I've been perusing the various Cure pressings from the eighties and present on my system (Walker Audio Ultimate Power Supply/Wilson Benesch Full Circle/Nanotube 1/Carbon/Living Voice Mystic Mat/Vauum State JLTi/552/500/WB ACT) and surprisingly find the recent remasters the weakest of the lot.
I have Polydor and Electra originals, VAP Japanese pressings and the new remasters and I find the VAP pressings to be the best, combining the detail and ease of the originals with the punch of the remasters - the originals sound a bit soft compared to the VAP and the remasters sound dry and mid band forward.
I have all three for Faith and the VAP is amazing! In the original you hear up and down imaging of drums and all the textures of the drums on "All Cats Are Grey". Totally mesmerizing! The remaster is very dry and makes you want to take it off after a few minutes and the drums on "All Cats Are Grey" lack detail and to be honest sound fake. The cymbals also sound like some kind of spurious hiss or background noise. However, the remaster sounds more punchy than the original. But the VAP is even punchier than the remaster and has all the detal and texture of the original.
I am listening now to the VAP pressing of The Top and it is AWESOME! My system sounds like its on steroids! No lack of base that can hamper some Japanese pressings.
If you find any VAP Cure pressings on e-bay BUY!
I am curious what other people find here as I know that Hi Fi plus seemed to like the remastering of Faith in their review of the WB Trinity.
dave
Posted on: 25 March 2012 by onip
I bought the remastered albums (three imaginary boys through disintegration) on CD instead of vinyl in part because of the bonus tracks and demos on the CDs but also because of bad luck with the Cure and recent vinyl releases. I bought the last two studio albums (including 4:13 Dream) on vinyl and I thought the sonics were poor. I have copies of their older albums on vinyl (pressed in the 1980s) and they sound quite good compared to the sonics on the most recent albums, so anything I buy from the cure from now on will be on CD. I am not an expert on this but I think that whoever presses the albums for their label does a poor job. Other modern rock/pop albums do sound amazing on LP (the recent Erykah Badu albums, for instance), but the Cure ones sound strangely hollow to me. It sounds like something is missing.
BTW, I found out that the remastered Wish album will finally come out sometime this year. Hurray!
Posted on: 26 March 2012 by The Flying Acorn
I haven't bought any of the recent Cure releases on vinyl, but what you say is quite interesting about the quality dropping. Most new vinyl that I have bought, with the exception of 180 gram pressings, seems to be low quality vinyl - gets crackly quite quickly - while most of the original pressings I have going as far back as some Decca Rolling Stones LPs sound quite good and are surprisingly free of surface noise. Maybe there is a trend!
As for the Cure - I don't have a CD player so I can't comment on the relative quality vs the LPs, but some of those bonus tracks are great. It took them so long to release in some form what was on the B side of the Concert and Staring at the Sea cassettes - some of that was great!
Cheers,
dave
Posted on: 28 March 2012 by Gale 401
The May 2010 double 180g vinyl release of this classic.
Sounds wonderful.
The special edition CD box set is also wonderful.
To this day its still my fav Cure album.
I have lots of the originals.
On vinyl/CD/DVD.
Stu.
Posted on: 29 March 2012 by The Flying Acorn
I have the original pressing of Disintegration in mint....I haven't heard the remastered LP release. Have you compared them?
I believe it was on Pitchfork where the reviewer said that he felt the remastered Disintegration sounded louder with more seemingly more detail but lacked the dynamic contrast of the original - which is quite typical of remasters in general. There is the illusion of greater detail and clarity because they have played with the levels.
But I have not heard this LP so I am not criticizing it - just mentioning what I had read.
