Some time ago, I ordered the complete kit (Grand 12 Inches by Ben Liebrand vols 1-5, total 20 CD's) and ripped it all over the holidays and found some time to listen to it.
So, what is it all about? There are a couple of groups of tracks in this set: those which were already on digital masters (DAT or CD) and those that were only found on old analog tapes, some of which had to be baked in an oven before they could be played. All are the original studio masters. Also, Ben Liebrand actually made some changes here and there when he thought the master had an error like a missed beat. In some cases, the original masters are lost and a transfer from vinyl was the only starting point in the restoration job. Lastly, he fixed some media problems like a click or plop in the master, sometimes resorting to replacing the ruined part with samples from elsewhere in the track. The result is amazing. Especially for the old 70's and early 80's tracks where only old analog master tapes were available with tracks that consumers could only get on vinyl, compact cassette, or transfers from these old media to CD which sounded even worse.... You now get to hear them at studio quality for the first time ever. Listening to some of the tracks brought tears to my eyes as it felt like I was right there in the studio while they recorded it. My favorites of the moment are the tracks from Yazoo, Kristine W, Harry Thumann, Harold Faltermeyer, Dan Hartman, Hugh Masekela, Santa Esmeralda, Janis Ian, RAH Band, Lakeside, EW&F, Third World, Fun Fun, Tavares, LaToya Jackson, Jimmy Bo Horne, Grace Jones, Three Degrees, Divine, Azoto, the Flirts, Level 42, Quincy Jones, Laid Back and the Floaters. I did not discover any old-media artifacts and all the studio-tracks sound like they were recorded with todays equipment with very good dynamic range and spectrum. A live track from the Jacksons (Can You Feel It) sounds not so good but I don't care much for the track anyway. All the CD's were already in the AccurateRIP database and I had 1 nasty read-error which I was able to correct by setting the retry-count in dbPowerAmp to 100 times, resulting in the track being "Accurate" again. cheers, Nick. -- DeVerm ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DeVerm's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=18104 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=54269 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
