ABBEY ROAD SOURCE SHOOTOUT!!!

Fan created remixes and rare variations
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Lord Reith
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ABBEY ROAD SOURCE SHOOTOUT!!!

Post by Lord Reith »

THE INTERNATIONAL BATTLE OF THE CENTURY!!

SEVEN DIFFERENT COPIES OF ABBEY ROAD IN AN EPIC BATTLE FOR SUPREMACY!

WHO WILL BE THE VICTOR?

LET YOUR EARS DECIDE... YOU BE THE JUDGE AND JURY!


Level matched and aligned for auditioning in Audacity.

The contestants comprise the song Come Together taken from:

Japan Pro-Use lp 1978
Japan Black Triangle cd 1983 (de-emphasised)
1987 cd
2009 cd
Vinyl rip by the esteemed "Audiophil"
Dr Ebbetts blue box rip
Vanilla blue box rip by Russian needle dropper


A little background to the contestants...

Japan Pro-Use lp 1978: highly regarded audiophile copy issued in Japan, but made from a 30ips dub of the UK master.

Japan Black Triangle cd 1983 (de-emphasised): the first ever Beatles cd, also dubbed from the same 30ips copy but of note because the fades are not truncated like the other cds.

1987 cd: made from original UK master but with early fades and possibly some fiddling to tame the white noise on I Want You.

2009 cd: made from original master but with compressed bass frequencies, peak limiting, lip-smacks and electrical noises removed.

Vinyl rip by "Audiophil": auditioned from many different vinyl editions and ripped by one of the most respected of needle droppers.

Dr Ebbetts blue box rip: from a blue box copy but with some trademark Ebbetts massaging of the eq. I only have a lossy source for this but it's 320k so that should not matter for this purpose.

Vanilla blue box rip: a warts-and-all needle drop of a blue box copy. Absolutely no processing done.

INSTRUCTIONS: Load all files into Audacity and press the "mute" button on each track. Then use the "solo" button to hear each track separately.

https://tinyurl.com/expires-june-20

GOOD LUCK! And share you verdict with us all. :ugeek:
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moptophugger
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Re: ABBEY ROAD SOURCE SHOOTOUT!!!

Post by moptophugger »

Heard snippets and couldn't really tell the difference except for some fuzz on some of the track
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maul
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Re: ABBEY ROAD SOURCE SHOOTOUT!!!

Post by maul »

They are all very similar :? , however i dismissed immediately the slightly 'trebly?' Japan Pro-Use lp 1978 and the Russian Vanilla Blue Box, and the 'softly' EQued DESS, so, in my opinion the best vinyl rip is by Audiophil
As regards CDs, 2009 remaster is undoubtedly the most impressive, 1987 seems subtly EQued, but in the end, for me what 'sounds' best might just be the Black Triangle
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Re: ABBEY ROAD SOURCE SHOOTOUT!!!

Post by beatlefan99 »

Best one for me:

Japan Black Triangle cd 1983 (de-emphasised)
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Tex
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Re: ABBEY ROAD SOURCE SHOOTOUT!!!

Post by Tex »

Well, they sound so similar to my ears today I'm not gonna declare which is definitely better.

I just know that when I first got the Toshiba disc 20 years ago (thanks Luke) and played on a real CD player that actually decodes (as opposed to EQing the WAV in a DAW) I thought the bass on Toshiba was much more fluid and alive sounding. I also noticed the string swell on "Something" sounding more alive and 3D. So my initial assessment when I was younger, so much younger than today, was that the Toshiba was clearly superior to the 1987 disc.

As for what I listen to today (when not RB remixes) it is the Toshiba that's been digitally de-emphasized, with some slight de-noising and a little increase in the lower mid-range because it seemed a bit hollow to me. I don't have a good reference system so you mileage may vary as far as how it should be EQ'd. In my mind the Toshiba is the best candidate for a full on modern digital restoration and enhancement.
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paul62
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Re: ABBEY ROAD SOURCE SHOOTOUT!!!

Post by paul62 »

The source of the Abbey Road Pro Use LP version wasn't mentioned (was it pbthal's 'drop or an effort made by an anonymous 'dropper/uploader?): different turntables, styli, cartridges, pre-amps, cabling and soundcards all contribute to making one person's 'drop different to another person's 'drop. Also, most people with a Black Triangle rip of Abbey Road have downloaded it from the 'net (and most of these people can't tell if their rip was properly de-emphasised or not).

I found a folder on one of my HDDs called Abbey Road (Toshiba): there's a "track" (an .m3u file, in fact) called 00 - The Beatles - Abbey Road (1969) [FLAC] {De-Emphasized Black Triangle}.m3u, so that gave me a better idea of what I had in the folder. I imported track 01 (Come Together) from this folder into Audacity.

