Are 80s Led Zeppelin CDs really better?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by SOONERFAN, Jan 9, 2010.

  1. RK2249

    RK2249 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Jersey

    What's the aural evidence for HOTH, btw?
     
  2. RK2249

    RK2249 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Jersey
    Btw, Barry did address (in his emails to me) "stories about Zep masters or edits on Zep tapes indicating masters".

    And as mentioned before, "Any of us can be wrong sometimes of course but I do not believe I ever held an original Zep master in my hands".

    Along with the myriad of other details he discussed with me, his memory seems to be fine. Any qualification he made in the past to his recollections seem to be more about modesty and mindfulness rather than a questioning of said recollections.

    I'm curious of the aural evidence I've read about before concerning HOTH, but other than that, I see no reason to doubt the word of the only person who actually mastered the Zep CDs for the first time.
     
  3. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    As noted:

    Also, as far as the certainty of memory goes:

     
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  4. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    Yet you're doubting another person that handled the tapes and has detailed recollections of them. Why is that?
     
  5. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    Luke, this is where your otherwise reasonable, specific, and persuasive point of view tends to overstep and help create this endless loop of argument about Zep CDs and master/copy tapes.

    Because you are so interested in documentary evidence, and because you are adept at finding and pointing out objectively confirmable aspects of different masterings (the sound of edits, whether a certain pressing has early fades, whatever), you know full well the problem of listening-based evidence: Unlike objectively confirmable evidence, it's inherently limited in its validity by how we communicate our listening impressions to each other, and how much of what you hear is also heard, in the same way, by someone else.

    All of which is to say, I think you're rigging the deck - and needlessly so - when you sum up the situation as you have in the quoted comment above. You gloss Diament's memory as "hazy recollections from 20+ years ago," while you summarize Zal's memories - which also are from 20+ years ago - as "detailed recollections of handling the tapes." I think we should indeed take Zal's recollections seriously, but he was operating with the tapes several years after Diament did his work on the mastering, so we don't know for sure if he is talking about the exact same tapes - and Diament's memories should be taken seriously too. Human memory is notoriously tricky, and it's entirely possible that Diament is simply more humble and circumspect about asserting his memories than Zal is. The internet - and real life - are filled with examples of people being as mistaken as they are certain about this kind of stuff.

    Conversely, I think you'll get zero disagreement on these forums that the Diament Houses of the Holy sounds excellent, and very well could be from the original master tape. But it's a mistake to think that just because it sounds to you like it's from the master, everyone else must therefore be similarly persuaded, or else not be paying full attention to the sonic evidence. As I noted above, a 30ips copy, done well - or perhaps even a 15ips copy if done very well - could produce a result that sounds like one or more of the Diament Zep CDs. To my knowledge, none of us in this discussion has actually heard the master tapes, and so none of us knows if, for example, the tape hiss on the true master of Houses of the Holy might be even lower in volume than the tape hiss on the Diament CD, and the transient snap might be even better.

    In the perhaps futile hope of not simply repeating the same argument pattern, I want to emphasize that I have no particular investment in whether or not Diament used the master tapes or flat copies. To the extent I am able to have an opinion on Houses in particular, I lean towards your view that it sounds like it's from the master. But beyond that, I don't know for sure, and honestly I don't care - that CD sounds great, and when I listen to it I do not find myself feeling aware of or irritated by sonic issues that I associate with a copy tape. But I don't know - and neither do you.
     
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  6. Sax-son

    Sax-son Forum Resident

    Location:
    Three Rivers, CA
    Without going into all kinds of mastering data, I still like the Diaments the best. They just sound the best to my ears. I am sure that all the other masters have their high points, but I am sticking with the originals.
     
  7. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    Which is why I haven't relied on the recollections of either engineer, but rather aural evidence.

    That said, even if we assume there were no lapses in memory, Barry has said he believed he didn't have the masters, because he was told the tapes weren't masters, while Zal actually remembered seeing edits. One of those is a factual statement, while the other is - unless there are specifics I'm not remembering or aware of - belief and hearsay.
     
