I've purchased all four of the recent U2 remasters (Boy, October, War and The Joshua Tree), and have noticed that don't really seem to be over-compressed as remasters can tend to be. Perhaps I'm wrong on the topic, but I only ask because they just don't seem very loud. I still have to turn them up a fair bit as I did on the original CD releases.

Any thoughts?

I would assume they are around 95dB, some engineers stick with that level, like DM's remasters Simon Heyworth. It's necessary deep analysis on the remasters and the original tracks. 95 is better than Oasis's releases which peak at 100dB very easily.

If you use Replay Gain, perhaps you can post the album gains for each remastred CD.

I have the older Joshua Tree CD, and I get an album gain of -1.79dB.

I'd love to see a Replay gain analysis on the new Joshua Tree CD, consider all of the hype and alleged work put into it. I have a copy, also don't believe it sounds tremendously limited or overly compressed. There is greater detail. Still, an analysis would be great.

I haven't heard them yet, but I know that the Edge oversaw the remastering process himself. That might explain a lot. Seems that remasters turn out better when a band member is involved.

I plan on getting those same 4 remasters you mentioned (never owned War, Boy, or October before) so I'm anxious to read the results of this thread.

With the exception of The Stooges' "Raw Power," overseen by Iggy, of course.

I'll do an analysis on all four albums when I get home.

The Joshua Tree MFSL Remaster gives a RG value of -4.82dB.

Do you know what it is for the non-MFSL? It was done at Bernie Grundman studios...(I'm sure I'm not the only one on this forum who would be a little more than shocked to see clipping on an MSFL remaster).

Boy: -7.14 dB
October: -7.73 dB
War: -7.12 dB
The Joshua Tree: -5.42 dB

These are from scans I performed on Disc 1 (so just the original albums) of all of the Deluxe Editions of the remastered albums.

Very interesting. So these are album gain numbers? Joshua Tree not as loud as the others...Thanks.

Yeah, they're the album gain numbers. I too thought it was strange that The Joshua Tree is so much lower. I'd say it's fairly noticeable when listening to it. Dunno why that is.

...Of course, it was the first of the U2 remasters to be released, and was actually billed as its own "20th Anniversary Edition." Maybe the others were an afterthought? I'd be unimpressed if they released a second remastered version of it, though I highly doubt that'll happen.

EDIT: Grammar

...Come to think of it, I wonder if their style change has something to do with it. They were a fairly aggressive band on their first 3 albums. Perhaps they were always meant to be "louder" albums, and they sort of mellowed out when they started working with Eno & Lanois. That might account for the difference in volume.

I don't know - you're right about the style of music on those albums, but Achtung Baby isn't mellow in some places and Zooropa isn't either. The question for me is whether there is still some degree of dynamic range on those albums and, correct me if I am wrong here, it appears there still is. On a waveform plot would these albums look like Death Magnetic - it seems not. I would bet that How To Build An Atomic Bomb has a higher RG value than these remasters - it's very loud.

Hopefully, people will be favorably impressed with the U2 remasters - it would be nice in this day and age if even one so-called supergroup could put out something in good to very good sound quality.

Except when the artist says "make it louder!"

I'm always happy to hear when the artist has "creative control". I've heard stories about artists that don't even recognize their own work after the producer is done mixing, processing, adding background instruments & background vocals, etc! U2 has been around long enough (and has been successful enough) to negotiate creative control into their contracts, if that's what they want.

My War CD, which I believe is a 1991 reissue has an album gain of -4.73dB. It peaks at 1.00 for most of the songs.


My Joshua Tree CD is similar to yours and has a gain of -1.72dB.

Wouldn't it be great if MusicBrainz posted ReplayGain values along with DiscIDs and such?