I enjoy looking for digital remasters of some earlier digital transfers and recordings. I feel that newer technology in ADCs and other gear allow for an improvement over the original sound quality. In many cases this has been true, but more and more lately I am finding that the newer transfers are not better, but in fact are far worse than the older originals.
While the technology does allow for better theoretical sound, that part is being ignored by the seemingly universal policy of making all new recordings as loud as possible. As everyone here already knows this raising of the gain compresses the waveform due to the limited bandwith of the digital format. In essence they are chopping up the nice waveforms and creating square waves where all the fine details of the music and dynamics are lost.
Unfortunately this is found across the most popular labels and there is little warning of where and when you will run across it. I would say that at least one half of my new purchases all suffer from this.
Rock music has always suffered from poor recording in general, but not always. A few years ago Rush released a long awaited new recording Vapor Trails. It has come to be known by professionals as a benchmark of how not to master a good recording. It is one of the most horrible recordings ever released by anyone due to the extreme compression involved.
Recently hope was given as several of those songs were to be remixed for the new release Retrospective 3. Here was the chance to try and repair some of the damage that has previously been done along with an apparent admission of the wrong doing. This gave me some hope for the future that just maybe someone in the right place gets it.
Well, this was not to be. Not only were the remixes maxed out in gain to the point of further destruction, but previous songs from earlier remasters that had been done very well were also boosted to their point of obliteration to match the levels of the known benchmark of what not to do.
Here is one example. This is the song Presto from an earlier remaster. See how nice the waveforms look.
Now here is the same song on Retrospective 3:
A person doesn't even need ears to realize what has been done here and this is just one example. I could very easily cite many more examples across all major labels that reflect similar problems. Is this what we all have to look forward to in the future? Do we already have and own the best digital music and recordings from our favorite artists that we can hope to find? In my case I have found that remasters done several years ago might just have been the peak of sound quality.
