Worst mastered CD ever!

Yes all of the original Tull cd's were horrible.

 

...anything that used Hank Waring's FDS NR system...

 

Hi,

Some of the Bob Seger CD's exhibit really poor mastering, imo. Great material that really needs to be redone right. SH has shown what can be done w/ the masters.

Take care,
Jeffrey

 

I'd vote for these three CDs, the worst I've come across so far:

The Who - A Quick One (remaster)
Jethro Tull - Bursting Out (remaster)
The Beatles - 1

 

Easy choice - The Pete Townshend Live Brixton County 1985 - What a piece of ****!
Zero Bass. Too bad - if done right it would have been awesome.

 

Those "Super Oldies of the 50s and 60s" series of CDs from Audiofidelity were pretty bad.

 

Here we go: One of may favorite bands Jumbo did an album with the same name:Jumbo, and the only CD I ever found is the Japan Mini LP, with the most terrible sound I ever heard...unfortunately the good mastered one is long OOP.

 

The original mastering of the Robert Johnson box. They no-noised the bejeezus out of it. Sucked all of the life out the music. It sounded like it was recorded in a closet--and a full closet at that! When I compared the CD sound to my 1960s pressing of "King Of The Delta Blues", I returned the box set immediately!

The thing that really infuriated me was when reviewers went out of the way to praise the digitally remastered sound--eediots!

 

Journey - Escape (original Columbia CD, circa late '80s): Imagine buying your favorite album by a band on CD and having it sound as though someone threw a blanket over the speakers while you were listening. I'd bought some discs that had so-so or sub-par sound quality, but nothing like this. And especially on a major release like this.

Hearing the remaster was like being able to breathe again or like going from b&w to color...when the original was in color to begin with!!

 

The terrible Bob Norberg-ized remastering of Huey Lewis & The News' Sports. Probably THE worst remastering I've ever heard, and I've heard plenty of bad ones.

original thread: http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=22921

and the follow up thread: http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=55583

 

Byrds Singles 1965/1967 CD. Boston s/t Mastersound. Former=out of phase. Latter=earbleeder.

 

I just re-listened to it on a more recent headphone rig. I have to say, there's more deep bass than I recall, but the upper/mid bass is definitely "cut" lower. Whether this was Ludwig's idea or the cassette masterer decided to boost it for the "boombox-masses", I can't say, but I guess it was a guilty pleasure to have it.

It's probably hard to please everyone isn't it?

 

The Best of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke on the Repertoire label is truly horrid. And let's not forget some versions of Simon & Garfunkel's Collected Works set. Just plain icky.

- Ivan

 

Hi Ivan,

I don't recall if you were involved in this long thread, but it seems there are multiple "pressings" of the Simon and Garfunkel Collected Works set. Apparently there are numbers imbedded on the discs inner circle that denote their different parentage. I'm too lazy to research it further, but after a day or two listening to people plead their version's goodness or badness, it finally resolved itself based upon these differences. No one, by they way, claims it's a stellar mastering or anything, but those of us with the better "numbered" set are at least satisfied. I own the better set and it's indeed listenable, except for Wednesday Morning 3AM, which was remixed to favor Paul Simon's voice, a most grievous error in my opinion.

BTW: I did note that you said "some" versions. Forgive me if you've been put through all this before.

Best regards,
Kevin

 

metallica st anger= tanktanktanktanktanktank...tank
...tank...tank...tank..tank..tank..tanktanktanktanktanktanktank
tanktanktanktanktanktanktanktanktanktank
when will it end

 

I remember Elvis Costello's My Aim is True on the original US Columbia as being pretty thin and screechy, but it may be they got the most out of a crappy tape they used.

Come to think of it - Blood and Chocolate was pretty bad as well, and that was a "new" Cd release at the time.

 

Huey Lewis "Sports" reissue. In a word, painful.

 

Hi,

This is the volume 1 of Byrds singles? Thought it was a good one from the "original masters" supervised by Johnny Rogan.

My vote goes to the remastered box set of Led Zeppelin, it's me or it sounds like all the vocals instruments are messed up, a cacophony?

regards,
helio

 

I was so happy when I opened up Gordon Lightfoot's ENDLESS WIRE CD and saw that Lee Herschberg did the remastering. I thought it'd sound as good as (Gord's) gold. Surprise, surprise. Muddy, lackluster, and just plain dull. I still wonder why it's so bad.

 

Nearly all of my favourite CD disasters are here - the Byrds early singles compilation, the Robert Johnson box, the Tull abominations, the Fall needle drops.

One I would add are the very early Yardbirds compilations on Charly - EMI kept hold of the tapes for years due to unpaid studio bills, so early masters had to go with whatever sources they could find. Charly used vinyl, which skipped in places on the Yardbirds Greatest Hits CD I had from the mid-80's.

 

I think I've posted this before on another thread but: Lou Reed/Legendary Hearts

also Peter Maxwell Davies Black Pentacost/Stone Litany

 

I had a CD of New Age-y piano music from Liz Story, and the recording was abyssmal. All blurry piano in one channel, and buzzy echo in the other -- I was surprised something so amateurish would have been released.

 

Ill go for some ones that havent been mentioned here..

Foo Fighters - Self Titled
Dinosaur Jr - Bug (remaster) .. the original isnt too good either..but remaster..ugh..
Kyuss - Wretch.... = poo.... sure the other Kyuss albums dont sound too good either, but it adds to their character...! But Wretch is an unbearable mess..

 

Must have been your then-cd player, I play that one peridically and it sounds pretty good . . .

Ones that sounded lousy to me back-in-the-day but seems okay today I usually attribute to modern cd players; even the cheap ones now stomp the most expensive ones from the 80's.

 

I agree, very horribly mastered and the tracks from this album that appear on the recent GH CD sound worse. It is one of my favorite Amy Grant albums musically though.