Bad recordings and high end audio

I received the same response from both stores which was “all Led Zeppelin recordings are horrible”

The 2014 remasters are...ok.
The Barry Diament remasters from the 90s are pretty good but sadly Barry didn’t get to do Led Zep IV.

The rest aren’t worth talking about and let’s not even get started on the infamous Mothership compilation!

Led Zep are just another one of many artists whose best sound is still to be found on vinyl, but we can always hope that things might change one day.

If you want a chuckle check out the Dynamic Range Database and you’ll find one of the highest rated Pop recordings on there to be the 1952 Fred Astaire Story!

You can’t blame digital. It’s a great format no doubt, but one that you might feel is being criminally misused if you regard sound quality as important.

https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/39630

@mikekollar,
"That is exactly right; case in point for me. Never really listened or cared much for Steely Dan. For decades,was just sort of ehh, catchy tune, whats next. But now..... holy crap, these recordings are unbelievable. love Steely Dan. Yes a great stystem will change your listening tastes. I have amongst others, a play list of female vocals and another of acoustic guitar stuff. Amazing. Would have never listened to any of it until upgraing 4 years ago"



Ok, we know Dan placed great emphasis on sound recording quality but your post, more than anything else, seems to highlight the dangers of listening to the system ahead of the music.

Here’s hoping you don’t eventually end up with a music collection akin to what’s heard at most HiFi Shows.


@tomic601,so many speakers, so few lives…ha

There’s even a term for this now. With so much choice the modern consumer is often bewildered and ultimately defeated by ’decision fatigue’ into making a poor decision. In a similar way a chess master might spend ages deciding upon a move only to end up playing an otherwise obvious blunder.

Factor in listening fatigue and you can appreciate just how hard life can become for the beleaguered 21st century audiophile as they vainly seek to disembark from the upgrade roundabout.

@arcticdeth,

"I have a box of old demo tapes I traded with several buddies from the U.K., including Shane Embry from Napalm death, whom I met through trading addresses from metal maniacs, metal edge, and hit parader magazines in the 80’s and 90’s!"


My brother also met Shane Embury back in the late 80s. Shane even signed a £10 note for him which he kept taped above his bed.

After Napalm Death folded my brother then followed Carcass for a while. Those were days when you could stand and chat afterwards with the likes of Shane Embury and Bill Steer.
I always mean to ask my brother for the name of that LP (Tankard?) he used to play back in the day.

It was one of the very best recordings I've ever heard - tons of dynamic range and great clarity throughout. 

@gumbedamit,
"Frogman: I respectfully disagree with your statement of a bad recordings sounding better on a good system vs, a bad system. Good/Great systems reveal just how poorly a a recording was created or how well. Garbage In. Garbage out. Lesser systems don’t have the resolving power, thus colorizing the noise making it sound better..."



Agreed.

The 1950s/60s systems that that those beloved Sinatra, Cole, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Beatles etc records were cut for are quite different to the playback systems used today.

Dynamics, tonality and punch seemed to matter much more back then than the obsessive pursuit of increasing amounts of resolution today.

Studio monitors were quite different back then too.

@blue-magoo,
"Led Zeppelin sounded best on my 8 track player in my car when I was 20. I recently bought a new vinyl version and it sounds terrible."



That’s unfortunate as vinyl is usually spared the bane of our times, compression.
But not always.

You might want to check out the variations between different masterings before shelling out in future to avoid disappointment.

The Steve Hoffman music forum is one, and Super Deluxe Edition is another.
https://superdeluxeedition.com/


As luck would have it the first record I bought was the Beatles Blue album in the mid 1970s.

For decades I wondered why it was that even as my system improved, that some subsequent Beatles LPs didn’t sound as good as that one did.

Then one day I stumbled upon a brilliant site where they hosted short snippets of different masterings and pressings.

Sure enough the 1970s UK Beatles 1967-70 was held up to be amongst the very best.

Sadly that site (Beatlesdrops) was taken down a few years ago, but it can still be found via the Wayback Machine / Internet Archive.

http://web.archive.org/

I believe I’m becoming cured of my audiophile tendencies.

Recently I’ve been enjoying a couple of very rough Elvis demos from the Vic Anesini remasters. It is a real shame he didn’t cut them for real, and a few years ago I would have dismissed them out of hand for the poor sonics.

Not now.

 

https://youtu.be/mtGtUR_AWI4

 

 

https://youtu.be/w2qln6O0GKk