Differences in CD pressings?

[Bourbon]

I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to my vinyl albums. I almost always prefer NM first-edition pressings whenever possible, with a handful of MOFI albums and represses in the mix. It's caused me to drop some serious cabbage on a few sealed albums. But lately I've been looking to pick up some CDs to match my vinyl album collection. My 2018 truck has a CD player in it, and I've got component CD changers in both my main and bedroom systems. So I bought three Pink Floyd CDs: The Wall, DSOM, and Wish You Were Here.

After I bought them, I began reading about the sonic/musical quality differences in CDs of different pressings. I'm wondering if this is all a bunch of BS marketing crap or if there's actually something to it. It it worth the time, effort, and expense of seeking out particular pressings of the CDs I want? I'm not interested in the MOFI Gold Discs or Japanese issues, as they're usually more expensive than my rarer vinyl. Instead, I'm thinking about original pressings vs. remastered issues.

What do you think?

 

[dbuz]

I think there's something to it as I've noticed a difference with a few CD's that I've owned multiple copies of. I recently hunted down a specific original press of Smashing Pumpkins Gish and paid a bit more for it. I don't know if it's any "better" but it sounded exactly how I remembered, albeit on better gear than I had in HS.

 

[PabloTincho]

Here is a good channel to learn about different masters

 

[loudnoises]

I think there was a point where they began mixing differently for cds, not just the loudness wars. Or maybe they just remixed. Or maybe the quality of the vinyl master tape wasn't great. Maybe the drugs were better. Who knows.

I avoid "remastered" pressings, especially modern ones. They're rarely an improvement and usually just sound wrong. I will always choose an og pressing vs a current reissue. It's a current fad and just an excuse to sell another record imho.

It's hard to compare really but I think the mix on "man from utopia" is different from early vinyl to cd.

 

[Lavane]

I think there was a point where they began mixing differently for cds, not just the loudness wars. Or maybe they just remixed. Or maybe the quality of the vinyl master tape wasn't great. Maybe the drugs were better. Who knows.

I avoid "remastered" pressings, especially modern ones. They're rarely an improvement and usually just sound wrong. I will always choose an og pressing vs a current reissue. It's a current fad and just an excuse to sell another record imho.

It's hard to compare really but I think the mix on "man from utopia" is different from early vinyl to cd.

Remastered albums can be hit or miss. Some, like Pink Floyd's remastered DSOTM, there are several, sound good. Are they any better? Personally I think they did a good job remastering that album. I don't think it sounds any better than the original though, just different.
I bought Jetheo Tull's remastered Auqua Lung album only because it came with a nice book. But the album does sound better than the original pressing.
Boston's remastered self titled Album while may be better, I actually prefer the original mix with all its flaws. It just sounds better to me.
Some others they should have just left alone. Like music remastered by Dire Straits, Ozzy Osborne, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, etc. The loudness wars ruined some of these remastered albums.

 

[Erik Tracy]

Remastered albums can be hit or miss. Some, like Pink Floyd's remastered DSOTM, there are several, sound good. Are they any better? Personally I think they did a good job remastering that album. I don't think it sounds any better than the original though, just different.
I bought Jetheo Tull's remastered Auqua Lung album only because it came with a nice book. But the album does sound better than the original pressing.
Boston's remastered self titled Album while may be better, I actually prefer the original mix with all its flaws. It just sounds better to me.
Some others they should have just left alone. Like music remastered by Dire Straits, Ozzy Osborne, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, etc. The loudness wars ruined some of these remastered albums.

I agree with your observations.

There are SHM-SACD remasters of early Sabbath - I have all of them. Paranoid was remastered too bright for my tastes. The others are quite good, but not necessarily better than the original releases. I'm still waiting on Sabotage on SHM-SACD to complete the Ozzy era - I may be dead before that happens.

For Pink Floyd's Animals - that took for....ever to come out. I have that one on SACD as well to complete my 'trinity': Dark Side, WYWH, and Animals. But, I have to say - I'm preferring the original mix/mastering of Animals. The new one has David's guitars pushed back just a teeny bit for my tastes.

 

[RunOutGroove]

Of course there's something to it! It's the same for CDs as it is for LPs; the companies release remastered and occasionally even remixed versions of albums hoping that the public will take the bait, buy the new version and think that it's superior to the old one. I happen to feel that the format vinyl vs digital, with everything being played through great gear, is relatively unimportant to the overall sound. What matters more is the master and mix of the particular album that you're comparing. Sometimes I find newer versions to be an improvement, but surprisingly a lot of these remastered/remixed versions not only aren't any improvement over the old, but sound worse to me.

 

[Hajidub]

Maybe I'm not comprehending the thread. To me it's pretty obvious that different pressings (CD and Vinyl) all sound different. Quality of source vs. who mastered it makes all the difference. CD never made the correlation until I bought a decent, uncolored sounding player; then the difference became night and day. Vinyl was obvious from the beginning.

 

[toddalin]

Sometimes it comes down to more than just re-mixing for eq, placement, etc. Sometimes the music is a different version containing/or not parts that are from the original.

ELP's Hoedown is such a song. My DVD-Audio version includes "Original Trilogy", "New Stereo Trilogy", and "5.1 Trilogy". The Original and New Stereo version contain different material in the actual mixes, and not just "enhanced". They actually went through and pulled out different cuts from the "cutting room floor" for some solos and vocal tracks. In some cases, this is closer to what is actually heard, and rejected, in the studio, including distorted tracks and noises that are subsequently removed.

