HW: Lev/Live 79 2fer

[Mark Edmonds]

myself writes:

>>There used to be a Castle 2 for 1 pack which had both Levitation and
>>Live '79 each on their own CD. If anyone has this or is thinking of
>>getting a second hand one, the Levitation CD has a track index error and
>>the quality of the master is far worse than the single CD Castle release

"Rudich, Robert A"

>I would dispute it.  I have this 2 pack and there is nothing I'd complain
>about the Levitation disc as far as track layout or sound quality.

Well for a simple start, the track index for Prelude/Who's Gonna Win The
War is _wrong_. I can't remember how because I gave my 2 for 1 version
to a friend who since left the country. The fact that there are two
different versions of track indexing does tend to suggest two different
masters.

Secondly, the audio differences. A few years back I was comparing a new
CD player I was thinking of buying to my existing one. The only CD which
I had duplicate copies of at the time was Levitation so I stuck one in
each CD machine to enable easy comparison. Therefore, one machine had
the 2 for 1 version and the other had the version released with the
original front sleeve and yellow back. I set them both playing and
switched between the CD players to compare them. There was such a huge
difference between them that initially, I thought I had something wired
incorrectly! I checked the wiring, checked the discs and then switched
the CDs over to see if the sound difference was due to the actual CDs.
It turned out that it was. The 2for1 CD sounded like the sound had been
thinned out - like the bass had been removed and the midrange zapped.
The single CD issue didn't exactly sound brilliant anyway but it was
much better than the 2for1.

Conclusion:
1. Different track indexing between the two versions suggests different
masters.
2. Huge difference in sound quality suggests different masters.

Its a very simple observation to make but the 2for1 version of
Levitation _is_ different to the single CD version (CLAC129? - I can't
remember off hand).

However, I couldn't tell much difference if any between the different
versions of Live '79.

Mark Edmonds