Thank you. My experience with Blue Note suggests you are correct.

I just ordered it.

Meaning no offense taken or given this thread is not really all that useless.

One motivation to participate in this thread was to inform/confirm specific music releases as being harsh and overly loud. In fact, that was my motivation for posting.

Even though my opinion means little to most readers the information people have posted make me consider turning away from buying over-compressed CD remasters in favor of getting a used copy of the original release. It's just a matter of knowing which remasters are "good" and "bad".

Best sounding CDs-- All MFSL (Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab) Original Master Recordings I own. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and Atom Heart Mother as well as Steely Dan's Aja. Of the three that I own I would say Aja is the best sounding but that's considering the superior recording as compared to Dark Side of the Moon.

Worst Sounding CDs-- maudlin of the Well - my fruit PsychoBells. This is the absolute worst sounding CD that I own. I'm pretty sure it's so bad on purpose considering their next two albums have some of the best production I've ever heard on an album.

Anyone here at HA collect or even know about Mobile Fidelity Original Masters?

I don't necessarily go out of my way to collect Mobile Fidelity recordings, but I do own some, both vinyl (from way back) and some CDs. I agree that the Aja recording is exceptional. And overall, I would say that MF provides a good product. My only nit would be that the gold discs at twice the price of "normal" discs at times seemed a bit gimmicky. But after the demise of the company, it's good to see them back. I have not purchased any new releases since they restarted operations, but I think I will look into it a little deeper now that you have brought it up.

http://www.mofi.com/

The comment you make about the superior [original] recording (whether true or not regarding DSOTM vs Aja) does make a good point: a remaster can only sound superior to other releases if the original was excellent to begin with. Remastering a dog original gains you very little.

one of my favourite cds that came out recently is beady belle - cewbeagappic and it is mastered very well. it's not just the way it's mastered but how it was recorded. the instruments are not squashed, the vocals are natural and open, and the finished product is pleasant to listen to.

i do listen to classical music a lot and unfortunately a lot of "re-issued" titles have become victims of the loudness war. there are only a few recent recordings that sound reasonably well. concerning the ones that sound like crap - again, it's not the mastering, but the fact that the music, which is most of the time is recorded from old analog sources, is simply transferred to a DAW at high levels. it's recorded at high levels to begin with and of course during mastering you add more distortion by making the recording even louder. this is essentially the same problem with modern releases. when the music is being recorded, the instruments, the vocals, they are recorded too loud, and when it comes time to master the recording there's hardly any headroom left.

2bdecided is absolutely right. too many recording "engineers" simply do not know what they're doing.

Remasters are far from being a universally bad thing; some are incredibly good and far superior to the original. As you rightly suggest, determining which remastering projects are good and which are not is really a crapshoot. Here are some rules of thumb if you are unable to audition or cannot find a review (reviews of sonic quality for certain genres are harder to find than others):


1. Read audiophile reviews online or in magazines (generally only relevant for certain genres...jazz, classical, some popular music);

2. Older is not necessarliy better as may have been implied by some posts;

3. Remasters of certain popular music forms will likely be solely released to capitalize on a new interest in the music, with little emphasis on actually making the recording sound better...it may sound different, but not necessarily better;

4. Remasters of music in genres that attract the attention of audiophiles will more often be better than the original;

5. Label matters. Expect less from the big labels and more from specialty labels (see the Mobile Fidelity posts above as an example);

6. If an artist has had consistently good recordings released except for a dog or two, say early on in their career, it is more likely that a remaster of the dogs will produce good results; an artist who consistently produced poor recordings is more likely to release bad remasters (see Item 3 above).

I'm sure there are others, but keep in mind the most important point here:

Nothing is concrete when it comes to recordings. No truth is a universal truth. Too many factors go in to the ultimate quality of an original release or its subsequent remaster: artist, label, sound engineers, technology available at time of original recording or remaster, trends, intended market for the music, etc., etc. These things can change from artist to artist, label to label, CD to CD, track to track on a given disc, and any conceivable permutation in between.

Roll the dice.

worst:

Far too many to mention, here are some that I remember of :
(Fortunately, I do not own these CDs.)

