I'd been curious about Chicago for a good while and read this thread with interest but must admit to being put off buying the 50th anniversary of Chicago Transit Authority after the negative reviews. I picked up a second hand vinyl copy via Ebay a couple of weeks ago and am delighted with the original audio. It sounds great to me!
Well, let me blow your mind...I also really, really like Robert Lamm's solo album Skinny Boy, released around the same time, with a similar sound.
I prefer Skinny Boy 2.0 — it includes the great jazz trio version of, “A Song For Richard and His Friends,” as well as Robert's PSA from the early 70’s.
I haven't read thru all 80 pages but I have the Rhino 2002 CD remaster (?), sounds pretty good to me, have it playing right now. I just re-set up my he-man rig after 5+ years in storage, wallowing in new and old music. Got SH's remastered Eagles DCC Gold CDs (Hotel California came in yesterday, AMAZING! and Greatest Hits hits Monday ...). I don't think I need the 50th Anni Remix ... I just looked, forgot I had MFSL vinyl Original Master Recording of CTA ... ... TWO copies of VI, one each of VII, VIII, IX, and X (all vinyl) ... I thought I had II, III, and V on vinyl also, but could be mistaken (or they could be lurking in another area, just got unpacked last week). Huh, also II and V (both 2002 reissues) on Rhino CD. Also just got the Steven Wilson remix of II today, fabulous.
They compressed it so it sounds less clear and mushy. If you do a search of the archives on this forum, you'll find at least one huge thread about it, and it ain't good.
Short version: Trumpet player Lee Loughnane took control of overseeing the remastering of the Rhino remasters because no one else in the band was interested. Apparently, the band are not technical people, much less engineer or audiophile-oriented. As Chicago owns their own master recordings, they picked their own engineer, and Lee called the shots on how he wanted the CDs to sound. In an article, he fully acknowledged that [paraphrase] the remasters aren't audiophile, but, to him, they rock. The result was met with criticism all over the audiophile community. The older Columbia or Chicago records CDs and LPs sounded much clearer.
CTA on two eye Columbia is one of my best sounding records. Only to imagine retouching it makes me cringe. II, III and V also sound great on original Columbia. After V, Chicago stopped for me.
I did just order the Wilson mix of Chicago 2 on vinyl. I've only ever heard the original mix and only on CD. Should I have not gotten the Wilson mix?
Because the horns and drums often just sound...weird. Make Me Smile is a good example, although not the only one.
For me it was X ... never got XI for some reason, then just lost interest after Terry died. I really like many songs on the albums up to X.
Terry is on XI and has some good Terry moments on it. If you have X, XI is worth checking out so not to miss out on any of his singing and playing.
Ok, I guess I'm hearing now what you're hearing. There is something funny to that drum sound. But I'm a bit worried that removing too much of it would change the character in a revisionistic way. I made my experience with Benefit, which, for me, lost quite a bit of character through Wilson's treatment. I bought the vinyl because my German Chrysalis seemed so muffled, it bored me to death, but what I found in the Wilson was accurateness. Forced clarity, forced top end, ..., sharp edges where there should have been round ones. For me, that was a loss of character. Since then, I'm very happy with my German copy: it's not that dull, I learned from comparing it to the Wilson. It's rather creamy. And I'm happy to live with the dull part as long as I can keep my cream. Additionally, I bought myself an original UK Chrysalis CD and favour that one also over the Wilson out of the same reason. With the Wilson Aqualung I cope a bit better. I think it's good but I own the German 1st (hated by many, loved by me) and an original Chrysalis UK CD and the Wilson could not really add something new to my Aqualung listening experience. I'm very into earlier Yes, but, with my Tull experience, I never bothered with the Wilsons'. BUT! I ordered the Chicago II on CD, just to double check. It's little money and I'm curious now. I don't thing there ever was a verifying procedure performed in which the Wilson Chicago II was somehow involved, but I'm going to check on the Wilson.
The Wilson remix is more along the lines of "extreme remaster". Most of the character of the original mix is still there, but some of the weird sounds aren't *quite* as weird. The DVD-A remix was much more extreme. Here's the Wilson remix of Make Me Smile: