Remastered CDs - are they worth buying?

Posted by: Martin M on 01 February 2001

A quick recommendation for a CD I picked from Amazon - the re-mastered version of Soild Air by John Martyn. Great music as I guess you already know. Fabulous re-mastering effort, clean, smooth, dynamic, musical. Much better than the original version I borrowed. Worth the cash.

I have also ordered the HDCD remaster of Nick Drake's Pink Moon. We shall see how this turns out. I'm not too impressed with the Jobni Mitchell HDCD efforts. They're boring to my ears.

Anyone tried the Stevie Wonder CDs?

Any more recommended re-mastered CDs that are worth buying (again)?

[This message was edited by Martin M on THURSDAY 01 February 2001 at 11:22.]

Posted on: 01 February 2001 by Pete
Kind of Blue, the '97 remaster not only goes at the right speed on "side 2", but has much less noise reduction done which on previous versions rather sucked a lot of the music off along with the hiss. Newer one is miles better. Ouch, sorry about that...

If you're a sad proggie then the King Crimson remasters are sonically better than their predecessors (though I think Islands may not have been available?), but also have some of the best packaging I've ever seen for CDs, being miniatures of the original gatefold covers in good quality stiff card. If you use typical CD storage systems (as opposed to the much more sensible plain shelving) they won't fit, mind. Each also contains a photo-scrapbook of material surrounding each album. Once runs have sold out I believe they'll be back in jewel cases, and may already be from some suppliers, so if you fancy these get them ASAP. So far all the studio albums up to Red have been done, with the USA live album and the three 80s studio albums due in a couple of months. Fripp's done the remastering job with help from a specialist in reclamation, not just any old hack.

As folk have got better at squeezing stuff on to CDs some double LPs that got chopped a bit to get on one CD have been properly remastered and restored to former glory. Again for sad proggies, Rush's Exit... Stage Left falls into this category.

Pete.

Posted on: 01 February 2001 by Chris Metcalfe
"I'm not too impressed with the Joni Mitchell HDCD efforts. They're boring to my ears."

Oh well - I think they're some of the best I've heard. 'Hejira' is particularly fine. Perhaps you don't have HDCD capability (I Haven't checked your system).

Some of the remasterings using NoNoise processing can sound very, er, processed to me. The 24-bit Traffic CDs from 1999 are a case in point. Otherwise worthwhile - especially as my incredibly valuable pink Island original vinyl sounds cruddy after decades of dodgy record decks.

Posted on: 03 February 2001 by Steve Shochet
While they are expensive, the JVC reissues of Bill Evans work with Scott Lefaro (all 4..Sunday at the village, waltz for debbie, etc) and Miles Davis' quintet work with John Coltrane are truely unbeleivable. Compared to the older copies (which weren't bad to start with) the music seems so much more alive. The base is tighter, deeper, the piano and horns sound like they are in the room with you, instead of down the hall.
Absolutely the best investment in music I have made. I plan to go get Sarah Vaugns XRCD (forget the title) asap!!
Steve
PS I have heard that the very latest reissue of Birth of the Cool (just out last month) is better than the last reissue, "complete birth of the cool." Apparently they found original masters that were thought to have been lost, and Rudy Van Gelder had to work hard to convice Capital records to re-rerelease it so soon.