Be not nobody * Vanessa Carlton
All the way...A decade of song * Celine Dion
Greatest Hits * Whitney Houston (Maybe it is vol.II or so)

best:

Into a secret land * Sandra (1988)
CD is DDD, has not so much natural dynamics, but neither clipped nor limited samples. It also has the most brilliant and clearest sound I've ever heard.

Close * Kim Wilde (also about 1988)
Track "You'll be the one who'll lose" has the most wonderful drums I've ever heard.

best since 1999: none, all worst

I also agree that So * Peter Gabriel , as said before, is best.

Finally, I'd like to advertise the thread that the titel of this topic refers to:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....=ST&f=1&t=17903

Yeah... I own a lot of vinyls and CDs from MFSL; they sound extraordinary good. DCC is another label with exceptionally good sounding recordings...

Is the label DCC an acronym for something or is it just the label's name? Also, do they specialize in original master recordings, or are they just a good record company? I've never heard of them, which is why I ask.

http://www.mofi.com/goldcdr.htm

I wonder how these will be when released?

shrug, all CDRs were gold in the beginning.

Digital Compact Classics.

Highly regarded, generally. DCC certified that if they can't/couldn't get the original first generation tapes, then they won't/wouldn't issue the CD.

I don't think they are producing discs anymore (anyone know any differently?), but you can still find collector's selling them. If you can find them still shrink wrapped, prices are pretty steep ... some discs go for $100.00.

My collection is somewhat limited, which may be a good thing considering the direction mastering is going.

Best:
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (1997 remaster)
Pat Metheny Group - "Quartet" (24kt Ltd. Ed.) Montevideo is fun to play at full volume. I often use this CD to evaluate lossy compression, most recently to reassure me that WMA 9 Pro still has stereo image steering issues.

Worst:
U2*POP... Muddy, distorted bass; dull, messed up treble; poor stereo imaging. Do You Feel Loved and Staring at the Sun sound like a cassette made with a cheap recorder. This may be by design considering the title and theme of the disc, but it still sounds bad nonetheless. Good music besides that.

Wanted to add a CD I just got today to the "worst" list:

The Thrills - So Much For The City

While I really like a lot of the music, there is some nasty compression going on, clearly evident on the track "Don't Steal Our Sun", which sounds just atrocious.

good:
Danzig I and II (1988/90)
Alphaville - Forever Young (1984).. I think this one had a positive album gain value
Sisters Of Mercy - First and Last And Always (1985, 1992 remaster)

bad:
any album by Marilyn Manson
System Of A Down - self titled
Metallica - St. Anger

Surprised noone's mentioned them yet, but every Counting Crows CDs I've heard is universally craptacular. The highs are horribly distorted, no matter how you slice it.

Interesting! The very same thought had occured to me.

I recently bought the Glenn Gould 'Complete Goldberg Variations' CD set. The 1980 recording is from a DSD (SACD) transfer from an analogue reel. (the original release back in 1982 was one one of the first 'DDD' CD's - they ran analogue and digital recorders in tandem))

The levels on the disc are absurdly low, which is Not A Good Thing with 16/44, and will also show other formats in an artificially favourable light - ie SACD again. One has to assume that this transfer will probably also be the CD layer on the SACD release.


RF

Easily the best sonically I've heard in recent years - Trilok Gurtu ' The Glimpse' - (1996) jaw-dropping.

Worst - recently got Air's 'Talkie Walkie' and it's been ruined.

RF

From the classical end of the spectrum:

Good sounding:

Appalachian Journey (Mark O'Connor, Yo-yo Ma, Edgar Meyer) 2000 Sony Classical
J.S. Bach - Suites for Violoncello Solo (Anner Bylsma) 1992 Sony Classical
J.S. Bach - Goldberg Variations (Pierre Hantai) 1993 Opus 111
J.S. Bach - Orchestral Suites (Ars Antiqua Austria) 1996 Chesky
Beethoven Symphonies (complete set - John Eliot Gardiner) 1994 Archiv
Beethoven Symphony No. 9 (Cleveland / Dohnanyi) 1985 Telarc
The Cleveland Quartet Farewell Recording - 1996 Telarc
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon soundtrack - 2000 Sony Classical
Spanish Dances (Andrew Lawrence King and the Harp Consort) - 1995 DHM
Tallis - Spem in Alium (The Tallis Scholars) - 1985 Gimell

Interestingly, Sony Classical CDs tend to be a few dB louder than everyone else, but they still tend to maintain good quality. Appalachian Journey sounds better than than Appalachia Waltz, and though I really liked how loud Edgar Meyer was on Waltz, Journey's balance is probably more realistic.

