Led Zeppelin: Original CDs vs Remasters

Yes, Exactly how I knew the originals were the only ones for me except for a mere 2 or 3 tracks on IV. Even so the crummy early fade-outs ruin them for me.

I feel the Zep CD catalog is still inexpensive enough that all should do their own compares and the more 'advanced' fan will want them all anyhow.

 

First off, kudos to Stefan: I agree with others - great post!

My ultimate opinion on the remasters vs originals is, Meh. I don't love either one. Not trying to be a snob here - I just agree with a lot of what folks have said about the problems with both versions. The Diament/Sidore originals have the bass but are rather flat sounding and not real bright. The Marino remasters lack bass - which IMHO is an unconscionable mastering choice and a fatal flaw when it comes to Zeppelin. Certainly the first two albums need heavy bass to make sense - but IMHO the real victims of reduced bass are HOTH and Presence, because they sound so very thin without a full, meaty rhythm section to keep them anchored.

At any rate, I've heard many needle drops of the Classic reissues and some of the really good original pressings (the RL Zep II; the US and UK Porky/Pecko of Zoso/Zep IV), and they all totally slay the CDs. It's not even close - more clarity, bigger (but generally clean) bass, and greater dynamics. The 45rpm versions of the Classic series (except for Zep II, where RL still rules) are just incredible. I didn't think 33 vs 45rpm would make much of a difference, but I was wrong!

As for another CD remastering being a good idea, I agree - but unfortunately we got that new remastering already, in the form of Mothership, and the results were awful IMHO.

I am, however, holding out hope for one more version: the 2001 Dave Collins 3CD set on Warner RetroActive, used to promote Zeppelin's songs to Hollywood for soundtracks. I nabbed one from eBay and am eagerly awaiting its arrival. Folks seem to think this is the remastering where someone finally got it right. Time will tell... Shame it wasn't released commercially. It's also a great selection of songs IMHO. Except for the acoustic tracks on III, it's got nearly everything you could want in a compilation.

 

That’s the problem with such a limited view - you jump to predetermined conclusions.

With a more objective agenda and a little research here, you would find a post from forum member Zal, who was tasked with recompiling the albums for the "Complete Studio Recordings," where he discusses the challenges in doing so based on masterings that de-complied the albums for compilations.

 

No, they are not the same at all.

No one is questioning the integrity of the DR values you posted. Presenting a limited and exaggerated view is an attempt to reinforce an agenda.

I said you’re overlooking the DR album value of LZ II, which happens to be the same as the original CD. Goodness, you can’t even read a simple post without selectively editing what you want to see. And further note is that you also fail to respond to the point that 2 vinyl releases have better DR values than the original CD.

Who do you think you’re kidding? You’re branding these with your personal scarlet letter. The sentencing is quite predictable.

 

I compiled (re-compiled?) the studio albums proper from the 2 Led Zeppelin Box Sets (BS) and ran the DR album values for each, as well as the DR album values for the original CD’s and the Marino Remaster studio albums as issued in the Complete Studio Recordings (CSR).

As you can see in many cases, the DR album values of the 2 LZ Box Sets recompiled are the same as the original CD’s. On LZ II, the complied Box Set value is actually better than the original BD CD and so are the RL & Classic Records vinyl. Since the DR value is less, obviously BD used compression on the original CD (note: sarcasm).

So, for someone who thinks the Remaster studio album CDs are too loud or you’re obsessed with DR values, compiling your own CD’s from the 2 LZ Box Sets may be an option for you. Of course, you may want to replace a few tracks that have incorrect fades/edits (I didn’t for this report), adjust RMS levels to match the album variations, correct silence/gaps/noise levels between tracks, etc...... (yeah, that would be a LOT of work).

Led Zeppelin DR10
Led Zeppelin (BS) DR10
Led Zeppelin (CSR) DR10

II DR11
II (BS) DR12
II (CSR) DR11

III DR12
III (BS) DR12
III (CSR) DR11

IV (Zoso) DR12
IV (Zoso) (BS) DR10
IV (Zoso) (CSR) DR10

Houses of the Holy DR12
Houses of the Holy (BS) DR12
Houses of the Holy (CSR) DR11

Physical Graffiti DR13 & DR12
Physical Graffiti (BS) DR12 & DR12
Physical Graffiti (CSR) DR10 & DR11

Presence DR13
Presence (BS) DR12
Presence (CSR) DR11

In Through the Out Door DR14
In Through the Out Door (BS) DR12
In Through the Out Door (CSR) DR11

Coda DR11
Coda (BS) (8 tracks only) DR11
Coda (CSR) (8 tracks only) DR11
*only the first 8 tracks were run to match the original CD release.

