• ashinadash [she/her, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 month ago

    nerd no

    cw cringe

    Best sounding CDs I have are easily the 80s ""sterile ass"" issues, stuff like the Killing Joke selftitled, 1986 release. 1987 press of Little Queen. 1991 press of Big Generator, 1984 press of Who's Next. "Sterile ass" thought is what brought us to the loudness wars and compression death, because people's systems and gear weren't good enough and they whined that the CDs sounded bad. Funny enough, the 91-92 shift you describe is right before albums started being ruined comprehensively, examples like the George Marino masters of Yes and Led Zeppelin albums spring to mind, and then Oasis' second album and the reissues of Abba Gold were crushed within an inch of their lives. The Dreamboat Annie CD I refer to is from 2007, a US Capitol issue.

    The relative neutral response and high dynamic range of 1980s CDs is the benchmark. You don't need an EQ or expensive gear to make these sound good, my setup involves a JVC R-X81 and a pair of Sound Dynamics R-515 speakers. The R-X81 was TOTL but the more modest Akai AA-1150D or Kenwood KR-3600 I have sound great too, and to be real a SMSL SU-1 combined with a Douk U3 and say, some Sennheiser HD650 or even Sony MDR-7506 will sound great too. This meme is atrocious, your Emerson system (literal Kmart junk) was in fact not good enough. also the first two Dio albums would have likely been recorded to 1/2" PCM tape or analog soz nerd

    It is true that lots of studios lose the multitrack recordings that make up their albums, look at The Who or Yes' back catalog lol. But also those sort of remixes don't get done often anyway, and when they do it's usually for an album that didn't need it--see Close to the Edge. Only time I can think when it was done to an album that needed it was In The Court of the Crimson King, where the 40th and 50th anniv. Steve Wilson remixes use successively better-quality multitracks for the drums, which sounded awful in the original mix.

    (Sorry I know it must be super thrilling to get lectured about Steve-Hoffman-Forum-tier loser shit by some fucking bazingabrained critter on the bear website sergey-chad yw & apologies) (getting banned from the bearzone for posting cringe)