Why do I keep torturing myself with remasters?

I have highest success rate with Japanese vinyl. I bought it in the 80's because regular vinyl sounded terrible and I am buying only Japanese again for that vintage sound (less compression than on remastered digital) and to catch rare stuff. Japanese quality is consistently the best for vinyl, IMHO.

I agree that the vinyl itself on Japanese pressings is usually far better than records made in most other countries. Quiet, typically well made. (That old JVC compound used by the 'old' MoFi was one of the best!)  I'm not as sanguine about the sonics though- I think you have to compare pressing to pressing. I'm willing to put up with a slightly less quiet surface (not ticks, pops or groove chew, but a little more life in some of the old UK, US or German or Italian pressings along with a higher noise floor). Some of the Japanese pressings are outstanding though, on both fronts (good vinyl quality and good sonics). I got turned on to a 3d press of LZ1 from Japan- not a great recording to begin with, and it is now one of my favorites, along with the US Monarch Piros remaster done in 1974. This, based on a comparison of US and UK firsts, including both Presswell and Monarch, Classic 33 and 45, among many others. Someone here (can't remember if this thread or another) mentioned a particular Japanese pressing of Carole King's Tapestry, a great record that is sonically compromised. I found the specific copy mentioned, and played it last night- to my ears, it  was better than the ORG 45, but was surprised to find that an older 33 Classic sounded better than either. None are truly audiophile quality, but the music is so great, it is worth searching for a good sounding copy. I have been buying certain old Japanese pressings of obscure prog rock albums  b/c the original pressings are  now nutty money. For many of those, I have not had access to the original to make a comparison, but at least the Japanese pressings are high quality, are not from questionable sources and give me the music without spending a banker's ransom on one record. Again, I think it is pretty much record by record, and not a blanket -these are best- proposition. But, I have no issue with your statement, shadorne, re vinyl and pressing quality of the japanese records. 

In the digital world there is no escaping the heavy hand of the modern remastering engineer. Not only do we have to endure the humiliation of classic albums being aggressively compressed but even new CD releases are getting the strangulation technique. The last few releases by the Stones, Dylan, Zeppelin? Compressed, compressed, compressed. As if that isn't enough now a lot of SACDs, Blu Ray, even the SHM Japanese remasters are showing up dead on arrival. Even Hi Res downloads. OMG!

zepplins have straight up sucked .if i play them thru the bose wave in the kitchen there ok :)

I've found Zepplin to be pretty good, as well as, dire straits, Bob Marley, pink floyd, yes, Paul McCartney  and grateful dead.

Do you not find the Japanese pressings a little bright? The JVC Jazz records are good but, the Odeon red vinyl Beatles stuff is a little tizzy for my licking. I still listen to them but, prefer the original UK pressings for the lads. (the mono box is great too).

ehtoo- That has been my experience re the EQ of Japanese pressings of rock music generally, but sometimes it is either not the case, or the EQ works in combination with the nature of the recording so the end result is not bad, e.g. LZ1 japanese pressing I mentioned. Pretty much every copy is murky, many have no bass, the Piros cut pressed at Monarch is probably one of the best I’ve heard, but that Japanese cut is really strong too. For the odd ball prog stuff, the King records and Seven Seas imprint have been good as well, but in almost all cases, the original pressings are so expensive, I have not compared them. (e.g.. Museo Rosenbach -Zarathustra).

Led zeppelin CDs and downloads from dynamic range database. Vinyl Zeppelin is very good as far as dynamic range goes. It’s the digital reissues are the problem. Early Zeppelin CDs from 80s and early 90s are OK, very good dynamic range wise. Of course dynamic range isn't everything. But it's a lot IMO.

The three numbers represent Average, lowest, highest dynamic range measured on the recording.

