I am having exactly the same feeling, its weird, since I always see their songs used as a reference in headphone reviews and testing. I've listened to their songs through different headphones, and it does seem to lack the impact and clarity.

They sound a little compressed on record, live their sound is massive!

It's not just you. Their mastering is well known as complete, utter, total indignant waste.

 

I consider BH@R especially one of the great injustices. Who wouldn't want to hear the epic Knights of Cydonia with at least decent range and dynamics?

When Black Holes came out I downloaded it to test it out & thought I'd got a badly ripped copy so I downloaded a FLAC copy but it wasn't any better. Then I went out & bought the album & I was shocked that it still sounded so bad.

^ Yeah amazingly bad. It still irks me 'cause I really enjoyed the album. BTW, we forgot the obligatory HAARP doesn't sound half bad, if live albums qualify. 

Loudness.  I remember reading that from a member on here.  Their albums are very loud so they sometimes lack the bass impact of quieter albums.

 

Such a shame.  I'm not a huge fan of theirs though TBH.

There vinyl has pretty good dynamic range, but there cds are pretty poor. Average dynanic range of 5-7. If you want to see where you can find the dr of a album , you can look at this site. http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?sort=id&order=desc&page=1

 

 

DR Scale

bad								transition							good
1	2	3	4	5	6	7		8	9	10	11	12	13		14	15	16	17	18	19	20

Artist	Album	Year	DR Album	DR Track min	DR Track max	Source
Muse	The Resistance (Vinyl)	2009	11	10	13	lossless
Muse	Black Holes And Revelations (Vinyl)	2009	10	9	11	lossless
Muse	Absolution (Vinyl)	2003	9	7	12	lossless
Muse	Origin Of Symmetry (Vinyl)	2001	10	9	10	lossless
Muse	The Resistance	2009	6	5	7	lossless
Muse	Black Holes and Revelations	2006	5	4	6	lossless
Muse	Absolution	2003	7	5	12	lossless
Muse	Hullabaloo CD2	2002	7	6	9	lossless
Muse	Hullabaloo CD1	2002	7	6	8	lossless
Muse	Origin of Symmetry	2001	7	6	8	lossless
Muse	Showbiz	1999	7	6	8	lossless

<< · >>

Edited by KingStyles - 3/18/11 at 11:26pm

Now that I think about it, I haven't really listened to any of my Muse albums after attending their concert when they passed through the area on their Resistance tour at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, CA.  I had a great time during the concert, and they sounded really good despite the setting (especially compared to the terrible audio engineering for Silversun Pickups, who had opened for them). 

 

The Resistance was a bit of an improvement over the previous two albums though. 

Edited by daigo - 3/19/11 at 10:28am

Hey, Same thing here...I really do love Muse but their recordings are awful compared to their songs...

 

By the way, I found an interesting version of the Resistance album. They call it an audiophile version of it. 

Here is the link: http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B002JP9WN0/ref=s9_simh_gw_p15_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=1CZBEAQ250YSQWKKG0P5&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463375193&pf_rd_i=301128

 

Unfortunately it is all in german, (amazon.de) but I really can't find a hint if it is a remastered edition or juste a new, too expensive edition to catch the fans...

 

Abe

 

According to soundstagedirect.com (http://www.soundstagedirect.com/muse-the-resistance-box-set-vinyl-lp.shtml) The box set contains:

CD/DVD (DVD is NTSC is 0 for ALL regions)
180g Double heavyweight vinyl
USB stick: black rubber USB stick with Muse logo in white.
USB contains album as WAVs, high bit-rate MP3s and Apple loss-less files, housed in a custom player.
Limited edition 12" art print
DVD with 5.1 surround sound

For $60, it sounds like a decent deal.

Far too much for that album though TBH.  I was a little disappointed by it.  The only songs I'm still impressed with are resistance and undisclosed desires.  The rest was good don't get me wrong, I just wasn't overly impressed.  I haven't read into the lyrics but it felt very political which IMO can ruin good music (even if I agree with them though I'm not saying I do).

 

The last three tracks looked like they had potential to be an awesome epic but they were over before I knew it and it didn't even feel like it ever got going.  I'd have to say that was the most disappointing part for me.

 

/my mini review

Bump!

Does anyone know if it's possible to buy rips of the vinyls online or anywhere else?

BHAR sounds pretty awful to me anyway. The Resistance was an improvement, but to me it sounded too polished, and the albums was crap as well.