new packaging, but it is all coming from 16-bit/44.01 CD audio at best.

I only know what little I’ve read online about Rob Colwell and Bombworks sound. It seems like it’s been a recording and mastering company for 25 years or so. Do you know for sure about how he does remasters? Like I said, I don’t know a lot about the company.

daffyduck7 wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 07, 2021 1:26 pm

I’d love to hear someone review the quality when they get their copies.

Yes, a critical analysis of the sound quality versus the original CDs would be nice to read. I honestly don't plan on buying these to do my own comparison unless I'm somehow convinced that the "remasters" will really blow my socks off with sparkling sound quality that is nevertheless faithful to the originals like the Giles Martin Beatles album remixes (of course those are using the original studio tapes carefully preserved in pristine condition at Abbey Road Studios to create brand new mixes, which I know is impossible for the Petra albums).

On a related note, I wonder what the chances are of us seeing a remastered Captured in Time and Space using the audio cassette version instead of the truncated CD version?

I have compared two albums, lining up the first gen CD releases with the remastered. This process is kind of boring, but, I had to do some gain matching to be able to invert polarity of the remastered tracks so I could hear what is going on. Basically, the remasters are about 4dB hotter +/-, and there has been some EQ. On some of the songs, the EQ is a bit bitey, but it is going to be exciting for most people. I can speculate about plug-ins used. I think I know what they used, because of the artifacts.

All in all, I would say, buy them to own them, because they look good and they will give your collection some longevity. They aren't going to reveal anything that wasn't there before. It's just louder and a bit more hyped. If you don't have the money and feel like you are missing out on something, don't. Turn the volume up a little louder, cut the midrange a tad and you will have a similar result.

Thanks for doing this, Brent. Basically, as expected, but good to hear from our resident expert that it is indeed nothing more than the original CD pressings with a bit of professional fiddling and tweaking.

As for the vinyl re-issues, they look stunning. So if anyone wants to go for looks, then by all means, go ahead and buy them. But if you want sound quality, better find pressings from when the albums were first released in at least VG+ condition. The new reissues are pressed by GZ Media in the Czech Republic, who, even though they are a big and high profile manufacturer, are not always very strict when it comes to quality control. In addition, coloured vinyl reduces sound quality, and fancy coloured vinyl even more. Adding colouring slightly changes the substance of vinyl and the more colouring is added the more the quality is reduced. However, if you're not an audiophile (like me), it is likely you won't notice anything when you play the reissues vinyls (all coming in 2022).

Unless one of the remaining old guys like Bernie Grundman did it, I don't know how good it could be. They say you have to spend 10,000 hours to master an instrument or a related field. But, I would take the vinyl to have it for my grandkids, so they could know what Christian rock and record players were, and because the last vinyl I had of Petra's was BTTS. After that, it was CDs.

It's hard to get vinyl pressed because of a shortage of materials and one of the largest plants in CA burned down and their business is very good. Vinyl has been outselling CDs for some time.

Various outlets have reported over the past few years that vinyl has been outselling CDs, but what they usually mean is that vinyl is out earning CDs. It’s possible that the number of vinyl units might have exceeded CDs last year, but the information put out to the news media is a little clouded.

brent wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 26, 2021 8:03 am

I have compared two albums, lining up the first gen CD releases with the remastered. This process is kind of boring, but, I had to do some gain matching to be able to invert polarity of the remastered tracks so I could hear what is going on. Basically, the remasters are about 4dB hotter +/-, and there has been some EQ. On some of the songs, the EQ is a bit bitey, but it is going to be exciting for most people. I can speculate about plug-ins used. I think I know what they used, because of the artifacts.

All in all, I would say, buy them to own them, because they look good and they will give your collection some longevity. They aren't going to reveal anything that wasn't there before. It's just louder and a bit more hyped. If you don't have the money and feel like you are missing out on something, don't. Turn the volume up a little louder, cut the midrange a tad and you will have a similar result.

Glad it's not as bad as I had feared it would be, though it doesn't sound like they're essential, unlike the recent Pink Floyd high res rereleases which are flat transfers of the celebrated James Guthrie 2011 remasters and sound phenomenal. Of course a corporation like Pink Floyd has the money to spend on that sort of thing whereas Petra doesn't.

Progfan wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 26, 2021 8:29 pm

Various outlets have reported over the past few years that vinyl has been outselling CDs, but what they usually mean is that vinyl is out earning CDs. It’s possible that the number of vinyl units might have exceeded CDs last year, but the information put out to the news media is a little clouded.

Vinyl might be outselling CDs, but I doubt it is outselling digital releases through outlets like Qobuz, HDtracks, and 7digital. The fact is, most consumers of CD don't care about the medium as much as they do the sound quality, and since you can buy perfect CD quality (and better) releases from the comfort of your web browser, there's less demand for shiny, foil discs.

Been listening to the "classic" albums, which is to say the original CD releases, and I have say, they sound extraordinarily good on the right equipment. I have a FiiO M11 digital music player that I listen to using Sony MDR-7506 studio quality headphones, and I hear absolutely nothing to complain about. The music has life, it breathes, there is space between the instruments allowing you to pick out each one, there is depth and breadth to the stage, Volz is clear and distinct, the drums thump and snap without overwhelming the mix. If there was ever music that absolutely did not need to be "remastered", this is it. I suspect the new releases are intended primarily for people who listen to music on laptop speakers and smartphones where a little extra "juice" on the high and low end can prevent them from sounding thin.