Good dynamic range starts at the number 14. Numbers 8 and 9 and lower are poor. 10-13 are just OK (transitional)

Led Zeppelin Mothership (Remastered) [MFiT] i 2015 09 08 11 lossy Download
Led Zeppelin Mothership - 2 CD - disc : 1 i 2007 07 06 08 lossless Unknown
Led Zeppelin Mothership - 2 CD - disc : 2 i 2007 08 06 09 lossless Unknown


Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin I i 1994 10 09 11 lossless CD
Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy i1994 12 11 13 lossy CD
Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin IV i 1994 10 09 11 lossy CD
Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin III i 1994 11 09 13 lossy CD
Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin II i 1994 11 10 13 lossy CD

Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin IV i 1984 12 11 13 lossless CD

Physical Graffiti [Disc 2] i 1990 12 11 13 lossless CD
Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti [Disc 1] i 1990 13 12 15 lossless CD
Led Zeppelin Presence 1990 13 12 14 lossless CD

Vinyl examples

Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy 1973 13 12 14 lossless Vinyl
Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti 1975 13 12 14 lossless Vinyl
Led Zeppelin Presence i 2006 14 13 15 lossless Vinyl


Geoff Kait
machina dynamica

I stopped buying reissued vinyl.It's a gamble that almost never is worth it.And you can't return a piece of lousy sounding new vinyl for a refund most of the time.Last one for me was Zappa's Hot Rats.I go for original pressings and when affordable promo radio station DJ originals.

When it comes to vinyl avoid remasters. They are digitised analogue, so rather bizarrely you are making ur Anologue rig play digital. A bit like buying a diesel and trying to run it on petrol. Buy them as a last resort. Buy a second hand record - there are many people selling them

A strange as it might seem digitally remastered cassettes actually sound very good, even spectacular. Great dynamic range, low noise and that analog sound. Examples, ACDC You Want Blood You got It (live) and Miles Davis Kind of Blue.

I miss my nakamichi dragon . I had a tandberg reel to reel too back in the 80-90s .. We were all tapers on grateful dead tour . Lol daze .. Beta was big too Then we switched to the Nomads if you remember. Some of the first hard drives .i litterally gave away atleast 2500 cassettes  to a freind he was flipping that was 92 maybe .
         As for vinyl any half speed i would rather just pop a cd in just not worth it . Any digital sounding vinyl with pops is useless .. I have a decent dig section . Viynl trumps it everytime when the recording is good pops or not just opens up like nothing else

It's a scam for young audio fools.I tell them all the time to save their 30.00 or 40.00 bucks and search out the original pressings.The search is where the fun and education happens.

i just got back from the rock and swap in frisco,there were originals there for 600bks (used)..ya right.
Ironically I scored a gang buster of stuff for under 20bks and and alot of scores were 3 bks these were all originals and uk press,couple japaneese too.

Ole- for some of those uber collectible records, that’s where a good remaster would pay off. One of the reasons why some of these records fetch big money now is that the record at the time of release wasn’t popular and few copies were pressed. (Or there could be a host of other reasons, contractual dispute with label, failure to promote at the time, etc. but the result, whatever the reason, is there are few extant copies). Once a record like that has been identified by collectors or listeners as something special, the price skyrockets. However, they remain niche products that wouldn’t justify the investment in tracking down the tapes (assuming they exist), licensing the master and artwork, hiring a good mastering engineer and bearing the costs of manufacture and distribution. Selling even a thousand copies might be a struggle.
With some exceptions, the better reissue houses tend to stick with less risky reissues and you are left with the original at crazy prices (and even at that, sometimes hard to find without problems) or shoddy re-do’s from questionable sources. Sometimes, you can get lucky- you will hear of "barn finds" (really a vintage car term but same deal with records) of a 3 or 4 or 5 figure record that someone found in a bin for almost nothing, but in my experience, that’s not really very common....
I didn’t get into UK Vertigo Swirls until a few years ago and by then, they were already nutty money (and not just the Black Sabbaths which are some of the most common Swirls, b/c those actually sold the most). Ditto, some of the more obscure Italian or German prog stuff. Just wasn’t on my radar in the mid-’70s.

I got Di Terra recently, original Italian pressing, for reasonable money. (It came from overseas) Ditto, a Le Orme, from a shop in Manchester. Ken Golden hipped me to a decent remaster of Comus, First Utterance and the shop also had a few Le Orme, so I grabbed one to make the shipping cost cover more than one record. There are typically more copies available in EU/UK, but you pay the additional tariff for shipping. I also found an alleged mint- copy of one of the RCA Neons (Indian Summer) which should arrive soon, but Spring, which I have bid on several times and lost, is not easy to find on the cheap. If you are after some of these, you are definitely forced to look abroad--I have occasionally found a few in record shops specializing in "psych" in the States, but not easy. 

