I'm starting a new thread purely for discussing session three, so that it doesn't get buried amongst the wider ranging areas of the whole release elsewhere.
I listened to all 6 sessions tonight, properly, and noticed that session 3 is dull and muddy in comparison to the previous two (and those that follow to be fair).
That sat strange with me, so I dug out my Queen at the BBC from 1989 and gave that a listen, and lo and behold, session 3 on there is bright as a shiny button.
So. WTF is going on with the new version?
It's certainly richer and bassier than the previous release, but lacks top end, leaving Fred's vocals a tad buried in the mix.
Now, considering the info I pulled from Onkyo's site which says Session 3 was mastered from a digital 16/48 source, is it possible that all QPL have is the same Band Of Joy CD from 1989 which they have upscaled to 48khz, and they've messed with it to increase the bass but fucked the treble?
It just beggers belief (I know, this IS QPL we're talking about here and decades of experience tells me nothing should begger belief anymore), that no one thought to check the previous official release to compare the sound, having noticed that what they'd produced for QOA was muddy as hell....
Discuss!!!!!!
I prefer this slightly bassier and warmer sound to be honest. In the old sources, session 3 - especially Ogre Battle, is quite shrill and thin sounding on my unforgiving Genelec studio monitors.
Indeed, the lead vocal is a slight bit more buried, but that's the cost of adding a bit of bottom end.
The joys of analog - every recording is different, and so often there are sacrifices to make when one thing gets tweaked. Sometimes there is no goldilocks zone.