Super Audio CDs open up the sound and add definition in the Bob Dylan Box Set
A young Dylan poses with his guitar in New York, 1962. Photo: Don Hunstein
With stories from Sensible Sound and Crutchfield
When I got the Bob Dylan – Limited Edition Box Set
The set was not only re-masted in both stereo and SACD, six of the 15 CD’s were in 5.1 surround sound.
I came across two good articles on the process in Sound on Sound and on Crutchfield’s site that are worth sharing.
SACD disks
With more data on the disk and headroom for music dynamics, SACD disks should sound better. Wikipedia has a concise explanation of Super Audio CD or SACD. SACD format is 1 bit streaming at 20 times the sampling rate of a CD. There is 24 dB more headroom. Most SACD discs are hybrid with standard CD on the lower layer and the SACD layer on the surface.
Although the format didn’t really catch on for standard releases, there are 5,000 titles released in SACD including the Stones and Bob Dylan. The reasons for lack of popularity are probably that the format requires new gear and the difference was hard for people to hear with headphones.
My 18 year old receiver had to be retired for a Pioneer VSX 1015TX. The CD’s need a SACD decoder and CD player. SACD is direct five channels of audio out on the CD player and five channels in the receiver. On the Pioneer receiver once you select SACD there is no other processing other than crank up the volume.
At first I thought the SCAD sound was too edgy. Listening to the original LPs you realize the CD sound is so dull that more realism takes adjustment. Reading the engineer’s interview in the Crutchfield helps to understand the limitations of re-mastering tape to a new format.
Wikipedia says that blind tests don’t prove the SACD sound is better. At first blush I would have agreed but continued listening is teaching me that SACD can be better.
I can hear more definition on Highway 61 Revisited with SACD. The instruments are easier to distinguish.
On John Wesley Harding the definition means I hear the bass and drums as a distinct instruments.
I am a firm believer in vinyl. A good turntable, stereo amp and speakers provides more depth, realism and definition than any of the digital formats; however, not may people bother to listen that way anymore.
Bob Dylan Box Set Hybrid SACD
The 15 CD set represents some of Dylan’s best recordings up to Love and Theft. Dylan has 53 CDs released including Greatest Hits and compilations so some had to be dropped.
Notables missing are Bob Dylan, New Morning, Times They are a Changing, Before the Flood, Hard Rain, Saved, Real Live, Empire Burlesque, and surprisingly Time Out of Mind.
Five of the SACDs are in 5.1 channel surround sound: Slow Train Coming, Blood on the Tracks, Blond on Blond, Bringing it All Back Home and Another Side of Bob Dylan.
The 5.1 effect is mild meaning they only added ambiance in the rear channels. The bass definition is better with a sub-woofer. Blood on the Tracks seems even more open and airy than the CD. Some tracks feel like the band is around you – most sound like the band is in front of you in an ambient room.
Bringing It All Back Home varies by song but I like the effect especially on the party atmosphere of Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 – Everybody must get stoned remember?
The SACD versions have become the most played if I have the time to listen. When no one is in the house I can crank them up and hear a better version of Dylan,that is until I get a new stereo amp and resurrect the vinyl playback system.
I’m not sure if I agree with the computer analysis Steve Baird did for Sensible Sound back in 2004 but he makes interesting reading.
Interview with SACD Engineer
21st, Century Dylan – Bringing the Bob back home is an interesting 2003 article on the SACD process, the box set and an interview with Steve Berkowitz the engineer behind the Bob Dylan SACD release. The story is an awesome piece of Dylan technical work and thanks to Cruthfields for posting it.
Berkowitz describes how they got the tapes as close as possible to the beginning, the challenges of finding 40 year old material and some of the decisions made in the 5.1 surround process. Read the whole article for the details: here are some excerpts.
“Everything we are doing we do in tandem with Jeff Rosen at the Bob Dylan office. Dylan has complete control over his records and nothing happens unless they approve it.
“Well? let?s just say that everything that has now come out eventually ended up where it needed to be. See, this is 40 years of history and no one except for Dylan himself is still working on these tapes.
[On John Wesley Harding] “Getting back to the album, though, when we heard the tape, the drums and the guitar sounded the same [as the original master], but it’s like John Entwistle was the bass player because of how aggressive, loud and growling it was. So, in order to make these releasable, Bob Johnston had to compress the sound on the tapes and equalize out a lot of the bottom [frequencies] and get rid of that growl…
“Once we had the bass feeling very similar — if not a bit better, we thought — to the original, we also noticed how close he was to the microphone. The pops in his vocals would knock your speakers out. However, it was very forgiving before with the balance of compression and equalization.
“It ended up that we had to master the record no less than five times because there are components of the new technologies that will reveal other inherent deficiencies within the old technology. This was a real test, since one of the principal jobs was to not change these records. [That is] because Bob made these records on purpose and they are unmitigated masterpieces.
[On the 5.1 SACD mix] “I had one of Sony’s CEOs in my office the other day and I played Mr. Tambourine Man for him. We first heard a recent run-of-the-mill LP pressing followed by the original CD. Then, I played for him the new stereo mix. He instantly said “Wow, the guitar really sounds good!” And I said, “OK, wait a minute” I told him to push a button — which took it [the listening experience] into 5.1. The panning presents Bruce Langhorne (guitar) on the left and the bass on the right, with Bob in the middle — exactly like the stereo. But now, you have the actually palpable sound of the musicians playing in a room — in a real space. It?s three-dimensional, just like it was when he recorded it. The only thing you hear at the back is the stuff that you would naturally hear behind you in the room. You don?t hear content. So, we listened for a minute and then pressed the button to go back to the LP, the difference is comparable to listening on a two-inch transistor radio beneath a pillow.”Berkowitz
The Bob Dylan SACD project was supposed to continue with the Bob Dylan Live 1964 CD but that shipped in stereo and nothing has been heard about it since.
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