  8. Rukiki

    Rukiki Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madrid, Spain
    Being honest, if I had to score all the bands that I love on an "audiophile-friendly" ranking, Led Zep would probably have a notorious place among the bottom of that ranking.

    That being said, and despite being far from perfect, I love the balance (and the fact that Jon Paul Jones is more noticeable in the mix) on the Diament/Sidore 80s cds. At least compared to the 1990s discs.

    I have never had the chance to give the original 70s LP pressings a listening on a decent system, so I cannot qualify how close or far the 1980s discs are to that sound. I also have heard good things about the 2014 ones, but I´ve never felt the urge to update to those.

    My conclusion is that: they´re quite good sounding discs (or at least: good enough for me).
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2018
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  9. RK2249

    RK2249 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Jersey
    So going by comments 1 & 2, the Diament source is either the master or copy. Ok.
    And comment 3 indicates a possible edit and leader . Ok.

    None of this is proof that Barry had the master. The only evidence supporting your claim is a small amount of silence that may or may not be an edit.
     
  10. RK2249

    RK2249 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Jersey
    Your source: Someone who viewed the Zep tapes a decade after the fact, is relying on the vault librarian's memory, and is using assumptions (and does not state his memory is definitive).

    My source: The actual guy who handled the tapes and mastered the Zep CDs.
     
  11. RK2249

    RK2249 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Jersey
    You don't think Barry could identify a master tape with edits vs a copy with no edits?
     
  12. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    Listening to Kashmir now, I hesitate to say exactly what tape is what, but it would at least seem that the Diament and Davis come from a common source, while the Marino comes from a different source. On both the Diament and Davis, the high end is shifted to the left somewhat; the high end response is not as good in the right channel as it is in the left channel. On the other hand, on the Marino the response is similar in both channels.

    There's no question it's an edit. And there's little question it's to leader.

    It's not clear who you're talking about, but that doesn't describe Zal Schreiber.

    Barry has never claimed to have done so. Zal has.
     
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  13. RK2249

    RK2249 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Jersey
    Obviously you're going to believe what you want to believe...and so am I. However, nothing you have stated proves anything. And yes, I was describing Zal...based on his own quotes. He is going by his memory and the vault librarian's, was not present at the mastering sessions in the 80's, and said that the things he's stating are from his recollection...not cold, hard facts.

    As I said, Barry also addressed in his email to me the stories of "edits on Zep tapes indicating masters " and these were not what he had. And I'm sure Barry can physically tell the difference between a spliced tape (that he never saw or handled) to the copies that he handled.

    And finally, nothing changes the fact that Barry is the only one with firsthand knowledge of what tapes were used during the mastering sessions, seeing as how he was the sole mastering engineer present and did all the work. And distinctly remembers asking for masters. And distinctly remembers being told Atlantic didn't have them. And distinctly remembers being handed EQ-limited copies for the last couple of albums.

    So again, you can believe what you want but you have no proof to indicate Barry's memory is faulty, only conjecture and speculation. And short of this proof, it is pretty insulting to the actual mastering engineer to say you don't believe him but rather someone who wasn't even there.

    No wonder he left these boards.
     
  14. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    He personally handled the tapes and observed the edits. So your premise that Barry was the only person to handle the tapes is incorrect.

    Why are you insulting Zal?
     
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  15. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    Again stressing that I find your view with regard to Houses persuasive (if not 100% definitive), I will only add that this particular statement of yours that I've quoted here is IMHO demonstrably false. But I am content to let others read your recent comments and make their own determination.
     
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  16. RK2249

    RK2249 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Jersey
    I'm not insulting anyone. You need to read Zal's quotes more closely.


    He's assuming they're the same tapes:

    Those tapes were the ones Barry used, I was told, and those were the ones sent for Marino's masterings...unless, of course, Jimmy had tapes he took with himself,and they used "our" house tapes as reference.

