Howard Jones 2010/2012 Dtox remasters: are they any good?

In 2010 and 2012, Howard Jones released some remastered editions of all five of his Elektra-era albums (Human's Lib, Dream Into Action, One to One, Cross That Line, and In the Running) through his own label Dtox Records. My question is, are they any good? And are they better or worse than the original Elektra CD's? I'm really curious to know. Any advice is much appreciated. Thanks!

 

If you don't mind modern mastering (Loud as hell) go for it.
If you want to try before you buy, Qobuz and 7Digital have em. You can purchase individual tracks.
I skipped them after I got the Action Replay/12 Inch set. I found it very fatiguing. (There's actually a write up about mastering it loud for 'modern ears' in the booklet, I almost hurled, lol) The extra mix disc is nice for the added bonus and the box is very nice, housed in a clamshell with super-jewels for the compact discs. The old Human's Lib has pre-emphasis except for the US RE-01 WEA MFG. and possibly a later Japan using the original mastering.
The best Dream Into Action I've found is a US SRC-03, not sure if SRC-01 is the same. I believe this may be Barry D.'s mastering as it matches nothing else, peak wise. For the other titles I've been fine with the standard US dime a dozen issues to go any further!
If you grab the remasters let us know!

 

Oh dear!! That's not good!!!

 

I saw that someone on Discogs commented on the 12" Album/Action Replay set and said that that set's bonus disc has some track indexing issues, causing the very beginnings of the 6th-11th songs on the disc to be at the very end of tracks 5-10. Did you notice this problem?

 

After a couple seconds of silence a very quick fraction of a second of the next track.

 

Gosh, that really sucks. Looks like I'll have to go scour eBay for the original Elektra CDs! Oh, when will there ever be proper remasters of his work?

 

I highly doubt ever, as you can see by the lack of participants in this thread, only two fans exist
A note-
Depending on how you are playing and what you are using, especially for Human's Lib All the Target designs have pre-emphasis and any of the early Japan for US and West German's do also. So proper EQ is going to need to be added, either by software by ripping or your players analog out or it will sound really bright. For Dream Into Action I found the Targets, Japan for US and WG way bright for my liking, try to find a US SRC, it will have that on the inner matrix. Unfortunately Howard's music isn't something I would really call audiophile grade, it may be due to how it was recorded than mastering itself
Good luck

 

What about Cross that Line? Which one of that album's original CDs sound the best?

 

Being 1989, not sure if there are worldwide differences in mastering. I just have a standard US SRC for this one.
Not being that popular of an album on this forum I haven't run across anyone that could do cross checks. Maybe someone will pop in, I'm curious as well

 

What a coincidence that this thread . I actually nabbed a West German Target pressing of Dream in Action at Half Price Books today. After seeing the comment about these reissues being mastered too loud, I guess it's good that I bought it.

 

There were definitely differences in mastering in the late 1980s and early 1990s around the world. I bought the first two proper HoJo albums when they were first issued on cd, so I have never had the US manufactured discs for those albums. But starting with One to One I can definitely say that I prefer the European cds over the US ones. Generally the differences are subtle and consistent with a lot of other UK based acts who were popular at the time. The Euro cds just sound more defined and musical compared with the US cds where the bass seems a bit emphasized, the image becomes a bit smeared, and that dreaded digital glare makes the vocals sound a bit strident. So for HoJo and Everything But The Girl, both on WEA associated labels, I definitely recommend seeking out the original Euro cds.

At least WEA wasn't doing as bad of a job as Sony frequently did. Those first two Sade albums I bought that were manufactured in the US were seriously messed up with not just the aforementioned problems but also digital fader grain and ringing introduced at the end of tracks and also what sounded like analog tape print through (I think that's the right term for when you hear at a lower level the sound that's present on the tape a second or so earlier). Some of those flaws can really only be heard well when listening with headphones and cranking the volume when tracks fade, but once you realize those problems are there during the fade it makes sense that the entire cd sounds wrong.

 

This thread finally got me to rip and process my cds of Human's Lib and Dream Into Action so I could play them properly (with de emphasis). Even though I became a big HoJo fan upon getting Human's Lib, I hadn't played the entire album in quite a long time. I had somewhat forgotten how strong this album is. I remember thinking back when Dream Into Action was released that I was somewhat disappointed that Howard was writing all of the music and lyrics since I found some of William Bryant's lyrics on Human's Lib to be interesting, particularly the title track.

 

Are there versions of Human's Lib and Dream Into Action without pre-emphasis? And no, the 2010 remasters don't count.

 

I found the Human's Lib target a while ago and snapped it up. I imported it into iTunes but haven't listened to the rip or the CD yet. I didn't know about the pre-emphasis!

