Any experience with BSCD2s of MJ?

Dorian

Smooth Criminal
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Hello boiz,
I just randomly came across a “BSCD2” CD of the Bad album in a.Music store.
Does anyone have any info regarding this format? All the info I find online is either old (BSCD1) or contradictory {quick cash grab/sounds amazing).
I know that a good master gives a good sound in any format and a bad master (no pun intended) gives a crap output, but I am not quite sure about this format.
Some basic info: BSCD means Blu-Spec CD2. It’s ”Blu-ray audio”, not CD, not DVD-A, not SACD. It’s produced by Sony Japan and it‘s expensive. The guy from the store told me it’s better quality, but I doubt he knows technical stuff. I can’t see how you can add more info to the disk or how high bitrates can make any change (in this case).
Some refence links:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/blu-spec-cd-format-what-is-it-and-should-you-even-care/


https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/what-is-a-blu-spec-cd.824408/

MJ BSCD2 disks:

Calling for my boys: @Korgnex @kai @MJ5 @adamschoales and whoever is knowledgeable about this topic
 
Some basic info: BSCD means Blu-Spec CD2. It’s ”Blu-ray audio”, not CD, not DVD-A, not SACD.
Nope, it's just marketing bs. The disc's still being a standard Red-Book audio cd.

xURY2xf.png
 
I went ahead and bought it.
The Bad album cuts off at 18khz.
It’s 44100/16 bit as expected.
Now I’m intetested in finding that lost list from Max-Jax with the best album masters…:)
 
From what I understood, BluSpec are just CDs that are supposed to be more resistant.

If you have it, you still compare it with various versions (with good headphones, better) of the album an tells us what mastering it sounds closer too... Just curious about it. (though I'll expect it's 2012 or even worst)
 
From what I understood, BluSpec are just CDs that are supposed to be more resistant.

If you have it, you still compare it with various versions (with good headphones, better) of the album an tells us what mastering it sounds closer too... Just curious about it. (though I'll expect it's 2012 or even worst)

I'll try to measure the DRs later today and compare them with the Special Edition/BAD25. The audio graph looked pretty bricked.

On the other hand, I remembered this cool site: https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/dr/desc?artist=michael+jackson&album=bad
 
Thanks though, it's better to compare with ears. Than with numbers... dynamic range is just on information among others.
 
So I did my homework regarding the releases of Bad since I got this BSCD2 and the conclusions are the following.
In terms of Dynamic Range: OG Vinyl pressing (1987) > OG CD pressing (1987) >>>> Special Edition (2001) > BSCD2 (2016) > BAD25 (2012).

Here are some pictures with the DR values for each:

Vinyl:
vinyl.png


OG CD:
OG.png


SE:
SE.png


BSCD2:
BSCD.png


BAD25:
B25.png


Here is a graph comparison between the audio sources:
Screenshot-2022-04-01-at-10-03-31.png


Screenshot-2022-04-01-at-10-03-52.png


I've also uploaded some samples for who might be interested:

Relevant info also here: https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/dr/desc?artist=michael+jackson&album=bad
 
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