The Harp Consort has generally enjoyed good engineering and mastering. I don't have anything else on DHM to compare with.

All of the above are decent performances, too.

Some of Decca's "Legends" reissues are quite impressive.

In jazz, Bill Evans Trio's Waltz for Debby and Sunday at the Village Vanguard in 20-bit or XRCD remastered versions are among the better-sounding jazz reissues - better sound than the 1997 Kind of Blue reissue, IMHO. RVG reissues can be very good or very poor - Herbie Hancock fans mostly agree that the RVG reissues are not as good-sounding as the initial CD releases.

Bad sounding: most of Sony's Essential Classics, apparently. I have several and the sound is uniformly poor, worse than one would think it has any right to be. Many other re-releases from the same time period sound much better. I don't listen to much pop or rock, so I probably shouldn't say anything, but most of what I hear seems to have poor sound.

Exception: I have a couple of Sarah McLachlan CDs and they sound not bad.

(The above comments are my subjective, personal opinions and are in no way exhaustive or definitive)

IMO:

Best:

Metallica - Black Album (1991)
Dream Theater - Images & Words (1992)
Dream Theater - Awake (1994)
Megadeth - Countdown To Extinction (1992)
Joe Satriani - The Extremist (1992)
Helloween - The Dark Ride (2000)

Worst:

Metallica - St. Anger (2003)
Megadeth - Youthanasia (1994)
Malmsteen - War To End All Wars (2000)
The Darkness - Permission To Land (2003)

As you can see the golden era of mastering is around 1992... Latest years CDs sound awful...

Best: Meatloaf-Bat Out Of Hell II : Back In Hell
Worst: Judas Priest Remaster-Defenders Of The Faith

exceptionally good: Ginger Baker Trio - Going Back Home (1994)

Images & Words????????? That album sounds horrible. That's one of the flattest sounding albums I own. Awake is lightyears beyond Images & Words in sound quality.

Best:
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (1993 Roadrunner)
Dream Theater - Awake (1994 EastWest)
The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream (1993 Virgin)
Def Leppard - Hysteria (1987 Polygram/Mercury)
Queensrÿche - Empire (1990 EMI)
Stabbing Westward - Wither, Blister, Burn + Peel (1996 Columbia)
Extreme - III Sides to Every Story (1992 A&M)
Tool - Lateralus (2001 Volcano)
Rush - Moving Pictures (The Rush Remasters) (1982/199? Mercury)
Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes (1991 Atlantic)

Very Good:
Collective Soul - Collective Soul (1995 Atlantic) (Drums clip a bit, but otherwise great sound and incredible dynamics)
Live - Throwing Copper (1994 Radioactive) (Lovely ambience on this one)
The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995 Virgin) (Superb sound though a tad bass-heavy)
Type O Negative - October Rust (1996 Roadrunner)
John Cougar Mellencamp - Scarecrow (Riva/Polygram 1985) (Great dynamics and clear, if a bit hollow, sound)

Worst:
Nickelback - The State (2000 Roadrunner) (Worst I've bought by far. INSANE amounts of clipping and sounds like a bad casette dub.)
Opeth - Blackwater Park (2001 KOCH/Music for Nations) (I can hardly even sit through it the sound is so fatiguing. And the signature Opeth song dynamics are a pale shadow of those on the band's past CDs.)
Spineshank - The Height of Callousness (2000 Roadrunner) (Just plain hollow-sounding.)
Borknagar - Quintessence (All I can hear is the ear-splitting guitar.)
The Smashing Pumpkins - Adore (1998 Virgin) (So much distortion...)
Black Flag - Damaged (1982 SST) (Not squashed, but still terrible. Calling it demo-sounding is a compliment.)
Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime (1988 EMI) (There is no bass or treble on this disc whatsoever. The entire thing is a midrange-dominant mess that sounds like it's being played 5 miles away from you.)