Whart , ya no kidding huh.I use to go up the street to my buddys store 
Of Sound MInd and grab a japaneese of this and a uk press of that .Il Belleto De Bronzo in stock lol .He is long since gone as is all my lps from my fire so i am really challenged to find all the old lps i enjoyed for many years.If you ever find or have a good source for some of these lps ,italian german and some english prog stuff hit me up.I am looking around for the original german pressed Eloys also ..
Listening to Gong Exprsesso right now.Who i saw a few times many moons ago ..(David Allen just died last month if you didnt know)

oleschool, I feel your pain.  I also have somewhere near 8000 LPs and have always feared their loss in a fire or earthquake here in parched CA, along with pictures and tapes of my family when they were younger.  I do have all of the original German Eloys that I bought for a song at a local record store years ago and can imagine what they go for these days on ebay.  It is nice that ebay has vastly increased the availability of many titles but also lead to ridiculous price escalation.  Go see what original Island King Crimson LPs sell for.

Speaking of hideously bad remasters, I once bought a MFSL 45 rpm remaster of Patricia Barber Modern Cool and compared it to the original 33 rpm Premonition pressing I had.  On the first track of the $50 MFSL the sonics almost completely disappear during the song, sounding worse than an 8 track tape or transistor radio.  The rest of the LP sounds better but still vastly inferior to the original as all MFSL titles do.  When I tried to return it to Music Direct they denied the whole thing and refused to give a refund.  So I sold it for big bucks on ebay and kept the far superior original.

Ole, a couple of people have urged me to go to one of the Utrecht shows- likely where a lot of this stuff is going to show up. As to prices, I doubt you'll find any bargains on stuff like Il Balletto di Bronzo. But if you wanted to go wild, that's probably the place. The guy I would reach out to here in the States is Ken Golden, who I think I mentioned upthread- he seems more on top of collectible and obscure prog than anybody I know- he does sell new vinyl,  and represents a number of new bands in the prog, prog/metal and fusion areas, but may also have some suggestions for older prog copies or sources. In some cases, there are good older alternative pressings, e.g. the King Records Seven Seas imprint which I think I mentioned earlier. Ken has several companies- i believe they are all under the umbrella of The Laser's Edge. He just wrote a column about some prog obscurities that I published last week. 

Hey sevs ,I m a little confused was that sarcasism? I just thought it may be of interest to a fan of Gong

 Whart
Ken Golden ? my searches are finding a mathmatician and explorer .
Help a guy out lol...
 
rlawlry
 You certainly don't need 8k in albums man,why dont you send me a list of those eloys and others ,i can help you get rid of that junk.It's dated and old with grooves and pops yukk     : )

Ole- search Laser's Edge Group- as i said, Ken has a bunch of different companies and labels under that umbrella. If you send him a message, you are welcome to mention my name. He visited recently- brought some interesting records, including an old RCA (Neon) and a Island UK test pressing of the first ELP album with a different (earlier) lacquer number on one side than the first pressing pink label. He may be a good resource for you. 
bill hart

Here is Ken: https://www.lasercd.com
Cheers,
Spencer

oleschool, no, I was not sarcastic, failed to read it even from between the lines. deleted my comment to be on the safe side ;-)

*sigh*  Not to spoil the 'cheezy whine' party, but if the remaster is all you can get, there's always eq.  Some have memories....much like us, as to 'what we Think it should sound like'....

But my memory is flawed, and colored.....by what I thought I heard before.

I had a couple different eq in the early 90s .I spent too much time playing with it for every album .As for "if its all i can get" sure,but the originals arent usually that hard its the condition that is tricky.I have recently bought  10 remasters and generally flip right past them for an original after listening to them, even with a few pops.

I only get original pressings never get remasters.

If a simple remaster then I do not buy them usually. Now a REMIX I will buy as usually they are much better than the original, considering the mix technology then and now...A current remix can be more defined, especially if the remix pushes/retracts certain sounds to make the overall recording better.
ie the Genesis remixes by Nick Davis, the original issues are so veiled its almost unlistenable, he lifted the veil.

