On Wed, 7 Oct 2009 13:11:15 -0700,
(E-Mail Removed) wrote
(in article <(E-Mail Removed)>):
> UC wrote:
>> On Oct 6, 11:23 pm, Steven Sullivan <ssu...@panix.com> wrote:
>>> UC <uraniumcommit...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> Almost without exception, the "remastered" CDs I have bought sounded
>>>> WORSE than the original releases. I just got the new Sgt. Peppers and
>>>> it's HORRID!
>>>> Shrill, lacking bass...just terrible!
>>>> Seems like RIAA EQ was not applied to master tape EQ'd for LP.
>>> They didn't use master tapes EQ'd for LP. Nor would one need to apply
>>> the RIAA EQ if they did. RIAA EQ is applied automatically during cutting
>>> and 'reversed' during playback of LP. A master tape 'EQ'd for LP' -- a
>>> 'production master' -- does not refer to the RIAA EQ, it refers to any
>>> mastering moves applied manually, not automatically, at the cutting stage
>>> by the cutting/mastering engineer after the original master tape has been
>>> made,
>>> to accomodate various limitations of LP. RIAA EQ is applied automatically
>>> 'on top of' that.
>>>
>>> --
>>> -S
>>> We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine
>>
>> Then how do you explain the near-universal overly bright bass-shy
>> remasters?
>
> "Near-universal" is a *vast* overstatement IME. With a few exceptions,
> all of the remasters I've purchased have had significantly better
> dynamics than the originals (mostly all early '90s vintage), and if
> anything were less bright and forward sounding. I probably only have
> about 50 or so remasters (for which I have the original CD release) so
> that's not a huge sample size, but clearly if the problem was endemic,
> as you claim, I would have to have found many more than I have.
>
> Most of the recordings that I've replaced were apparently not optimized
> for CD originally (like most in the early 90's IME) in the rush to
> release them to market, with some even being clearly inferior to my LP
> copies at the time. All of the remastered CD's I've purchased, however,
> are significantly better (IMO of course) to their LP counterparts.
>
> Keith Hughes
I don't "do" so-called "popular" music, and cannot speak to CD reissues of
Beatles, Stones, etc., but much of my CD/SACD collection and not a few of my
LP collection are remastered reissues of material from the 1950's and 1960's.
This is because I'd rather have an older recording by a great conductor, than
the mediocre performance and perhaps "up-to-date sound" of a newer recording
with today's conductors, most of whom (IMHO) simply wouldn't make a pimple on
the arses of the likes of Bruno Walter, Fritz Reiner, Adrian Bolt, Eugene
Ormandy, etc.
What I have found is that most classical reissues sound much better than the
originals. I have a bunch of JVC "XRCD" remasters of RCA Red Seals recorded
in the mid-fifties to the mid sixties and I am astounded by how good they
sound. In many cases they sound much better than the original LPs (not to
mention that they sound much better than many recent recordings of the same
works made with the latest recording technologies). Same is true of many of
BMG's SACD reissues of these Red Seal titles. I also have many JVC XRCDs of
jazz titles by the likes of Coleman Hawkins, Bill Evans, Miles Davis, etc.,
most recorded by the legendary Rudy Van Gelder. These titles sound better
than the original records too. I also have some 180 and 200 gram vinyl
reissues of some of these jazz artists on Impulse, and these sound much
better than the originals. (I also have a couple of single sided, 200 gram,
45-rpm remasters of both RCA Red Seals and Mercury Living Presence recordings
that sound so much better than either the original vinyl pressings OR the CD
remasters that it is almost difficult to believe that they came from the same
master tapes of the same performances!).
So, maybe it's SOP for pop stuff to get ruined by the remastering process but
in the classical, film score and jazz reissue world, this is definitely NOT
generally the case.
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