Please tell me that you accidentally got those switched around by mistake. Putting Youthanasia (an EXCELLENT sounding CD) in the "Worst" category. the brittle, high-end dominant Countdown to Extinction in the BEST category? I cannot believe what I'm reading here.

I've just bought some of my best sounding CDs :
Artrosis - In Nomine Noctis
Artrosis - Posrod Kwiatow I Cieni
Artrosis - Fetish

What is very remarkable is that their recordings are pretty dynamic :



Quite impressive for a gothic metal band recorded in 2001 ! Maybe in Poland CD are still recorded properly.

I wouldn't be so quick to blame geography. I've heard quite a few European metal CDs that were squashed as hell (see Borknagar entry on my list).

EDIT: Forgot to uncheck sig.

Yes, I own a good number of UDII CD's (roughly 30, I'd have to count), though I never could justify spending the cash on their 200gram virgin vinyl, half-speed records.
I had the luck to live within fifteen miles of MoFi's original Sebastopol (CA., not UKR) location at one time and to know a record store who bought UDII's at a huge discount from an MFSL employee.

After the remastering craze started hitting the mainstream, MoFi appeared to crank up the volume a bit to compete ("The GAIN system") but they did try to avoid clipping as much as possible, and judging by the albums I have, they did a good job of it.

The Moody Blues discs from them in particular, sound really pristine and dare I say, "analog-y" The Bob Marley & The Wailers discs I have (Catch A Fire, Exodus) either have a bumped-up low frequency response, or the mass market Island remasters are missing a substantial amount of <60Hz content.



I daresay you should compare the MFSL version to the mass market Mercury remaster if possible. The MoFi version (pre-"GAIN") sounds quite incredible, though probably a bit less loud than the more recent Mercury release.

I thought Empire suffered in much the same way Mindcrime did, although there is much more treble on Empire (maybe too much?). Love the disc though. Just saw today that it is out as DVD-A, would be interested to hear it.

As for Damaged- Alot of that is way it is supposed to sound. Greg Ginn was meticulous in the studio. I will say the vinyl did sound alot better and the mix was more suited for that.

The best mastered albums that I own would be all of my Floyd albums and a lot of older country albums (ex... "John Michael Montgomery - Lifes a Dance" and "Alan Jackson - Don't Rock The Jukebox").

Better mastered rock albums that I can think of are "Pearl Jam - Ten," "Nirvana - Nevermind," "Live - Throwing Copper" and "Blues Traveler - Four."

Most rap albums are maxed out, although some sound alright (ex..I think that "Nelly - Country Grammar" doesn’t seems overly harsh, yet has great bass and isn't tiring to listen to.)

I would have to say the worst mastering job comes to a tie between "Jay-Z - The Black Album" and "The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication," as both are horrible sounding.

good sounding:
Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman
Alan Parsons - Tales of mystery and imagination Edgar Allan Poe (1987 rerecord/remastered)
Pink Floyd - Dark side of the moon
Peter Gabriel - So
Ilse DeLange - World of hurt
Salif Keita - Moffou
Tosca - Suzuki

Bad sounding:
Big country - The crossing
Abba - Abba live

Best: maybe Audioslave...
I would have said Pink Floyd's Division Bell, but it's released too long ago.

Worst: 113 - Les princes de la ville.
From what I remember, the music sounded worst on the CD than on radio.

I seriously, SERIOUSLY hope you are joking. Audioslave is without a doubt one of the WORST-sounding albums I've ever heard. There are massive amounts of audible distortion and compression artifacts in the sound. It's a horrible, horrible mess.


My problem isn't so much the, er, rawness of the recording as it is the fact that it just sounds so weak. The music doesn't need to sound crystal clear but it does need to knock you on your ass.

Also, remember what they were recording at the time. Pretty much most of the indie punk bands of the time sound like that. They were also in subpar studios. The way I see it is that it is one of those albums that is just supposed to sound that way.

