Which old "non-remastered" CDs to hang on to?

Craig,
Do you know something that the rest of us don't know about the new remasters. The first Stones cd's are lousy and even this thread can't improve them.

 

I have a Sony Music Special Products repressing of the More Johnny's Greatest Hits CD mastering of the 1980s and that CD sounds great and all in stereo and I only paid $7 for the disc. At the same time, I bought the Gary Puckett & The Union Gap twofer on Collectables which uses the original mixes and none of the remixes on the Looking Glass compilation but I am keeping the Looking Glass CD as well. Both of these Puckett CDs sound great for what they are.

 

Steve,

Who, typically, would do the mastering on these "cheapo" CDs put out by the label's Special Markets division?

As you are probably well aware, the liner notes are not exactly brimming with any details about this sort of stuff. Did I say liner notes? The examples that I gave previously...well...there aren't any liner notes! I guess that would be a luxury, eh?!

Also, who requests this material to be put out in the marketplace anyway?

Are they "teasers" to stimulate sales of the labels more complete compilations by these artists? Usually, the Special Markets discs will leave off a "key" hit by the artist. I am sure this MUST BE intentional, right?!

 

Thanks Steve,

I guess I'm just "regular folk" then, because I find this stuff to be very good.

A few more that I'll mention:

Music to Shag By- Various Artists (Universal SM/Beast 53052) (18 songs to set the mood! Wives And Lovers-Jack Jones, I'm Gonna Make You Love Me-Madeline Bell, etc...Groovy baby!)

Legendary Hot Rod Hits (3 CDs) - Various Artists (Platinum/EMI) Songs for the car-crazed! I Gotta Drive-The Matadors, Mag Wheels-Gary Usher and Squad Car-Eddie & The Showmen (stereo with intro!)

Rock Goes To The Movies/Rockin' Is our Bizness- Various Artists (Sony A 22836) All songs from 60s movies, such as: The Swim-Standells, Don't Make Waves-The Byrds, The Biggest Bundle Of Them All-The Animals, and 2 STEREO songs from the Dave Clark 5 (Whenever You're Around and Thinking Of You Baby).

Gotta love it!

 

Steve has motivated me to go all through my various artists collection to see if I can find some things. I have a very large bunch of various artists CDs and many of the old ones have just one or two songs that can't be found anywhere else.

 

It's always nice to go through those old Cd's that don't get the attention they sometimes deserve and find those little flat transfered treasures.

 

Well, I never went through them to see what was mastered flat, but just to see if I really wanted to hang on to the CD for it's sound. In the cases where I really didn't want the CD I copied the song onto CD-R. To have backups, I then copied the copies. This way, if I lose one copy, I still have others around. As you can imagine, I have multiple copies of many individual songs! I have more copies of some 45 RPM record transfers than there are remasters of "My Boyfriend's Back"!

 

I don't just keep the flat transfered CD's as for the same reason as you don't. Ever try to find a decent CD copy of Kiss or AC/DC? Impossible I say! I thought that I could maybe get by the bad sound of Kiss: Destroyer by buying the Japanese release, but sadly, no.

 

Well Dave,

I bought the AC/DC remasters and since I didn't own the 80s CDs, they sound fine to me, EXCEPT that they sound a bit tampered with somehow. NR?

I did have a couple of old Kiss CDs that I replaced with the remasters. "Destroyer" was one. I have heard a lot of unhappy people slam the remasters but I think the few that I got are a big improvement.

CSN? My friend claims the CD remaster of the first album sounds dull. I also think it sounds very veiled.

 

Regarding the 1980's Jackson 5 CDs...
Is there any difference in the remastering between the original 2 LPs on 1 CD versions that Motown released in around 1986,and the single disc reissues that came out after the twofers were deleted? I have a couple of the recent remasters, but they have that hypersonic sound that really is not very authentic to the originals.

 

Dave/Grant,

The ATCO AC/DC remasters is something nobody's touched on. I had a few originals, but sold them when as I picked up the remasters. Has anyone A/B'd them? I seem to remember "Back in Black" having a decent sound with pretty good tape his on it.

 

That's one sick joke...

 

I don't have that many "original" CDs, mostly because many of mine have only been on CD once....

But here are a few:

Waylon Jennings - A Man Called Hoss. INCREDIBLE sound. DDD. Clean, pure sound. Amazing. I don't have any other Waylon MCA stuff on CD, unfortunately, but this is probably the best MCA album he did. I believe it has only been on CD once...

Waylon Jennings - RCA Diamond Series - "16 Top Tracks." Early Waylon stuff (pre-1970). Really clean sound. Very pure... just a great disc overall. It says "Digitally Remastered From The Original Master Tapes," but it sure sounds like a nice, flat transfer to me. If they DID do anything to it, it only helped the sound... that's for sure!

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Street Survivors. Great sounding disc. I dare say it's a flat transfer... it sounds great. I don't have either of the new remasters, but I doubt they could top the original.

Those three are my best ones, just off the top of my head. Keep in mind I'm in Australia, so the last two could be Australian-only or something. My copy of "A Man Called Hoss" COULD be the American one...

-C.

 

There is not much if any difference between the original 80s two-fers and the single-titled CDs released in the late 80s. They sound much more like the LPs in that they were not compressed or EQed. They sound like flat transfers but with the limitations of the early converters.

The new US 2-fers are overly compressed, one to the point of major distraction. It affects the earlier albums but the later ones aren't as bad. It makes me mad because "Maybe Tomorrow", "Third Album" and "Lookin' Through The Windows" are my favorite albums.

 

Dare I nominate "The White Album?" It sounds like a nice flat transfer to me.

 

Thanks for the reply on the Jackson 5 CDs, Grant. I know that there are some fairly recent UK remasters of the J5, but I wonder if they are just clones of the US remasters. The older J5 CDs are show up on eBay quite often, maybe I should try for those first.

 

According to Steve, it pretty much is. He says that they got it right in terms of tonality.

 

I'm told by a fellow BSN'er that the imports are better, done by a different engineer.

 

Yes Sam the original Atco "Back In Black" has tape hiss, but causes listener fatigue due to being too compressed. (remember loud listening to D. Bowie?) I haven't bought the remaster as I did hear it and it does sound more defined, but too compressed. Again!

BTW I do have the "Destroyer" album on both the original and the remaster and it's the same thing as the AC/DC albums.

 

I'm sorry, but that's just nuts. The original Stones discs suck. Period. The Londons are better, and THEY'RE the ones to hang on to "just in case." The original ABKCOs will almost definately be bested.

 

Sorry David, I probably could have included a winking smilie in my post, but thought it unnecessary (for the reasons you gave). Of course I have high hopes for the SACD's, but since I haven't heard them yet, and nobody here on the forum has told me whether I should like of dislike them, I'm still up in the air as to what to think.

 

Hehe. Actually, I realized after I posted that you were being sarcastic, and THOUGHT I had deleted my post...but I guess not.

If the new ABKCOs somehow sound worse than the old...but I won't think about that.

LUKE. PROVIDE!

-D

 

I have a few Pair Records two-fer CDs from the late '80's that definitely sound like they are flat transfers. They are:

Iron Butterfly - Rare Flight (Heavy/Ball)
The Association - Songs That Made Them Famous (Along Comes.../Insight Out)
Jefferson Airplane - Time Machine, which is a compilation with some outstanding sounding tracks, such as "Lather", and some not so good sounding tracks; but I got it cheap enough, so it was worth keeping for the outstanding tracks.

The Iron Butterfly and Association CDs were bother licensed from Warner Brothers Special Products and sound wonderful.





HeavyDistortion