Led Zeppelin - Remasted CD Series, Question *

Yes, it definitely sounds like two different recordings. I think Page was going for the same sort of effect he did with the middle section of Whole Lotta Love, where the whole soundstage changes to something much bigger and then comes back to the main sound of the song. I just find that the remaster makes the drum sound too synthetic.

 

Boy,its not easy finding the org recordings,e-bay and amazon is mostly all remastered zepp.

 

Have you tried: http://www.gemm.com/ ?

 

You just have to be in the right place at the right time.

I found the original LZ I, II, & IV CDs within a week at local retailers that sell used discs. I know that I've seen the discs listed on the Classifieds here from time-to-time.

 

What Bill said. They show up fairly regularly around here. If you hit the same used CD shops once a week, it won't take long for you to find them all.

I recently gave up on Coda and bought it from another forum member. A week later, I saw a copy locally.

Many of these discs were made, many were sold. There's no shortage of them in the used shops... you just have to be a little patient. Good luck!

 

You can try www.musicstack.com. If you're wondering about a particular seller, just read the feedback customers give. I've bought quite a bit of music this way without problems. Most sellers accept Paypal so you don't have to worry about your credit card numbers getting around too much.

You can always check around the used CD shops. the telltale sign for the non-remasters versions is the text on the back talking about the "limitations of analog recording."

Also the remasters always say "remastered by Jimmy Page." If I remember correctly, the extent of this was that Page sat and listened to some of George Marino's remasters and oked them. I don't think he actually sat at the mixing desk and did hands-on work the way he did when recording Zeppelin in the first place. Anyway, if a CD has the remastered statement on it anywhere, it's not the original issue coveted by so many.

 

Another dead give away is there's no Atlantic logo on the booklet covers.

 

Here are some cues:

LZ I: the writing on the front has to be yellow, not red

LZ II: no Atlantic logo on front

LZ III: haven't found an easy cue on the front cover

LZ IV: haven't found an easy cue on the front cover

HOTH: old version has the white label with the title on the front

Physical: fat boy case with light blue frame around artwork

Presence: haven't found an easy cue on the front cover

ITTOD: the album title is printed inside a box with lines in the top left of the front cover

Coda: haven't found an easy cue on the front cover

Hope this helps.

 

I think the remasters sound much, much better than the flat-sounding original discs.

Just to let you know that not everyone thinks the old discs are better (or looks at the music instead of listening to it, for that matter).

The drum sound changes there in every version, not just the remaster. This is a repeated argument about how "synthetic" the drums sound on the newer discs, but it's moot. (To me, the slightly boosted bottom in the remastered version actually makes it highly preferable to the muddy original CD track.)

 

What do you like about the remasters? Did you notice how the stereo image and clarity on the intro to "Rain Song" totally collapses on the remaster, and how thin the drums sound on the remastered "III", or that the outro to "Stairway To Hweaven" is shortened on the remaster?


Do you realize that mastering "flat" has nothing to do with a "flat" sound or "flat" dynamics?

 

LZ IV: Stylized italics font on the spine of the dcase with "Led Zeppelin" and illustration of the Hermit on back cover (the illustration from the inside of the original album).

 

Just got a hoth as with the white label for 9 bucks. Well see how it sounds.

 

Re: Led Zeppelin

I agree with this. I think folks get carried away with their comparisons. I've got the original I and HOH in a box out in the garage. I've compared them to the remasters and prefer the remaster of the Zep I over the original and HOH is pretty much a draw - maybe a slight edge goes to the original. Overall, both versions are a disappointment and it distresses me to know that i had these on vinyl and gave them up long ago. So both the newer and the older CD versions are not that different and pretty much suck :thumbsdn: IMHO

 

Also:

Every spine, save LZ IV, has generic print on a white background. LZ IV has a black background with white writing. All the remasters have spines that incorporate the album artwork somehow, or at least fonts/colors.

 

Agree completely, good and well written post as well.

General note:
I cannot see the point in going into detalied discussions about a musical expereince, what would come out of that? It'll just risking becomming an argumental fight.
You like what you like, that's all - why is uninteresting, IMO.
That's how I see it anyway

 

By argueing respectably, we learn. I tend to agree that both cd issues have many faults, and neither has matched the headphone experiences that I enjoyed with my LZ2 original vinyl a LONG time ago, as in when it first came out. Again, that's "my" perception. My own. Different for everyone else's. So many factors to sway it from another's opinion.

 

Put that way, I can agree

 

If you still have a turntable, you should really try some of the Classic Records Zeppelin re-issues. They really do give you the original listening experience. I'm astonished at how much better they sound than any of the CDs, especially for the drums.

