Digital Remastering: Last 5 years.....

In the classical world, it's still spotty. I did some comparisons between Lps and their corresponding CDs about 6-8 months ago (all analog material, obviously digitally remastered in the case of the CDs) and a few of the CDs sounded impressively close, but some others really didn't. One of the newer Phillips remasterings was very good. One of the newer EMIs I recall was disappointing.

I have heard some remastered cds that were greatly improved over their earlier versions and sounded great to me. The recent Emmylou Harris box set is an example. Some of the tunes were recorded in the 70s and they were able to get really nice sound off the tapes. Emmylou always put quality above quantity though.

I think that digital players and cds have been improving steadily and will continue to do so for some time to come.

Certainly true. Lately I've compared several high-quality recent vinyl releases to the RBCD version, and find CD is very close.

I have had positive experiences with many recently remastered CDs in general. In general, I would chose remastered over older versions when buying new. For CDs I already own, it's case by case whether what I own cuts it or not and whether or not to try a newer re-mastered version.

My top priority now has become to purchase older recorded CD's first in HDCD then if that's not available, digitally remastered to 24 bit. I just today bought Grateful Dead's "Wake of the Flood" to replace my original CD which if any of you know about this album, the sound of both the LP and original CD was so thin and lacked any bass. Horrible!! Now there's some real depth, vastly improved sound stage, bass, and detail. Specific artists such as Joni Mitchell, the Dead, The Beach Boys, etc have made a commitment to have their original music remastered in HDCD. I only wish more and more artists would agree to this. I'm now starting to replace my standard CD's with HDCD's and donate the older ones to our local library. I also just purchased "Miles of Aisles" by Joni Mitchell today in HDCD which will replace my original CD set. That's off to the library tomorrow as well.

I've listened to the same LP copy of Wake of Flood for many years through a succession of TTs and phono stages. For reasons that elude me, my opinion of the sonics of this LP have varied widely through the various analog front ends. But as my equipment has evolved, the LP keeps sounding better & better, without any thinness or shyness in bass. Far from "horrible", I think it has high quality sonics-- and is of course an excellent Dead album artistically. The album seems to be less forgiving of systems limitations than many LPs, and therefore makes a pretty good test record with which to judge a system. That said, I agree with you that recent Dead CD remasters sound great-- particularly enjoy Fillmore West 1969.