    I remember the tapes having splices. Not like copies which usually have none (or are minimal) and are one long piece of tape spanning all the songs on a LP side. And that means that these were compiled, more like a master than a copy. But who knows if these single songs spliced together were copies or masters?


    Nowhere does he say they are definitely masters...and there's no proof that those were the same tapes as Barry had.


    i believe additionally that i asked the tape librarian at atlantic if these were the tapes that jimmy used...and he said yes...but this was over 20 years ago.

    Hardly definitive.


    In my understanding, the tapes used for the original CDs and the remasterings...were one and the same.

    This actually contradicts claims you've made about multiple sources for some of the Diament vs Marino masters, but that's another story.


    So how am I insulting Zal? I believe what he's saying...I just don't believe your interpretation of what he's saying. He never said those are the tapes Barry used, he said he believes they are based on what he was told. He also never discounts the possibility of copies (not masters) with edits.

    So you don't think it's insulting to twist what someone who was not at the 80's mastering sessions says versus what the actual engineer that did the mastering says?
     
  17. SNDVSN

    SNDVSN Forum Resident

    Location:
    Glasgow
    I'm listening on pretty decent equipment and I just love the Diaments, I've got this forum to thank for enlightening me.
     
  18. lukpac

    lukpac Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI
    It's not clear what you feel is "demonstrably false", but I will say this:

    I don't take any of the statements from the engineers in question at face value. Not because I think they were lying (I don't), but rather because they were recalling things from a long time ago that weren't necessarily the first things on their minds at the time. That is to say, both Barry and Zal handled tapes, both discussed the tapes with coworkers, and both had lasting impressions about the tapes. But from what both have said, neither was playing the role of vault detective at the time. That is to say, they used what was available, and weren't necessarily on a mission to determine exactly what the tapes were, where they may have come from, etc. Not to mention the fact that the facts aren't always simple. For example, a tape box may suggest a copy, but sometimes boxes get replaced or swapped (come to think of it, I've actually heard that Atlantic did place reels in new/different boxes for unknown reasons; whether this happened with Led Zeppelin or not, I don't know).

    The point to all of that is while the statements of people like Barry and Zal can be helpful, when the evidence points in another direction those statements shouldn't be taken as the gospel. Heck, in all likelihood, the truth is some combination of their statements. Perhaps some albums were taken from copies and others were taken from masters. It seems most albums probably came from the same tapes, but we know not all did. While 20+ year old recollections shouldn't be immediately discounted, they shouldn't automatically be held above contradictory facts and statements either.
     
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  19. Vinyl Fan 1973

    Vinyl Fan 1973 "They're like soup, they're like....nothing bad"

    Wow thanks so much for this detailed and well thought out response. I’ve ordered the Bluray as I don’t own this at all, except for the DVD movie.

    Thanks again!
     
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  20. David del Toro

    David del Toro Forum Resident

    Folks, let's be real. There's only ONE way to listen to Led Zeppelin:
    [​IMG]
     
  21. DiabloG

    DiabloG City Pop, Rock, and anything 80s til I die

    Location:
    United States
    And even then, only if the tape was manufactured by Ampex... :D
     
  22. nicotinecaffeine

    nicotinecaffeine Forum Resident

    Location:
    Walton, KY

    Hooooooo-yeh!






    push, push, push
     
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  23. HiFi Guy 008

    HiFi Guy 008 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New England
    Yes. In a truck on a dirt road.
     
  24. Flaming Torch

    Flaming Torch Forum Resident

    Whilst searching on line for an old Wendy bootleg (one of those with a Beatles parody cover that I was missing) I noticed quite a few Zep cassettes are coming out of the woodwork for sale. Anyone an expert on Zep on musicassettes?
     
  25. Muggles

    Muggles Forum Resident

    Location:
    Midwest
    The stain adds a nice touch.
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2018

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