 

I am really lost with what you're trying to get across except that you simply seem to want to argue with everything I say. The singular tracks I posted about match your statement about the album itself. The dynamic range for II between the Barry's CD and the early remasters are the same. Just what are you arguing about?

What do you want me to say about the lp? This thread is predominantly about the CDs. Have a look at the title and the 1st post.

Yup, I am lost again. Unless you completely are overlooking the fact that I have stated that I actually like the remasters for II, as well as for IV and Presence, in spite of the increased dynamic range reduction for those 2 discs.

Wait, maybe you are just arguing with me to argue again.

Dude, ITTOD has the worst dynamic range reduction of them all. I don't see why you have to be so condescending as to why that is true. Because it is true. No matter what the reason why is.

 

Thanks for doing that and posting the results. Quite a bit of work, I assume.

Helpful information.

Looks like for some albums, the original box set has quite a bit higher dynamic range than the individual remasters. We kind of new that already, but it is good to see the results.

Did you notice a difference between the first (4-CD) box set and the second (2-CD) set, i.e. that tracks of the same album seem to have more dynamic range on the first box set, and by the time the second box set was released (only shortly before the individual remasters were released), they already used a little limiting?

 

I sort of did a quick check of this last year when ripping all my LZ CDs to a network-attached hard drive where I store my music now. I recompiled the box set tracks into folder representing their respective albums then compared Replaygain values (I prefer using RG values as they tend to reflect real listening conditions better than the DR meter, but that's a story for another thread). I didn't do an exhaustive list, but IIRC, I noticed that the average level of the 1993 2-CD box set tracks seemed to be about 2dB louder than that of the 1990 4-CD box.

This leads me to believe Marino didn't do one mastering session of the entire catalog in 1990 but rather the tracks for the first box set then and the second one around 1992 or so. I say this because John Davis, who mastered Mothership for CD, mentioned on this forum that Jimmy Page provided him with a flat digital transfer of the LZ master tapes done in 1992. He may have had the year wrong and it was done in 1990, but if Marino did all the tracks in 1990, why do the 1993 box set seem to be 2dB louder? (then again, that leads to the question of who's done subsequent volume boosts to certain tracks on the 2003 mini-LPs and the 2008 40th anniversary set. If Marino didn't do them, some anonymous personnel are doing what used to be considered part of "mastering" and seems to be more like "post-mastering level adjustments"). In addition, it may well be that Zal's description of boosting some track levels slightly to make recompiled albums sound more uniform is at least partly because of this difference between the 1990 and 1993 tracks.

I also imagine the two tracks Zal referred to were Your Time Is Gonna Come and Black Mountain Side, since the box set version of YTIGC fades out before that first suspended strum from BMS comes in over the end of the first song. I recall once trying to reconstruct LZI from the box set tracks before I got hold of the CSR box and of course I couldn't because the end of YTIGC is missing and so is that first chord from BMS. Although hiss levels may have been an issue, I suspect this would be the main cause for those two tracks. Unless Marino mastered the full version of both tracks, saved the files then did the edits for the box set, they would have had to have gone back to the Atlantic library and pulled the tapes out to redo these tracks (as I seem to recall Zal saying is what they did).

 

O.k., now it all starts making sense.

Second box set was mastered louder than the first one (to keep up with the general volume increase that started to occurr). Then, for the individual albums, the levels had to be matched among the tracks for each album.

That seems the most plausible to me.

 

Kevin5brown, I never got the sense that you were being disingenuous or dishonest by cherry picking certain album trax. Though the focus of this thread is albums, unless you are Prince, you are bound to have at least two tracks per cd. Demonstrating the extreme use of peak limiting on one track can be just as insightful as demonstrating how one uses limiting over the course of an album. If an engineer uses limiting to an egregious degree on one track, a graph showing the amount he uses might reveal why that one track stands out so much in comparison to an original master. The graph will display the engineer's work for all the world to see. He will either hang his head in shame from the world's derision or enjoy worldwide praise from the millions who are tearing down the wall of the loudness war.

 

^^^

That's why I split my choices between my favorites and longer tracks. Because:

In addition, if you only look at album's average, the shorter tracks are being unfairly weighted vs the longer songs. And it should indeed be the opposite, because the longer songs ... are longer.


I compared I, ITTOD, and Coda last night. I is close, but I still like the original for that one. Barry's for ITTOD is head and shoulders above the remaster IMO. Coda is interesting, in that while I still like the original the best, the left channel of Darlene doesn't sound quite right on the original. Hard to explain, but if you compare back to back with the RM, the left channel of Darlene on the original CD sounds a little muffled. The remaster seems to have the same problem, but not nearly as "bad". But if you listen to the original Coda all the way through, it's not that apparent. Just in a direct comparison.

