Hopefully we can have a discussion that takes the opposite course as the resent thread in which everyone gave their opinions on the "worst mastered CDs"?

I've always been a huge fan of CD's that just plain sounded wonderful and throught time have had my favorites. I tend to play them till I just get sick of hearing them yet again, and I'll pop something new(or old) into the player for a short time usually only to come back to that ole favorite once again!

Then it'll happen, I'll stumble onto one that takes the first ones place and BOOM - new favorite!

I thought it would be interesting to hear everyones elses favorite CD at the moment? The one you pop into your player to show off those new speakers or that exspensive new componant you've just purchased?? I guess I should clarify this a little more.... I'd really like to hear about the CD's that have the best sound, because there's probablly those people, unlike me, who judge more on other qualities rather than strictly sound quality?(I don't know, maybe those who listen very carefully to the lyrics?)

My favorite CD in this catagory at the moment is: Godsmack - "The Other Side" EP. This one took over from my previous favorite which was Alice In Chains - "Unplugged". BOTH of these are wonderful CD's. At least I'd recomend them to a friend!

I think if a CD sounds good, and the music is good also, then you'll just end up with peoples prefered musical albums, rather than their mastering.

I can easily be put off by loads of clipping, but loads of my music is mastered ok, and then i can't make an unbiased decision as to what is best, I'll just pick my favorite album i think, hence why i am not mentioning anything .

Kristian

I'll probably be bashed for this but I like the way Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusions CDs sound. Perhaps is just the music.

Another good album: Pink Floyd - PULSE

Donald Fagen - The Nightfly is a wonderfully produced album, as is The Nashville Sessions by Leftover Salmon. The latter probably has the most dynamic intro i've ever heard - but both are well worth listening to.

Dire Straits - brothers in arms

The aforementioned Brother In Arms
Extreme - III Sides To Every Story
Bruce Dickinson - Balls to Picasso

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream from 1993 sounds so nice... ESPECIALLY if you were listening to RHCP - Californication right before it, haha. Rage Against The Machine's first album from the year before is pretty good too.

Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine sounds pretty good, and has a good amount of dynamic range without sounding too quiet. Their later albums are pretty much over-compressed, though.

Tool's Lateralus is a great example of being able to master "hot" and still acheive sonic balance and dynamic.

Kino - Picture, one I bought recently (2005) was produced and mastered well and sounds great. Lovely album to listen too, if you like that sort of music.

Edit: Actually it was 2005

Anything mastered by Steve Hoffman (i.e., the DCC label).

He's the master re-masterer...

Excellent! You all have given me some new discs to sample...maybe I'll come up with a new "favorite" from one of them?

As a side note: I purchased a cd from from a company called "Autosound 2000". It was a disc set up by Sheffield Lab to set amplifier gains and adjust crossover points (and more). The CD had a six "sample" tracks from different cd's of varying genres. ALL the tracks sound awsume, I wish the rest of the industry would compile their music to the same standared as this cd?...The entire disc is supposed to be a system evaluation disc. I liked some of the selections so much that I set out to buy the albums in which their test tracks came from....So far I've found exactly ZERO in any of the record stores in my area

I Mother Earth - Scenery & Fish has to be one of the best albums I've got. The expansiveness and clarity of the sound is superb. Its also a more dynamic album than most.

EDIT - By most I mean most other modern rock bands. You know the kind that doesn't know what to do with silence or subtlety.

I have some from Bob Katz - Digido's Honor Roll and are really wonderful examples of good sound in very diverse genres. Before I knew about that list I thought Rage Against The Machine first album sounded great, I was very happy to see an expert sharing my amateur opinion .
To give something original I have these good sounding Christian albums:
Pam Thum - Believe
Sarah Masen - The Dreamlife Of Angels
Andrae Crouch - Mercy
Maranahta Music - Alternative Praise
Exodus (a compilation with Jars of Clay, DC Talk, etc)
That´s the perfect combination good sound, music you like and lyrics to inspire you, WOW!

Just about anything from the Pat Metheny Group catalog is top notch in terms of production and mastering quality.

For a live performance, The Road To You is simply an amazing effort from the European leg of one of their tours. If you ever get a chance to listen to "Half Life of Absolution" from that CD, you'll understand why.

