If you buy the 1999 masters from Japan, you get the Mini LP sleeve and inserts too. Once Heroes was fixed, I've been happy the new remasters of the Berlin Trilogy and Scary Monsters. The added bass to Low does no harm, and honestly it's not a major tweak, just a slight change. I compared the RCA, Ryko, and latest mastering of Heroes, and there's not miles between them. Scary Monsters sounds good to me. Perhaps this is, to an certain extent, my becoming accustomed to the new masterings. I've played them on and off for some time (well, a year or so ) and I've gotten used to them. The RCA's are ridiculously expensive, and not worth the price for me. When I think about it - Low is a very artificial sound anyway. By design, of course. There are lots of effects on acoustic instruments, most notably the drums. It's all quite synthetic. Perhaps that's an issue for some when seeking a certain sound for them. Heroes, no matter what version you have, is quite congested. Beauty and the Beast and Joe the Lion, for example, are noisy b*stards. Again, difficult to get sounding more natural. Scary Monsters is the one with the most natural sound, and perhaps could benefit from slightly less compression, but the new mastering isn't terrible, imo. I absolutely love the Man Who Sold the World from the first box - probably the best I've heard it. Hunky Dory is gorgeous. Still, each to their own. My own view is that I hope (please please) that these aren't the final say on digital masterings. I hope we get an album by album box set, with various masterings included. I can't say this being the end of the road for the titles. I like the current masterings enough that I'd not consider buying the RCA's at current prices. better to save the (considerable) cost, and wait out the next versions.
Excluding the RCAs, I think the 1999 CDs are probably the easiest to "fix" for home listening/home-brewed correction, since their problem is fairly singular and common. The "No-Noise" applied to the Rykos really seems to have removed some vital organs. It can't really be undone at home with your desktop EQ - entirely, although there is a host-suggested solution - but on the 99's, the EQ adjustment is simpler to change for taste, as it's simply too harsh. As for never being able to crank it past a certain volume, that's just life these days.
Interesting. Just listening to the Heroes disc on a different set of headphones. I usually listen on Sennheiser HD650's, but for reasons I won't go into, I'm listening on a cheaper set of phones right now. Yeah, it's a different experience. I usually play my 650's at around 38 on the volume dial, but with the cheaper headphones I'm stuck at 25 because the disc is too loud. Mind - HD 650's are 600 Ohm. Big difference though. As for whether it's listenable other than that - yeah, sounds good. Just wanted to note how different things can seem when you switch bits of kit about.
I’m pretty sure it’s the opposite way around, although the Rykos have some funky EQ there isn’t any NR that I can detect. The 1999 EMI remasters are the ones with the NR.
That's what I thought as well although there might have been some NR applied at some of the fade outs (I honestly don't remember).
There was some NR in the Ryko/1990 Emis but i can't really hear it in any meaningful way, so i don't really care for it. The 1999 CDs on the other hand, have a really nasty NR going through all over them, they are just bad. Even when I had never listened to Bowie, when i first listened to the 1999 remasters, I though to myself "Why do these things sound so weird, like they are in a tube or something" and i rightfulyl suspected it was a fauly of the remaster.
The Wikipedia entry for EMI's "Best of Bowie" points out early on that except for the new single edits, the remasters were all from 1999, with the exception of the new single edits, which were 2002. For kicks and giggles, and prompted by another conversation, I dragged out my "Best of Bowie" DVD to rip the RCA years content for reasons, and noticed two things: nearly half of the audio in the RCA era - TV appearances, e.g., were never released by EMI as audio, and so this Wiki blurb probably applied to the audio CD of "Best of Bowie", but not necessarily the DVD. For another thing, audio remastering vintages were not included in the BOB DVD notes the way they were on EMI audio releases such as "The Platinum Collection", which took pains to point out 1999 vs. later remastering dates. Track by track. There IS an (undated) audio mastering credit on the DVD sleeve, however: Peter Mew (blamed for pretty much everything that's wrong with the 1999 masters - a familiar name) and .... Kathy Bryan. A new name to me, at least. While it's a stretch to call the 16-bit/48 soundtrack "hi-res", and while brickwalling was never really the problem with even the dreaded EMI output, the DR on these 21 RCA-years tracks isn't too shabby: Code: foobar2000 1.4 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1 log date: 2018-08-04 12:44:48 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Analyzed: David Bowie / Best of Bowie DVD1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR Peak RMS Duration Track -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR11 -1.07 dB -16.42 dB 3:28 01-01 OYPT (Take 1) DR11 -1.09 dB -16.11 dB 3:20 02-02 OYPT (TV Take) DR11 -1.07 dB -13.46 dB 3:12 03-03 Queen Bitch (OGWT) DR12 -1.21 dB -16.66 dB 5:02 04-04 Five Years (OGWT) DR11 -1.00 dB -14.48 dB 3:35 05-05 Starman (TOTP) DR11 -1.50 dB -14.22 dB 2:54 06-06 John I'm Only Dancing (sax) DR9 -2.61 dB -12.36 dB 4:09 07-07 The Jean Genie DR10 -2.15 dB -14.53 dB 5:21 08-08 Space Oddity DR10 -1.18 dB -12.80 dB 4:18 09-09 Drivein Saturday (Harty) DR9 -2.52 dB -13.88 dB 4:02 10-10 Life on Mars DR12 -1.18 dB -14.90 dB 