Quote Originally Posted by Macca View Post
Early 1980s CDs usually best bet for being close to an early master. The tended to push the boat out in those days. But there's no real way to tell other than listening.

They do have the advantage that they are not remastered with a ton of limiting/compression so the dynamic range of the original tape is preserved.

People will cotton on to this eventually I think and prices will go though the roof as it's the closest you'll get to owning exactly what they laid down in the studio
Only problem using a digital copy or mastering from Tape to digital will the EQ used and any other variations the engineers mastering at the time think needs to be done in the transfer?