(Rock, Folk-rock, Country-rock) The Band - The Band - 1969, Audio Fidelity 24K Gold 2009,WAVPack (image+.cue), lossless

Released in 1969, this famous classic is popularly known as the “Brown Album”. This historic album put The Band in the mainstream consciousness and remains a timeless classic. The Band was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and this is the album that put them there. Their influence on the music scene started as the backup band for Bob Dylan on his 1965-66 world tour and when they started recording on their own with a contract from Capitol Records, this, their second album, was the top of their creative spark. The album features, “Up On Cripple Creek”, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, “King Harvest”, “Rag Mama Rag” and many more including the Bonus Track, "Get Up Jake". Mastered for Audio Fidelity 24 Karat Gold from the analog Capitol master mixes by Steve Hoffman.
One of my favorite albums and one of The Band's best, their self titled second album sounds terrific in this remaster. The sound stage, dynamics and detail that are often missing from "modern" remasters are all here. Audio Fidelity has done a nice job with this reissue and Steve Hoffman's remaster nicely captures the warmth of the original recording and Hoffman uses the original master tape for the first time since the original pressing of the album (let's just say that one band member has had it all this time and wouldn't give it up).
The big difference between this and the previous reissue aside from the master being used for the first time in years is that this has only the original 12 tracks for the album plus "Get Up Jake" an outtake from the sessions that should have been on the original album. The outtakes that were on the reissue of the album aren't here but that's a small issue for me as this album has never sounded this good on compact disc before.

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 3 from 28. July 2007
EAC extraction logfile from 14. April 2009, 16:27
The Band / The Band (AF Gold)
Used drive : _NEC DVD_RW ND-3500AG Adapter: 0 ID: 2
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface
Used output format : Internal WAV Routines
Sample format : 44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
---------------------------------------------------------
1 | 0:00.00 | 2:53.39 | 0 | 13013
2 | 2:53.39 | 3:04.45 | 13014 | 26858
3 | 5:58.09 | 3:33.10 | 26859 | 42843
4 | 9:31.19 | 3:13.04 | 42844 | 57322
5 | 12:44.23 | 4:33.70 | 57323 | 77867
6 | 17:18.18 | 4:06.18 | 77868 | 96335
7 | 21:24.36 | 3:31.22 | 96336 | 112182
8 | 24:55.58 | 3:42.06 | 112183 | 128838
9 | 28:37.64 | 3:09.41 | 128839 | 143054
10 | 31:47.30 | 4:20.20 | 143055 | 162574
11 | 36:07.50 | 4:16.66 | 162575 | 181840
12 | 40:24.41 | 3:46.44 | 181841 | 198834
13 | 44:11.10 | 2:16.71 | 198835 | 209105
Range status and errors
Selected range
Filename M:\KillerRips\The Band\The Band - The Band (AF Gold).wav
Peak level 100.0 %
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 4817A3DC
Copy CRC 4817A3DC
Copy OK
No errors occurred
End of status report