That's a trick one must employ to make 26 minute sides sound halfway decent. Though I think it'd be more common to make the entire side the same volume so it's not changing over the course of the side.
The 1998 are not that bad? They're the sole reason I found this site. It's not even brickwalled bad as the DR is not that awful, the remastering just sounds so damn awful it's embarrassing how they were ever released.
I would agree they are some of the worst ever released. Believe it or not, I actually think the Judas Priest and Queensryche remasters are worse. But I would put the Maidens at number 3 of the worst ever released, with the Van Halen 2001's right behind them. Complete and utter garbage.
Agreed. The Queensryche remasters are intolerable for even short bursts of time. "Harsh" and "brittle" are the words I would use. The Priest remasters are awful, but are audio bliss compared to Queensryche.
They are both so terrible it's hard to make a distinction. I'd like to forget my ears were ever exposed to that noise.
I'll agree with that too. Van Halens are OK if played back as HDCD. And by OK I mean not on that level of terribleness.
The Van Halens are still disasters, even as HDCDs. The 32XD series for all the DLR albums are simply fantastic. The original US WBs are OK too, but nowhere near as good. Now there is a new batch of VH remasters. I bet they are total earbleeders as well.
The CD's are. But if you get the 192/24 collection from HDTracks you will be rewarded with absolute perfection. The 192/24 are the files used for the 2015 vinyl. The other Hi-Rez are the CD masters and are terrible. But the 192/24 files are beautiful.
I have the HD tracks but not sure which versions. They are really light in the bottom end, but I downsampled them to 16 bit. High DR so it must be the good ones. I still prefer the 32XD series though.
After reading the blog tonight best I go to my indie and try to find the original issues. I am now playing disc 2 of "The Essential Iron Maiden" from 2005. This sounds good. Rick A.
As I stated previously, the 32XD series for the VH albums with Roth are my preferred versions. ALL other pressings IMO come up way short in comparison. But I don't have an Oppo to play high rez files either, so take it for what it's worth.
just cracked open CDP 7 46364 2 (US Capitol edition Number of The Beast, non-remaster) from an online order - sounds fantastic. Not "dull" as others have claimed - volume cranked to the max and ZERO ear fatigue, 17 odd minutes in (listening to 22 Acacia Avenue now) -- rhythm guitar tracks are particularly punchy. Dickinson's vox *might* be a bit more prominent in the 1998 remasters, but I rather like him slightly lower in the mix, dead center between rhythm guitars on the left and Clive Burr's awesome drums (and great ride cymbal patterns!) on the right.
There was a time when I preferred the original CD masters over the remastered ones. But I must say that time is long gone. Yes, the remasters have maximization and compression to some degree, some of them are over-processed (e.g. Somewhere in Time, The Number of the Beast), some have tracks cut at wrong places and some have bonus tracks inserted in-between the original track listings but most of them are far from terrible sound-wise. Sonicly most of them are better balanced than the original masters. For example Piece of Mind which I'm at the moment listening straight from CD. The original master sounds bass-shy, overly bright and digital - as you could except from a CD from 80's. The remaster has a warm sound, much better pronounced bass, good clang in drums and calm treble which still has enough tinkle in cymbals. As a whole the sound stage is much better defined. I also like at least the remasters of S/T (which discards the overly harsh mid-range) and NPFTD (which sounds much inspiring than the dull sounding original). I found most of the original masters just dull. They don't sound like IM should. No energy, no power, no rock 'n' roll. I listen my music with Genelec M030 speakers fed by an amp working as a pre-amp which has good-quality ES9006 SABRE DACs and some room correction applied to correct the abnormalities caused by the room acoustics. So it's not about the shortage in equipment which causes the remasters to sound better. For example the remaster of Piece of Mind just begs me to crank up the volume. I can't say the same about the original master. Listened it loudly yesterday and it gave me ear fatigue. Most of the modern remasters don't sound good with some equipment, that's true for sure. I've heard these with quite many so-called hi-fi speakers and I must say some of them just offer terrible sound with these. But that's because of the speakers and the other equipment. A lot of regular listeners don't have a clue about the frequency response (i.e. sonic balance) (which is also distorted by the room acoustics) of their listening equipment. Of course a remaster which has better frequency balance (which for example can be proven by checking the spectrum with Audacity for example) won't sound as good with a system that naturally has some bass and treble boost (which may be caused by the room too) than an older mastering which lacks bass and treble. But that doesn't mean that the remaster is bad. Of course a remaster is bad if it has for example overly boosted bass and treble, and has noise reduction and compression applied too much (like some of the Judas Priest remasters) but that's not the case which most of the IM remasters. They are louder and less dynamic than the original masters but still very listenable. Just my five cents
As long as they sound good to you that is all that matters. I enjoy the original US CD's. I listen with a 2.1 set up, so lack of bass isn't an issue for me.
That's true too. Sound is always a question of taste. I listen with 2.1 set too (2x SVS SB12-NSD) but still for example original POM sound thin for me. That of course could be helped with a little treble cut to take some edge of the upper range.
The original cds are much closer to the original vinyl in sound quality so they are how Iron Maiden should sound. I mainly listen to my vinyl of Maiden, but occasionally listen to the cds. The remasters I got rid of years ago because they were so unpleasant and compressed
But how can one say that vinyls sound like IM should? Have the band members or original production & mixing engineers stated so, is it the assumption as the LPs were the first release of the albums (at least with the earlier ones) or are some of us just so used to listen IM with the sound that the vinyls in question offer? I doubt none of us has heard the original master tapes And little good would that do because sometimes a little tweaking is even needed for home use. It's always a challenging task for the mastering engineer to decide what the master tape sound needs. I must admit the first time I heard Maiden was the 1998 remasters. I'm not saying they are closest to the source. For instance I would love to have more dynamic range. But POM rem is good to my ears. Then again the original Powerslave sounds really nice.
Exactly ! I'll take a somewhat compressed CD with accurate tonal balance over a super-dynamic, dull-sounding original any given day.
I have an oddball Piece Of Mind CD. It is a U.S. Columbia Record Club version that used the UK EMI mastering. I discovered this on a thread here about 5 years ago. My EAC #'s matched the UK EMI.
Generally speaking, original vinyl pressed with first stampers are considered to be the closest thing to the original source master. Check out acclaimed engineer Vic Anesini using a first pressing of an LP as a reference for EQ tonality:
There is no good sounding CD of "Piece Of Mind", unfortunately. The original CD is dynamic and non-fatiguing, but when you listen to the tracks back to back with the original NOTB CD, you can tell something isn't quite right. Maybe it just wasn't as well recorded for some reason. I've always hoped Audio Fidelity or MFSL would somehow get to work on that one, but Iron Maiden has no interest in audiophile sound as they have made abundantly clear. Using the orignal CD and adjusting the EQ is the best option, or a needledrop from good vinyl.
