All-encompassing NINE INCH NAILS Thread: Reissues, New Stuff, Soundtracks, Kitchen Sink

[highfives]

7 hours ago, downisthenewup87 said:

So the fact that these are selling out would indicate that they are, indeed, limited?

They put up another 10,000 copies of The Fragile around Christmas (down to ~9,000 now) and they also put up another 9,000+ of Deviations, which surprised me considering it is the only one that says it's actually limited.

 

They also just put up 16 copies of Natural Born Killers.

[kisol]

Wish they'd put up some copies of The Social Network...

[throwgncpr]

6 minutes ago, kisol said:

Wish they'd put up some copies of The Social Network...

^ this.

[njpunkmusic]

28 minutes ago, kisol said:

Wish they'd put up some copies of The Social Network...

Would kill for that!

[Petehiltonjr]

Do we have even a rough idea when these records are going to actually come out? I'm ok with waiting, but waiting without a date really bums me out :/

[ntslash]

10 hours ago, highfives said:

They put up another 10,000 copies of The Fragile around Christmas (down to ~9,000 now) and they also put up another 9,000+ of Deviations, which surprised me considering it is the only one that says it's actually limited.

 

They also just put up 16 copies of Natural Born Killers.

I don't think Deviations is limited to any certain number. I think they are just taking orders and then will do a one-time pressing. So it will be limited in that way.

[highfives]

2 hours ago, ntslash said:

I don't think Deviations is limited to any certain number. I think they are just taking orders and then will do a one-time pressing. So it will be limited in that way.

I'd say that's exactly what they're doing.  But damn, that's a lot of copies.

[vinyl addict]

4 hours ago, Petehiltonjr said:

Do we have even a rough idea when these records are going to actually come out? I'm ok with waiting, but waiting without a date really bums me out :/

 

March 21- June 21 (Spring 2017)

[dobyblue]

On 12/27/2016 at 2:19 PM, firefoxussr said:

I mayyyybe will pick up the Fragile vinyl definitive... but after listening to a copy of the Deviations download, not sure I need to have this on vinyl.

My recollection is that even if the digital/hd versions are LOUDASSfk the vinyl version won't be... this seems to apply to any NIN release.

Unfortunately Trent has confirmed on ETS that the LOUDASfk 24-bit downloads are indeed the masters for the vinyl releases.






 

[Dominic_]

1 minute ago, dobyblue said:

Unfortunately Trent has confirmed on ETS that the LOUDASfk 24-bit downloads are indeed the masters for the vinyl releases.






 

is there somewhere I can hear them and decide if I still want to order?

[daegor]

Cool your jets everyone.  Loud does not = bad.

 

Everyone with an ear is inclined to think so because of lazy engineers/misinformed label execs who thought making a mix louder was automatically better, hence the loudness wars.

 

But just because it's loud (or even, if it clips) does not automatically make it bad.  Especially in 'noisy' music.

 

 

I don't have a four-digit hi-fi system, but these cuts sound pretty damn good to me.

[dobyblue]

I had a good listen to Last and Suck over the holidays comparing my '92 CD (the one with 99 tracks) to the new 24/96 download. I listened to the CD first for one track and the 24/96 first for the other in an attempt to figuratively cleanse my aural palette if you will. I felt more involved in the music listening to the CD and had a more positive physiological reaction - the new mastering, for lack of a better term, annoyed me. I love this EP and really wanted to enjoy it, wanted to discover that the constant correlation I find (via LISTENING) between very poor DR #s and listener fatigue may have been cured by some newfound "definitive" mastering technique developed by Trent and Tom...but it was not to be.

Someone else's experience may differ. I know many people that preferred the remaster of PHM to the original, I think the original CD is one of the best sounding CDs I own and sounds better and better the louder I crank it.

 

Edited January 6, 2017 by dobyblue

[daegor]

Not to discount what your ears are hearing (really, I'm not trying to discount what anyone thinks about the remasters), but just bear in mind that familiarity bias is a very strong force any time you're comparing something like this.

 

If you find that you conclusion is emotional (it annoying you, or if you felt more involved with the familiar thing) there is a good chance you are being influenced by familiarity bias.

 

If you want to eliminate this possibility then do a double-blind test, take the same track from both sources and remove any way that you could identify the source.  Randomly play each one several times (maybe 10 at minimum, you don't have to play the full song, but try to be consistent) and indicate which play you thought was better.  There are ways you can do this alone, but it's probably easier to simply have a second person who is hitting 'Next' and can see which is which, recording your reaction.

 

EDIT:  I should note that there is the potental that you are TOO familiar with the original source and will be able to identify which is which even in a double blind, in which case you really can't remove the bias.