I then opened a raw, unprocessed 24 bit 192kHz 'drop I'd recently done of my Pro Use LP, copied Come Together from that and appended it to the Black Triangle version: Audacity took its time and converted the 24 bit 192kHz file to a 16 bit 44.1kHz file. A new blank stereo track was opened underneath, the copy I'd appended was cut away and pasted into the blank track. The two tracks were lined up, a minor speed adjustment (-0.023%) was made to the file sourced from the LP. The LP file was volume matched to the Black Triangle version and then an EQ match was done (which shows that the following EQ curve would need to be used to make the Black Triangle CD version I have sound more like the LP version I'd 'dropped). The "upside down smiley face" EQ curve makes me think that the CD wasn't properly de-emphasised, alas.

Image

01 - Come Together (Black Triangle CD version EQ-matched to Pro Use LP version by paul62).wav

hxxps://gofile.io/d/HKAkxd
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Re: ABBEY ROAD SOURCE SHOOTOUT!!!

Post by Tex »

paul62 wrote: Sun Jun 13, 2021 3:15 pmThe "upside down smiley face" EQ curve makes me think that the CD wasn't properly de-emphasised, alas.
My digitally de-Emphasized version I downloaded doesn't sound like my old live-to-WAV captures from a vintage player so the De-Emph plugin thingy may not be 100% accurate versus actual hardware. That would be the REAL test. In the end people probably just have to digitally tweak the files anyways to their liking. I honestly don't think Abbey Road is that great sounding. It's grainy and somewhat brittle to my ears. Must be that solid state desk they switched to.
Last edited by Tex on Mon Jun 14, 2021 5:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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paul62
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Re: ABBEY ROAD SOURCE SHOOTOUT!!!

Post by paul62 »

Engonoceras wrote: Sun Jun 13, 2021 3:42 pm
paul62 wrote: Sun Jun 13, 2021 3:15 pmThe "upside down smiley face" EQ curve makes me think that the CD wasn't properly de-emphasised, alas.
My digitally de-Emphasized version doesn't sound exactly like my old live-to-WAV captures from a vintage player so the De-Emph plugin thingy may not be 100% accurate versus actual hardware. That would be the REAL test. In the end people probably just have to digitally tweak the files anyways to their liking.
I've used the Differential EQ Python-scripted program written by csnyfan to match the CD version to the LP version: using that is a bit like having a 510 band equaliser, enabling a good correlation of the EQ of one track to the EQ of another track.
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Re: ABBEY ROAD SOURCE SHOOTOUT!!!

Post by Lord Reith »

Engonoceras wrote: Sun Jun 13, 2021 1:51 pm I just know that when I first got the Toshiba disc 20 years ago (thanks Luke) and played on a real CD player that actually decodes (as opposed to EQing the WAV in a DAW)
The de-emphasis was done in analogue domain in cd players and so was probably fairly inaccurate. I downloaded the curve as an xml file and loaded it into audacity to de-emphasise the cd myself, so it should be spot on.
paul62 wrote: Sun Jun 13, 2021 3:52 pm The LP file was volume matched to the Black Triangle version and then an EQ match was done (which shows that the following EQ curve would need to be used to make the Black Triangle CD version I have sound more like the LP version I'd 'dropped). The "upside down smiley face" EQ curve makes me think that the CD wasn't properly de-emphasised, alas.
See above.
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paul62
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Re: ABBEY ROAD SOURCE SHOOTOUT!!!

Post by paul62 »

Lord Reith wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 1:43 am
Engonoceras wrote: Sun Jun 13, 2021 1:51 pm I just know that when I first got the Toshiba disc 20 years ago (thanks Luke) and played on a real CD player that actually decodes (as opposed to EQing the WAV in a DAW)
The de-emphasis was done in analogue domain in cd players and so was probably fairly inaccurate. I downloaded the curve as an xml file and loaded it into audacity to de-emphasise the cd myself, so it should be spot on.
paul62 wrote: Sun Jun 13, 2021 3:52 pm The LP file was volume matched to the Black Triangle version and then an EQ match was done (which shows that the following EQ curve would need to be used to make the Black Triangle CD version I have sound more like the LP version I'd 'dropped). The "upside down smiley face" EQ curve makes me think that the CD wasn't properly de-emphasised, alas.
See above.
The version of Come Together that I've re-EQ'd and shared isn't the track you've uploaded (as you'll see in my post when you carefully read it): I haven't downloaded the tracks in the "shoot-out", in fact.

I've started my own thread to undertake yet another project of mine that has been "on the back burner" for a long time...!!!

See here:
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=602&p=8176#p8176
"Dedicated Downloader Of Beatlegs"...!!! (Raymond Douglas Davies, Paul Sixtytwo)

And when he does
His little rounds
'Round the forums
We have around
Eagerly pursuing
All the latest vids and discs
'Cause he's a dedicated downloader of Beatlegs!
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