Supertramp - Crime & Crisis reissues?

Posted by: kevin J Carden on 31 July 2017

I haven't listened to these 2 albums ( Crime of the Century and Crisis What Crisis? What Crisis) for years, but really fancied doing so last night. Sadly, I discovered that the 15+ year old CD's that I own and have ripped are of the typically execrable early CD transfer variety and are virtually unlistenable.

I'm hoping that better versions are now available. Can anyone advise on which are the best digital reissues to go for?

Posted on: 31 July 2017 by antony d

Crime is avialable on qobuz is 24/192 and is superb recording - i dont think Crisis has been remastered as yet

Posted on: 31 July 2017 by ewemon

antony d posted:
Crime is avialable on qobuz is 24/192 and is superb recording - i dont think Crisis has been remastered as yet

Yep Crisis has been but the original cd's were fine or better still get a Sony Classical Music Division copy of the original vinyl as that to me is still the best sounDing version of COTC.

Posted on: 31 July 2017 by audio1946

crime of century was a big favourite played to death ,only vinyl I had to replace due to playing over over again . still in my top ten

Posted on: 31 July 2017 by Clive B

I hadn't heard these had been remastered, but as Ewemon says above, the original CDs were fine; I think my copy of COTC is HDCD encoded.

Let's hope Steven Wilson hasn't had any part in the remastering!

Posted on: 31 July 2017 by kevin J Carden

Thanks all. I will investigate the Qobuz HiRes Crime . Vinyl sadly not an option for me any longer though I know nothing ever sounds close on most 70's pop/rock which was so specifically recorded and mixed for Vinyl. David Bowie has never worked for me in digital either...

Digging out the original CD's from the dusty shelves I find both mine are from the A&M ' Audio Master Plus Series'. The Crisis claims in bold letters on a yellow spine to be digitally remastered, but whoever did that job seems to have just lifted the high freqs so that cymbals sound like high pressure steam emissions and the whole thing just bites your ears off. It actually sounds a lot worse than the Crime which at least sounds in balance across the frequency spectrum. Ho hum.

Musically, there's always the question of whether the music still works for your matured tastes the way it did in the 70's. Interestingly, I find the Rick Wright tunes tending to hold up better than the Roger Hodgson ones for me at least..

Posted on: 31 July 2017 by MDS

From your description I think I've got both of these CDs, Kevin. Must say I've always thought the reproduction quality was pretty good. I used to have a high-quality vinyl pressing of CotC and from memory the CD was as good. Maybe my ears.

Still, always open to get even better versions.

Posted on: 01 August 2017 by wenger2015

I have both albums on vinyl and cd, all of good quality.

Often some of these remastered versions are actually far worse then the originals.