As for the world of electronic music, it's hard to tell if overcompression adversely affects it. Since these are synthesized sounds, are they supposed to sound like this?

Aphex Twin - Richard D. James Album (1996)


Underworld - Second Toughest in the Infants (1996)


(I intentionally picked two albums from the same year.)

At first glance, you would probably think Aphex Twin sounds like 'audio cream of wheat' and Underworld sounds 'clear and open'. On that assumption, you'd be right. But is it a bad thing for Aphex Twin to be so dynamically squashed? You could say that Aphex Twin's "4" (RDJ Album, track 1), having a similar full-on drive as Underworld's "Rowla" (Second Toughest, track 4) is suffering because of its lack of dynamics. Listening to most of his other work, all of it is equally compressed. It feels 'full' and busy, and when combined with the hyper tempo, it comes off as crazy! I'd make a guess and say that's Aphex Twin's sound. (Trust me, it all has similar RG values -- find a copy of "Ventolin" if you don't believe me. This opinion does not include his 'Selected Ambient Works' series.) He is not interested giving his audience a wide range of emotions. When you read his interviews, you learn that he's not interested in much at all. He's just up there making wicked sounds for his own amusement. (Then again he's a compulsive liar when it comes to interviews.)

Underworld on the other hand are much more down to earth. The epic tracks on Second Toughest have some jazz and blues references and are more invloved with expressing personality.

on a side note: Despite some people's resistance to divide "electronic music" into subgenres, if I were running a music store, I'd be tempted to separate these two albums.

A problem arises when we examine their latest respective works:

Aphex Twin - Drukqs (2001)


Underworld - A Hundred Days Off (2002)


What's going on here? Underworld appears to have invested in a new compressor, while (on some tracks) Aphex Twin moved his drum machine aside and invited George Winston over for tea. For his non-piano works, he's still compressing the hell out of them, so it remains consistent with his earlier work. The difference doesn't lie on the song level, it's restructured at the album level. (and that's veering off-topic.)

Out of all of this mess, I can tell Underworld's "Luetin" (A Hundred Days Off, track 10) doesn't have quite the punch of "Juanita" (Second Toughest, track 1). This is consistent with all of their newest stuff, so they're unfortunately guilty of some compression. Other than that, I think this is what it's supposed to sound like. (I think?)

It's usually assumed that hyper-compression and limiting (and clipping errors) are the result of producers demanding the mastering engineers to make it louder, but since Warp Records (who releases Aphex Twin) is an indie label, I think matters of compression are up to the artist... especially considering the amount of squashing varies from release to release, and artist to artist.

i'd say so. Aphex Twin isn't about pleasant dynamics, but about making you cringe, tearing your ears until you think your head is going to cave in, then suddenly cutting everything out but a synthesized computer-voice saying obscene things (funny little man, off the come to daddy EP)

on the other hand, underworld are definitely more grounded and thus less immune to trends in hypercompression (i wouldn't call it hypercompression when compared to the RG values i've seen in pop). either than or they're using more sustained tones rather than lots of transients (i can't speak for the albums posted as i've not heard them).

i've recently found that a squashed album greatly suffers when you increase the volume past the "quiet comtemplative listening" range into the "seeing how many watts my beloved speakers can really produce" range.

with RG applied (of course), a compressed album is just boring, but a dynamic album will kick you in the guts (in a good way), and be more lively and enjoyable. you don't feel the concussions from drums with a squished album like you do with a sensible one. it's essential if you're trying to recreate the live sound. apart from that they sound rather similar (assuming no clipping).

right now i'm looking for more albums that can give me fun at extreme sound pressure levels. maybe some older metallica? some good old Holst?

Yeah, that Jay-Z album is full of so much distortion, it's horrid.

I just want to contribute to the squishedness record books. Merzbow is an electronic artist, so it probably doesn't matter, but I think this one track outdoes even "Parallel Universe," though I can't remember if anyone said what that song would repgain at. Anyway, the Merzbow song is called "1930" and repgained at -14.1dB, with a track peak of 1.35. The Album Gain value is -13.6dB.

