Remastered CDs

[bumpy]

I see a lot of remastered CDs about. What are peoples impressions of these in general - a worthwhile effort or is it worth seeking out the originals?

[rigger67]

The only ones I can recommend wholeheartedly through experience are any of the Rudy Van Gelder Blue Note remasters and the various Yes ones, either on straight CD or BRCD :)

[rigger67]

Oh, and the Universal double "Deluxe" series - heard and own a few of them and they're all great quality.

For me, the definitive version of What's Going On is the original, previously unreleased Detroit mix of the album, featuring an incredible "double vocal" version of the title track by Marvin.

Why on earth they didn't release this instead of the one that actually came out is beyond me.
If you ever want to test your soundstage, this is the record to play :eek:

https://images1.bluebeat.com/album/9/6/9/2/4/300_album_42969.jpg

Here it is, in limited YouTube glory.
Listen to the second vocal kick in on the right-hand channel at about 38 seconds to get what I mean :


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve6XWG_frwk

[Sherwood]

I can fully recommend this box set from Neil Young on the basis of sq and vfm.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Official-Release-Discs-Neil-Young/dp/B0081QZJ6A

I bought three of these on cd in the 80s/90s to replace my vinyl editions along with the Decade compilation.

I know some people who dislike Neil Young saying he sounds wimpy and anaemic. Listen to these remasters and any such concerns vanish. I am guessing that the poor quality of the early cds was what put Neil Young off digital for so many years.

Geoff

[Pete The Cat]

I think the answer will always depend on the individual release.

There are several good threads on AoS about the effects of the "loudness wars" and dynamic compression and links to the following database as a guide http://dr.loudness-war.info/

Overall given the degree to which the misuse of digital technology has led to the above I generally feel that CDs released before the mid 90s are better than those released since. But there are honourable exceptions eg the David Bowie "Hunky Dory" 2015 remaster is a delight.

Pete

[DSJR]

SOME remasters have been done with the genuine intention to find the best possible original tapes (if analogue) as close to the mix-tapes as possible, if not the actual second generation mix-down masters for each track. The noughties King Crimson releases being a case in point, where by this time, Robert Fripp seemed happy with 'digital' as an archiving principle and made damned sure the remastering was of the very highest standards and totally true to the original sources.

Other artists can go one step further and remix their old output in stereo or surround. King Crimson have done this as well as Genesis with led Zeppelin offering an alternate raw mix or two - it seems the copious distortion on LZ-2 is processing or enhancement at the original album mastering stage (when the tracks were compiled together for the record company tapes).

It seems that record companies are horrible entities. The artists sell them their musical souls and once the recorded music is handed over, any old shit can happen to it and not always in the music's best interests. Thing is, loudness war compression never translates to MP3 very well, so why it was done for so long beats me... If the source material is dynamically clean, MP3 can sound impressive to me, but as there's less digital info to play with in the decoding, distortion seems to be magnified I found if it's there to start with.

[struth]

Overly compressed music is ghastly, but get it right and its the dogs danglies. My full range speakers can spot an over compreesed disc quickly

[Pete The Cat]

Overly compressed music is ghastly, but get it right and its the dogs danglies. My full range speakers can spot an over compreesed disc quickly

Yes, the irony is that the lower fi your rig is, the less noticeable the problem.

From what I can tell the better ones usually have something in common, eg Steven Wilson has been involved or MFSL releases.

Pete

[Macca]

I always go for an older issue cd where possible. The difference in the amount of compression is quite alarming sometimes. I've a few re-masters that are decent. Sony SBM re-masters tend to be okay.