Pat Metheny Group – Offramp

I have two, both look almost flawless and have surface noise.

Fantastic pressing. Tremendous detail, clarity, and dynamic range throughout the entire record. Pat Metheny's synth guitar soars to amazing heights, Lyle Mays' piano sparkles, Steve Rodby's bass is resonant and powerful, and Dan Gottlieb's drums are crisp and tight. Vocals are balanced and natural. The overall soundstage is expansive and engaging. This pressing blows away my original 1982 copy. Highly recommended.

OMG....just found a minty copy in my local. Been looking for this (any Metheny or Mays really). Dam this sounds sweet. Getcha a copy 👍

Great music, excellent SQ

2/5/25

In previous revisions of this review, I indicated that the cymbals sound like cymbal-flavored noise throughout, but upon listening again because I was in the mood after a series of disasters had struck, I realized that although the cymbals in the first cut sound like cymbal-flavored noise, the cymbals in general aren't bad. (Cymbals are the acid test for digital - if the cymbals are clean, the rest is easy to get right.) It also sounds "right," like the LP I had ages ago, so it probably has the right audio polarity. There might be cleaner versions, such as the SHM-CD with its polarity corrected, or the SHM-SACD, but this version is the last I'll need. The best digital releases, which are sometimes the same as a cheaper releases except with the correct audio polarity, are more likely to take the form of SACDs because they're harder to copy than CDs. This might explain why Goldmund, which has debunked the need for high-res consumer formats, sells SACD players. Chances are that anyone who can afford Goldmund gear can afford SACDs.

So, I evidently wasn't really in the mood for it when I listened to it previously, and this came out as a low opinion of the sound quality. The lesson of this is that simply being aware of the placebo effect doesn't make us immune to it. The subconscious works in mysterious ways.

My digital playback system consists of Deadbeef (in bit-perfect mode) installed on an MX-Linux nonpersistent live installation running on a cheap mini-PC, driving a Zen DAC V2, which I leave powered up constantly for best sound quality. Practically any cheap 5V wall-wart with a 5.5 mm OD/2.1 mm ID barrel connector will do, since the Zen doubles the input supply voltage and regulates it. It also has differential outputs, allowing it to produce twice the output compared to a single-ended output with the same supply voltage. After hearing the Deadbeef/Zen combo, I cannot tolerate my previous set-ups which included Clementine, Strawberry, and a Topping D10s. The D10s sounds like a toy compared to the Zen, and leaving it powered-up makes no difference.

The keys to the Zen's sound quality are probably the fact that it uses TI/Burr-Brown Advanced Segment DAC-chips (ASDs) and a "femto" clock, i.e. a clock with sub-picosecond jitter specified in femtoseconds. ASDs are essentially ladder DACs for bits 1-6 and DS-DACs for bits 7-24, which give them low jitter sensitivity (output noise vs. clock jitter) and incredible low-level detail - one paper by the design team includes an oscillograph of an impressively clean -120 dB 1 kHz sinewave generated by an ASD, back when clocks weren't as good as they are now.

ASDs are also used in Audio Research and Bel Canto DACs, which are some of the very best. They're also used in a lot of audio and video gear in a wide range of prices, which typically get high marks for sound quality. Some cheap gear might use the cheaper, lower-precision variant known as Current-Segment DACs. The Soundavo HP-DAC1 which uses ASDs and costs about $150 has gotten rave reviews from some tough customers. One reviewer preferred his DVD player's ASD-based audio section to his expensive discrete R2R DAC. I wondered why my cheap TV sounds so good until I discovered ASDs, over 20 years after they were introduced, thanks to TI's failure to adequately publicize their monumental breakthrough. ASDs are probably the ultimate DAC-chip for audio playback.

Audio polarity

The polarity on quite a few CDs is deliberately inverted to degrade the audio, such as to reserve the best SQ for the LP or a more expensive digital release. The SHM-CD of the Pat Metheny Group album has inverted polarity and is incredible with the polarity corrected, with a clean, extended high end which allowed me to hear the cymbals clearly for the first time. The SHM-SACD probably has the right polarity, just as the Brecker/Pilgrimage SACD's CD-layer has inverted polarity and the SACD-layer has the right polarity. My PMG-LP's high end was always flaky, even after cleaning the record with a record-cleaning machine and then playing it on a fully tricked-out circa-Y2K Linn Sondek with Linn's super-low-noise preamp, whose owner had a copy and wasn't impressed with its high end either. Get a record cleaner even if you have to scrimp on the TT, because you can always upgrade the TT but you can't undo record wear, and besides, really clean records sound much better.

SHMs

SHMs sound better because they use better masters, not because they supposedly have a lower read-error rate, which could not possibly reduce the corrected error-rate relative to that of a standard CD in good condition played on a CD player, which is a few ppB. Software can be stored on CDs, so obviously read-errors are actually corrected, and not just glossed over as some claim. This is made possible by the CRC-system which is used for storing and retrieving data on CDs and memory in general. When using a ROM drive to retrieve software or to rip CDs, the CRC system is still used, but if the CRC system isn't sufficient, sections can be re-read as necessary to "average out" read-errors, which allows even some damaged CDs (such as my used copy of the 1994 release of Animals, which had evidently been used as a coaster) to be copied perfectly.

The implicit claim that SHMs have a lower corrected error rate is a cover story for the use of degraded masters for standard CDs in many cases. (The standard Pilgrimage CD I heard was overly compressed and had no highs or lows, and sounded like a toy-version.) But many standard CDs have excellent sound quality, and some have squeaky-clean high ends, so obviously SHMs aren't inherently superior.