I've been listening to a lot of Japanese music as of late. The Collectors (great band, barely known outside of Japan) have a *great* album called "Supersonic Sunrise" that is by far the worst CD I own. EVerything's level slammed to the extreme, and there's tons of awful-sounding digital distortion on everything. Really a shame. The waveform for the track, even when zoomed in, looks like someone just drew a straight line with a thick marker.

Staind's "Break The Cycle" makes you want to fall asleep from being so fatigued when listening to it.

Hi, new to the forum - best sounding discs would include the Genesis mini-vinyl LP releases from Toshiba Japan, worst is probably a disc by Billie Myers - "Growing Pains" - although I'm not sure that's more to do with the material on the CD as opposed to the faults with the production itself....!

OMG... Red Hot Chili Peppers "Californication" is the absolute worst... a great big steaming pile of #@#$

Josh Todd's "You Made Me" is right up there too.

Best:

Donald Fagen - Nightfly
B-52's - Follow Your Bliss
Fleetwood Mac - Tango In The Night
Robert Plant - Manic Nirvana
Joe Walsh - The Best Of Joe Walsh

a lot of R.E.M.'s stuff is produced well.... Alan Parsons too...

But hardly anything purchased recently sounds great:

Mosquitos sounds fairly good even though album gain is at -8
Broken Social Scene "You Forgot It In The People is fair
Marcy Playgrounds "MP3" is not unlistenable at -7

But all these newer ones are still squashed...

new nominee for worst CD, rivaling Chili Pepper's "Californication":

The Mars Volta - (2003) De-Loused in the Comatorium

listen to track 6 "Eriatarka".. track gain -12.4, album gain -11.7

for best, Innocence by Kenji Kawai. On a good stereo, tracks like The Doll House sound like the instruments are being played live, right in front of you

One of the best sounding disk I have is called "The Wind and The Wheat" by Phil Keaggy supper sounding guitar work

I just ripped two old CDs for listening at work: Tubular Bells and Tubular Bell II by Mike Oldfield.
I have been very surprised by the results of the replaygain values.

Just have a look at the output of vorgisbain for Tubular Bells:

and for Tubular Bells II:


I must have bought Tubular Bells II more than 10 years ago...

-- roynux

Interesting thread.

I'm surprised that noone has mentioned "By The Way" by RHCP yet... to me it sounds even worse than Californication! Maybe not in terms of dynamic range... but the overall quality is terrible. No sharpness to the sound... tons of distortion (clipping on the tracks before mixing?)... most of it is practically mono, and I think I can even hear some pitch wobbles in one track.

It occurred to me the other day when listening to GnR's Appetite For Destruction that it sounded far cleaner than a lot of modern stuff. Ironically it has an apology on the CD sleeve about the poor sound quality!

I've ripped the first track "Ananga-Ranga" from Merzbow's "Venereology", the album is more harsh than 1930 so i checked the replaygain values:




Pulsedeamon (another Merzbow's release) seems to have been mastered with even higher levels but i haven't bought it (still ) so i can't check the claim of the label

Good sounding recordings:

Alice In Chains - Unplugged
Bark Pyschosis - Hex
Bruce Hornsby And The Range - The Way It Is
Counting Crows - August And Everything After
Duncan Sheik - Humming
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
Genesis - Selling England By The Pound
Jack Johnson - Brushfire Fairytales
Live - Mental Jewelry
Mark Hollis - Mark Hollis
Marillion - Afraid Of Sunlight
Metallica - Metallica
Peter Case - Blue Guitar
Queensryche - Empire
REM - Automatic For The People
Runrig - Amazing Things
Rush - Signals
The Blue Nile - Hats
The Phantom Of The Opera - The Original Cast Recording
Tori Amos - Under The Pink

Poor sounding recordings:

Bush - Sixteen Stone
Cast - All Change
Foo Fighters - One By One
Oasis - Be Here Now
Ride - Going Blank Again
U2 - The Unforgettable Fire

Queensryche - Tribe -9.34 dB replaygain value

Too bad too, musically it's a good album, just sounds flat and lifeless.

Has anyone heard the DVD-A version?