Last night I heard Led Zeppelin II on vinyl, an extremely high end rig, we heard 3 versions of the same album.
Original British (Plum) release , very good, very dynamic, hot recording, but fun, very open and revealing.
Led Zep II rerelease, awesome, better than the Brit version, smooth open and excellent tone and body, great recording.
American release, probably the same release we all had growing up, It was terrible by contrast, very compressed and NO dynamics, it was a reflection of the real thing.
Sitting in the chair I was struck, thinking this shitty recording is in everyones collection, the better recordings just trounced it. What boggled my mind was all the money we spend to get it better, when a 20 dollar record was like a 10K upgrade or more! Frustrating when you think about it.
The rerelease ROCKS! That is not always the case, many times the original sounds way better than the audiophile 180 gram release.
It was fun
mike