Are CD issues all the same?
Posted by: Shayman on 18 January 2005
In our house there are several CDs we own in duplicate for one reason or another. My partner says she's going to give all the extra copies to her sister which I'm more than happy with.
However it is now crossing my mind that in future first CD issues may be worth more (as is often the case with LPs).
For example I bought both Gomez - Bring It On and Oasis - Definitely Maybe on the morning they were released whereas our other copies were bought in about 2000 (probably the 50 millionth UK pressing of DM!). Is there any way I can tell which was which or are they all the same? I can't see any immediate differences.
Don't want to be giving away copies that in 20 years time will turn out to be the collectible versions.
Any advice?
Jonathan
Posted on: 18 January 2005 by Jono 13
Special inserts, extra tracks, different sleeve types are the sort of thing that people like to collect.
Is "Bring It On" in a card sleeve? If so then it is probably worth hanging on to.
Jono
Posted on: 19 January 2005 by Jim J
All CD issues are not the same. I have a copy of the Eagle's Hotel California that I've had for several years. For some reason it's developed a convex shape and although it plays the edge scrapes on the plastic surround in the CD player. So I don't play it much anymore.
So when I saw a copy in the bargain section of a CD store I bought it as a replacement. It looks identical and has the same catalogue number as my convex shaped one except that it has a digitally remastered sticker on it.
Now Bill Szymczyk and the Eagles were kind of fussy about the sound quality of their output, so I was surprised to find that the sound quality on the new digitally remastered copy was crap.
It has been heavily compressed during the CD mastering stage to maximise the volume level - it's seriously louder than the older one. The overall remastering process also seems to have resulted in a thin "spashy sound". Result crap.
The comparison beetween the two versions is stark - even my non-audiofile friends can easily spot the difference and much prefer the older CD.
Posted on: 19 January 2005 by J.N.
I buy a lot of new (and re-mastered) music by American artistes.
The EU produced equivalent (when there is one) generally sounds obviously inferior. I have proved this with numerous discs and several friends get most of their CD's from the States for this reason.
The price (with the postage) is about the same.
John.
Posted on: 20 January 2005 by Nime
I have noticed inferior sound quality on some compilation albums in comparison with the original artists CDs.
As an example: Clannad's original tracks on their own CDs are better sound quality than the Celtic Circle Albums.
Though I wouldn't be without the Celtic Circle albums. They offer a nice range of artists and music in a flavour much to my liking.
Finding all the original artist's CDs to make sound quality comparisons would be expensive to say the least. Not to menton the unlikelihood of the rest of their works being in a similar style or even genre.
Nime
Posted on: 24 January 2005 by Shayman
Looking into this further I found out that the first copies of Badly Drawn Boy's 'The Hour Of Bewilderbeast' had a partial picture of Woody Allen's face on the cover and track 12 had the refrain, "Love is contageous". These were removed from later pressings due to copyright infringement.
We do indeed have a copy each and I hadn't noticed before. Anyone know of any other such incidences on recent releases (90's to 00's)
Jonathan
