Of course original clean LPs are the way to get the fullest LZ experience. But the Barry Diament CDs & Joe Sidore LZ ZOSO CD are the best digital LZ available. They are forum favorites for good reason.
Wow this thread is too long for me to go through! I compared the Barry Diament Physical Graffiti cd to the 2014 vinyl remasters. The drumming on In my time of dying on the CD is incredible! I have listened to the song more than 20 times since I purchased it a few months back
As above, I prefer them for most of the albums, but in terms of the recent blind tests, the forum only chose them for 5 of the albums.
Couldn't agree more. The memories of these gents seem to agree and overlap. Page and Diament have said basically the same things. Masters weren't used for the original CDs, except for maybe one. This jives with lukpac's thoughts as well. As far as the 94s, the same tapes leaving Atlantic doesn't mean that they were actually used again. But what do I know? All I was really commenting on were the 80s releases, and the fact that Page's and Diament's stories back each other up. Interesting stuff. I may watch out for that HOTH CD even though my Canadian vinyl pressing sounds excellent.
Right. My picks are every thing excluding HOTH & ITTOD because I never did like those LPs in the first place. So my choices are the first 3,PG & Presence.
Not...exactly. Two thoughts at the moment: 1) HOTH is, at the moment, the only album where I’ve found distinct evidence of different tapes being used. In other cases, I’ve heard different mastering, but not clear evidence of different tapes. That said, I haven’t (yet, anyway) compared every album in such detail. 2) I’ve seen comments elsewhere that actually seem to suggest the Diament and Davis versions of PG use the same tapes, while the Marino uses different tapes. I haven’t compared those yet but plan on doing so soon. If true, that throws another wrench into the various recollections and statements of those involved. Which honestly shouldn’t be that surprising.
Zeppelin CD threads do offer up little bits of handy info amidst large amounts of insanity. You will encounter some truth, some fiction, plenty of conjecture and bias from all sides. Just remember to like what you like and don't buy into the " forum approved " nonsense. Good luck.
My mistake. it's the Ludwig mastering that had the needle drop of Led Zeppelin II, not IV. Not claiming to be an expert I just read it somewhere...Probably here...A lot of MISINFORMATION about stuff on here. Heresay and such. I didn't know Zeppelin had been done twice in the eighties. Or am I wrong there too? I stand by the copy tape comment though. And those of you who think 3rd and fourth gen tapes are not used check out the E.L.O. "No Answer" CD from the 80's. I have it and it sounds like a they made a PCM copy off a minidisk made on a first generation machine.
Total speculation on your part. The audible evidence suggests that the original CD's use the same tapes as the remasters, and sometimes even better ones. There is zero evidence that they used "3rd generation copy tapes" beyond some nonsense spewed in the press by Jimmy Page & John Davis, and repeated here by you. That is absolutley true, but what does that have to do with Led Zeppelin? They aren't even on the same label.
No. Bob Ludwig mastered it for LP, which people needledrop for their pleasure. Nothing to do with commercial CDs. He did not master a CD. Your comment was regarding the LZ CDs, not CDs in general.
I see what you are saying now. You are mistaken that the Ludwig mastering is digital and official. It's an old LP mastering, so any digital version of that would be a "private" needledrop.
The Zeppelin 1990 box set is o.k. but it has these ummm.....ahhh...sound to it that's weird to describe. As if there was life there at one time but now gone. I am listening to the stuff from Zep IV thinking, "The masters must sound better than this." I heard it was de-noised. if they did they over did it. Funny, the 2 disk set three years later sounds great. Anyone on here no why such a difference in just 3 years?
When I dare to mention that they used copy tapes (eq and limited for cutting) I get my head bitten off here and accused of spreading nonsense. I have been working in recording studios for the 15 years. My uncle and I have not given in to the loudness wars and yet I am accused of spreading lies and false stories on this site. A couple months ago some member had the nerve to call me a troll because I said music wasn't good anymore. Because of course Jimmy Page makes up stories all the time. When you are young your memory works great but when you get to be in your 60's and hitting 70 that's a different story. We don't say Mr. Page is mistaken we say he is B.S.ing. The truth is this. The game has changed. In the 80's and early-mid 90's mastering CD was to get the best sound out of whatever tape you were given. Remember the caption that told us the sound of the master tape has been preserved as closely to the original. Not anymore. For their to be a flat (don't muck with...).transfer the client has to ask for it. And even then I heard stories of so called mastering engineers talking them out of it. On most of the remasters are: compression, mid-side eq, narrowing of the stereo image, etc, etc. Trust me the Led Zeppelin remasters could have been a lot worse. They are audiophile quality compared to some projects I have heard.
You are absolutely right in your assessments. But you are simply wrong about the early LZ CD's being from poor tapes. That is certainly the case with a lot of things, notably the ELO CD you mentioned which is a great example. But that's simply not the case with Led Zeppelin. This is probably because when it came time to do the CD's, the master tapes were right there in Atlantic's vault (well, some of them anyway). Remember that some of these albums were mixed and/or mastered in the United States, most notably "Houses Of The Holy", which sounds superb on the original CD. The remaster uses a UK tape that was dubbed and processed for LP cutting. This can be observed not only by looking at the tape boxes in the deluxe edition artwork, but by listening and comparing the various versions. I strongly urge you to check out the "Houses Of The Holy" remaster with a nice set of headphones and A/B compare it with the original. You will be surprised.
Speaking of converters, Steve has re-opened an old thread he started a decade ago talking about how he and Kevin Gray went about choosing better converters than those old Sony ones used in the 80's. Good reading (and no trolls): SH Spotlight - CD & Digital flaws: Our technique for finding A/D & D/A converters for DCC Golds in 1992
