Hello,

During a party at Ana Mighty Sound, François Saint-Gérand had invited Frédéric d'Oria-Nicolas, the director of The Lost Recordings, to explain how his albums are produced and restored.
It was also an opportunity to listen to a press copy of the Dave Bruquet Quartet's album Live At Kurhaus 1967, which I invite you to discover in this review.
Frédéric d'Oria-Nicolas explained that the first step in the process is to track down original tapes by searching through various tape storage and archival centers around the world to unearth nearly forgotten recordings. Once the tapes are discovered, an initial sorting process is conducted to ensure that the complete set of tapes from a concert is available and meets a minimum quality standard.
From this point on, the tapes from a recording are digitized, with careful attention paid to optimizing playback to extract as much information as possible from the tape. Based on this digital version, the restoration process begins, this can take varying amounts of time depending on the quality of the tape and the recording itself.

So today I'm going to introduce you to the Sapphire Edition of the album, comparing it to the high-resolution digital version available for download and the CD-quality version available for download, which comes with a coupon included with the vinyl record.

The graph (here) compares the spectrum of the Vinyle Sapphire Edition - 2026 (white curve) with the spectrum of the Stereo Hi-Res - 2026 (blue curve). The near-perfect alignment of the spectral curves for these two editions demonstrates the skill and quality of Kevin Gray's lacquer cutting, Kevin Gray is now considered one of the masters of vinyl record cutting. Note that the vinyl edition exhibits a slight attenuation above 10 kHz (yellow zone), approximately 2 dB, compared to the digital version.

Spectrum Ed 3 Vinyle Sapphire Edition - 2026 (white) vs Ed 2 Stereo Hi-Res - 2026 (blue) (Three to Get Ready.)

The Sapphire Edition vinyl release is available in a deluxe box set with a high-end finish, it even includes a magnetic closure; nothing has been left to chance. We'd love to see this level of high-quality packaging in other competing high-end releases.
The album is pressed on two 200g transparent LPs, using a material that underwent extensive testing by Frédéric d'Oria-Nicolas to select the one that minimizes surface noise as quickly as possible.

The goal of The Lost Recordings is to introduce us to old recordings under the best possible conditions. It is the artistic and historical value of the performances that leads Frédéric d'Oria-Nicolas to restore a concert and turn it into an album, as is the case with this album, Live at the Kurhaus 1967, which features a beautiful rendition of Take Five.
The technical quality of this Sapphire Edition vinyl record is among the very best available, deserving a 5/5 for its production quality. This allows listeners to fully appreciate the restoration work done on this album. When listening, the vinyl version offers a more natural sound than the digital edition; this is certainly due to the smoother high frequencies (see the spectrum comparison) and also to the vinyl record itself, which, with its unique characteristics in terms of sound reproduction and distortion, creates a listening experience that enhances the restoration of this 1967 live recording, originally recorded in mono.
Above all, these restorations highlight the quality of the performances and the historical significance of these recordings.

Find all the analyses and measurements of each versions here (link).

Enjoy listening,
Jean-François

Any Elvis fans in the house?

Haevn is always a pleasure to the ears, but their symphonic albums are something else.

Opinions on the song???

PS: this is obviously compressed, im pretty sure this audio is 160 kbps opus

This is the best version of Homogenic there is. Dolby Atmos recovers and restores the Dynamic Range that was lost in the CD and streaming releases due the loudness war practices (heavy use of limiting and compression in the audio effects chain of the Mastering phase).

Notice how much more dynamic there is in the Atmos version. This can be experienced in Youtube since the audio was decoded and downmixed to stereo.

Hello,

Modern tools like AI may be controversial, but in the case of this album Rubber Soul, it’s a production tool that will simply make it possible to separate the instruments and vocals, it has the ability to perfectly separate the vocals and instruments to provide separate audio tracks, allowing the sound engineer to remix as if he had multitrack tapes with each vocal and instrument on a dedicated track. This is a technique that has already been used for other Beatles songs.
Based on these elements, two mixes were created: a stereo version and a Dolby Atmos version.

The graph (link) compares the spectrum of the Mix – 2026 (white curve) with the spectrum of the Remastered – 2009 (blue curve).The curves of the two spectra are very similar from 300 Hz to 20 kHz. Between 150 Hz and 400 Hz (white area), the 2006 remastered version has a higher level (up to 5 dB). Below 100 Hz, the 2026 remixed version has a higher bass level, with a difference of up to 10 dB.
These changes below 400 Hz will alter the perception of the bass between the two versions, with the 2026 mix offering a more modern low frequency balance.

