Hold on to those old CDs! The best sounding version of a song may not be the new “Remaster”
I have been ripping all of my CDs using EAC (Exact Audio Copy.) as bit perfect FLAC files to my media server for the last six months. This process and the ability to instantly compare one version of the same song of an artist to another version has made it easy to compare the audible differences between different releases of that same song.
The newest “Remaster” may or may not be the best version from an audiophile’s viewpoint. The advent of the iPod and the desire of music executives and some misguided artists caused a crazy downward spiral of musical fidelity by compressing the music to make it louder either for the iPod or to have a louder product that some music executives think sells better.
I have had quite a few people ask me why I have so many different versions of the same song by the same artist on my music server. The answer is simple: You have to listen to all of them to ascertain which one has the best sound. It may be the latest “remastered” version or it may be the original CD release, or it could be a specialty “audiophile version”.
Here are some of my observations: I pulled up four different releases of Elton John’s “Nikita”, one from the original album CD release “Ice on Fire (1985)”, another from “To be continued(1990)”, another from Greatest Hits Volume III (1987)” and from “Greatest Hits 1970-2002 (2002)”. I proceeded to compare all of these versions going back and forth over and over again. What may be surprising is that they all sound different. Surprisingly the best sounding version is the one from “Greatest Hits Volume III” from 1987. I would have thought that the best sounding version would be from the “Greatest Hits 1970-2002” as that version is the latest and a dual layer SACD Hybrid disc. I am only comparing the ripped CD versions, but the CD version on the SACD Hybrid disc should have been mastered from the same DSD version used for the SACD layer. However, the best sounding version is from the 1987 release on “Greatest Hits Volume III”. I repeated this procedure with many other different artists such as the Beach Boys, Elvis, Abba, Bob Dylan and others. The results were the same; there was always one version of a particular song that stood out from the others.
I can only postulate that the different versions may have been mastered by different mastering engineers or the mastering equipment (i.e. the A to D converters, the alignment of the master tape to the tape machine used for mastering, etc.) or the actual tape used to master from may have been different. (Maybe a safety master, which by definition would be a 2nd generation tape)
Of course it is a well known fact that there are remastering engineers that are legendary in their ability to get the job done right. Steve Hoffman and Bill Inglot are two engineers that always seem to find the real master tape and make the best sounding transfers preserving all of the available dynamic range with the best resolution. So, if you see something mastered by them, it is probably the best version available.
What’s the moral of this story? Don’t sell those old versions of songs you like, they could be the best version. Don’t try to preserve disc space (hard drive space is now cheap) if you are ripping your discs to a media server. Rip all versions of the same song by the same artist in a lossless format such as FLAC; you will then be able to easily compare them.
I would be interested to hear what observations any of you Secrets Readers may have had regarding this subject…..
Greg Mahoney
March 24th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Another issue that can affect remastered albums is the trend over the past few years to boost the volume level of the CD, causing a loss of dynamics and can also lead to clipped audio in segments. Vinyl remasters are less affected by this due to inherent limitations in how loud you can make the levels on a record, but it makes me hesitant to purchase a remastered album now. They might be using far superior AD converters than when the album was first transferred to CD, but those gains might all be lost by mastering it at too high of a level. Unfortunately, they is really no way to know this either.
The website linked in my name is an article at Wikipedia talking about this problem, and providing some more example as well. Perhaps the best recent example is Metallica’s Death Magnetic album, which was mastered at too high of a level on the CD and had clipped peaks, but amazingly enough if you played through the tracks in Guitar Hero, the sources used for the game did not have their levels raised, and sounded better than the ones on the album.
March 28th, 2009 at 11:19 am
I concur with your general observations (the newest remaster is not always the best). But I am extremely curious about this statement:
“Greatest Hits 1970-2002” as that version is the latest and a dual layer SACD Hybrid disc
I thought I knew all the SACD releases of Elton John (and checking on SA-CD.net gave me the list of the releases I was aware of) but I’ve never encountered this title–where did you get it and where can I find a copy on SACD (if it is MCH–I’m not all that interested in 2 channel recordings in SACD).
March 31st, 2009 at 9:08 am
Paul, my apologies, you are correct there is no hybrid SACD version of Elton John’s “Greatest Hits 1970-2002″. Both “Greatest Hits 1970-2002″ and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” come in fold over cardboard disc cases. I confused the two sets of discs. “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” is a hybrid SACD three disc set (two hybrid SACD/CDs and one DVD) and yes; the SACD versions of the songs on those discs are superior sounding to the CD versions.
However, I do stand by my listening analysis that the best sounding CD version of “Nikita” is on “Greatest Hits Volume III”
Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
Greg
April 1st, 2009 at 11:52 am
Oh well. I would have liked the greatest hits version on SACD. I have GYBR on SACD (it was the only one of the SACD titles also available on DVD-A, if I recall correctly). As for whether SACD sounds better than CD because of the format (rather than other factors like mastering), I will refrain from starting a format debate. In any event, my interest in SACD and DVD-A is for the discrete MCH mixes they can provide, which is why the greatest hits package was alluring when I thought it was on SACD. Thanks for clearing that up (my disappointment lies with the record company, not with you).
April 2nd, 2009 at 2:33 am
1. Not all remasters really are remasters. In some instances they are just reissues. Deceptive advertising by our friends the record companys.
2. Headphones are the best way to compare or evaluate media, source players, interconnects, power cords etc. A high quality pair of headphones and headphone amp make this task easy.
3. One of the most recent remaster/reissue “let downs” is the new Led Zeppelin box set. Comparing the new box to the turn of the century box reveals a bright, in your face kind of sound from the discs in the new box. Jimmy Page and George Marino had it right all along.
4. Comparing disc versions can be great fun and in my experience, 9 out of 10 times (roughly speaking) the remaster sounds better. Check out the new anniversary editions of the CCR catalog on Concord/Fantasy. No contest even compared to the K2 versions.
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Greg
I agree with your comments
After listening to a remastered compact disc of Led Zeppelin
I thought that doesn’t sound right and when I played my original copy
The original copy sounded so much better
The first you notice is the volume of the songs it’s louder
Secondly the noticeable absence of certain highs and lows in songs
The compact disc had a muted feel about it, it never really varied in tone
Just to get an overall comparison, I even played my old vinyl record and even that sounded better!!!
When quashing all the frequencies together for the latest iPod or whatever else people listen to it on, something has to give
I suppose my biggest gripe is the prices they are charging people for the remastered versions and sitting over in the cheap bin is the original copy which is more faithful to the original recording at a cheaper price
Well that’s my 2 cents
Doug