Edited January 6, 2017 by daegor

[Derek™]

As someone who hadn't listened to Broken until a couple of weeks ago, I can tell you that each of the two masters are instantly recognizable.  The CD source requires you to crank your volume up; the remaster is more in line with the volume for the rest of the NIN catalog.  And when Wish takes off, it sounds loud and satisfying on the original master... but truly kicks you in the teeth (in the best way possible) on the remaster.

 

I'm waiting on an amp, but will have a "four-digit hi-fi setup" pretty soon here, and will gladly compare the two.  In the meantime, the definitive MP3s and FLACs are doing it for me with decent headphones and also in the car, surround speakers a'boomin'.  The Fragile, especially, is noticably louder but also... crisper?  I've listened to both versions at fairly high volumes and haven't picked up on any plateaud mastering or distortion.  I haven't spent years with the original CD, but in the last month I've revisited it a good bit and have officially swapped out the MP3s for the 2017 edition, in the car, and find myself going for the definitive editions of everything else that's been released so far.  I'll give them both a whirl when I get my hands on that DAC/amp, but for the time being I'd say that Trent and co. did a great job at breathing new life into the remasters and boosting their sound without brickwalling much (if at all?).  At least not from a standpoint of practical listening.  But I also don't plug into $3,000 headphones and $1,500 amps and carefully study spectral when I listen to music, so you may have to take this post with a grain of salt.

 

tl;dr – these sound just dandy.  I'll gladly pick them up when they hit shops this Spring.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Derek™

[dobyblue]

I keep the remasters in the car too

39 minutes ago, daegor said:

Not to discount what your ears are hearing (really, I'm not trying to discount what anyone thinks about the remasters), but just bear in mind that familiarity bias is a very strong force any time you're comparing something like this.

 

If you find that you conclusion is emotional (it annoying you, or if you felt more involved with the familiar thing) there is a good chance you are being influenced by familiarity bias.

 

If you want to eliminate this possibility then do a double-blind test, take the same track from both sources and remove any way that you could identify the source.  Randomly play each one several times (maybe 10 at minimum, you don't have to play the full song, but try to be consistent) and indicate which play you thought was better.  There are ways you can do this alone, but it's probably easier to simply have a second person who is hitting 'Next' and can see which is which, recording your reaction.

 

EDIT:  I should note that there is the potental that you are TOO familiar with the original source and will be able to identify which is which even in a double blind, in which case you really can't remove the bias.

 

 

It would be very easy to pick them out, but DBX would be more for determining whether you can distinguish 24/96 from 16/44.1, you can't eliminate bias when it comes to what you like IMO. I either like bleu cheese on a burger or I don't, blindfolding me won't change that.

Broken has been remastered, not remixed. Bias would be someone saying "you can hear things you've never heard before"...no, you can't. You might be hearing things you don't remember hearing before, but sure as heck they're there. When you listen to a REMIX like TDS 5.1, then perhaps you may hear things you haven't heard before because it's a brand new mix.

[dobyblue]

21 minutes ago, Derek™ said:

As someone who hadn't listened to Broken until a couple of weeks ago, I can tell you that each of the two masters are instantly recognizable.  The CD source requires you to crank your volume up; the remaster is more in line with the volume for the rest of the NIN catalog.  And when Wish takes off, it sounds loud and satisfying on the original master... but truly kicks you in the teeth (in the best way possible) on the remaster.

 

I'm waiting on an amp, but will have a "four-digit hi-fi setup" pretty soon here, and will gladly compare the two.  In the meantime, the definitive MP3s and FLACs are doing it for me with decent headphones and also in the car, surround speakers a'boomin'.  The Fragile, especially, is noticably louder but also... crisper?  I've listened to both versions at fairly high volumes and haven't picked up on any plateaud mastering or distortion.  I haven't spent years with the original CD, but in the last month I've revisited it a good bit and have officially swapped out the MP3s for the 2017 edition, in the car, and find myself going for the definitive editions of everything else that's been released so far.  I'll give them both a whirl when I get my hands on that DAC/amp, but for the time being I'd say that Trent and co. did a great job at breathing new life into the remasters and boosting their sound without brickwalling much (if at all?).  At least not from a standpoint of practical listening.  But I also don't plug into $3,000 headphones and $1,500 amps and carefully study spectral when I listen to music, so you may have to take this post with a grain of salt.

 

tl;dr – these sound just dandy.  I'll gladly pick them up when they hit shops this Spring.