 

The point is sharing of information and different points of view. As I've written before, I fell for the whole "remaster" marketing hype when it came to Zeppelin and other acts. I re-purchased my favorite albums trusting that I now owned the best possible version, as close a copy of the master tapes as technology permitted. Over the years, I listened to these disks and gradually came to the conclusion that the distortion, the overloads, the flatness I was hearing was a result of limitations in the original recording.

It was only by reading what others wrote on this forum that I took the time to seek out the originals and really listen to them again. I realized that the originals sounded closer to the original experience of listening to Led Zeppelin on vinyl in the 70's. Then I took it a step further and bought a decent turntable and sought out the Classic re-issues. I now have that original listening experience back. The truth is that the recordings were not nearly as bad as the remasters led me to believe.

I might just as easily discovered that I preferred the remasters, but I didn't.
However, had the discussions not been here for me to read, I never would have considered the alternatives. The discussions and comparisons help people such as me know that there are alternatives and keep up from becoming victims of the marketing folks who just want us to pour money into "new and improved" versions. Yes, sometimes they are improved, such as with Steve's work and others such as the Elton John SACD surround remixes. Often--too often--they're simply the same old master tapes run through a brickwall limiter and cranked to overcome the limitations of an obsolete technology. Don't believe me? Take the time to read the following explanation of why 16-bit recording cannot capture a lot of details: http://www.24bitfaq.org/#Q0_1_1 . This could be one reason brickwalling is so popular, to crank all those details into hearing range.

Yes, in the end you like what you like and I like what I like. Having a forum for discussion lets us all know both sides of the story.

Regards,
Steve.

 

Steve, thanks a lot for an interesting link. Why can't 24 bit digital audio stay around (DVD-A)? It's a shame that it hasn't caught on.

 

I think as time goes on it will catch on in some form. Don't forget there's a huge "installed base" of 16-bit CD players out there and unfortunately a lot of the general listening public thinks CDs sound fine as is. Heck many of them are switching to portable players with compressed audio simply for the convenience. On such players you can't really hear the benefits of a high-res recording.

High-resolution sound will likely be a niche market for awhile and will probably only sneak into the general population through some sort of DVD-related trend. What struck me about the article I linked was the excellent description of how details get lost. I'd always assumed the dynamic range of 96dB for CDs was linear the way it is in the analog realm. The thought never occurred to me that lower level signals are rendered with much lower resolution, which is probably one reason people think compressed remasters reveal all the details missing from original releases, because the softer notes have been boosted to overcome the digital format. I remember a review of the remastered Physical Graffiti on Amazon where the guy raved about how great it was that you could finally hear every detail. I exchanged private emails with the guy who claimed he heard it on a "digital stereo" owned his buddy a remastering engineer. He ridiculed those of us who still use "analog" equipment. Yeah right. I'd love to sit in him a room and crank the Classic vinyl re-issue of Graffiti on a good system and watch him pick his jaw up off the floor!

 

I am a huge Zep fan who never bought the remasters. But always intented to with the way Page talked about the original releases. I was always pretty satisfied with my originals but I really like the sound of the crop circle set. It is a shame they compressed things further for the remasters.

 

Actually the crop circle set was the first issue from the remastering done by George Marino. As I wrote earlier, some of the post-2000 digipack LP replicas seem to be these remasters only with a bit more compression/boosting.

 

Not to be argumentative, but is that confirmed anywhere?... my understanding was that the individual remasters were clones of the material on the crop circle box... just asking.

Abso-freakin-lutely... I unloaded my original CDs after comparing them to the remasters, wherein I heard way more detail... then the threads here starting mounting up, so I picked up Barry's LZII and re-compared... my (non-audiophile) assessment is that while the remasters reveal more information, the originals have better 'feel' or 'air' in terms of atmospherics... that is to say, each is imperfect.

Just for laughs, I picked up a Classic vinyl copy of LZII... night and day difference, with the nod going to Classic... and, if forum consensus is any indicator, this is somewhat removed from the best LZII available in that format.

Bottom line for me = I gotta replace the Zep catalog in vinyl, period... I unloaded my vinyl with few regrets some years ago, but the fact remains that there are at least a few iconic 60s/70s albums that have not managed to make a satisfactory transition to digital... Beatles, Hendrix --- and Zep.

My 2¢... maybe less.

 

Nothing ever officially confirmed. I bought the mini-LP replicas last year. When I ripped some PG tracks and compared them to the same tracks ripped from my original 1990 crop circle box set, the new ones were on average 3db louder. They seemed to be the same mastering, just boosted with more peaks clipped off.

Worth a lot more than that. You've got it right. Some albums have not made very good transitions to digital. Since I bought my turntable at the end of September, it's been like I rediscovered music again, like I've been reunited with a long, lost friend. Ironically, I can appreciate some CDs more now too, just not the ones that sound bad!