Actually, I just listened to it, and the whole thing sounds "sharper" and better defined, even those parts I don't care for as much. Abaddon's Bolero takes on a whole different perspective with much better differentiation in the instrumentation. The tracks aren't even in the same order. BTW, this disk is a regular CD and you don't need a DVD-Audio player to play it. For any ELP fans, I recommend it.

Just like Carlo Santana's remastered version of Abraxis I have in in surround that has him "whooping" (and not in a good way) to the music.

 

[JyriK]

In my experience, for DSOTM there's an early cd version (too lazy to check the details) which sounds like the og vinyl, the rest are simply not that good. Your mileage may vary.

 

[rcs16]

"I avoid "remastered" pressings, especially modern ones. They're rarely an improvement and usually just sound"

The Led Zeppelin 4 Cd box set remastered by Jimmy Page is fantastic imo.
But that does not mean that they are all of similar quality. There was also poor quality vinyl recordings, mixing, mastering, quality of the vinyl as well. No one standard.
The one SA-CD that I have is, what else, Pink Floyd DSOTM. I having it in British EMI vinyl, original CD, the SA-CD is the highest quality of the bunch, but that is only my opinion, everyone else might feel differently.

 

[par4ken]

The difference mainly comes down to DR. Early releases even those from vinyl masters sounded fine. When they started to "remaster" the CD release they added compression, mild at first but as time went on latter releases became so bad that the recordings are to me at least unlistenable.

A CD that is brickwalled has lost all the dynamics that were there on the original vinyl. Even milder amounts of compression cause listening fatigue and that feeling that something just isn't right about the sound.

SACD's are much less likely to be butchered in that way. Sadly even Blu-ray audio and HD-Tracks are often brickwalled. Purchasing has become a crapshoot, DR values should be given so that these inferior releases can be weeded out!

 

[Bourbon]

Remastered albums can be hit or miss. Some, like Pink Floyd's remastered DSOTM, there are several, sound good. Are they any better? Personally I think they did a good job remastering that album. I don't think it sounds any better than the original though, just different.

This is the reason for this thread. I lost my old DSOTM CD a few years ago, but since I had it on vinyl, I didn't replace it - until recently. I picked up a Guthrie/Sax remaster for $7 in like-new condition, and it seems to sound quite a bit better than I remember my old copy sounding through the same equipment. I just thought I might be wrong on this.

 

[Lavane]

This is the reason for this thread. I lost my old DSOTM CD a few years ago, but since I had it on vinyl, I didn't replace it - until recently. I picked up a Guthrie/Sax remaster for $7 in like-new condition, and it seems to sound quite a bit better than I remember my old copy sounding through the same equipment. I just thought I might be wrong on this.

I still have the discs from an old Floyd box set that has everything up to and including The Wall. I'll have to do another comparison of DSOTM copies I have along with the latest Vinyl pressing.

 

[kirk57]

People are talking about remasters (which is done in the studio), remixes, etc. but I think question is about pressings, which is a different thing as I understand it. With vinyl, the first pressings are most desirable because the stamper is new. Successive pressings are less good to some degree.

I can understand how this is true for record grooves but can’t figure out how this can be true for pits on a CD. Apparently it is though.

 

[dbuz]

"I avoid "remastered" pressings, especially modern ones. They're rarely an improvement and usually just sound"

The Led Zeppelin 4 Cd box set remastered by Jimmy Page is fantastic imo.
But that does not mean that they are all of similar quality. There was also poor quality vinyl recordings, mixing, mastering, quality of the vinyl as well. No one standard.
The one SA-CD that I have is, what else, Pink Floyd DSOTM. I having it in British EMI vinyl, original CD, the SA-CD is the highest quality of the bunch, but that is only my opinion, everyone else might feel differently.

I had that Zeppelin set when it came out and it was excellent. I wish I knew what happened to it over the years since it's probably going to cost me at least $80 to replace it.

 

[rcs16]

One would think that CD should represent exactly what the source was to create it.
It's data, either its an exact copy of the source or it's corrupt, can't see it being anything in-between.

Saying ,"But lately I've been looking to pick up some CDs to match my vinyl album collection"

You can't assume that they will be the same, because only the creator knows how close they are to being similar. So many possibilities as to the processing involved to create the media in question.

 

[Bourbon]

I don't assume they would be the same. And it wouldn't matter anyway. The CDs will be primarily used in my truck. Different acoustics, equipment, external noise, etc. I'm sure I'll occasionally play them in my home systems, usually just to test them, but they're more for the road.

 

[toddalin]

One would think that CD should represent exactly what the source was to create it.
It's data, either its an exact copy of the source or it's corrupt, can't see it being anything in-between.

Can't it? CD players all include an "error correction" strategy and if a pressing is more subject to errors, it would engage more often.

Who knows what the error correction strategy is using to replace the unread pits?

 

[M70AB2]

Unlike Youtuber Brendon Snyder who seems to have never met a remaster he didn’t like, I have many misgivings concerning “remasters.”

A few years ago, I bought the Rock Candy remaster of the first Coney Hatch for the bonus tracks.

Popped it in the CD player while driving to the supermarket. Ragged, distorted, harsh, brickwalled.

I thought, this has to be Jon Astley who got his mitts on this. Get to the parking lot, take out the booklet — yep, another Jon Astley disastered CD.

Good grief, what is with this fixing stuff that ain’t broken??? I have the original Coney Hatch on vinyl and Anthem Records CD.

The fine grain of their guitars and Marshall and Hiwatt amps was completely horribly mangled. What is with this guy???

Never listened to it again.

And what he did to Legs Diamond’s “A Diamond is a Hard Rock” is completely unlistenable. Fortunately, I have that on vinyl and Diamond Records CD.