Ears, you must be as old as I am [:(] and I never realized then that it would end. Great albums came from everywhere, didn't they? I am beginning to wonder if all that dope they smoked really didn't get the creative juices flowing? I sure doesn't seem the same since they started smokin crack or ecstasy or whatever. What do you think of the comparison to the remastered early ZZ Top vs. the way we heard it on album and 8 track? The remaster is supposed to be closer to the way they wanted it to sound, but to me it makes Beard sound like he is using a drum machine like the later cds. Tap away, brother. Charlie |
Ears: The choice is easy to make, just put the CD in the player. I only concern myself with the quality of the recording when I am testing gear, otherwise I may complain a little about the sound, but enjoy the music itself all the same. I will admit that I went through a period of selecting better recordings to listen to, but found myself missing Boney M, Mitch Rider as well as many others and got over it very quickly. If it sounds really bad I just turn
the volume down a bit. DanVet gave me some cream of the crop "Audiophile Cuts" via his burner and they are very nice though. |
Now that i've "wandered" through that post : ) i tend to agree with all that you've noted. Most of the newer recordings have NO warmth, body or rhythm even though the "basics" are there. I find myself "toe tapping" very little nowadays and it's not that i don't have a good "musical" system or that i buy only "audiophile" type recordings. I buy whatever i like, regardless of what anybody else thinks. I think that the "soul-less" digital recordings of today have GREATLY deprived of us of some of the truly excellent music that is being made. This is PROBABLY why there has been such a resurgence in "old school" technology like tubes and vinyl. Both are ripe with warmth, body, character and pace when properly executed. Besides the music simply feeling more intimate and "close", it's also probably closer to what we remember it sounding like in our "yout". Sean
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Danvetc,You have to understand that when i first owned Tres Hombres,zz's masterpiece if there is such a thing,my gear was by todays standards,worse than a aiwa shelf stereo,that being said as far as zz top, there first six alblums on cd are done best on the "six pack" collection.This is not as good as the vinyl version ,but what is.The other remastered cd's iv'e picked up recently and have improved sound over there original cd releases are the above mentioned Styx Greatest Hits and Foreigner Anthology.I played Sabbaths first self titled release for a few twenty somtehing year olds who are ozzy fans and asked them what year they thought it was released.There Answer was early 80,s so maybe some of the old music was before it,s time after all.You should have seen the look on there face when i informed them it was from 1969.Of course being nine years old at the time i did not discover this record till five years after the release.The only recordings iv'e heard so far that are as good as vinyl are on sacd,those being SRV Couldn't Stand The Weather, Jeff Beck Blow By Blow and Dylans Blond On Blond.Well got to go my kid just informed me that i am missing the only show on cable tv worth watching.The Simpsons."DOH" |
Ears, I had the same kind of equipment. Anything I had, I bought with my own meager salary. In 1977 I bought a JVC amp and turntable (bottom of the line I'm sure) and some Infinity Qb's with the EMIT tweeters as the shop had a payment plan! I actually used the shipping boxes as speaker stands for a while. (You see I wanted to decouple them from the floor. [:)] )I could barely afford buying an albumn every other week 'cause they didn't pay much to shovel horse shit in Kentucky. (Plus I had a payday tradition of 2 cases of Budweiser and a bottle of Monte Alban mezcal.) I do remember a friend having Tres Hombres in quadraphonic 8 track format. The rythym rocked back to front, and was very cool at the time. You could also switch to a mode where each instrument was on a speaker which allowed you to try to learn the licks readying for your garage band's debut. Styx had a "gold" version of Crystal Ball that we all thought sounded better, the "see through" vinyl looked very cool as well. It seemed the more we tried to be careful with that albumn the more we messed up. Yes, we were messed up come to think of it, (you know where everyone looks around and votes who is most likely to not to blow it and then you are put to the test to drop that needle right in between tracks to the requested replay.) Performance based anxiety! I have the ZZ Top 6 pack and the mix is the most radically different from the albumns of any remaster I have heard. Oh, and I remember being about 10 years old singing "Iron Man." (Born in '60) My 8 yo son sings NSyNC. Where did I go wrong? Charlie |
Ears:
I just bought a Sony jukebox (400 cd's) so I could reexperience a bunch of my old CD's. It sounds like sh*t, but I am finding much enjoyment from all the old stuff. It is like listening to your own radio station -- everything that gets played has some connection/memory! Now I just need to get a used MSB DAC to tame the sound. Note to the Sensible Sound -- all CD players do NOT sound alike!
Mike |
Dantvet c,i also have an 8 yo son,but he says he likes kid rock and rock n roll,but this is partly due to anoying his 14 year old sister that is into the usual teen buble gum crap.If you think zz's remastered single discs are a lot better than six pack,which kind of sounds like it was recorded in a chamber,i am all ears |
I will be forever stuck in the sixties and seventies playing Blonde on Blonde, In Search of the Lost Chord, Year of the Cat, and Seargeant Pepper to name just a few. Sadly the re-ssued CD's don't sound as good as I remember but then neither does the vinyl! Although in some cases the CD's sound so much worse than the vinyl, you know the record company was looking for speed of transferance rather than quality, at which point burning at the stake would be too good for the irreponsible recording engineer. Recording appears to be more art than science what with the variation in sound quality coming out of CD's both new and re-issued. Keep those toes tapping! |
Ears, I meant to say that all the cd versions of 70's ZZ Top are radically different in sound mix from the vinyl we bought in those days. The producer, Bill Ham, I believe, says the remix is closer to the sound they wanted at the time. With all due respect, I liked the old sound. Probably all nostalgia. I'm a Melancholy Man, that's what I am......... |
The older vinyl ZZ's were MUCH better, before someone started messing around with the mix! They added false ambience & totally wrecked some amazing material IMO. |
It IS about the music not the gear. In fact I make a point of not bringing "audiophile" recordings to audition gear. My reasoning is this: most gear worth auditioning will probably not make a great recording sound bad; in other words, a great SOUNDING recording will probably still sound at least OK on most decent gear. However, I find it is much more difficult for some gear, even the most expensive, to reveal some of the musical subtleties that are present in recordings of great PERFORMANCES; regardless of the quality of the recording. The gear that can do this will be satisfying in the long haul. |
