Queen on CD: German EMI vs. Hollywood Records (longish)

Music Lane

It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes.

All,
Was listening to A NIGHT AT THE OPERA and A DAY AT THE RACES yesterday, on EMI CDs. The remastering year is not stated, but I bought them in the late 1980s or early 1990s with my first CD player, an early JVC unit which I got second hand and gave away after about 3 years due to mechanical problems. In hindsight, its sound wasn't great either, but then again I had nothing to compare it to at the time, and thought, "this must be how all CDs sound". The discs were made in Germany, and were the only versions available in Canada at the time.
Later on, I added NEWS OF THE WORLD and THE GAME, remastered on Hollywood Records CDs, to my collection. My original impression of these re-masters was very positive, and led me to conclude that the German EMI discs were just typically bad early CDs--very mid-rangey, not punchy enough, and fatiguing to listen to (they're marked AAD, so I'm assuming they just plopped a vinyl sub-master onto CD, forgetting that CD players don't do RIAA decoding).
However, listening to the OPERA, RACES, and GAME CDs again, I'm not sure the Hollywood CDs are all that much better. (I certainly couldn't care less about their bonus remix tracks). Not being able to do a direct comparison of the same title on each label, but wondering if I couldn't do better with the OPERA and RACES albums, should I take the plunge and get these titles on Hollywood CDs? Or have these since been surpassed by yet another batch of remasters? (Brian May, are you listening??)
I have a modest system--"the low-end of high-end"--that's about 6 years old: ROTEL RCD-930 CD player and RA-931 integrated amp, Mission 732 speakers on 25" stands, Audioquest Crystal speaker cables, Acoustic Research interconnect.

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Topic - Queen on CD: German EMI vs. Hollywood Records (longish) - djprobed 12:00:18 06/14/02 (3)

Re: Queen on CD: German EMI vs. Hollywood Records (longish) - DHVCD STUDIOS 17:47:26 06/15/02 (0)

Queen on CD: German EMI vs. Hollywood Records (longish) - KLM 18:42:41 06/14/02 (1)

Thanks KLM <nt> - djprobed 21:09:30 06/14/02 (0)

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