Finally downloaded and compared. Got to admit, this is the 1st time I've compared back to back analytically, vs just casually listening to the CDs themselves back to back. 1st is Barry's, the 2nd is the remaster. The 1st sounds great, but the bass could be tamed a just little bit. The 2nd ... Way too "in your face" for me. There seems to be a mid freq boost as well as the higher frequencies. The snare drums and the cymbals sound a lot more natural on Barry's. Thanks for posting those Chris. It's now on my list of things to do, to compare some of the others.
Ok. I read this whole thread 19 pages and all, and I still don't know what to buy. I need the best versions for four Zeppelin CDs. II, IV, HOTH, and PG. I will get the original HOTH, as I believe it sounds better than the remaster, but I don't know about the other 3 CDs? If early fades are the only issue with the Marino IV I will take that also. Zep II is debatable, and PG does not sound good on the orignal clips I have heard on Amazon. I may have to take the remaster over that one too.
IMHO vinyl is the best way to go for Zeppelin. Having said that Barry's are the closest to vinyl of course it's IMHO!
I prefer the remastered PG, The original HOTH, and II and IV are toss-ups for me. IV sounds good on both versions, and II has never sounded good on cd for me for some reason.
"on the dole" is slang for on the payroll, commonly used as a euphamism for being on welfare or public assistance.
The '80s LZ IV blows. It's got some serious distortion, especially on Plant's vocals on "When The Levee Breaks", that sour it for me.
There's just never going to be concensus on these CDs. LZ are probably THE best example of this situation: 1) The earliest CDs are very well mastered (they don't come much better than BD), but suffer from source issues and the less advanced ADCs available in the 80's. 2) The first remasters were done early enough in the 90s that they don't suffer from the horrendous compression, insane EQ, etc that was soon to come into vogue. However they have been "tweaked" to emphasise different frequencies, etc. It's often been suggested in these pages that the upper-mids were boosted because Page wanted the guitar to be more prominent. Also, perhaps bits of NR have been applied here and there. There's a few bands that fall into this category, or thereabouts. Consider the original Yes CDs vs the 1994 Gastwirt/Marinos. Howabout the original Aerosmith CDs vs the Anesini remasters (although I don't think the original CDs suffer much from source issues in this case). All you can do is try both masterings on offer for at least a couple of albums and see which you prefer. If it's a close call, you may need to compare both masterings for every album you are interested in. For me the original CDs won out in every case, but that's just me.
I've got the Japanese SHM import box set, and while they sound GREAT, I wouldn't trade them for my original 1980's Barry Diament mastered CD's!!!!!
None of the Led Zeppelin CDs ever did anything for me...I much prefer their vinyls. They sound way more dynamic than any CD versions.
For IV, the remaster is a good choice in my opinion. For PG, I really think it varies from track to track. The remaster is o.k. though. For II, I strongly prefer the original Barry Diament version. It is not a huge difference, I don't mean to exaggerate it, but the remaster doesn't offer anything that the BD version doesn't have. I even compared high quality needledrops of the RL cut vinyl, and I think the BD CD is quite close to that also (no quite as good, but really not a night and day difference).
First, how can you judge the sound quality with clips on Amazon from mp3 sources? Second, I strongly doubt that you can find mp3 clips from the BD mastered CD version on Amazon.
O.k., I just did some more comparisons for PG. First, I have to say that the remaster does sound indeed pretty good, better than I had remembered. On some songs, it really sounds better than the original CD, especially for "Kashmir" the difference is quite big. During my comparison, I noticed that the channels are reversed for all the songs which originally appeared on Side 4 of the original album (starting with "Night Flight"). This is also where I think the original CD sounds better, especially on "The Wanton Song". Whether this perceived superior sound is mainly attributed to the different channel orientation, I am not sure (I guess I could burn a CD-R with the channels reversed on one version and compare again). I don't know if the original CD has the channels wrong on Side 4 or the remaster. By listening, the mix/soundstage sounds better or more natural to me on the original version, but maybe that is only because I am used to it being that way (although I sort of doubt that, because I had owned a version of LZ III with the channels in the wrong orientation, and when I first listened to the version with the channels in the correct orientation, it was a huge difference, and the version I had been used to for all these years sounded "wrong" right away). Maybe with the channel orientation it is similar as looking at a picture (or movie) with the picture mirrored (if there is text in the picture, it is easily noticeable of course, but if there is no text, it is hard to recognize - but the original photographer had a certain intention in mind when creating the picture, and if you mirror it, it looks much different - I feel the same way about channel orientation).
That reminds me of the Stormbringer problem, Roland. The Metal Blade and Mini LP 2006 both had the channels reversed. The original UK had them right, along with the last remaster done by Glenn, or what appears to be right.
I will get the original II and HOTH, along with the remaster of IV and PG. We will see how that does me. Thanks for the help everybody.
I think you will find the channels are reversed on Barry's version. Can you compare to the vinyl? I prefer the BD/Sidore versions of the early Zep albums, apart from this one. The SHM PG is my favourite CD PG. Steve
One thing to remember about any of the remasters you decide to get is to go for the earliest releases of them from 1993. If you can put up with the mixed track line-up, the crop circles versions are even better. Later releases took the original Marino remasters and ran them through further peak limiting/boosting, which meant that more and more transients are flattened. Some folks seem to freak if others post waveforms so I'll cite a listening sample as well. Go to the section of Custard Pie near the end where Plant is repeating "Drop down" and there are two big drum hits at about 3:39 in the song. The 1993 and later versions loose the musical impact of such a section. Listen to this sample with the first part taken from my 2003 European mini-LP version of PG mastered by George Marino in 1990 then cranked further by some nameless engineer for the 2003 releases, followed by my Canadian pressing mastered by Diament in the 80's. (Note that I level-matched these to remove the effects of loudness perception) Custard Pie outro 2003 versus 1986 For the visually inclined, here are some loudness comparisons of the 1986, 1990, 1993 and 2003 versions I own. The first graphics is from Adobe Audition's Group Waveform Normalize, which compares the average RMS loudness levels. The second graphic is the Replaygain values needed for each version. The final graphic, is the combined level-matched waveforms for the 1986 (red) and 2003 (blue) versions. This illustrates quite well what is removed by peak limiting (aka brickwalling). One could argue the the red areas in the first half of the song are differences in EQ, perhaps source tapes, etc., but look at the second half of the song. All those red transients are squashed,, chopped, squeezed, neutered and otherwise molested. You can hear the result in the audio clip I posted above. It's downright de-Bonzoed! Granted, this is but one example and you might prefer the EQ choices on the remastered PG, but this is one case where buying the CD is definitely not giving you a "lossless" version.
The original II sounds closest to the RL cut vinyl. Not that anything can compare to that. If you like bass get the original it 'pulses', the remaster is homogenized in that respect. Hey man, why not get both? With less effort than reading this entire thread like you did, you should be able to score the original and remaster combined for less than $25US - probably less than $20US if Mint condition isn't a requirement. Then direct compare from the CD's (not lossy amazon samples) yourself rather than go on biased, agenda based "opinions" from both sides of the fence. Rick