For studio work, PMG's most recent album, The Way Up, probably sets a standard in terms of production value for an instrumental album.

Eddie Money's self-titled album sounds great. It's even more impressive when you consider that it was recorded in 1977 and mastered to CD in 1986. I wish most of the newer stuff sounded that good.

Also worth mentioning are Sheryl Crow's Tuesday Night Music Club and Five For Fighting's America Town. I don't particularly like most of the songs on those CDs, so I can assure you that my opinion of the quality is unbiased.

I almost forgot to mention Dave Matthews Band - Before These Crowded Streets

Tweaker - 2 A.M. Wakeup Call

Agree - Tool - Lateralus. This is one of my reference rock cd's for auditioning headphones

Here's a few of my favorites (both mastering and as excellent CD's)
Robert Miles - Organik
Ott - 00 Blumenkraft
Amon Tobin - 4 Ton Mantis (EP) - this one particular song really stands out when it comes to speed in headphones. If you have good fast phones, the bass drops in front, then the rest of the sound wraps around seemingly beside and behind you at the same time.
Conjure One - Conjure One. Although much of the vocals are compressed, they got a lot, and I mean a lot of sound quality into this cd as a whole. Check out Pandora.
Shpongle - Tales of the Inexpressible
Grandaddy - Sumday. This is compressed, but its one of the best recent rock cd's I've picked up.

As far as classical music is concerned, i have always enjoyed chandos, decca and telarc. Uniformly well mastered. ECM varies.
I'd sorely like to hear guruboolez' "opinion" on this one.

Asia - Aura
Asia - Silent Nation

Autechre's Untilted. I of course hesitate to nominate an electronic album, but this thing has so much beautiful punch and dynamic range. It's just brilliant.

Edit: As far as rock goes, the Guapo albums Five Suns and Black Oni are very well done.

Joni Mitchell - Night Ride Home

Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Very densely layered, plenty of variety.

Oh, and the lyrics are good too.

Here is a good list that has been mentioned here before:
Honor Roll of Good-Sounding Pop CDs
My personal favorites are Donald Fagen (The Night Fly) & the late Kevin Gilbert (Toy Matinee & Toy Matinee Special Edition)
The Night Fly was one of the first CDs I bought back in the early 80s.
It still gives me goose bumps when I put it on.
Little did I know, for the most part, it was just downhill from there!

Peter Gabriel - Passion: Music For The Last Temptation Of Christ.
I wonder why it didn't crop up before....

I second Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms

Listen to the dynamics in the song Ride Across the River

The Postal Service - Give Up is another good example of a recent release that is a little louder but still sounds great. Its not really rock, but it still sounds good to my ears.

David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Every version on CD I have has always been a great remaster (and I have about 2 remastered editions on disc.) Hehe and something I found kinda interesting, my earliest remastered edition (released in 1990 on Ryokodisc) is actually a bit louder than the more recent CD layer of the SACD remaster (released by EMI in 2002). Not like the 1990 remaster is compressed or anything, but I figured the younger generation would be louder.

Edit: wording

Tracy Chapman (1988)
Eric Clapton MTV unplugged (1992)
Madonna Ray of Light (1998)
Grant Lee Buffalo Fuzzy (1993)
Mindy Mccready If I dont stay the night (1998)
Cranberries No Need to argue (Not The Remastered(1994))
Mariah Carey Buterfly (1997)
Weezer Blue (1994)
Jackie Leven Creatures of Light & Darkness (2001)
Jackie Leven The Mystery Of love is greater than the mystery Of Death (1994)


Not too bad recent CD's:
Avril Lavigne Let Go
Sheryl Crow Globe Sessions
Dixie Chicks Wide open spaces
Lene Marlin Playing my Game
Norah Jones Come away with me


Just noticed that S Club 7 CD's have some dynamic range. S Club party (a pop hit single) is well clear of -1dB!

Well, I sometimes think it's not that as if we can really complain. Even if it's all over, there's shedloads of good stuff from the past to be listenened to.

The best 'remaster' I've heard in the last year or two is "Crime Of The Century", although it would have been even better if if they hadn't 'de-noised' it.