So it depends, but we need to understand the difference between REMASTER and REMIX.

I suffered through the same torture. Same results. So many great reviews but the reviews sounded much better then the albums. 

I have all the Nick Davis Genesis , can't remember which ones ,wind and wuthering, trick of the tail, selling england 180s etc .The trick i just got as original japaneese nm sounds great far better imo. The remixes by davis sound good they are very quiet which was never Genesis there early days they had very little money in there setups.I have not had good luck with the remastered 180 g "audiophile" vinyls.They just sound too digitized and usually very bass heavy.Almost every time i go back and grab the original in vg or better it smokes it,minus the obvious use on the lp.I have just started to go after any original or close,The pink floyds etc are just outrageous,300 up for a 77 wall etc.

Pink Floyd´s Japanese "Meddle" ( 2nd edition at least) smokes UK original in dynamics

on eBay:http://www.ebay.com/itm/PINK-FLOYD-Meddle-NM-NM-JAPAN-70s-LP-EMS-80322-G-F-w-OBI-BOOKLET-INSERT-/302...

Not much to add as I concur with most of what has preceded.  My comments are strictly related to vinyl because in my world CDs are for the car.  Has anyone noticed that the sound of the re-issues everyone is complaining about are exactly what you would get if you tried to make the LP sound like a CD?  IE. bass levels that could never exist in reality, highs going octaves beyond what the instruments and gear in use could produce etc.  Could it be that the people in charge are trying to nullify the differences between the two mediums to wean us away from that oh so problematic vinyl format or perhaps it is so long since they heard anything not digitally sourced they forgot what live sound is?  Another possibility is the engineers are unconsciously compensating for their hearing loss and nobody has the guts to tell a studio god his creation sucks.  Of course these are just general comments and quite a few re-masters are great it's just that too many aren't. 
One topic I have been trying to get going for nearly a decade now is physical quality of the records.  There is some comment about warps (I see you ehtoo) but nobody seems to want to talk about haw quickly these high priced heavy weight pressings develop noise.  The 180 gr are bad and interestingly the 200 gr seem even worse.  Analogue Productions are giving a lot of press to their new Clarity vinyl but don't seem to putting much on it.  Does anyone care to comment on their impressions of durability, good or bad, of new pressings?

I think it´s all just for the money. To sell those Pink Floyd masterpieces over and over and over again. Quality true analog reprints ? Who cares, buyer gets new pristine vinyl and cover, inserts etc. anyway, that makes him/her happy. To be honest, I do have one very high quality (audio) reprint, Yes´ "Fragile" by AcousTech, US 2006. Some Classic Records reissues (US) are great too.

I highly recommend original Japanese vinyl albums for those who truly are interested in quality, both audio and album covers.

I am all about the japanese vinyl ,its my go to if i have a choice .I just peeled open a original 1st sealed Boston  album sounded good but i felt it was overlery bright.Popped in my original mac rumours with a few pops and that bad boy is recorded well .

It's rare that I comment on bad quality of new pressings....I don't really have any. I did notice warp on the recent issue of Peter Gabriel US, but really has no effect on the sound quality. 
What reissue has excessive bass?

      There are many ,some of which we have spoken about earlier in the thread.I steer clear of reissues if possible and go japanese press if possible. If i want zip and pow i can play a cd ,i want open and natural anolgue sound. Some of these sound like i pushed an imaginary loudness button and pushed my speakers about a foot apart.lol

Was the original sealed Boston a US or UK copy ? As for Japanese pressings, some do have overly bright sound, like The Outlaws´ "Playin´ to Win". My original US copy has warm and balanced analog sound.

