Worst mastering you've ever heard?

Before I even knew what mastering was, I thought this record was the worst-sounding album I'd ever heard, godawful loud and shrill:

 

Vanguard Original Album Classics remaster of Joan Baez's first album. You couple how bright that mastering is with Joan Baez's voice and you want to flee the room, call Homeland Security, do something, it's awful.

A lot of today's mastering engineers must have been attending too many rock concerts or something, for the damage their ears must have suffered. The boosted treble phenom is getting old.

 

It sounded hideous. I don't remember exactly what I didn't like, and I sold it ASAP.

 

Midnight Remember by Little Red
Scream by Ozzy Osbourne (a Bob Ludwig master tragically..)
I've listened to hundreds of albums that are considered loudness war victims but these are the only ones where I've stopped playing halfway through the first album track due to listener fatigue. Haven't played these albums in their entirety since

 

The thread is about mastering, not remastering.
And you besides you need to specify which version you are referring to.
1996 CD, 2011 CD, vinyl, what?
Generalizations are pretty useless.

 

Black Country Communion - 2 is a recent one that comes to mind.

The mastering on this sounds weak due to over compression.
Obviously done to sound initially impressive on a fricking iPod.
Played on a decent stereo it just sounds horrible.
No punch, muddy and no dynamics.
I just cannot listen to it, it is that bad!

Has to be one of the biggest crimes of mastering because BCC is a totally rocking band and if the CD had been mastered correctly it would have been a awesome album to crank on a good system.

 

I hear you my friend.
I seem to be rather sensitive to this type of thing and am the same as you.
I have several CDs that I find are just not listenable due to over compression and loudness.

 

Ultravox - Systems of Romance. CD reissue (was originally released on vinyl).

The later remastered version is also awful.

Cabaret Voltaire - The Covenant, The Sword And The Arm Of The Lord. Orig Some Bizzare UK cd. I once called this the nadir of digital sound. Too bad, as the music is great. Maybe a better system would make this listenable.

Chris & Cosey - Heartbeat. Orig Play It Again Sam Austria cd. Despite the great DADC pressing plant, track two or three actually induces a physical queasiness and headache. Literally.

Spacemen 3 - Threebie 3. Not sure if it's the mastering or recording or both, but it's unlistenable at anything but very moderate volume. OUCH!

 

I have the remaster and don't find it to be that bad. Maybe not what I'd hoped for but certainly not unlistenable.

 

His post is 4 1/2 years old.

 

You sure we're talking about Ultravox - Systems of Romance?


I'm sure a lot of these extreme examples are somewhat system dependent. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many awful remasters: people listen on cheapo systems.

But I've often wondered that if you go up the chain in better components, do the unlistenable become less unlistenable? This seems to be the case for some stereo mag reviewers, anyway.

 

Yup, 2006 remaster. Made in the E.U.

 

I am going to vote for Bruce Springsteens Magic which sounds absolutely terrible. Shame.....IMO his best release since Human Touch/Lucky Town.

JQ

 

Anything that's not mastered by our host.

 

One Way's CD issue of James Gang "Passin Thru". A muffled sibilance filled nightmare. I cannot recall a worse sounding CD. The original vinyl sounds like a completely different record.

 

I would like to post again here...cause I just picked them up and I am Pi$$ed off...I should have know better:

Queensryche:

Warning
Rage for Order

Two awesome albums ruined by that rectangle flat-top shaped waveform....hideous. My old scratched up and warped lps sound better.

JQ

 

Meet Glen Campbell CD is so slammed it's unlistenable.

 

Delbert McClinton-Acquired Taste. I love Delbert and have, literally, everything the man ever recorded but this is unlistenable.

 

I tried to play the orig. vinyl of "Altered Beast" by Mathew Sweet and could not make it through the first song, no dynamics at all, just brickwalled mud. I think this is from 1994-ish (I don`t have access to it right now). It`s a shame because I like the music itself.

 

http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=12468

This is my addition - have the CD, got the vinyl LP a few months back. It's still loud, but not as bad as the CD imo.


My own vote for a recent album is Snow Patrol's "A Hundred Million Suns". Whoever pressed that LP should be taken out and shot -- a horrible compressed mess. It's the one time that I prefer the MP3 downloads over the LP, as the MP3's actually sound better.

 

The last 2 discs by The Answer are blaringly loud - I would guess the DR is very low. Shame too, because I think they're a cool band.

 

I don't usually notice the mastering of cd's, so for me to complain, it would have to be pretty bad. One that I remember being very bad was "The Best of Roberta Flack" from 1981. It just sounded so dull and lifeless and the volume had to be turned up all the way to get any type of sound on it. Really horrible sound quality.

 

In my limited experience, I would have to say the worst mastering I have heard is The Way of Curve, an anthology of the British dance rock act Curve that was released several years back. A horribly compressed, brick-walled mess.

 

Both Coldplay and Third Eye Blind are brickwalled and feature some digital distortion. I'm disappointed they are so badly mastered while they are also so tuneful and well-regarded musically.