Led Zeppelin's Coda on CD: a blind listening test

You can listen to the fourth album and tell that John Davis used limiting on "Stairway to Heaven". There is much less difference between loud and soft on that track. No one has experienced the same thing with Marino's work and reported on it here. Rather, you have described Marino's work in terms of slight loudness increases, in keeping with clipping associated with an engineer getting all of the volume he can out of the CD.

 

I did not claim that Marino used limiting or compression - you are disagreeing with a claim that I (and grandegi) did not make. I agree with you that Marino does not appear to have used compression in his remastering job.

The 2003 and 2008 Japan CDs based on his mastering might have limiting applied, or they might just be further turned up. I don't know, because I haven't checked the waveforms - but regardless I don't even know if Marino was involved with the production of those later versions, so in any event even if those versions have limiting, I am not in any way claiming that Marino is the one who applied it.

So while we might disagree on whether or not the DR meter is useful, we do not disagree on the real issue that you want to talk about here (as always): we agree on the Marino mastering not using compression/limiting. Okay?

 

The DR Meter is useful, but in conjunction with listening to the material that you feed into it.

 

Much like Toto was the Beatles of the 80s, Marino is the... oh hell I don't know.

 

Yes, we agree on that.

 

I did a quick track-by-track comparision of the Marino and Davis discs. Just the albums that did not have a great BD mastering (IMO).

The blind test of LZ2 was confirmed by my own comparison. The only track that was better on the Marino/Page was What Is And What Should Never Be. For some reason that track was brighter and louder on the Davis.

But overall it was a blowout.

Led3 was a bit more troubling. Two of the tracks (the guitar solo on Gallows Pole and vocals on Hats Off To Roy Harper) were CLEARLY better at high volumes on the Marino/Page disc. I was also suspicious of the crispy highs on Davis version of That's The Way (the same problem I had with Coda and ITTOD).

Of course this was all done without any kind of volume adjustments.

I wonder if anyone would agree or reject these findings?

 

Fruitless discussion, I think. As @tmtomh correctly pointed out, no one claimed that DR meter can measure the dynamic compression used in a mastering, as obviously it does not take into account some variables (e.g. peak limiting). But if both Diament and Marino samples have DR11, then Marino did not use compression for Coda (for the other albums it's a different matter), whilst Davis sample has DR9 which does not mean that it used dynamic compression, such a conclusion would require listening and/or inspecting the waveform. Why discussing over something we most probably agree on?

 

Here you have the blind test for In Through The Out Door
In Through The Out Door on CD: a blind listening test »

 

I would actually like to compare all the tracks on the various albums and see if my impressions are consistent with my votes, but haven't had time for that lately. The only comparison I tried to make is Marino vs Sidore for (where I discarded the Davis for sounding anemic) and both have pros and cons to my ears...

 

I agree - a punchy or super-clear sample might become a fatiguing listen for the length of a whole album; or a warm, nice and laid-back sample might become a somewhat dull or lifeless listen for the full album length.

I don't say this to argue for or against any particular mastering.

 

I would agree with you on Zep II - I find the Davis clearly better.

On Zep III, I definitely hear the extended highs on the Davis compared to the Marino (and the Diament), but I don't consider them crispy, even at higher volumes. To my ears, the Davis has a sparkly high end on the acoustic tracks that is more prominent, but actually not too dissimilar from the original UK Plum vinyl - which vinyl is notably more extended on the high end than the Marino and Diament CDs. The Classic Records Zep III, now that is a bit crispy to my ears - there's something strangely compressed-sounding about the extended high end on that one.

But as I've written here before, I consider Zep III to be the most love-hate album when it comes to mastering: The Diament and Canadian red-label vinyl are very warm, pretty rolled-off on the high end, and in their best moments kind of lush. The UK Plum, the Davis, and the Classic vinyl have much more presence and high-end extension. IMHO what you like is a matter of taste, perhaps more than with any other Zep album.

 

Did a track-by-track comparison of Presence. Davis vs BD.

The volume difference is really extreme, so at first I was doubting my old vote for the Davis remaster.

