Led Zepplin Mothership vs. hi-res vs. newest

I respect and am astounded by Whart's knowledge of the Zeppelin catalog. There are other threads regarding this topic and I agree that Mothership was probably a lower rez digital master.

I have the remasters of LZ I, II, III on vinyl and am very pleased with the results. But you can't take circa 1970 recordings and turn them into audiophile quality. I appreciate the fact that the remasters are mixed similarly to the original recordings; by that I mean less compression was used than most digital remasters these days. There is depth to the recording, "air" around the instruments and plenty of bass slam from Bonham's drums. Some of the flaws of the original tapes were left in the remix which is better than overprocessing to remove them.

In comparison, the Mothership record is a more technical achievement. There is no tape hiss and Plant's voice is cleaner, but to my ears it sounds digital and is a less enjoyable listen than the new remasters.

Whart, that's useful info. Part of my interest in this hobby is keeping a log of engineers and producers for rock bands 1960s thru 80s. Never felt the need to keep track of the mastering engineer, but nowadays the digital mastering is what determines the sound of the release. (even though it may be very different than the final mix).

I know I know, I need to get a life.

Geoffkait, point well taken. But what I find unacceptable is the remastering of CDs that have already been compressed. Unless it is indicated that the original sources are being used, either analogue or digital, record labels are remastering on the cheap by using an existing digital master as the source.

Their sole purpose is to make the audio levels of each instrument more even, resulting in a louder recording with little dynamic range.
IMO, these digital masters didn't even need to be remastered, and only the Ipod users welcome it.

From what I've read on ofher forums, Mothership was remastered from existing files that were already compressed, thus the poor dynamic range that's very noticeable in the lack of bass slam. LZ was a band well known for their heavy rhythm section which Mothership lacks.

In the LZ 1, 2, 3 remasters, the heavy compression doesn't exist. There is air around each musician.