Hopefully they won't use the brickwalled masters they used for the hi-res box. Sonically, they're awful.

Looks like this is on hold indefinitely............unavailable on Amazon and never had cover art/tracklist/information......and almost no mention of this set elsewhere on the web.

Christmas season is fast approaching.

The hi-res version came out a couple months ago; & the mastering is awful.

As a collection, with this title? The same set?

All RCA & Arista releases as separate titles. There is also one called "The Studio Album Collection 1989-2000"; but several live albums were included in the stand alone series.

I don't think this link is complete; each of the big 4 carry SLIGHTLY different titles.

/www.hdtracks.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=lou+reed

I have 18 stand alone 2015 Reed hi-res titles in my collection

I just checked; the Studio album collection (5 albums) is a different, earlier, superior mastering.

Then there's no guarantee the CD set will be from the same remastering project.

Following your posts about hi-res over the past year, it seems like there isn't even a guarantee that each site's downloads are the same remastering as each other!

It doesn't make sense that 44/16 would be mastered at a higher quality then 96/24, but since when do the idiots at the major labels make sense.........

I would kill for a QUALITY hi-res edition of R&R Animal. DR7 just doesn't cut it.

When this CD box is finally released, it could be different remastering than what you've downloaded. It would not be at the same level of resolution, but it could be good remastering as opposed to the bad remastering of the hi-res versions of the tracks ... in which case, good 44/16 would be better than bad 96/24.

This is what happened with the first two Big Star albums last year, remember?

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=88999

The new Big Star mastering is also out in 96/24 & it's well done.

The ones that really bug me are in 2014 Van Halen & Rush both did hi-res boxes that suck.

In 2015 they were redone as single titles & all are excellent.

For the prices they charge for the hi-res dl's, there's no good excuse for mega compression.

I don't know any hi-res fans who like the compression, though some cd listeners prefer it.

We were comparing the new 2014 CDs to the old SACD twofer of #1 Record and Radio City.

The 2014 Big Star remasters of #1 Record and Radio City came out simultaneously on cd & 96/24. Also, Fantasy did the first batch of SACD's & they are known for mediocre SACD's.

Yes, it's possible but rare for anything other than excessive compression or a 5th gen safety master to put 16/44 in the same league as 96/24 or 192/24.

I already know you don't agree, so don't take this as me arguing -- I just think there's a different way of looking at things than 1s and 0s, and it needs to be expressed on the ICE boards sometimes among all the "DR ratings" and "target labels" and whatnot.

Audio quality and a quality listening experience are two separate things. On a given disc we can have one or the other, neither, or both.

Unless the engineer understands what the artist intended the music to sound like, no amount of increased technical quality will sound "right" and the listening experience will be dissatisfying. Beach Boys stereo SACDs, for one example. The original Big Star SACD as another. The technical quality is good enough, but whoever did the work had a poor understanding of what Big Star sounded like.

I would rather have a redbook CD that sounds like the music I remember than a high-resolution disc where the remastering makes the artist sound different.

I would rather have an original quad mix on SACD that sounds exactly like what I listened to as a teenager than a technically better remaster in two channels.

I'm just saying, we can't definitively declare this is good, that is bad, and point to numbers, scales and waveforms as absolute proof, because the listening experience is also about our own tastes as well as the artist's original intentions.

I owned the Big Star SACD. I sold it when the 2014's came out. IMO, the problem was the SACD sounded dull; either bad eq, or it was taken from a safety master. I agree the 2014's are very well done.

I do believe that to hear a significant difference between 44/16 & Hi-res does require quality equipment. i am not trying to be elitist, it's what I've heard. I only consider my system to be entry level. I wish I could afford better, but I can't. My point is hi-res on really cheap playback eqiipment isn't going to sound better then cd in most cases. (I THINK the point of entry is probably the Oppo 93 or 103)

Ironically, i can only think of 2 cd's I've kept because they sounded better than the hi-res edition: 1 is Reed's R&R Animal. That album is made to be played loud; which is not possible for me with a DR7. It's painful to me. Even with high compression, the benefit to high res is spatial. It gives 2.0 some of the qualities of 5.1. & hi-res done right is an amazing experience. The music is just more real sounding to me. 44/16 is too low of a rate to capture all of the music. CD (like dvd as Jeff pointed out the other day) is actually a lossy format. My eyesight isn't good enough to notice small mpeg video issues & small amounts of additional detail, but my hearing is very good, especially for my age.

The other cd I've kept for strictly sonic reasons is Woodstock 2. I bought the high res edition from HD Tracks & it is the worst sounding hi-res release I have ever heard. It sounds like it is made from a 3rd generation cassette. It isn't the original recording, as the hi-res Woodstock 1 sounds fine.

I also have a few in both formats due to bonus tracks on the cd that are not on the hi-res edition.

The label' s "system" is far from perfect. My original post was that it really angers me that they continue to release such crappy masters when they don't have to.

Excellent discussion, guys. Let's hope they get this one right. I can't remember when the RCA/Arista contract ended, but I've been waiting for a Reed box set for a long time.

LD

And now, if we're lucky, we'll get two -- this one and the Warner Bros./Sire set!! What did we do to deserve such riches?

(By the way, 1986's Mistrial was the last of Lou's second stint at RCA before going to Sire)

Let's also leave a link in this thread to the other Lou Reed box set:

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=93718

This never happened. Did anyone hear if it's still in the works or is it a no go?

Thanks!

Neal

Bump: This is finally back on the schedule, now a 2016 holiday season release due out on October 7th. An image and description is in the first post, but the box is not pre-orderable yet. Soon!

I definitely want this one but it may be way out of my price ranger-new or secondary seller.