Rock: well recorded bass...60s/70s

Most newly recorded CDs are ruined by the compression and the "loudness wars". Modern remasters suffer compared to the original discs.

Macdadtexas, for Zep on CD you need to try the original mastering by Barry Diament, made in Japan for the US market (or the Japanese or West German disks from the same vintage).

On CD, the David Lanois song "The Maker" by Emmylou Harris on "Spyboy" (1998). Terrific bass and drumming at the end of this song.

There is a super-low synthesizer on "Dig" by Boz Scaggs (2001), which is a very well recorded CD and will shake the house.

Back to Jaco and Joni - "Cotton Avenue" on Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. Asylum 38XD-953 from Japan.

Regards,

12-04-08: Pdn writes:

I'm done buying any older recorded CDs (i.e. 60's, 70's, even 80's) unless they're in HDCD or SACD format or they've been digitally remastered to 24 bit.

I'm exactly the opposite. I've been buying the original releases of CDs (typically made in Japan or West Germany) of a number of artists that I have all the remasters of (Roxy Music, Eno, Dire Straits, Springsteen, Steely Dan, post-ABKO Stones) and I much prefer the sound on those "first pressings".

After the initial releases there were a lot of poor versions either badly made or badly mastered, and those are not what I collect - those are often easily beaten by a "modern remaster".

But most remasters compress the signal and crank up the volume (louder is better, right?) and the originals are much sweeter and have more dynamics. The CD players of today are significantly better than machines of 20 years ago, but the discs aren't.

Regards,