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COPYRIGHT 2001 Sensible Sound
"Can't get no fancy notes from my blue guitar, can't get no antidote for blues."
The above quotation comes from Mark Knopfler's song, "One World," appearing on the Dire Straits smash hit album, Brothers in Arms. Judging from my initial reaction to this CD in its newly remastered version, audiophiles who are hoping to hear this album, finally, with the fancy notes they have always hoped for will still be searching for the antidote to its lackluster sound. It and five other Dire Straits albums -- Dire Straits, Communique, Making Movies, Love Over Gold, and On Every Street -- are now available in newly reissued SBM remasters at mid-price. Because they are almost completely devoid of technical details in the liner notes, one has to look closely to find that all six of these were remastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering. I thought there may be some readers who have been itching to get their hands on them, so here are some impressions.
Mark Knopfler, leader of Dire Straits, is one of the most interesting songwriters of his generation. His music embodies much from the '60s and '70s rock groups that preceded him, with biting lyrics similar to those of a Paul Simon or Bob Dylan richly portraying his often somber senses. Many of his songs deal in very subtle ways with the inequities of living in the modern world; others are not so subtle. The album titles often carry a connotation of the subject matter within, as is the case with some of these six remasters. Indeed, the group's name itself might harbor some implication of Knopfler's world view.
I started with Communique (Warner 47770-2), the group's second album. As the album title suggests, there is an urgent message contained herein. Unlike Dire Straits' first album, Communique offers social commentary and introspection through the use of diverse images and situations. Into the Rotel it went; I sat down to listen and then pushed the start button on my remote. Seconds later I was jumping from my chair to back the volume way down. This has to be one of the loudest CDs in my collection. The volume control on my SP-9 is usually set between the 9:30 and 10 o'clock positions to listen to CDs, but I had to take it down to about 8:00 to get the volume to a comfortable level (7:00 is as far down as it goes). At this level, the average SPL is somewhere in the low 90's, with peak levels extending as much as 3-6 dB more.
On the British vinyl pressing, Communique offered some amazing audiophile sonic delights from start to finish, and is, perhaps, the best-sounding of their six studio releases. In short, this import pressing of the album is transparent, musically natural-sounding and dynamic -- far more so than on the domestic pressing. Knopfler's slightly Morrison-like voice has air around it, with a clarity that allows listeners to hear the subtle shadings in his vocal articulations (especially on consonant sounds like the "w" and "th" in the word "with" -- as in "if you ain't with me, girl ..."). In this example, there is an elongation to the "w" giving it the proper "uwa" sound we hear in normal speech, and we hear the "th" trail off properly too. One of the problems with most recordings of vocal music is that such acute enunciation is somehow masked or veiled, either through equipment that cannot capture such subtle details adequately, or through improper equalization when the sound engineer makes the working masters. At times, one can hear the vibrations of his vocal chords in the lower octaves almost as well as if Knopfler were standing about six feet in front of the listener. Background vocals sound just as background vocals should: they are placed distantly enough in the soundstage to offer the illusion of a live performance. Instrumentally, the lines of the bass player on the LP show more dynamic...
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