A master is a master - tape hiss is the same as ambience noise, and our hearing does a perfectly good job of masking it, without the artifacting that 'Sonic No-Noise' (et al) inflicts on the recording.

I would recommend Trilok Gurtu's "The Glimpse" for all-out, jump-out-of-your-skin dynamics.

"David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars "

I'll second this. Definitely a good recording. I also think Sade - Diamond Life is well recorded, the sounds are great.

"I also think Sade - Diamond Life is well recorded, the sounds are great."




I was thinking about buying Sade Diamond life. Which version sounds great, Remaster or Original?

Ill add another vote for Tool's Lateralus.

A few other cds I think sound pretty good are:

Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies
Radiohead - O.K. Computer
Pink Floyd - DSOTM

Do SACDs count? :-)

If so, I recently purchased the SACD of the Miles Davis album MILES SMILES, it is astoundingly good quality, it blows away the redbook version that is part of the Quintet 65 - 68 box. I always liked the track "Freedom Jazz Dance", but now Miles Smiles is my favourite acoustic Miles album, just because the SACD quality makes the music sound so intimate and immediate compared to the thin sounding regular CD.

They certainly do! Some day I'll have a player that recognizes the "Super" portion of the cd, but for now I think I can still play the "normal" track?

Maybe I am a bit of an arse, but I would not buy anything at a much higher pirce that I cannot test here and now. Maybe the SACD is damaged?

I'll second this... I have the 2002 remaster; it sounds incredible.

Sting's The Soul Cages (1991 original issue) is pretty near perfect, too.

I very much like the Soundtrack CD Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
It's somehow the cd I hear most of the time. It's very dynamic and not annoying at all. Episode III Soundtrack CD is not as good as this, don't know of the other ones.

The best sounding CDs that I own:

The already mentioned album
Dire Straits - Brother in Arms

but the there are two more CDs I think which are mentionable:
Dire Straits - Love Over Gold (more noise, but beautiful sound and dynamics)
Dire Straits - On Every Street (not as good as Brothers in Arms, but still very good)

Album Gain between -1 and -4 dB, Track (Album) Peak between 0.9 and 0.99:
Best of Cool & The Gang Sampler CD (natural sound, good dynamics)
Best of Bob Marley and the Wailers Sampler CD (very good sound quality and dynamics)
Alphaville - Forever Young
The Best of Sting 1984 - 1994

since almost all _recent_ POP albums are simply crippled by over compression, I'll just list the few ones that still have decent dynamics :

The Ex - 2004- the Turn album_gain : -6.7 dB. This album shows punk can have depth.
(the previous 'The Ex' albums are just as good. 24 years of good sound, great band, punk music with talent)

all R.E.M. albums. 'Around the Sun' was released in 2004, and is still good mastered. -8.5dB replaygain, they didn't fall in the loudness race trap. musically it's not their best album though..

Tom Waits I like The 2004 album, 'Real Gone'. Of course, nobody would dare stupidly over-compress this stuff. replaygain -7.2 dB

The Roots - 2004 The Tipping Point replaygain : -8.6 dB. one of the few (recent) rap albums that doesn't go for loudest mastering possible. and the music is very good. actually that makes me wonder if the reason I like that band more than most rap bands might simply be because they have a good sound.

the Streets - 2002 Originate Pirate Materia replaygain -7.6dB, another atypical (brit) rap album. well, it's not usual rap music anyhow, not just the mastering.

Placebo - 2004- Sleeping with Ghosts I guess that's the biggest seller of all the albums I listed so far, so it's remarkable it wasn't compressed to death. replaygain : -9.2dB. that's already a bit loud, but not to the point where it feels like soup coming out of the headphones. it actually sounds quite good.

Muse - 2003- Absolution -9.1 dB. though some tracks lack dynamics in my ears, but others sound good. hmm a half-success.


Electrelane - 2005 Axes is decently mastered. their previous albums too.