 

Dream has no PE.
For Human's Lib, there is a later US RE-01 WEA MFG, not remastered, but with the proper EQ applied.
As far as I know all others carry it. Unless there is a later Euro or Japan (90's)
Japan For US Sanyo, the tag is located in the table of contents, the German Target the SUB -Q channel.
Still trying to figure out if the US SRC of Dream is Barry's

 

Are you sure about Dream Into Action not having preemphasis? I've seen it listed among the titles of discs where the flag is in the subcode but not the Table of Contents. (I think I saw it somewhere in this thread.)

 

I have four variations-
Japan for US JVC
US PDO #01
WG Target #02
US SRC- Different Peaks compared to the above
SUB Q scan didn't detect Pre-emphasis.
It was thought that maybe it did carry PE and the tags were mistakenly not inserted.

 

I'll look for the US SRC pressings sometime in the near future. Incidentally, the UK Nimbus pressing of One to One and the original US CDs for the Cross That Line and In the Running sound great. No need for me to seek out these 3 albums' remasters.

 

Curiousity got the best of me, so I sampled the remasters of the first 2 albums on 7digital. Human's Lib wasn't that bad, so I'm gonna purchase it to compare to the de-emphasized Target CD. If I like it, then I'll try to get Dream Into Action as well. BTW, why are these 2 remasters OOP? The remasters of One to One, Cross That Line, and In the Running are all available on Howard's site, but not the first 2. Action Replay and the 12" Album are also there.

 

A limited run, the others haven't sold out yet, just a guess DG

 

I should of grabbed them when I had the chance for collection reasons. The last time I checked, maybe a couple years ago they were going for quite a bit.

 

I ran the 7digital version of Human's Lib through foobar, and it looks like it's a clone of the US CD without pre-empahsis. The DR and peak values match perfectly. I'm not completely bummed since the only other version I have is the WG Target (I've also got a dirty vinyl pressing but that doesn't count!), though I definitely could've gotten a physical copy for roughly the same amount that I paid for the download.

 

So 7Digital is not using the remasters? I see these have a 2017 date, Cherry Red must be in control of these now.
Qobuz if I remember correctly had them, (all but one comp is all that remains now) So something must be going on.

 

What's up with the 2006 Japanese issues of the first albums. They seem to have a weird EQ. Anyway to know if they have preemphasis?

Japan Warner WPCR-75259
Japan Warner WPCR-75260


R Peak RMS Duration Track
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR11 -0.20 dB -12.17 dB 4:33 01-Conditioning
DR10 -0.20 dB -11.84 dB 3:45 02-What Is Love
DR11 -0.20 dB -12.49 dB 4:01 03-Pearl In The Shell
DR10 -0.20 dB -13.23 dB 5:38 04-Hide And Seek
DR11 -0.20 dB -12.10 dB 3:43 05-Hunt The Self
DR12 -0.20 dB -14.37 dB 4:15 06-New Song
DR11 -0.20 dB -13.66 dB 4:12 07-Don't Always Look At The Rain
DR9 -2.40 dB -14.03 dB 4:29 08-Equailty
DR10 -0.60 dB -12.24 dB 4:27 09-Natural
DR10 -0.60 dB -12.74 dB 4:05 10-Human's Lib
DR12 -0.20 dB -14.81 dB 3:52 11-China Dance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of tracks: 11
Official DR value: DR11
Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 821 kbps
Codec: FLAC
================================================================================

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analyzed: Howard Jones / Dream Into Action
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR Peak RMS Duration Track
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR9 0.00 dB -10.64 dB 3:57 01-Things Can Only Get Better
DR12 0.00 dB -14.99 dB 3:39 02-Life In One Day
DR13 0.00 dB -14.00 dB 3:47 03-Dream Into Action
DR12 0.00 dB -16.61 dB 3:28 04-No-One Is To Blame
DR8 0.00 dB -9.54 dB 4:04 05-Look Mama
DR12 0.00 dB -15.10 dB 4:53 06-Assault And Battery
DR11 0.00 dB -14.06 dB 4:05 07-Automaton
DR12 0.00 dB -14.36 dB 3:33 08-Is There A Difference?
DR12 -0.61 dB -16.66 dB 4:22 09-Elegy
DR11 0.00 dB -14.51 dB 3:59 10-Specialty
DR12 0.00 dB -14.12 dB 3:23 11-Why Look For The Key
DR13 0.00 dB -17.62 dB 3:59 12-Hunger For The Flesh
DR13 0.00 dB -14.80 dB 4:34 13-Bounce Right Back
DR12 0.00 dB -13.52 dB 4:01 14-Like To Get To Know You Well
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of tracks: 14
Official DR value: DR12
Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 952 kbps
Codec: FLAC
================================================================================

 

I don't think these versions would have PE considering how recent they are. Then again, if these reissues simply took the old CD's and added compression to them, then it's possible they could have PE. If you want to, you could post a sample from each album so I can compare them with my West German Targets. Don't Always Look at the Rain and Why Look for the Key would be ideal since those are the tracks I'm most familiar with. I also noticed that Things Can Only Get Better and Look Mama are more compressed than anything else on that Dream remaster. Very odd.