I would be interested to hear your opinion once you upgrade your amp and as a disclaimer I'm not expecting your opinion to change just because you have better equipment...everyone experiences music differently. I find with great consistency that dynamically challenged recordings don't do it for me on my main system, I love the tension and release that changes in dynamics bring about (physiological response), I experience it myself when I'm playing piano or guitar. Anyway, I'm doing my listening on Acoustic Energy AELite 3 (http://www.acoustic-energy.co.uk/discontinued-products/aelite/aelite-3/) loudspeakers with an Onkyo TX-SR3010 AVR playing the FLAC files and CDs both through my Pioneer Elite BDP-62FD so that the transport is the same in each case. I do listen to the remasters in my car where I have a crappy factory GM Cobalt system, the car doesn't keep out noise much so there is lots of ambient noise inside the car and these loud remasters are suited for that sort of environment, one where critical listening would have me wrapped around a tree within two blocks. I listen to my vinyl on a Goldring GR-2 turntable, 1012GX cart and Parasound zPhono preamp, I have to say despite what the inaccurate vinyl rip shows the mastering sounds identical on Hesitation Marks vinyl to the digital mastering (either one).

Not sure people who listen with $3,000 headphones are studying graphs, seems like a bit of a straw man; most people I know with good equipment in the home listen to music with their eyes closed, I'm the same...I like my environment to disappear when I listen to music so I can come as close to experiencing what music was like for me 25 years ago when I dropped LSD a lot, lol.

There is lots in the NIN catalogue that isn't at these levels; Trent released multitracks for the entirety of the Year Zero and The Slip albums which are on par with somewhere between PHM '89 master and Broken '92 master, the 5.1 mixes of With Teeth and TDS are very dynamic, the 5.1 tracks on the AATCHB DVD and the BYIT Blu-ray. This refutes the argument that the original multitracks are already in this loud state.

It's odd that you find The Fragile "especially" louder as the volume is pretty much within a single decibel from the very loud original '99 CD. Broken 2017, PHM 2010 and TDS 2017 are all very noticeably cranked but The Fragile in terms of volume hasn't changed much. It is definitely brickwalled though as it always has been - here's a look at the waveforms (left and right) for the last 3m of the main part of "We're In This Together Now" - one is the original '99 CD and one is the 2017 remaster...pretty difficult to tell which is which but very easy to see they're both brickwalled and both very loud:

Now looking at the final 2m of "Wish"  you're correct that it should be immediately noticeable.



I find the CD kicks you in the teeth harder, that's generally what I expect given the bigger impact in the change of volume between the loud and soft passages not there to the same extent in the remaster. There's a reason why those loud bangs in horror movies add to the shock/scare of whatever is occurring on screen, it would lose its effect substantially were we to see this sort of sonic signature in movies.






 

[Petehiltonjr]

14 hours ago, vinyl addict said:

 

March 21- June 21 (Spring 2017)

Really helpful. Thanks.

[Derek™]

2 hours ago, dobyblue said:

I do listen to the remasters in my car where I have a crappy factory GM Cobalt system, the car doesn't keep out noise much so there is lots of ambient noise inside the car and these loud remasters are suited for that sort of environment, one where critical listening would have me wrapped around a tree within two blocks.  bit of a straw man LSD brickwalled



loud bangs

Please don't even talk to me about sound fidelity if you're not hooking up your turntable to your car.  Have some respect for the medium, goddammit.

[natenomm]

So is this what the Steve Hoffman forums are always like?

[tonyfranciosa]

indeed. I was hoping this would be a sanctuary from WAV image postings and discussion about DR values.

[kannibal]

1 hour ago, tonyfranciosa said:

indeed. I was hoping this would be a sanctuary from WAV image postings and discussion about DR values.

I know right? I come here for the common descriptive one word reviews of "Amazing!", multiple shipping notification announcements, and inquiries as to when items without announced shipping dates will ship. How dare someone talk about sound quality in an informative and fair manner!

[timsimmons]

Its just general nerdery in another direction.  Its no different than people laying their records out on their floor/bed and taking a picture of it.

 

 

Both get tedious. 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 6, 2017 by timsimmons

[Derek™]

51 minutes ago, timsimmons said:

Its just general nerdery in another direction.  Its no different than people laying their records out on their floor/bed and taking a picture of it.

 

Both get tedious. 

Favorite post of 2017 so far.

[dobyblue]

5 hours ago, Derek™ said:

Please don't even talk to me about sound fidelity if you're not hooking up your turntable to your car.  Have some respect for the medium, goddammit.

lol, just made me think about the ESPN 30 for 30 episode with Holmes/Ali where Holmes has a little 7" record player in his car and a cell phone even bigger than Zach Morris'.

[tonyfranciosa]

16 hours ago, kannibal said:

I know right? I come here for the common descriptive one word reviews of "Amazing!", multiple shipping notification announcements, and inquiries as to when items without announced shipping dates will ship. How dare someone talk about sound quality in an informative and fair manner!

you can be informative and fair without being a pretentious nerdy douche. most people here are pretty good when they have to be.