But after I fixing the volume I was appalled by the BD disc. Really thin and shrieky guitar tone. Awful problem for this album, because it's nothing but guitar workouts.

So I'm down to 2 albums that I'm still wrestling with after the blind tests: LZ4 and Coda. Still can't make up my mind which versions I like best (or hate the least).

 

We don't agree because you are contradicting yourself. You base your conclusion that Marino did not use compression upon the DR Meter numbers, which are often dependent upon EQ and don't demonstrate whether or not the engineer used compression. Then, for some unknown reason, you are reserving making a conclusion on the existence of compression on the Davis sample, even though you have the DR Meter number available.

 

So...........many have commented that the last 2 Davis releases (ITTOD/Coda) sounded "sizzly" on the high end and I completely agree. Just listen to Bonham's cymbals on "Fool In The Rain" and if you are familiar with how that track should sound, you know it's simply all wrong. Now with that said, I can't recall a single person noting this anomaly when the initial MFIT versions popped a few years ago (me included.) In fact, they were almost universally praised. I need to go back and re-listen, but all things being created equal....shouldn't they too have the sizzly sound?

 

The reason @grandegi is saying both of these things is that it's more common for EQ tweaks to reduce DR than to increase them. So when the Davis is 1-2dB less dynamic than the Marino or Diament, it's reasonable to wonder if the reduced DR is because of light peak limiting or different EQ. When the Davis puts up a DR number that's, say, 4dB lower, then it becomes much more likely that the difference is because of peak limiting (or at least partially because of peak limiting) - it's hard to make any sensible/musical-sounding EQ changes that will reduce DR by that much; compression of some sort almost always will be involved when there's that much of a DR difference. (IME even the decoded vs undecoded version of a CD with preemphasis will differ by less than 4dB on the DR meter, and that's a pretty extreme EQ difference.)

Similarly, if the Marino DR is nearly the same as the Diament, it's natural to assume that the difference is down to EQ - it's the simplest and most intuitive explanation.

That said, you certainly are correct: It is possible for EQ changes to increase DR as well, and therefore it's possible that the Marino mastering could have compression applied and still achieve DR numbers very similar to the Diament mastering, by virtue of Marino using EQ settings that counteracted the DR-reducing effects of the compression. It's hard to tell.

AFAIK the main EQ differences between the Marino and the Diament are that the Marino has relatively boosted mids and cut bass compared to the Diament. Typically bass frequencies contain a lot of energy, so if Marino sucked out some of the bass relative to the Diament, that could indeed have increased the DR - which could have counteracted compression he might have applied.

But absent some kind of detailed statement/interview with Marino about it, we have no way of knowing for sure. You are correct about that. Although I'm betting @testikoff could do some sleuthing and come up with an answer!

 

Higher DR = no compression was used. Lower DR = impossible to determine if compression was used. That's my experience.

@testikoff's input is always welcome. A visual inspection of the waveforms might help as well.

 

What's your point of reference for higher or lower?

 

It's natural to assume that Marino used no compression at the CD master stage for the 1990 box set because doing so was an extreme rarity at that point in history. Engineers traditionally used compression at the master stage for vinyl since God was a boy, but that has nothing to do with CD.

 

In this case, the mastering by Barry Diament (as I wrote in another post).

Why is compression necessary when remastering pre-digital tapes? »

 

Yes - and this is exactly why @grandegi said Marino didn't use compression. You are attacking him and then repeating the exact rationale he used. FFS.

 

Marino using compression isn't the issue. The issue is that Davis did use compression for the most recent available vinyl and digital versions.

 

Marino using compression was indeed the issue that you first entered this thread about. nikosvault said, in passing, that he heard compression on the Marino mastering on two tracks. You responded:

@grandegi agreed with you that there is no compression on Marino's mastering of this album. But instead of acknowledging that he agreed with you, you instead picked a fight with him about the DR meter.

 

I'm sure he did. But I thought we were talking about the use of compression by Marino. Marino did not use compression for Coda, that's what I wrote (and we agreed on that).

 

Never mind @tmtomh. I'm a psychologist

 

You're OK with Davis using compression. Others aren't OK with that.