LP sounds unbelievable. Gauze is one of my favorite deg albums, and hearing it now on vinyl is wild.
Any overall impression of what’s different about this master?
yeah the vinyl is fire it sounds like GAUZE
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To me, it sounds like the instruments have room to breathe which brings out more of the nuance missed on the CD.
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He’s done it again.
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Mine hasn’t even shipped yet and y’all already have yours 
Would you mind sharing some pics comparing both gatefolds? Also, would be curious to hear your thoughts on the sound quality for both!
I have no clue about the sound quality, my equipment and my ears are both not good enough to make any comparison. And I don’t have a rip of the 2024 version either.
Here’s some pics.
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Still making my way through some of these songs, so I may come back and update later.
GAUZE+ still sounds fantastic. Many of the original mastering decisions are unchanged, but the sound stage is improved compared to what I’ve been listening to for all these years. The rhythm section gets the biggest uplift here - the definition of both is stellar! I’m hearing percussion I haven’t heard before and the low-end is punchy and defined without becoming boomy. This is what drums are supposed to sound like!
Shame about what happened with Cage, even if it’s quite minor. I need to double check my copy and see if some or all copies were affected.
I’m going to quote myself from a relevant thread here, because even if I didn’t mention tape the phenomenon is still relevant.
This is why we need MACABRE and Kisou on wax pronto!
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TIW LP with a foil block sleeve please I beg you
So, I must make a decision now. In order to differentiate the two versions of Gauze in my music collection, do I replace the original Gauze artwork with Running Shakira and use Cold Shakira for LP? Or the other way around and I can pretend I’m listening to the 1999 pressing.
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Thank you! I’m surprised they kept the inner part of the gatefold largely the same.
I call this new one GAUZE+
GAU2E
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It’s on my copy too.
I took some more detailed photos of the set for anyone interested
I also have some thoughts on this LP version of Gauze. First, the positives. This LP set is just as good as the Phalaris release from a packaging perspective. Same kind of thick paper with a matte finish, tip on gatefold, and heavy weight LPs. The audio (for the most part) also sounds fantastic. Clean sound, loud bass, and improved dynamic range.
Photos seem somewhat upscaled and cleaned up though. There’s a circular textured look on all the images. It’s especially blown up on the booklet and, honestly, looks so bad. I have CD version to compare and the photos in the booklet are definitely much cleaner and don’t have that texture.
The lyrics on the inside are also printed very small. I guess it’s nice they added the poems and images from the CD booklet, but you gotta put your face up to it to read it. For the price, this should have been a full booklet.
My copy as well has something weird going on at the end of Cage. It’s like the last 20 seconds where the audio just gets worse? I’ve never heard anything like this before.
Here’s a vid comparing the beginning of the song vs the end where the defect happens. You can hear a crackle and then the audio gets muddier:
Which begs the question why is it so much more expensive? Subpar photo quality and a widespread issue on audio quality for one track?
Some minor issues aside, the audio having problems is inexcusable. This can’t be a pressing error either as it’s consistently in the same spot for many people. It could be that the audio source was somehow bad and they went ahead and used it anyways. But seeing as the rest of the song is fine, I’d wager it’s a cutting related issue. In which case someone in charge of listening to the test presses should have caught that so they recut it.
I’m very critical of this because they charged so much and, honestly, underdelivered. The two options fans have are 1) Paying nearly a grand for a promo copy with who knows what kind of audio quality IF it’s even up for sale, or 2) Paying for a new copy with an audio defect baked right into it. If the band/label is doing more of these reissues, the excitement is now low for me seeing how they executed Gauze.
I know I’ve been quite critical of a lot of Dir en Grey adjacent topics, but at the heart of it is just a disappointed fan. Their classic catalog especially is still very important to me and it just sucks to see that there’s a lack of attention to detail.
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Hmm, from what I can hear, that audio stuff isn’t present on the 1999 version of the LP.
I feel like they knew about the corrupted mastering sources when planning this which also explains why all 3 covers on the 1999-dont-remember-other-digits from earlier in the year sound like they’re matching the sound of that era, better sound tech from today aside, and Kyo does his most youthful impression of himself instead of what goes on regular deg releases.
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I already trashed on this release enough, but someone pointed this out elsewhere. It’s on the back cover of the gatefold. Hooooooly hell this level of bad on the photoshop job is laughable. Ya’ll see that nasty clone tool streak near the bottom yah?
It’s where the copyright text was on the back of the CD release.
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i’m extremely out of my depth & speaking out of my ass when it comes to vinyl mastering, but i recall some degree of hearing something about: the closer you get inwards to the center of the physical disc; the more minutes you’ve gone into one side, the harder it gets to accurately represent wider freqs, eg bass.
So mastering engineers would be facing a bit of a paradigm where the further into the timeline of one LP’s side you get, the less room for low frequencies you have to work with, otherwise the needle will knock into bits of earlier audio.
I’ve heard it explained that vinyls sound better not necessarily bc the medium is any better (in fact it’s quite worse) but bc only the best of the best engineers would be working with it, bc of all the compensating to real-world analog physical difficulties like these.
also - i know this album like the back of my hand i’ve listened to it so much - this master seems to have the high end of Toshiya’s bass crazy boosted compared to what i’m familiar with. Wouldn’t surprise me if clarity of bass guitar was a priority for the mix/master engineers here, and intentionally or otherwise, track quality took a hit near the end of this track to make that possible.
(i can’t stand this personally & will be forever satisfied w/ my 1999 master tyvm - but it’s still interesting to hear other engineers’ takes!)
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