Originally Posted by
Macca
Depends on what we are taking about, the final mix is a master but then after that you have a recording master with compression eq and then you make generations of masters off that and send them round the world to pressing plants, or to distributors who make more copies of that master and so on.
So you may not have the original final mix, or the pre or post compression master, you may have to use the 4th or 5th gen master if that is all there is available. Obviously in analogue all that copying results in degredation. So the source of your digital version could be significantly poorer than the source of your vinyl version. I mean people don't go after 1st pressings for no reason.
As to what they do with it can vary from next to nothing, to cleaning it up a bit, to whacking the compressor right up and getting shot of all the nasty dynamic range. Although can't see why they would do that with a 'hi rez' remaster so I doubt that is the problem, although you never know.
It is unlikely that went back to the original tracks and re-mixed it but I think they did do that with the 'Stones remasters so could be so. I agree that starts to become revisionism and a bit dodgy.