The Bowie AU20 Rykodiscs (1 Viewer)

[Gary Harris]

I've been seeing quite a few of the AU20 Bowie discs on Ebay over the last while. Some of these used have been going for over $100US. A brand new boxed set of eight of these went for $500US using the "Buy It Now" in a matter of a couple hours last night. I can see the regular Rykodiscs going higher then the remastered versions because of the bonus tracks. But honestly...for anyone that has one or more...is there much of a difference soundwise or is this just a collecting fad?

 

[Will_B]

Unlike Mobile Fidelity Gold CDs, Ryko's "AU20"s used the exact same masters as Ryko's aluminum ones, down to the bit. So there should not be any difference. It is a prestige item, nothing more.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Unlike Mobile Fidelity Gold CDs, Ryko's "AU20"s used the exact same masters as Ryko's aluminum ones, down to the bit. So there should not be any difference. It is a prestige item, nothing more.

In the case of the Frank Zappa AU20 discs (Apostrophe and One Size Fits All), brand new 20-bit masters were made from the original master tapes and noise-shaped down to 16-bits. The engineer who worked on these new masters confirmed that they were not the same aluminum masters (which had been remastered just a year or so earlier).

However, after a couple of years, Ryko replaced the aluminum masters for these two albums with the new 'gold' masters for later aluminum pressings. They never officially announced this, and it might have been a bit 'naughty', but it was easy for folks with PCs to figure out.

I have no idea as to the story about the Bowie discs but I strongly suspect that at the time the gold discs were released that they too used new 20-bit masters.

 

[Gary Harris]

Hey Michael, cool Carpenter quote & interview. Thanks for putting that on your sig.

 

[Wilson W]

I have both the regular ryko and the AU20 (gold) version of several Bowie cds and there are sonic differences.

It may depend on the setup. But for me, the AU20 has better bass definition, and a fuller sound in general.

However, since the regular ryko version has pretty poor sound to begin with, that's not saying much.