 

There’s really a simple solution - post the full DR report. That’s what most people do.


And if that’s not enough, you can scan an album as a single image (no cue points). But that’s really not what you were trying to do.

 

Actually, I would say that it’s specifically D2 of the Box Set 2 that has a noticeably higher RMS value and this is due largely to the Coda tracks (original 8 tracks) which occur on D2, which is at a much higher RMS value than the rest of the catalog. And in particular, the track “Walters Walk” who’s RMS value (9.09) is almost 2x that of the rest of the tracks. D1 of the Box Set 2 and most of the other tracks on D2 have similar RMS values as the first Box Set.

RMS album values per Replaygain:
LZ Box Set - D1 4.46 dB
LZ Box Set - D2 4.09 dB
LZ Box Set - D3 4.92 dB
LZ Box Set - D4 4.51 dB

Box Set 2 - D1 5.18 dB
Box Set 2 - D2 6.18 dB

 

The full report is just song by song though. Still "weights" short ones equally to long ones. But yeah, if you rip the entire album as one wav file, then it equally weights all of it. I like that idea.

 

That is what I did when I compared my laserdrops of SHM-SACD's vs. other CD versions.

 

Stefan,
Listening is the better judge of sound quality as opposed to reading a graph. A visual representation of what you are hearing after listening might go a long way toward understanding the amount of db difference you are actually hearing. By the way, I don't believe that I have any of Mr. Hoffman's work on disc, though my lemonade stand is in full production to buy DCC The Cars.

 

Scott, just one correction. RG album values are not "RMS" values in themselves but rather the amount of gain adjustment required (your values should all have minus signs) to get the average RMS level of an album to a defined perceptual loudness level. I know you know that, just wanted to go on the record for others reading who might think the two box sets were mastered like Death Magnetic, which IIRC does have RMS values in the -4 to -5dB range)!

So really the 1st crop circle box set has values within 1dB of Barry Diament's mastering of LZI, which has an album RG value of -3.96. Given the EQ difference (Marino's brighter in the midrange, which effects RG values more than bass, dynamically speaking, they're pretty much the same.

 

Update - I just got ahold of the Warner/Chappell RetroActive 3CD promo set, and it's definitely the best-souding CD version of Zeppelin I've ever heard. It's bright, sharp, with plenty of bass. Generally sounds good in all respects.

Some tracks seem a little to prominent in the upper-mids compared to really good vinyl needle-drops. But conversely some tracks sound as good as - or even slightly better than - the needle drops because the bass is a bit more controlled and tight, and there's no surface noise.

 

I constantly say to a buddy of mine, "I am slow, but I get there eventually." And then I say, someday I might change my signature to that statement, but I like my current signature too.



Anyway, I had an epiphany of sorts over the weekend. Long story short, is that I listened to some vinyls () for the 1st time in a long time, doing ND's.

I had already known this, but couldn't connect the dots before now.

Why do most ND's I do even from crappy generic 70's and 80's lp's sound better than most CDs, even revered early Japan, West Germany, etc, editions?

Snare drums, cymbals, and high hats in particular. There is less smearing, more definition and detail. And I have, really, an old school vinyl rig.

It's the ADC's, silly!!

I do ND's with an HHB BurnIt 830. Early 2000's era. Obviously, much later than the 80's.

But then I come back to Led Zeppelin, U2, Rush, Queen, etc, remasters where they aren't bad, in the big scheme of things, but still typically with compromised dynamics and sometimes wonky EQ choices. So I still prefer the older CDs ... even in spite of those early analog-to-digital converters.

(But unsaid is that the newer the remaster, the older the tape is, and there can be tape degredation too. So on the plus side, you have better ADC's, but on the minus side, you have decreased dynamics, futzed with EQ, and possible tape condition issues.)

In the end, I think it's a shame really, that for most mass market releases, the mastering engineers can't seem to leave the dynamics and/or EQ (tonality) alone.

But Stefan's quote above has at least answered my own personal question of why ND's in general, not just mine, sound so good: it's the ADC's, silly.

 

^^^

And then I get really depressed when I think about all the good lp's I've dumped over the years, swapping them for CDs ... when if I knew then what I know now, I could have kept them all and just done needle drops and been perfectly happy ...

"Perfect sound forever" ...

Indeed.

 

So???

 

Post 219

 

Hey thanks!! Not watching the Grammy's, eh?

 

Are the songs really faded out early on the LZ IV remastered version?