Do remastered albums tend to be significantly better? - Page 10

Wow, we have very different ears--I find NAD amps to be very warm.

To my ears there is virtually no difference between the Crooked Rain remaster and the original, it almost sounds like the exact same thing but with the bonus tracks.

The NAD amp I had was a 5-channel 125 watt per chanel job that retailed around $1300 as I recall. I guess you could call it warm, but so warm as to be utterly washed out, bleached out and blurry and as Wodgy says, incredibly thin-sounding. I just hated it.

Yeah, I love Paul Simon. His records always sound great and the music is just so good. Graceland is a wonderful album, and very nice on LP. The original is a DMM and doesn't sound bad at all, but it isn't really one of the best either. I did later pick up a UK pressing that wasn't a DMM and found that it did sound better, at least to me. Much less of the digital type sound that seems to be a part of most of the DMM pressings I have. I'm not sure if there are digital stages in the process or even if this recording is digital (for some reason the album sleeve labels it as DMM Direct Digital Mastering and the UK pressing shares the same artwork) but I would recommend this UK pressing (UK: WX 52 925 447-1) if you come across it for the right price. But by all means pick up a copy - you can find many in near mint shape for less than the price of a hamburger. For a real treat, if you don't already have a copy, search out a first issue copy of the Bookends LP. That was nearing the end of the golden age of recording, when they still had relatively simple tube mixing consoles, and some wonderful sounding analog tape recorders. Yummy sound! Paul's lyrics were still a bit naive at times, but he was getting there and it's hard to fault for any other reason. They've all come to look for America ...

Speaking of Simon, here's part of a post I made about the most recent Andrew Bird album (which I love, btw) in which I made reference to Paul Simon. Probably my favorite album of the year (even though it is kind of highly compressed ) ...

Haven't been as interested in the lyrics of an album for a long time. Every song intrigues me. It seems almost a concept album. Apocalyptic tales about monsters and judgement and rebirth (and even some pony rides and dancing bears along the way). Listening brings back memories of younger days highlighted by brilliant music from the likes of Paul Simon and David Byrne and many others. http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=rock&n=53220

LOL, this thread has gotten nowhere.... I'm not sure that any three people have agreed on any one issue, except the overall 'it depends'. Have you A/B'd them? I wouldn't have said anything had I not, as I tend to not trust myself otherwise, but I definitely detected a difference.

Fridmann is always a divisive issue... he's also probably my favourite producer. However, regardless of what anyone thinks of his work, I think it's extremely important to differentiate between compression done to a whole recording to get the 'modern sound' or whatever, and stuff like Fridmann does which is for effect. He puts that overdriven sound on individual instruments often, while leaving other stuff clean, it's used like any other effect. He may compress in the conventional way as well, I don't know, but the really obvious stuff is totally intentional. Mercury Rev really went to hell in a handbasket with the last couple of albums, formerly being a great band.

Thanks for the Simon and Andrew Bird recos, I'll be checking both out before too long.

Born To Run Remaster

I just got the Springsteen remaster in the mail. Listening to it now, there's definitely more detail, a bit darker of a presentation. If I a/b it to the original, it is definitely a bit louder. I hope that doesn't mean it is compressed as has been discussed in this forum. So far it sounds really good, though. Can't wait to watch the dvd's that come with it!!!

Noticing a particularly obvious difference listening to Jungleland. I have old and new queued up in Foobar, so I can just go back and forth between the two very easily. The beginning of that song is a beautiful piano/violin(?) intro, and when listening to just the first few notes of each, the remaster is just so much better. I also notice that there is more hiss evident in the remaster than in the original - hopefully this means that the original had a bunch of noise reduction crap that they removed for the remaster.

This sounds really good folks.....

While I generally love Bob Ludwig's work, he has lately been using more and more compression, and it appears he's done so on Born to Run. I've borrowed a wave-form from SH forums. The first two are from a previous edition, which is fairly full-range. The second two are from the remaster, and you'll see, it's got the typical "buzz cut" of most modern CDs:



But I will definitely be buying this remaster, and I expect it will still sound good, like all of Ludwig's work. I think his stuff is evidence that average loudness is just one of several factors that will determine how a particular remaster sounds, not the one and only factor as some more hard-core Hoffmanites feel. Still, one would like to see a less sliced off, maximized wave form regardless...

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The horns in Freezeout. CLARENCE!!!!! Wow......

I love this.