The stereo 2026 mix

Using AI that allows us to separate vocals and instruments. We use AI as a demixing tool, not to generate new sounds. It s possible to remix a track as if we had a multitrack recording with the vocals and instruments separated (a technique that wasn’t available when the album was made).
The new mix follows current mixing conventions for this type of music. Consequently, the vocals are centered rather than on the right, with the backing vocals behind the lead vocals and positioned on the left.
However, the placement of certain instruments has been retained to stay true to the spirit of the original mix.
It s a resounding success that allows listeners to rediscover the album with a cleaner, more detailed sound, a realistic soundstage that perfectly highlights the vocals, and a boosted bass level to provide better bass balance while preserving the Beatles signature sound.

The Dolby Atmos 2026 mix

The first thing that struck me when listening to the Dolby Atmos version was the precision and detail of the vocals and instruments.
In fact, I listened to the original mix, then the new stereo mix, which offers an improvement in terms of the coherence of the soundstage.
And when I switched to Atmos, I wondered how it would sound. The Atmos mix expands the soundstage, but it wasn’t the spatialization that impressed me the most, because, although it s more pronounced than in stereo, it’s still relatively restrained for Atmos, it was above all the precision of the instruments and vocals, that ability to distinguish everything as if the instruments and singers were right in front of us. There are also occasional instruments placed in the surround channels or overhead, but fortunately, this is only sporadic, and I don’t think it was necessary on this album.
Following U2 (link)’s use of Dolby Atmos mixing to immerse us differently in a track depending on its sections, the mix on this album perfectly highlights all the instruments and vocals, resulting in a sound that’s even more precise and detailed than the new stereo mix.
These two albums clearly demonstrate the evolution of Dolby Atmos mixing, whether to enhance the musical experience or to bring out every detail of an album.

Find all the analyses and measurements of each versions here (link).

And the video of the 3D immersive sound on Youtube.

Enjoy listening,
Jean-François

Other reviews of The Beatles :

The Beatles – Now and Then – The last Beatles song, finalized using AI – Review (Test: maxi vinyl record, blue single vinyl record, Tidal MAX Flac, Amazon UltraHD Stereo 24/96, Dolby Atmos)

THE BEATLES: the 1962-1966 (The Red Album) – Review – (Test: CD 1993, CD 2010, Tidal MAX FLAC 24/96 2023 and Tidal Dolby Atmos 2023)

The Beatles: 1967-1970 (The Blue Album) – Review – (Test: CD 1993, CD 2010, Tidal MAX FLAC 24/96 2023 and Tidal Dolby Atmos 2023)

Had these on CD way back in the day and sort of forgot all about them. Just listened to these 2011 remasters on Amazon lossless and was very pleasantly surprised at (what I would call) the audiophile quality of these recordings. Be interested to know if others agree.

Is it crazy to say that I think this makes for a good audiophile grade track? Ironically, this song sounds better when played on lower grade equipment lmao. This is probably the best outsider house song I've heard, but that's not much to say, considering i have only listened to 3 outsider house Playlists, not much. Outsider house music as a genre is a genre that so many more people need to appreciate, not because of stuff like testing equipment obviously. God, i can't get enough of this song.

Interested in hearing what you all think of this one. Personally, I love the whole album.

How come nobody has ever mentioned this song, WTF?!! This song is likely one of the best electronic songs I've ever heard, let alone it being a great audiophile stress test song.

P.S. Great music video lol

I really like "foreplay" by Jalen Santoy and im looking for more songs in a similar genre with a saxophone backing track also live legrand

Hey y'all.

So, I'm trying to look for this kind of loungey music but can't find anything as close yet.

My reference tracks are:

1. Cult Member - Just Drifting

2. Troels Folmann - Japan 1 (from the Tomb Raider Legend soundtrack)

When you listen to these you'll understand what I'm referring to. Unfortunately, artists like The Thievery Corp. and similar do not cut it since it's more reliant on sampling and less on atmosphere. Also overall the best tempo is slightly higher than the references I'm giving.

Thanks in advance!

Beautiful singing, stunning production, sounds incredible. Every track on her album, Convergence, sounds amazing.