Franz Ferdinand their eponym 2004 album has a good sound. Just found out it's been mastered at Abbey road studios. there must be people there that know how to say "no we won't make it louder" to music companies.. (replaygain -6.2 dB)

oh and yeah, Radiohead. even their loudest (-8.5dB) 2003 album, Hail to the thief, has a good sound. They're semi-gods, they can't kill their sound with compression

I tried the new Stones album, thinking it might be mastered in the good old way. but it just has the same sound as 99% pop release of the last few years. nearly -11dB, holy cow. nice soup.

electronica albums don't seem to suffer as much from stupid compression. I guess they care more about their sound than rock bands.

for instance :
Miss Kittin - 2004 I com is great, and has a great sound. replaygain -7.2 dB

I didn't bother checking other recent electro albums, I think none the ones I own were over-compressed..

(edit : the streets album I had in mind was the 2002 one)

That's definately true. Someone mentioned Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction which also sounds great to me.

I would like to add Danzig I & II from 1988/90

And for some strange reason Metallica - Kill 'em All (1983). Yes, it screams "cheap production" in your face from second one, but .. I think it's the drums. Never heard anything like that again ever after

Interesting. I have that CD and the replaygain value is: replaygain_album_gain = -9.62 dB. I'm in the UK and bought this around the time it came out.


I don't mind a bit of compression but distortion as a result of recording too high, gets right up my nose. Listen to 2+2 = 5, at around 1:37-1:41 where Thom says "You can scream and you can shout". The vocal sounds as though it's hitting some limiters on the words scream and you. Perhaps it was supposed to be like that?

I particularly like John Martyn's Solid Air album. Eric Clapton's Unplugged is another one I enjoy listening to. Another is Anotony And The Johnson's stuff, simple, nice recording.

Does that sound somewhat similar to Nirvana's In Utero?

One of the recent CDs that is very well mastered (and mixed) in my opinion is I am a bird now by Antony and the Johnsons. Although the RG value is rather low (album gain -7.41 dB), it is full of dynamics and I automatically turn up the volume to hear all the details.

The album by itself is beautiful by the way, Antony won the British Mercury prize this week. You definitely have to get used to his voice, but when you do...

Indeed.
Get the first album too, if you haven't already. Cripple And The Starfish, although lyrically slightly weird, just sounds beautiful.

Thanks for the tip! I do not have the first one yet, but I will definitely get it. I think the lyrics on I am a bird are already pretty weird, it's hard to identify yourself with lines like "One day I'll grow up and be a beatiful woman". But the strange lyrics contibute to some sort of mystical feeling, I guess.

my bad, the Steets CD I have is the previous, 2002 Originate Pirate Material, which I've been enjoying a lot. just ripped it and RGed it, it's -7.62dB
When I looked for the RG of that streets album I only found "A grand don't come for free" mp3s on my hard drive and thought that was the one.
Actually I wonder where I got those from, the replaygain value is weird.
the dynamics are not quite exceptional on those. for instance the keyboard in "could well be in" is dull sounding, compared keyboard in previous album.
if you say the CD's RG is -9.62dB, it's coherent with how those mp3 sound (they're most presumably not coming from some alternate master or anything, but much more likely they were already mp3gained - to 86 dBSPL reference ??- when I re-mp3gained them unknowingly)

gonna correct that mistake in my post.



I think so, this track has lots of distortion (just everywhere after 1:55 ..), I take the harsh sound to be intentional. though, I agree the distortion pre 1:55 is a bit surprising, the track could have been nice with a contrast based on distortion-free pre 1:55 / heavy distortion suddenly. well I'm not thom yorke, if he wants a bit of distortion even before the storm begins, it can be a premonition of things to come, or coherence to the track's general mood or anything, and it works with me !

There are very different kinds of sound on that album, I think it's pretty safe to assume the distortion on a few tracks is intentional. The album is very enjoyable as a whole, for me it's really a great job.

edit : ah, distortion in Sail to the Moon around 2:32, that one annoys me though :-(
strange they made that song so loud actually, I'd have enjoyed it as a sweet, quiet track.

The greatest sounding cd ever: The church - after everything now this
(and all new church albums)

The worst sounding cd ever: the Jesus and the mary chain - psychocandy
and all un-remastered cure-cd´s from the eighties

-bluewater

the best sounding cd in the metal genre i heard was

Dream Theater - Images & Words

clear, open sounding, just fantastic... why aren't there more cds that sound like that? good music deserves a good production