High-res

Another myth is that high-res formats have inherently superior sound quality compared to the CD-format. This has been debunked by some of the top audio experts. CDs have about 20-bit resolution over the entire audio range, thanks to dithering techniques such as Apogee's UV-22 (introduced in about 1985) and its successors. A math PhD required 75 pages to explain UV22, but I gather that it turns bit 16 into a combination noise/"DSD"-bit so that it can represent details below the bit-16 level.

Some high-res recordings might sound better than their CD-grade versions, but not because of the higher resolution of the format, since not even live music can fully utilize a 24-bit dynamic range, and high-res consumer releases use at most 16 of the 24 bits.

The higher sample-rate might provide an edge if the digital playback gear has outdated digital interpolation filters, by reducing the amount of interpolation required. The higher potential bandwidth doesn't provide any frequency- or phase-response advantages over the CD-format, since we can't hear over 20K and the phase response of CDs is excellent.

However, recording engineers need high-res to efficiently record live music (so that they don't have to set the level perfectly to capture the loudest peaks and lowest-level details), and to process it cleanly, without audible round-off errors or high-end roll-off. Dither isn't added until all of the processing is complete and the 24-bit stereo master is being converted to 16 bits, so that the 16-bit recording has 20-bit dynamic range and the extremely low-level aspects of the 24-bit recording are preserved.

Polarity controls

Polarity/invert controls are practically nonexistent in consumer-gear, although they can be found on Audio Research preamps, Benchmark DACs, and a lot of pro-gear. Some DAC-chips have built-in polarity-control functions (it's a logical operation in digital), along with soft-mute functions, which would make it easy to add polarity controls to digital playback gear, although these DAC-chip functions are used almost exclusively in pro-gear. The lack of polarity controls in consumer gear indicates that polarity is being used as a means of degrading audio on CDs and that the music industry doesn't want to make it convenient for us to correct it.

The Neutron player is the only music player with a polarity control to my knowledge. Its DSP is supposedly so clean that there's no need to use its bit-perfect mode.

Another approach to inverting polarity is to use an audio editing program to invert the presumably lossless files. Inverting lossy files has no effect, since they contain no phase information.

You could add a polarity control to any system with ive speakers by putting a DPDT switch with its throws cross-connected in series with each speaker cable - apply the input across the poles and take the output across the throws, or vice versa. But this method poses a risk to the power amp and speakers if someone were to flip the switches without first muting the audio. AC power switches in electrical boxes would be convenient and probably adequate as far as -quality is concerned. Solder spade lugs on each wire-end to be connected to the switches, for solid connections. But mute the audio before flipping the switches, just to be safe.

"All analog" LPs

MoFi customers got a shock a couple of years back when they learned that their treasured "all-analog" LPs were actually made from digital masters, as are essentially all LPs these days. Claiming that LPs are "all analog" isn't a lie, because digital is just a two-level form of analog. However, analog isn't a type of digital. Due to the placebo effect, some MoFi customers suddenly became dissatisfied with their LPs upon learning that they had been made from digital masters. So MoFi claimed that they used a special type of digital to placate them.

Early killer digital decks

Good pro-grade digital decks have been available since 1978, with the introduction of the Soundstream, which had four channels and could be use as an eight-channel version without redundant tracks. The Mitsubishi X80 (50.4 kHz, 16-bit Analogic MP8016 ADCs) was essentially a stereo version of the Soundstream, and was preferred, including by ECM, for its sound quality over Sony's 44.1 kHz decks. Some recording engineers claim that early Mitsubishi decks sounded good even by modern standards.

So, I assume that ECM made good digital copies of their analog masters, starting in the early 80s using an X80, and have been using them to create various grades of masters for various releases. The X80 Metheny masters might have simply been sample-rate converted for use on the SHMs.

CDs typically get the worst masters, as long as the album is selling well and piracy could cause significant losses, because CDs can be copied exactly, easily, and anonymously. LPs get the best because although they sound good, it's essentially impossible to make a master-quality recording from them. Good versions might also be put on lossy digital formats like mp3s, which don't have phase information and aren't very focused or spacious. I gather that streaming also contains good versions, but streams are watermarked to fight piracy, which based on what I've read significantly degrades sound quality because it has to be mixed into the audio to be effective.

What feels like eons ago, a nascent blog called TestPressing started to post vintage Cafe Del Mar sunset mixes from Jose Padilla &, for me, an unknown DJ by the name of Phil Mison.

Jose was legendary, as expected the tunes in his mixes windows into a beautiful, winsome world; Mison, well, his Cafe Del Mar selections were obscure yet astonishingly sublime, & they quickly became the soundtrack to my children’s early years.

Looking back, the A-side to Offramp uniquely captures this precious time in our lives. The layered, otherworldly melodies and sequencing to these songs more akin to movements in a romantic period symphony than early 80s jazz fusion.

Special music is that A-side, delicately ethereal, spiritual while occasionally bordering narcissistic cheese. The B-side, it’s good too—what one would typically expect from Metheny et al, but not of the same quality of Au Lait, a song whose character wistfully recalls innocence, fatigue & joy.

"Are You Going With Me?" is so beautiful. x x x x x

I love Lyle Mays’ work in general. Pat Metheny is such a great artist that continues to grow and invent new music.
As I write, this recording is over 40 years old. It will be a classic soon, but it doesn’t sound dated.
The pressing was quiet. Also, very dished.
My peripheral ring and weight took care of that or it would not have sounded as good.

Surprisingly not as warm or clear as the old CD I have of this. I’m a little disappointed.

One of Pat Metheny Group's alltime favorite CD's. A definite must have!

One of the most popular of Pat Metheny's huge catalog of music! A Must Have!