MEASUREMENTS: Stealth Releases of Good Remastering in Hi-Res Audio... (Alanis Morissette!)

The other day, a reader suggested that I check out the recent 2015 HDTracks remastered Alanis Morissette albums. I must admit that I'm not a big fan of Alanis (my sister was more into her albums), but back in the day, did enjoy the 2004 album So-Called Chaos. As I revisit the album again this past week, I was reminded of how poorly the original CD was mastered as witnessed below:

foobar2000 1.3 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2016-01-14 08:26:51

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Analyzed: Alanis Morissette / So-Called Chaos (FLAC)
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DR         Peak         RMS     Duration Track
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DR5       -0.52 dB    -7.48 dB      2:53 01-Eight Easy Steps
DR6       -0.16 dB    -7.29 dB      3:53 02-Out Is Through
DR5       -0.04 dB    -6.81 dB      3:32 03-Excuses
DR6       -0.02 dB    -7.20 dB      4:03 04-Doth I Protest Too Much
DR5       -0.01 dB    -7.20 dB      3:41 05-Knees Of My Bees
DR5       -0.31 dB    -8.20 dB      5:04 06-So-Called Chaos
DR5       -0.38 dB    -7.08 dB      3:58 07-Not All Me
DR7       -0.63 dB    -9.12 dB      5:08 08-This Grudge
DR5       -0.13 dB    -7.32 dB      4:16 09-Spineless
DR5       -0.31 dB    -7.16 dB      4:36 10-Everything
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Number of tracks:  10
Official DR value: DR5

Samplerate:        44100 Hz
Channels:          2
Bits per sample:   16
Bitrate:           983 kbps
Codec:             FLAC

The waveform display above is of the first song "Eight Easy Steps". As you can see, there's significant dynamic range compression. Just by visual inspection, one can bet that the DR measurement would be significantly less than a DR10. Indeed, when put through the DR plugin in foobar, we see that this album as well as that first track measures a miserly DR5!

Sadly, this is not atypical for these CD's released in the early 2000's. Whether poor dynamic range CD releases contributed to overall decline in CD sales (not just correlate with this fact) would be hard to prove. However, I don't think it's unfair to suggest that music lovers who valued good sound quality would have found new music on CDs like these disappointing...

So, based on the readership suggestion, I took out my credit card and downloaded a copy of So-Called Chaos off HDTracks. Had a listen... Guess what... It looks like the record label has been holding out on us for the last decade!

foobar2000 1.1.6 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2015-12-27 11:10:08

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Analyzed: Alanis Morissette / So-Called Chaos
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DR         Peak         RMS     Duration Track
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DR11      -0.10 dB   -13.39 dB      2:52 01-Eight Easy Steps
DR12      -0.10 dB   -13.48 dB      3:53 02-Out Is Through
DR12      -0.10 dB   -13.20 dB      3:32 03-Excuses
DR12      -2.27 dB   -15.34 dB      4:03 04-Doth I Protest Too Much
DR11      -0.10 dB   -13.26 dB      3:41 05-Knees Of My Bees
DR12      -0.10 dB   -14.26 dB      5:03 06-So-Called Chaos
DR12      -0.89 dB   -15.41 dB      3:58 07-Not All Me
DR12      -3.43 dB   -17.05 dB      5:08 08-This Grudge
DR12      -0.10 dB   -13.95 dB      4:16 09-Spineless
DR12      -0.11 dB   -15.09 dB      4:35 10-Everything
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Number of tracks:  10
Official DR value: DR12

Samplerate:        96000 Hz
Channels:          2
Bits per sample:   24
Bitrate:           2883 kbps
Codec:             FLAC

My goodness... What a difference compared to the fatiguing original CD release. Wider sound stage, better delineation between instrumental parts, better intelligibility of the lyrics, even the artificial "surround" effect is more "effective". Slower tracks like track 2 "Out Is Through" clearly demonstrates the nuances of her prosody and enunciation with the more dynamic master.

IMO, this is an example of the most significant progress the music industry can make at this point - not through expensive audiophile cables, weird power products, more USB doohickeys, not DSD, not hype around custom FPGA digital signal processing algorithms, and not likely MQA (clearly trying very hard with testimonial fluff here rather than answering a few simple questions in the comments here). All of those things, even if beneficial will more than likely at best be a thin "icing on the cake" on top of competent gear, a good sound room, and acoustic treatment/correction.

The fact that the audiophile press does not focus more time and attention on this simple fact with tremendous ramifications in terms of playback fidelity is an example of their irrelevance in being able to educate and advocate for improved musical fidelity; you know, something a little more relevant than tabloid journalism meant for entertainment or advertising. If the music labels can improve a recording such as this released in the heat of the Loudness Wars, then surely there's more than a decade's worth of music they can remaster properly!

Remember that even though an album like this is released as 24/96 (and it looks like there's a 24/192 option), this does not imply a "need" for the high-resolution container. This album is still not a genuine high-resolution recording. The HDTracks page clearly states "Notes: 44kHz sources mastered to 96kHz/24bit." I suspect that this was a 48kHz recording based on portions of the FFT looking like this:

Also, it looks like in creating the 96kHz mastering, it must have been processed through some analogue equipment thus picking up all the noise >24kHz, especially that 28.5kHz high-frequency signal that of course would not have been on any 44/48kHz digital source.

Though I would not consider this remastering a true "Advanced Resolution" recording as discussed previously, it certainly does qualify as an improvement over the standard CD release. This is why I'm surprised that HDTracks doesn't advertise this better (call it a "New, previously unreleased higher dynamic range remaster!"). While I'm not convinced the HDTracks "High-Res Mafia" is a particularly astute organization, I can appreciate the role and advocate that they publish the dynamic range values with the recordings they sell to indicate different and potentially better remasters as a valuable service to its customers - this goes for Pono and all the various music resellers also. I bet if more prominently advertised especially to Alanis fans that a superior master is available, it should pick up interest and sales.

Personally I'd love to see the RHCP's Californication or Stadium Arcadium get a digital remaster like this! Pretty please? (Anyone know if the 2015 HDTracks RHCP Studio Album Collection was an improvement?)

By the way, if I wanted to save disk space, I would not feel at all concerned/neurotic about using a good resampler/dithering program like iZotope RX to convert this 24/96 download to 16/48. No need for such a large 24/96 "container".

Okay. Off to the Vancouver Symphony tonight to have a listen to their performance of Zemlinsky's Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid).

Have a great week ahead! Enjoy the music :-).

Addendum: Wonderful evening at the Symphony last night! I quite enjoyed The Mermaid - will have to look further into Zemlinsky's other works. When I'm in the right frame of mind, I really love how classical music can transport me into the flow of emotions - joy, love, adventure, tragedy - orchestrated by the composer/conductor/musicians...

The highlight of the night turned out to be the solo violinist Augustin Hadelich and Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35. Simply beautiful playing... He ended off his performance with an amazing encore rendition of Bach Sonata No. 2 Andante. Fantastically emotive combined with technical wizardry from the 1723 Kiesewetter Stradivarius - bravo! Couldn't help but grab a copy of his recent CD Sibelius, Adès : Violin Concertos (2014)... Looking forward to digging into the album this week.

I'm sure you've heard this from other audiophiles; it is really a treat to attend the symphony about every 2 months to get a reminder of the sound from a live acoustic performance. Valuable reminders of how essential dynamics are to the soul of music and how important it is to evoke the full palette of emotional range. A true "high fidelity" system should be able to produce these dynamics in an effortless fashion. How sad it is that these days, many of our favourite recordings are purposely made severely impotent.