I think it is tough to generalize about original v remaster or country of origin of record- it really comes down to the specific recordings, masterings and pressings. On the Boston record, my listening notes published from about a year ago- comparing a "Wally" mastered copy to one done by Zentz- indicate that I preferred the ballsiness of the Wally even though it was bright. (Both were top flight mastering engineers with long careers of many good sounding records). Although I "generally" search out early pressings over new remasters, I don’t think you can say all remasters suck or they don’t have a place. Yesterday, I listened to a re-do of The Human Beast, Vol 1. This is not a record that I would buy as an "original" pressing for a simple reason- the Decca is now astronomically priced. I was surprised by how decent the re-do (on Sunbeam, itself now out of print) sounded (granted, nothing to compare it with, but I took a wild stab, given that the alternatives on vinyl were "unofficial" or from sources like Akarma or Si-Wan).
I’ve also gradually changed my view about Japanese pressings- which are "generally" of very high quality manufacture, but in the past I often found too bright. Some are, but as I think I mentioned earlier in this thread, the 3d Japanese of Zep 1 is pretty nice sounding, as is a Japanese first of Bowie’s "Man Who Saved the World."
Quality of manufacture today- all over the place. The higher quality reissue houses, like Chad (Analogue Productions), the new MoFi, Speakers Corner all pretty good. Classic- a mixed bag given the QC problems with the switch from 180g to 200g and "flat profile"; others are harder to predict- most people shy away from MOV or GZ pressed records because the source is often a digital file, but the quality of the vinyl itself is pretty good, and for records that began life as digital recordings, can be OK. My experience with some of the limited run stuff pressed for RSD has been all over the lot- -from warps to non-fill. The Bowie 40th Ziggy is a very good sounding record, but there was a defect on the track "Star"- i had multiple copies that simply would not play, a problem that was apparently rectified on a later run. (I still prefer the UK 6E/4E, but finding a quiet unmolested copy isn’t easy or necessarily cheap).
I guess my point is that you’ve got to get down into the weeds to really make the assessments. The anecdotal comments of others (mine included) may be colored to a degree by listening bias and playback system. One reason that I think buyers opt for the remasters--at least from the "better" houses--is having a fresh copy that doesn’t require extensive research or the time, money and effort involved in making comparisons for oneself. (A reason why people rely on reviews too). And sometimes the re-do does better the "original." If you have the 45 rpm set of SRV-Texas Hurricane- and cue up Tin Pan Alley, you know what I mean. Good hunting!

harold,
it was the epic cbs ,it sounds good just bright.

Whart i agree ,
It's a one at a time kinda thing,but i have not had good luck ,i have the 180 remaster of the man who sold the world ,its quiet and clean,but i perfer the original or a japanese if i came across it

Although the aqualung i have sounds better then the original ,i believe some of the early recordings were poor so sometimes its an improvement..

Someone once said that the original Chrysalis Jethro Tull albums suffer more or less from bad pressing quality. I have a Pink Rim "Benefit" (ILPS 9123) it´s very nice no issues... Oh dear I must listen it right away...

I love any tull . Cut my teeth in ian anderson

Ole- you might enjoy reading this, both as to pressings and for the interview that is included as a link within this piece. (There is also another link in the piece to an extensive shoot-out I did a year or so ago on a number of different pressings of Aqualung).  [url]http://thevinylpress.com/early-tull-on-vinyl/[/url]


best,
bill hart

great read Bill ,I enjoyed the whole site .I made it through most of it and am always learning ,thanks you .

I find these $40 re-releases are often inferior to the original, which in many cases is $10.  40 year old master tapes can sound good, but often don't and I doubt Columbia, Warner, etc are sending the primo tapes to these companies making a run of 5,000 records for audiophiles. 

One of the things that everyone seems to forget is that each company that does re-mastering is setting up the cutting lathe (slightly) differently and you will have to adjust your VTAs to eliminate the brightness and bass emphasis. One you do this you will notice the improvement that most re-mastering makes. For example, the difference between the VTA adjustment for an acoustic sounds re-master and mobile fidelity re-master is about 0.013. The good thing is the two companies seem to setup their lathes consistently and you can adjust the VTA the same for each family of pressings.

I am quite frustrated too, especially at the price point we are now paying for these albums. I find it "hit and miss" with the quality of most of these now.

Mostly miss 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Remastering has come to be synonymous with overly aggressive dynamic range compression. It’s gotten SO bad, in fact, that remasters that used to be say orange, red, green (Average, Lowest, Highest) are now red, red, red. Forget about it, Jake, it’s Chinatown. Add to that the fact that most CDs are in reverse absolute polarity and what you wind up with is a steaming pile of compost.