The real issue is differences in hearing, both in terms of raw ability and taste. The system is irrelevant if someone literally can’t hear certain frequencies.
While that's of course true as far as it goes, the hearing loss most people have is in the highest octave only. And there are many qualities of the different masterings (of Zep CDs, but of course of a wide variety of albums and artists) that are different below the top octave, and that include not only the perception of more or less prominent sound at various frequencies, but also the perception of different textural qualities to various instruments or to the overall sound, along with perceptions of clarity or lack thereof in the mix, and so on. (Yes of course these textural/clarity/etc qualities also are about the energy level of various frequencies - I'm talking about perception when listening rather than the actual source of those perceptions.)
I disagree about hearing loss only being as high as you suggest, but regardless, my point is a $100,000 system means nothing if the person listening to it has poor hearing abilities, whether biological or otherwise.
that's why blinds can't drive and deafs are not sound engineer , let's be serious what's the point to have a hi-fi system if you are hear impaired.
Not at all, most people have the most important hearing impairment in the 2kHz to 8kHz range. It's noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) and it's in the so-called "vocals" range. It's true that 10kHz and up naturally diminishes with age, and that's also true for low bass as well! But hearing impairment will occur at any age due to exposure to noise and usually occurs in the aforementionned mids/high-mids range.
I prefer the Diament 80's CD's. They (to me) are the closest to the original vinyl. I can crank these CD's and hear everything. The 90's remasters are fine, but louder. Depends on your preference.
Excluding harmonics, most male and female vocals are in the range of 100 Hertz to 3 kHz. Natural hearing loss occurs at much higher frequencies usually.
Vocals are indeed in the 200Hz-4kHz range. Loss in the higher frequencies impacts speech perception -it's the famous "cocktail party effect": difficulty understanding speech, that's why it's called (improperly) the "vocals" range even if vocals are much lower. (And that's why I used quotation marks and wrote "so-called".) Natural hearing loss -as opposed to NIHL, which I was talking about, and which is much more prevalent across the whole population- affects the highest frequencies first, just like I wrote.
As much as I enjoyed the Diament Physical Graffiti, it lost badly last night in a shootout with my Canadian vinyl. I found the eq on the vinyl to be much more satisfying, with deeper bass. On the Diament it sounded like Bonzo's snare was louder than his kick on certain tracks, due to the lack of bass. The Canadian vinyl had a much nicer balance, IMHO.
I tend to agree...when I first got the recent remasters I was using them in my car like @Dan Steele but even in that situation, the top end "sizzle" on some of them, especially II, is just too much. At this point I'm just too used to the more relaxed top end of the Diaments.
I bought the Diament LZ, LZII, and Houses (WG) this weekend to compare with the latest remasters. Tough call, but if I was looking for the most vinyl-esque experience; Diament. Overall listening; split decision. I prefer the punch of some tracks more on the newer versions but I will say they are ultimately more fatiguing. Pick one set or perish? Diament...but I’m not sure there would be anywhere near as much playback as I will get alternating the two. I’ll probably finish out the Diaments, and keep them with the new series.
After hearing the various remasters, I'm still firmly in the Diament/Sidore IV camp. For me, the preference for the Sidore IV is as much about the lack of early fades as it is about the SQ.
More to the point, why don't any Led Zeppelin CD's sound anything like their LP counterparts? I haven't yet come across any artist where the two formats present such radically different versions of each album.
Early fade-outs aside, why not try using applying the Diament/Sidore EQ curves to the latest remasters and see if you still prefer the older ones? Or for that matter, from whatever your favourite vinyl copies happen to be. Put that variable aside and see if any other characteristics are more or less to your liking.
I 100% agree, I even hosted comparison samples here of my truly NM needle drop (1A/1A pressing, no surface noise even in Thank you!) but only one or two people bothered comparing and listening. When burned to a CD-R and played for a group of people, people were at best guessing which was which.
