Renaissance “Ashes Are Burning” SHM-CD Japanese Import

RUR

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
647
3
0
SoCal
A fellow member was kind enough to point out that CDJapan carries several Renaissance albums, issued on SHM-CD. Renaissance is one of my favorite bands and, in search of the “ideal master”, I own every known Redbook issue of most albums and was keen to give the SHM-CD a spin. For comparison purposes, I used the best issue extant I know of – Repertoire’s remaster from a couple of years ago, REP5078. I have a number of Repertoire remasters of various bands and, with few exceptions, they do an exceptional job.

Predictably, the two CD’s were mastered at different levels (Repertoire’s about 3dB hotter), so I calibrated comparison volume by measuring the prolonged deep gong which begins the album and adjusting volume accordingly. Having done that, it quickly became apparent that these are two distinctly different masters. Everything about Repertoire is better – more metal, more skin, more gut. Annie’s gorgeous vocals, incredibly realistic on the Repertoire, were slightly muted on the SHM-CD. Everything about the Repertoire, in fact, shone through against a blacker background – more air around the vocals and various instruments, to use the common parlance. Finally, background/peripheral instruments clearly heard on the Repertoire were dim and distant on the SHM-CD. Near the end of the first cut, violins in the right soundstage provide lovely counterpoint to the melody. On the Repertoire, these are clearly and beautifully heard. On the SHM-CD, they’re barely audible.

As a last resort and because I can, I tried tweaking the FR curve for the SHM-CD to see if I could get it to sound more like the Repertoire. After an hour’s work, I could not. No amount of frequency-band tilt or tweaks could provide the level of realism found in the Repertoire and described above – it’s simply a better master. I suspect that the SHM-CD is based upon the original Sire master, but I looked in most of my hidey-holes for redundant CD’s and couldn’t find the damned thing to compare. If it turns up, I’ll post an addendum later.

Do I regret the purchase? Not a bit. Over the years I’ve spent far more for obscure Renaissance issues and I’ll continue to do so, simply for love of the band. In fact, I’ll probably pick up the SHM-CD of either Novella or Song for All Seasons. These have not (yet!) been remastered by Repertoire, and I’m willing to pay to find out if they’re an improvement over the Wounded Bird editions.
 

LL21

Well-Known Member
Dec 26, 2010
14,411
2,509
1,448
Resurrecting this thread...are SHM-CDs a hit and miss affair? I am betting as with all things, implementation is more important (mastering, perhaps pressing?) than the material which is perhaps a small element.
 

Ronm1

Member Sponsor
Feb 21, 2011
1,745
4
0
wtOMitMutb NH
I guess I'll throw in my 2cents again. A few yrs ago I had a thread on this. An audio bud and I expiremented with cd vs shm of the same remaster. Played on an entry level player there did appear to be a slight improvement. On a better quality player no perceived difference was heard. Now they certainly sounded fine but we were only looking for noticeable improvements. What we used were two 'Weather Report' discs and another Chick Corea disc. Entry level was an original oppo uni, better was a Cec and my dds-pro.
There was a obvious improvement though when comparing K2HD's to other cd's. So yes another check mark that remastering carries more weight for improved sound quality. Not necessarily format or material, IMHO, of course.
 

jeromelang

Well-Known Member
Dec 26, 2011
433
66
935
The thing we really need to question is - do record labels based in the us/europe actually handed their original studio masters to their counterparts in Japan to facilitate the transfer/disc manufacturing?

My feeling is - no (least 90% of the time they don't)
 

Ronm1

Member Sponsor
Feb 21, 2011
1,745
4
0
wtOMitMutb NH
^^^ I disagree the real question is the shm process a sham as Bruce used to call it. My comparisons seemed to show little value with better h/w and now days with immediate rips of discs the shm process becomes moot. If its of any value it's only during the initial physical read.
 

Drikus

Member Sponsor
Sep 28, 2012
1,390
223
985
Brussels
I did a test using the same SHM-CD ripped on a MacBook Pro and one of my cd players who has a servo that uses memory buffering of the data. The MacBook Pro was connected to the usb input of the same cd player with the exactly the same settings as the cd playback. Switching back and forth beween these two sources, I could not hear a difference.

The objective of this test was to hear if there was a difference in sound between the ripped files of an SHM-CD on a mac and a memory buffering cd player.
 

Johnny Vinyl

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
May 16, 2010
8,570
51
38
Calgary, AB
I have a few SHM-CD's and found there to be small improvement in terms of openness, but not a lot. This is using an entry-level player. For the difference in price I don't think they are worth it in my situation. I should say that I have not looked to see of the mastering is different. They likely aren't as I would assume that more differences would be evident. I'm not actively pursuing any more SHM-CD's.
 

LL21

Well-Known Member
Dec 26, 2010
14,411
2,509
1,448
Thanks, Gents. I think I have made up my mind. Very much appreciated.
 

jeromelang

Well-Known Member
Dec 26, 2011
433
66
935
The shm cd's material somehow will cause the laser mechanism to "react" in a different way than it normally wouldn't while reading regular cd discs.

