Worst mastered CD ever!

I can only imagine. Steve's gold disc is taken from the original master, and there's still a generous amount of hiss on there. The current remaster is no noised to death, if you're into that sort of thing. You can't polish a turd. I imagine that Steve's disc will be the best CD version for a long time to come.

 

It's been a while since I played this CD, so I can't comment on the sound quality. But the tics and pops that can be heard between songs halfway through the CD are there as a joke...it signals the start of the album's "second" side.

 

Oh man....I just ordered S/T. But $25 from CdJapan is a pretty good price, anyhow.

I heard that the S/T mini was better sounding than the Bedside one. Either way, I'll have a really nice looking mini-lp.

 

I bought Universal UK's new Very Best of Neil Sedaka CD yesterday. The mastering was the worst I had ever heard.

All the Polydor recordings are overcompressed to such an extent that you can hear clipping all the way through them. The RCA stuff, while much quieter, is muddier and possibly (I can't be fully sure of this) played at slightly the wrong spead. And Sedaka's 90s stuff is so bright that it hurt my ears. Unsurprisingly, there was no mastering credit.

At least, Peter Mew and John Astley et al don't leave clipping everywhere when they compress stuff in their unique fashion.

Can anyone top this? I'd be interested to hear?

 

Vapor Trails Vapor Trails Vapor Trails Vapor Trails Vapor Trails ..............

 

Beatles 1

 

"Not Available" -The Residents

 

Sad to say this but most of Spock's Beard's, Neal Morse's, Flower Kings' and other great contemporary prog-rock albums sound horrible.
This is especially frustrating as I'm really into progressive/symphonic rock - old and new. Many of the classic albums from this genre don't sound that great either but often I like these better soundwise than the actual productions. Especially InsideOut Records seem to care more for the album covers than the sonics.
I wish progressive (and other) rock music was as carefully mastered as jazz.
Achim

 

Ah, but there isn't audible clipping all the way through. It's so bad I'm tempted to write to Universal.

 

The 2-CD Who Ultimate Collection.

 

A BGO copy of "Dream" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. The last two songs bleed together, and they put in a 2-second gap. The sound was overly crisp and too tinny for my tastes. I only kept it because the booklet is terrific. The Capitol/UA version is much better.

 

Vapor Trails gets my vote as well...........there are some great tunes on here IMO, but the compression and clipping make it almost unlistenable.

 

Huey Lewis and the News, Sports, expanded edition. See this thread started by one our forum's sound engineers, which includes sound samples:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=22921&highlight=Huey+Lewis

Paul

 

Cliff Richard - The Whole Story - His Greatest Hits

 

red hot chili peppers californication

 

- The recent reissue of Klaus Schulze's Mirage. Brutal hard-limiting, different mix substituted, digital dropouts, etc.
- Almost anything put out by Unidisc. Heavy compression and the most extreme EQ I've ever heard. Obviously mastered by some veteran clubber who lost most of their hearing. I have one disc that needs -8db (!) above 10KHz to make it listenable.
- Shirley Bassey's I, Capricorn. Typical Abbey Road NR-fest. Being a very dynamic recording, this means that much of the detail has been completely stripped out.

 

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass remaster

 

Elvis Presley's "30#1 Hits", mindless brickwall limiting!

 

Kate Bush - The Red Shoes

This CD just sounds so harsh. It probably has to do more with recording/mixing, but whatever the case the final product is just not sonically very good. At least its not a victim of extreme clipping like a lot of the other CDs listed in this thread.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication

Lot of clipping.

I just hope Stadium Arcadium isn't mastered like this. Man, after all the work they've been putting into the recording of this new CD it's really going to be a bummer if the mastering engineer squashes the final product into a square wave with loads of limiting and compression.

 

Replacements remasters on Restless.

 

Guess Who - Wheatfield Soul/Artificial Paradise two-fer.

 

Oh, come on - that ain't nothing compared to the sodomizing of the McCartney catalogue in '93!

JEFF!

 

Is there a better Wheatfield Soul? On CD?

Artificial Paradise - cymbals are crazy.

 

I've never seen any other version on CD, though I'm not looking very hard either. It's not my favorite album anyway but it's even worse with the sound quality issues.