Put the wave files away and listen with your ears... "use the Force, Luke" !!! They're peak-limited but not brickwalled, they sound good with some minor flaws; III is a bit brittle and there are some early fades on IV, both otherwise they're solid overall. I wish George and Jimmy had digitized the entire Zeppelin catalog in 1990 in one fell swoop - using the mixdown masters - and released the remastered albums over the ensuing year or so (preferably in mini-LP vinyl replica sleeves) instead of faffing around with what were glorified 'greatest hits' box-sets... the further you go from the initial 1990 transfers, the louder and more peak-limited they get with each new re-release. I honestly don't know what sources were used for the Marino remasters - does anyone, aside from Jimmy Page, know for sure? - but what I do know is that the Japanese SHM mini-LP box-set (which is essentially a remaster of Marino's remasters!) sounds absolutely terrific... never mind graphs, wave forms, or stainless steel rulers, it sounds great to these ears; clear separation, wonderful clarity, and absolutely flawless presentation with the albums' sleeves... when you want something done right, go to the land of the rising sun! As some have said here, the whole 'master tapes' thing is a bit of a marketing red herring at times - like 180g vinyl - it's how it sounds that's important... and the fact that there will never be agreement on what version of remastered Zeppelin sounds better (whatever the source used for a particular release) is proof of that.
Regarding Hats Off to (Roy) Harper that I asked about before, I've now checked out several editions - maybe someone else then me is interested. The song is faded a bit earlier on the following editions: Original UK first vinyl pressing Canadian vinyl Classic 200 gram vinyl reissue US Atlantic SD 7201 vinyl Berry Diament CD On the following the guitar at the end continues a bit longer and fades later: The 1994 CD remaster The 2015 CD and vinyl remaster This seems to conclude that the slightly longer version first appeared on the 1994 remaster and that originally the song was faded a bit earlier - however (and this it what bugs me), I do have a memory about my old vinyl (which I sold when I bought the CD in the 80's, I think it was a German press, I bought in the late 70's) had the version that fades later - I remember that I noticed the difference and thought that there was a mistake on the CD - when the remaster came out I remember that I noticed it was, as I believed then, corrected. Anyone else that has noticed this and have more information?
I know - and I do that most of the time nowadays (there was a time when I was obsessed with wave files), but sometimes it's good to have a visual look to determine things, especially peak limiting. Ok, I use the term brick wall peak limiting when the peaks are "cut" because they hit max, as opposed to just being compressed without doing so.
The 2014/15 Davises are compressed, but there's semantic confusion that makes the whole discussion a bit of a mess. Traditional compression turns up the volume of all sounds below a certain threshold volume, and/or turns down the volume of all sounds above a certain threshold volume. Some compressors just do one or the other - turn up quiet sounds or turn down loud sounds - while others do both at the same time. The Zep remasters use what is today a very common (not saying it's good or bad, just common) type of compression called peak limiting. This is a compressor that does not make soft sounds louder. It only makes loud sounds softer. As the name "peak limiter" indicates, this compression tool is intended only to attenuate the loudest peaks in the waveform, thereby enabling the rest of the music to be turned up in volume without producing clipping from those peaks, in other words without adding audible distortion to the sound. (Yes, that means peak limiting enables the turning up of the volume of the music, but that's not directly how it operates - it operates by turning down the volume of the loudest peaks.) Of course, if you set a peak limiter's threshold very low - if you set it to turn down not only the loudest peaks but also large swaths of the music that's just moderately loud - then you can use a peak limiter as a more broad and severe compression tool. This is what we see with "brickwalled" masterings: So many peaks have been limited, the peak limiter has been overused so badly, that tons of peaks of varying volumes have all been evenly "buzzcut" to the same volume. This abusive use of a peak limiter did not happen with the Zep remasters. That's simply a fact. (The only partial exception is "Custard Pie," but that's another conversation.) The DR (dynamic range meter) readings for the new Zep remasters, not to mention the waveforms, clearly show peak limiting on most tracks. But in most cases the peak limiting is what I would call light or modest. Most of the waveforms still show lots of ragged/random-looking peak levels. And for most tracks the DR ratings are 1-3dB lower than the original 1980s CDs and the 1990-94 Marino remasters - and often some of that DR difference is caused by EQ rather than peak limiting, meaning the actual impact of the peak limiter is minimal, turning down the loudest peaks perhaps 1-2dB. In fact, in some cases (admittedly a minority of cases), the new remasters have songs whose DR ratings are the same as the prior Diament and/or Marino versions. I want to stress that the above are, to the best of my knowledge, the facts. I'm not making apologies for the Davis remasters or trying to pretend they're