There's been alot of justified talk lately that CDs are mastered too loudly, thereby destroying the music and making it impossible to enjoy.
My favorite is this article by Rip Rowan over the crappy sound of Rush's ablum Vapor Trails.
Also, there's this great article written about CD levels in general being too loud. And this one.
Let me be clear here, I'm not talking about compression, as in 'file compression', as in the argument that mp3s don't sound as good as CDs do (which they don't).
This is a deliberate action, taken by either the bands or the label that physically removes all dynamics from the music on purpose, in order for the overall sound to be LOUD.
Have you noticed that the CDs you bought around 1992-95 are a lot quieter than the brand new ones? You have to be careful because I've noticed that a lot of "remastered" releases just mean they made it louder, and not improved the sound quality at all. There are exceptions: ELO and Peter Gabriel's remastered catalog sound glorious, and take full advantage of the frequency spectrum.
Other titles, especially on the Rhino label, just make things loud.
What's especially interesting is I bought the DVD audio version of Rush's newest album Snakes and Arrows, because I wanted the documentary AND I suspected the CD version might have the same problem as their previous album, Vapor Trails had, which was too loud. And guess what?
Here's what really interesting: I ripped a copy of the first track "Far Cry" from the CD, and the same track at the same position from the DVD audio version, and the results are below. You can see the difference immediately:
CD version:
DVD version:
I did not boost or touch either of the original files - this is how they look. You can just tell by looking at them the obvious difference. The natural peaks and dynamics of the DVD version is how it's supposed to look. And you can guess which one sounds better.
I bet the DVD is closer to what the music actually sounded like when it was mixed in the studio - before the mastering hacks got their hands on it.
While I'm glad the truest form of the music of this particular album *IS* available, I'm disappointed that yet again I can't listen to the CD because of the mastering.
Besides, this Rush album wasn't even one of my favorite releases from last year - other albums I wanted to enjoy more were ruined by the bad mastering, making it hard to listen to the music for more than a short sitting.
I shouldn't have to buy the fancier and MORE expensive product to get a better sound. So if there is no DVD audio version available, at least there are older masters of older albums still around. In fact, I've seen record stores put the older version of releases at cheaper prices than the newly remastered one.
So just be warned that just because it's a new remaster, doesn't mean it sounds the best it could be.