3:07 11-11 Ziggy Stardust (Motion Picture) DR11 -1.30 dB -13.20 dB 4:25 12-12 Rebel Rebel (Top Pop) DR11 -1.07 dB -13.49 dB 5:08 13-13 Young Americans (Dick Cavett) DR11 -1.64 dB -14.37 dB 3:04 14-14 Be My Wife DR10 -1.64 dB -13.04 dB 3:32 15-15 Heroes DR9 -2.00 dB -13.04 dB 3:22 16-16 Boys Keep Swinging DR9 -2.00 dB -12.94 dB 4:05 17-17 DJ DR10 -1.00 dB -12.21 dB 3:00 18-18 Look Back In Anger DR11 -1.66 dB -14.32 dB 3:36 19-19 Ashes to Ashes DR12 -1.08 dB -15.28 dB 3:28 20-20 Fashion DR11 -1.36 dB -14.84 dB 3:36 21-21 Wild is the Wind -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Number of tracks: 21 Official DR value: DR10 Samplerate: 48000 Hz Channels: 2 Bits per sample: 16 Bitrate: 1536 kbps Codec: PCM ==================================================================== (Perhaps worth noting that film and TV appearances seem to have emerged from the Loudness wars unscathed.) While I personally don't have an ear for No-Noising, I think it's safe to say that some kind of help was needed on some of these 70s' TV sources - one of the "Oh You Pretty Things" takes has a bit of awful but apparently unavoidable time-induced tape crinkles. And the noise on these oldies is practically non-existent, but as the saying goes, "What else was lost with it?" Just listening through as an album? I'd have to single out "Jean Genie" and "Rebel Rebel" as big fails. Overly loud, and yeah, I'd say "tunnelly", as someone described. "Rebel Rebel" is probably an EMI single remaster for the audio soundtrack. ("Drive-In Saturday" sounds like you might expect an old TV tape to sound, and for me personally, that's great, but for complainers, EMI probably has an excuse - there probably was only one source in the world suitable to be worked on). One of the (many) problems with bad masterings is that you generally have to listen to that handiwork for 38-45 minutes, so if a remaster has a "sonic signature" (as Rykos are frequently accused of having), that can get wearying. But a mixed up compilation such as this gives the listener a break once in a while. It's nice. I like it.
I did excactly that (the 99 Scary Monsters still was in my collection). I think it was a good choice, the 99ers of the Berlin era aren't as bad as I thought they would be. A slight downside here: the artwork of the "Zeit" discs seems of a lesser printing quality than the single disc 99 remasters. At least it's complete.
Working my way thru the '99 Parlaphone remasters and they seem thin and shrill. Then tried a different cd player and that softened them, also eq'd the bass up a few points and treble down a few. Seems to have helped. Not as fatiguing to listen to. Is this type of tweaking acceptable? I find I rarely have to tweak a cd, but these Bowie cds seem to benefit.
I don’t know if it’s acceptable but they are your ears. One of Peter Mews less than ideal contributions.
You can change the placement of walls, ceilings, doors and windows in your entire house, replace curtains, flooring and the '99s will still sound off.
Overall I have sampled some of David's '99 remasters, Ryko Au20s, RCA's and Parlaphones which I have either streamed on Tidal, or tracked down online to find my favorite masterings of Bowie's catalog and these are my picks. Hunky Dory -RCA followed by Ryko. Ziggy-Controversial but I find the 2003 remaster the best overall followed closely by RCA. Overall based on my tests using my QC25s and JBL Duet NC's I have found overall RCA is the winner but very difficult to find. I will attempt to find these as well as the Ryko's which I don't mind despite their EQ issues. Aladdin Sane - RCA Pin Ups - Parlophone(have not heard) Diamond Dogs -RCA Young Americans -RCA/Ryko Station to Station -RCA/Ryko (have not heard 2010) Low -Ryko Heroes-RCA Lodger-RCA Scary Monsters - '99(is actually my fav version though the RCA is better) Let's Dance - '99(over the top in sound with too much bass and treble but I kinda like it, the original sounds better though) Tonight-haven't heard an original yet Never Let me down-2017 remake/remix(despite the compression) Tin Machine-original. Tin Machine 2-Japan Remaster(sounds almost identical with a little more low end)
...And It's No Game!!! I wonder what Bowie would say about it? Shirley, He must have had a hand in every release???? and doesn't want to disappoint his fans!
I take this comment back. After years of not listening to Bowie, then throwing my entire collection on shuffle, I was astonished at how bad they sounded. Before I even recognized the song, my immediate reaction was "This sounds horrible!" This happened at least three times. The RCAs are a regal pain in the unnamables - they're rare and expensive, a quarter of them suck, you pretty much have to be an audio engineer to get them to achieve their maximum potential, and as mentioned earlier they are not consistent from album to album - but they really are still the best digital option nearly four decades later. I'd still rank the recent remasters below the '99s, despite some of them being good (MWSTW and Pinups), because the Parlophones are so insultingly inconsistent. It's like a different team did each one. Considering they put the RCA CD in the super-deluxe Station To Station set, you think they'd just go for broke and re-release those masters, possibly with the glitches fixed. But then again, if the 2015 Space Oddity is any indication, Parlophone should be banned from ever trying to fix glitches again.
How did the 1969-1974 & 1974-1979 Best Of’s compare with the 1999 remasters in terms of sound quality? I believe those came out before the ‘99 Album Remasters were released.
I actually really like the 99s, they are crisp, modern sounding and the EQ is really nice. I prefer these over the recent remasters which have been muddy and too basey imo
