[salannelson]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DC2 /img/forum/go_quote.gif In fact, George Michael's 'Faith' and Bryan Adams' 'Cuts Like A Knife' are included in the article 'The Death of Dynamic Range' The Death Of Dynamic Range I found this reading material helpful in my search for used 80s cds. On the other hand, one of my favorites; Heart's selftitled 1985 release is supposed to suffer from a lack of bass. So they're not all winners. As far as I know, none of these three cds I mentioned^ have been remastered, louder or otherwise.

ah this article made me feel slightly ill.
it's also the reason why i've been buying almost exclusively vinyl. cd's these days are not only loud, they're mastered terribly. (with a few exceptions, notably jazz)

 

[evanft]

There are some really great sounding CD's from that era. Some are better than most modern ones.

 

[Redo]

Some of the early CD releases by Grateful Dead sound excellent. Workingman's Dead (1990) and American Beauty (1990 import) are fantastic examples, especially Workingman's Dead. Those guys could had some fantastic studio cuts in the 70's that were transferred beautifully to CD.

 

[sgrossklass]

I spotted an "AM+ (Audio Master Plus Series)" logo on Suzanne Vega's debut and decided to investigate that further.

Here's some of what I found:
IMWAN • View topic - Early A&M CDs, Audio Master Plus Series
Styx - Paradise Theater and The Grand Illusion
Seems like Bryan Adams also belongs here.
Apparently this was not limited to CDs - a two-part sampler was released earlier.
http://www.amcorner.com/cti/

 

[soundboy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgrossklass /img/forum/go_quote.gif I spotted an "AM+ (Audio Master Plus Series)" logo on Suzanne Vega's debut and decided to investigate that further.

 

[jbergan]

Grab some late 80's pressings of The Cure then compare them to new remasters and be amazed how much better they used to sound.

I also love the sound of most of the songs on Pretty Hate machine from NIN, its amazing how Trent's standards have fallen from then to now.

 

[sgrossklass]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Signal2Noise /img/forum/go_quote.gif Best sounding late eighties CD, imo: Enya ~ Watermark If you didn't jump on the CD bandwagon back then, this CD would make anyone a convert.

Just got it in - album gain +2.99 dB, peak -2.91 dB (you don't see that kind of dynamic range all day), and obviously the sound quality is fabulous.

 

[paulb09]

Probably my only late 80's reference on CD is Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine. Yes you all know I like NIN, but fan-boy stuff aside, it's not actually that bad a master. Yeah, a bunch of peaks on some songs manage to hit the line and appear to clip a little, but for the most part it's relatively dynamic for loud music (if that makes much sense at all). And for all the "odd" balance and echo effects that some NIN fans dislike compared to their 90's onwards albums, it's perhaps the most vibrant sounding NIN album if you ask me, and I quite enjoy it as such.

 

[sgrossklass]

Incidentally, I also picked up Enya's next album, Shepherd Moons from '91, and wasn't nearly as thrilled. It's produced much more to the front, without the depth that invited putting on cans, cranking up the volume and floating away with Watermark. A bit of a harmless easy listening version for speaker-damaged folks.

Supertramp's Crime of the Century quite expectedly proved to be very nice in terms of audio (it's an A&M release), as far as a '74 recording goes. Album gain -0.42 dB, peak -0.5 dB. This needed a remaster about as much as a hole in the head.

Another A&M disc, Bryan Adams' Reckless, makes a good sonic balance checker. IMO it is spot on as long as you play it loud enough - this is the right kind of album for some serious air guitar work.

It easily gets tipped towards slightly thin though, so maybe I wouldn't listen to it with a K701 or somesuch (HD580 is OK). Album gain -2.82 dB, peak 0 dBFS.

Oh, when I mentioned Peter Gabriel earlier, this is one case where the remasters do seem to sound better. At least those of album number 3 and 4 sound great (minus some peak clipping which pretty much is not bothering, it could have been like 3 dB quieter still), while the original issue of So is on the slightly thin side of things.