Those who frequent audio asylum might have read about early generation Sony said players and their auto alignment function. I did some laser self alignment tests through a couple of earlier generation sony sacd players using different CD discs made in different countries (Japanese, USA, UK, early West Germany, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore) The resultant sound using different discs from different countries to "tune" the laser of sony sacd players are very very interesting. The result from using shm cd discs fare very very poorly. I am not sure if anyone wants to know more details? Perhaps I should start a whole new thread on this. What do you think?


However, in my experience, the more important issues why shm cds do not sound as good as their original cd releases were mostly due to the fact that they were mostly transferred from inferior duplicate digital masters.

About 7 - 8 years ago, one of my audio buddies invited me to his house for a listening session. it was in one of those quaint little suburbs in Tokyo, which one has to change trains a couple of times to get there. i wouldn't been able to find it on my own. well, rather excitedly, he wanted to share with me the sonic merits of the SHM CDs (from universal). One of the many universal SHM discs he played was the keith jarrett's koln concert (originally recorded in analogue under the ECM label). We compared it against an earlier german pressing disc he bought while he was stationed in germany many years ago.

Long time audio asylum readers will remember that i have a peculiar method of cueing up a track to play on optical disc players. But i let this friend of mine use the conventional methods first (just hit the play button on the remote). and our first impression was - the shm disc sounded fuller-bodied, compared to the earlier german pressing, which was a little vague. Both discs have constricted soundstaging - the height barely reached the speakers' tweater position, and imaging was upfront, forward of the speaker baffles. the piano tone on both discs sounded clangy and very dry, and as i didn't know it any better then, since it was my frst exposure to keith jarrett, i would have said that he was playing an electonic keyboard. either that, the piano might have been so closely mic'ed, that there was no chance for the reverberations to blossom naturally.

i noticed that this german disc have the aluminium silver area covered very close to the spindle hole area (unlike most discs nowadays you see which has a wider band of clear plastic area around the spindle hole). from my experience buying 1st print west germany made CDs on ebay, i instinctively knew that it wasn't a first print, since the spindle hole area wasn't entirely covered in silver. there is still a 2mm gap of clear plastic around the spindle area. nevertheless i suggested that my friend sit back and let me do the cueing up (using jerome's special procedure)for the rematch.

the result - the SHM disc remained constricted in soundstaging and upfront, and the piano still sound clangy. but the german disc then sounded totally transformed. instead of sounding vague, we heard the piano performance receeding further back into the soundstage, very distinct from the huge swathes of reverberation that gave the feeling of the large space where the recording was made. the soundstage projected by this system became very much bigger, the height of which we could make out to be close to the ceiling of the listening room, the width extended beyond the boundary of the 3 walls that cocooned around the speaker system. but what is startling is that we then heard distinctively, the fundamental (basic)notes being hammered, then followed by myriad harmonics of the resonating strings interacting and modulating against each other, and then bloosoming into a magical sonic cushion of sound in a large cavenous hall, as 3 separate and distinct entities. as we tried each discs again back and forth (using jerome procedure), it became very clear that the shm disc sounded hard and lifeless. loud climaxes sounded constricted, while fundamental notes, the harmonics and subsequent reverberation don't quite "separate" as they should. this is something the SHM CD has failed to do and something my friend didn't realise until he heard an earlier CD pressing, albiet a 2nd pressing, but made and released by the original german label compared against it, played using my special disc/track cueing method.

i also tried playing the german disc again using conventional the cueing method. when i did that, the piano started to sound clangy again, the soundstage collasped, and the individual notes and reverberation no longer sound as separate entities. cueing the disc to play in this way made the german disc sound closer to the shm CD. but otoh, the sonics of the shm cd didn't changed very much regardless of whatever cueing methods were used. in another word, whatever is causing the same german disc to sound so different just by using 2 different types of track cueing methods has produced some sort of sonic artifacts that seems to have affected the shm CD (and permanently encoded onto the shm disc) and this is the sort of sonic artifacts/differences that i have noticed when i made duplicates of CDs or when I ripped wav files from CDs.

then jump to march the following year, i went back for a rematch. this time, armed with the first pressing, german made CD that i managed to find on ebay. this original first pressing have the spindle hole area covered entirely in silver. the disc track listing also differs from the 2nd pressing and shm CD in that it contains only 3 tracks. the last track, which is available on the other 2 later CD discs, and also available on the 2-disc gatefold LP, had been omited from this first pressing CD disc. we compared all 3 CD disc, again using the jerome procedure. needless to say, the sense of the separation is even more vivid on this first pressing disc. however, the piano, while still sounding deep into the cavenous, reverberant stage, now has more focus, more palpable weightage, surrounded by a rich tapestries of sound moulded by the interplay of the resonating strings using the pedals and holding down the keys. for the whole of 25 minutes as we sat fixated, listening to the first track of this first pressing disc, a profound and transcendant drama unfolds as we hear the grandeur and sweep of jarrett's playing in his prime.

if you happen to visit an audio show in the USA somewhere in the near future, and happen to pop in into the kimber kable room, look for the soft-spoken, skinny japanese gentleman who would there to demo some handcrafted speakers from hokkaido, ask him about this lil' matchup of the keith jarrett koln concert discs. chances are he might play you this german 1st print cd. i gave it to him as a parting gift.
 
Last edited:

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu

Steve Williams
Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator
Ron Resnick
Site Co-Owner | Administrator
Julian (The Fixer)
Website Build | Marketing Managersing