something they're not. Nor do I feel any need to make apologies for them - I like most of them a lot, and they are my favorites for some of the albums - and at the same time I have nothing against anyone who doesn't like them. As for the Marinos, my understanding is that the original Marino remasters - the versions that appeared on the 1990 Box Set and the 1993(?) Box Set 2 - have no compression or peak limiting. However, I believe the 1994 individual-album CDs based on the Marino remasters were turned up a bit compared to the Box Set versions, producing some minor clipping. And the 2003/2008 Japan SHM CD reissues, also based on the Marino remasters, were turned up further and perhaps also compressed, producing a lot of clipping and quite noticeably compressing the sound. So as far as I know the only CDs that have absolutely zero compression or clipping are the 1980s Diament/Sidore CDs, and the 1990/93 Marino Box Set/Box Set 2. One final note: peak limiting/brickwalling is not the same as clipping. Clipping is in one sense a form of peak limiting, but in another sense the opposite of peak limiting. Clipping just means that you turn up the volume of the music so much that that the loudest peaks exceed digital 0.0 - in other words the loudest peaks cannot be accurately represented/encoded using the 1s and 0s of digital sampling. That produces distortion. It's usually inaudible for isolated peaks of just one or two samples. But frequent or extended periods of clipping produce very audible distortion. Peak limiting sometimes is referred to as "soft clipping," meaning that it turns down the volume of peaks so that they don't exceed 0.0 when the overall volume of the music subsequently is increased. But when peak limiting is overused, it can still produce audible distortion because there's only so much the algorithm can do to cleanly turn down all those peaks while still preserving the tonal character of the sound. The Red Hot Chili Peppers' original release of the Californication CD comes to mind - totally buzzcut peak-limited, and perhaps technically no "clipping," but still distorted sounding as all get-out.
Bottom line for me: I like the sound of the 1980s discs better than the 1994 Page/Marino remasters. Always have, long before i saw any DR numbers. As for the box set, I have the 1992 smaller 3-disc version, and for some reason, Disc 2 sounds a little better than Disc 1 (Disc 3 is interviews and the like).
I feel like I've just been back at school after reading that ... but yeah, the 1990 set I had back in the day sounded really good; substantially better than the individual albums released later in 1993-4. I heard somewhere on the grapevine that Jimmy Page originally wanted to remaster/reissue the Zeppelin catalog in 1990, Atlantic said no (the Diament versions were still selling extremely well), and the Remasters sets were the compromise... don't know if that's true or not. One more thing; with regards to my saying the recent Davis remasters weren't compressed, I meant in the ear-bleeding sense, just want to clarify that... and in that sense, they're not; they sound uniformly terrific, kudos to Jimmy and John Davis.
Kind of, kind of not. First off, strictly speaking, limiting/compression is a method of automatically reducing dynamic range. Louder sounds are reduced in volume, which then enables the entire program to be raised in volume. Generally, there are 4 parameters involved: Threshold - At what level the limiter/compressor starts doing its thing. Sounds above that level will be compressed, while sounds below that level won't be. Ratio - How much volume reduction will take place once the threshold is hit. 1:2 means that above the threshold, the output volume will rise 1dB for every 2dB rise in input volume. 1:10 means the output volume will rise 1dB for every 10dB rise in input volume. Etc. Attack - How fast the compressor starts working once the threshold is reached. Release - How fast the compressor stops working once the signal falls back below the threshold. *Exactly* how those parameters work is a bit more in-depth, but that's the basic idea. The result of all of that is a reduction in peak level. As there's now more headroom, the signal can be made louder. That's generally called makeup gain. There's no specific dividing line between compression and limiting, but they are generally defined like this: Compression - Lower threshold and ratio, so more of the program is affected by compression by the compression isn't extreme. The attack and release times are often set to longer times as well, so initial transients can get through and there's less pumping. Limiting - Higher threshold and ratio, so less of the program is compressed, but the portion that is compressed is compressed more. The attack and release time are often shorter. Digitally, limiters can actually look ahead, and start compressing before the peaks hit. In the sense that any form of compression/limiting is used to raise the overall level, soft sounds will always be louder. The difference, broadly, between "compression" and "limiting" is where and how the squashing of louder sounds takes place.
It looks like your post went bye-bye, but you flat out claimed that the Diaments used inferior copy tapes and that the Davis's used the original masters for the "first time ever", which is simply not true. You are just making assumptions and reiterating marketing hype, and now you are backpeddling. I am not trying to be high and mighty, just pointing out that you are wrong and spreading misinformation. If that's too much for you to handle, then I sincerely apologize.
