Remaster of a Remaster of a Remaster...too much of a good thing?

[LG]

Although I am a stickler for the best quality recordings I can get(No i-tunes or other lossy formats thank you very much.), I am getting a little tired of all the continual remastered sets and boxed sets being released all the time. I get the fact the marketing whiz's at the record companies are trying to make as much revenue as possible reselling old classics to us older music fans seeing most young people today look down their noses at a CD, but enough is enough.

There are some great after market companies out there, or used to be. Instead of the record label releasing their own versions, just get MFSL, or DCC or Rhino or Nautilus or any of the other Stellar quality companies to do a definitive 16 bit 44.1 khz CD version and a vinyl version and leave it at that until the next great upgrade comes along.

How many times do they think we are going to buy the same albums over and over again?

 

[METALPRIEST]

Stop reissuing

I mean I do pick up new remasters but it depends on the band. I admit I do like the upgraded sound and new slick packaging.

It's nice to have a face lift once in a while but I voted no, on the basis that I wouldn't cry or miss it if whatever band didn't come out with yet another series of remasters.

 

[AboutAGirl]

Er.... it doesn't perturb me either way. Hearing a crisp new remaster can be an astounding experience. For example I hadn't been really crazy about Neil Young for probably 3 years when the Everybody Knows This is Nowhere remsater came out, well I picked it up, fell in love all over again, and have been a bigger Neil Young fan than ever before ever since (even getting into all the albums I never had before and such...)

For me it's simple, if I don't wanna get it then I won't get it. They might as well remaster everything a million times... I'm still only going to buy a remaster if I really feel it's necessary (I had lost my copy of EKTIN!) I mean The Final Cut is possibly my favorite all-time album, I listen to it all the time and I never felt the need to buy the remaster (don't like how they through Tigers on there, that's not a Final Cut song.)

 

[METALPRIEST]

Did I miss something AAG?? Final Cut is your favorite album of all time?? I mean I know you mentioned it...but I didn't know it was your favorite...or forgot...

Anyway...cool, interesting choice. I don't think it gets the love it deserves.

 

[AboutAGirl]

Did I miss something AAG?? Final Cut is your favorite album of all time?? I mean I know you mentioned it...but I didn't know it was your favorite...or forgot...

Weeelll... don't feel bad or nuthin' 'cause there are a handful of albums I've been known to call my favorite, sorta bad of me. Final Cut is definitely near the absolute top although there may be one or two albums that are at about the same height... namely Echo by Petty and Everybody Knows This is Nowhere.

Anyway...cool, interesting choice. I don't think it gets the love it deserves.

Thanks, man!

 

[METALPRIEST]

No problem...I always feel cold in the chest when I hear The Fletcher Memorial Home or Paranoid Eyes but the whole album is awesome IMO.

 

[LG]

^^When a remaster is done by the companies I like and respect then it should become the "Reference" standard of the work, and until a quantum level jump is made in the recording/format arena should be the only pressing in circulation.

I remember reading about "Loudness Wars", a few years ago and most audiophiles Hate a lot of remasters because they have weighted the signal so much it has thrown the balance of the recording off completely. This has more to do with the i-tunes/i-pod generation than anything else, you should always have a good range of volume control over your vinyl/CD/DVD and many of these so called remasters are terrible.(Even some new CD's have this problem Ozzy's latest solo album definitely has too much gain which doesn't allow a proper playback on a stereo system, at least not compared to a neutral recording. What I mean by that is I can play Santana's Abraxas MFSL CD and it is almost identical to the SPL of a vinyl record, but a CD remastered with the Gain set too high it sounds distorted if you do turn it up.)

 

[METALPRIEST]

I don't like when a remaster is soo hot it's clipping.

 

[TheFeldster]

Yeah, they remaster too much.

I didn't even buy all the Beatles remasters, just the early pre-Rubber Soul albums, plus Let It Be.

The rest I just kept as is. You can't improve Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by remastering, it was fine for what my systems allow as it were.

 

[LG]

^^You are right Feldy, sometimes the original version is the best. I have no problem with subtle improvements like using better vinyl, cutting the record at half speed and just fine tuning what already is a fabulous record, like Sgt. Pepper's. Same goes for CD's, you can just make the original better like MFSL's digital conversion process, helps maintain the original feel of the vinyl record when transferred to digital format. As opposed to wholesale manipulation of the original to the point of distorting it beyond tolerance, which is what many remasters have done.