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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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In Reply to: Why are Japan "First Pressing" CDs considered the best sounding? posted by LoWang on April 13, 2007 at 18:03:15:
As you probably know, it took 18 months or so after the release of the CD before a pressing plant came on line in the USA. All CDs prior to that were made in either West Germany or Japan. In most cases, the engineers supervised the transfers with no interference from record company executives.They wanted to stay well away from the 0dB level (distortion) so the overall levels were very low and the sound was not futzed with. The early CDs from plants in the US and Australia also followed this recipe.
In the '90s, the introduction of the shuffle play CD machine, and the sampler CDs sent to radio stations for them to choose songs to play on the air, led to what is called the "loudness wars". You can see this in Wikipedia.
As you know, in listening comparisons, the louder sounds better. So record company executives wanted to make their tracks louder than their competitors, attracting the ear of the radio stations. A punchy louder track cut through and seemed more likely to grab the listeners. Cheap systems seem to like these louder CDs - but good systems definitely don't.
As time went by, it was not enough to make the CD transfer at a higher level - ensuring the peak was still under 0dB. By compressing the sound, the overall level could be increased, squashed up into the most significant bits, ruining the dynamic range that the CD medium has. Executives instructed the engineers to simply make it louder, even clipping off the tops of the waveforms and letting distortion occur.
So the modern master suffers from this direction, being imposed from above. Yes, the analog to digital converters are better than 20 years ago; and yes, they get access to the original master tapes for remastering, something that did not always happen with the originals. But unless the engineers are skilled and have a free hand, the remaster will not be an improvement, and in many cases, it will be far worse. If we add in the stupid ideas like removing analogue tape hiss, the result is crap.
There have been some mastering engineers who have been able to take their own path - Hoffman, Diament etc. and the remasters from DCC and MFSL are mostly excellent (some from Mobile Fidelity are not as good as they could be due to equalization choices).
I collect a number of these early CDs. The "targets", black triangles, early Japanese first pressings. I have a number of duplicates and have not found any remasters that I significantly prefer to the original CD.
Your experience may be different.
There are other reasons to collect the early CDs, especially the ones made in Japan. They were a premium product over there, with extensive artwork, heavy plastic cases, and good quality control. Now they are rare and expensive, and the seller you indicate (1st press heaven) knows that they can command higher prices.
Regards,
Geoff
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Follow Ups
- Remastering has not lived up to its promise - Metralla 11:29:18 04/14/07 (3)
- One more question... - LoWang 13:05:31 04/14/07 (1)
- No, I'm not quite saying that - Metralla 14:06:04 04/14/07 (0)
- Oh thats just great... - LoWang 12:59:59 04/14/07 (0)
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