I very much agree with your final statement here: I love the Davis remasters. With 2-3 years now to listen long-term and reflect, I still think most of the Davises are excellent (the heavier tracks on Zep IV being the only notable sonic "misses" of the campaign IMHO). As for the Marinos, I agree that the Box Set/Box Set 2 versions are the ones to get because they the only Marinos that are totally un-futzed with sonically. But - and I don't say this to be pedantic or disagreeable - I don't think even those versions of the Marino mastering sound great. I recently found the Box Set very cheap online and re-acquired it (I'd sold my original a few years ago). I love the sequencing as a change of pace, particularly discs 3 and 4; but I just can't like the sonics no matter how hard I try. They're midrange-heavy, bass-shy, and brittle-sounding to me. They're nice and dynamic, to be sure, but nevertheless I find them fatiguing - it's hit or miss whether I can get through an entire CD of the Box Set without it grating on my nerves/ears during any given listening session. I even put together an electronic version of Zep IV - where the Marino was voted the forum favorite in grandegi's recent blind test - using the tracks from Box Set and Box Set 2. And I just can't get into it. I'd rather listen to the Sidore CD, flawed though it is, or one of the better vinyl rips, than the Marino CD tracks.
I feel like you are greatly misrepresenting the situation here and also talking in absolutes which is just as bad as the very people you are complaining against "Those who prefer the compressed sound of the loud Davis remasters are ignorant", come on now That right there is dangerous rhetoric. Like, to you it is impossible that different people hear different things on their different systems. I feel like anyone who feels so strongly to bash anyone for liking the Diaments or liking the Davis remasters, needs to step away from the keyboard - smoke a fat one, and jam out to Houses of The Holy
*Sigh* Okay, one more time... just for the record; I said that the Diament remasters did not use the original mixdown masters; that is absolutely true and I even posted a verbatim quote from Barry himself attesting to that, he himself said he used flat copies on all albums except Presence and In Through The Out Door, when he used production copies. I also stated that both Diament and Marino used the same source tapes, as indicated by Zal Schreiber... I was going by what someone who actually worked on the project said, but that may or may not be true after all; nobody is really sure what exact tapes were used on the 1990-93 Marino's, if I had to guess, it was a combination of mixdown masters plus safety copies where the original wasn't available... but who knows? If I made a mistake, it was making a declarative statement that Diament/Marino were from the same source... I'm backtracking on that because I simply don't have the information I previously (and wrongly) assumed I had to support such a statement. I further stated that John Davis publicly said that his remasters were the first time the original mixdown masters were being used in a comprehensive Zeppelin remastering campaign, but I also added a bracketed caveat that Bernie Grundman possibly had access to some of the mixdowns for the Classics reissues, and there is an indication from Jimmy Page that original mixdowns may have been used on some of the Marino's. Davis may be accurate in his statement, he may not, but I see no evidence to indicate or imply he's being intentionally deceptive or dishonest... I simply quoted what he said, I didn't necessarily say he was right, I wasn't there in the studio checking the tape boxes as they came in. Got all that?
I apologize if this was already answered in the past 79 pages, but I read the last few and didn't see anything about it. Are the Atlantic, 1980s nonremastered CDs all done (except IV) by Barry Diamont, on a given title, were some done by him and others done by someone else? For example were all 1980s nonremastered copies of the Houses of the Holy CD done by Diamont and some others by someone else, or did he do all copies of that 1980s title?
Every 1980s Zep CD - all 9 studio albums, plus The Song Remains the Same live/movie soundtrack album - were mastered by Barry Diament, except for Led Zeppelin IV, which was mastered by Joe Sidore. And just to be clear, every non-remastered CD of each album uses the same mastering - so in other words the 1980s US WEA CDs, West German "target" design CDs, Japan CDs, and so on, all contain the identical mastering. The only variation in the actual music or digital information on different 1980s pressings that I'm aware of, is that some copies of Physical Graffiti omit the final "cough" bit at the end of "In My Time of Dying." I believe the forum's best collective understanding of this particular issue is that this problem exists on some (or all?) of the first Japanese pressing (the 55XD series), and perhaps some of the 2nd Japanese pressing. Others can correct me if I've messed up the details on that.
I gave away most of my 80's Zep cds to get Marino remasters this was the "remaster must be better" era I always thought the original PG sounded murky on the Diament - hence searching out better copies The Crop Circles boxes sound pretty good and the latest ones are nicely detailed I have a couple Japanese copies - most likely 90s vintage. Vinyl is a whole different story love the originals including an RL II and the Classics
I have always liked the original Diament masters of the LZ catalog. I thought they sounded dynamic while still being natural. I could never understand why they felt they needed to do those Marino remasters in the first place. I don't think the Marinos sound bad, but they certainly did not sound any better. I have no comment on the latest Jimmy Page versions because I have never heard them. These remaster programs are an attempt by record companies to stimulate record sales. I have been more disappointed than pleased with most of them. If you currently have the Diament's, hold on to them and save your money. They sound great.
Well for the Zeppelin remasters of the last few years I hope they did stimulate record sales because they sound great and are worth a listen to in my opinion
The original CDs are a clear winner for me, what is less clear is whether I like the Davis or Marino set better. If it wasn't for the bonus discs, not sure if I would keep the new ones.
