Flood of Good Classic Rock Remasters


I have been very impressed recently with the latest releases of remastered rock classics. In the mid 90s Bob Ludwig pointed the way with his excellent remasters of the Virgin catalog for the Rolling Stones and more recently his
Tom Petty 2 CD Anthology continues his high standards.

Judas Priest has just started releasing remasters of their classic 70/80 Cds. Only a couple are now out but I tried
"British Steel" and was blown away. Selling at super saver
price level with extra bonus tracks this great stuff, bass and drums have emerged from the murk providing great kick and drive, detail has been enhanced noticeably without the usual grainy/hard treble some remasters produce. Little known is that the "metal works" anthology from early 90s
had remastered tracks which improved upon originals, but not as good as current remasters, rock lovers don't hesitate
to grab these!

Black Sabbath has started to release remasters of 60/70s Cds, but they are full price and contain no bonus tracks,
what a rip! So I went ahead and got "masters of reality"
which now has cardboard sleeve, and it is a successful remaster with drums and Tony Iommi's massive sonic slabs of riffing coming into clearer light. I probably won't get 1st
two CD remastered versions because existing Cds sound OK,
and I'm not paying full price for 30yr old music!

Kiss "double platinum" has new "album replica" cardboard sleeve remastered CD. CD folds out with embossed reliefs
of band members, kewl! Sound is successful about 75% of the time, many of these had murky masters with thin treble, and although the remasters clean up drum and bass, some tracks the vocals and cymbals now have treble glare/hardness, a double edge sword but on the whole worth buying.

Just ordered today Cheap Trick remasters, 1st three albums in box set with bonus tracks on all Cds at super saver price. will have to report later.

Any comments?
128x128megasam
I've been looking for a long time to find rock that sounds really good. With the exception of a few DCC recordings, I find most rock music to be horribly mixed. I'll give some of your suggestions a try.
Thanks for the info.
Milo, this is all relatively speaking, for instance none of these approach the sound quality of say Dire Straits, but they are improvements from previous versions.

Black Sabbath "masters of reality" CD had very poor sound quality, very murky with little detail. The remaster has now elavated sound to almost average, so still no great sound but much improved from before. Ozzy owes me big time,
this is the third time I have purchased this, album in early 70s, CD in the 80s, now remaster in the 90s!

The Virgin era Rolling Stones and newest Judas Priest are quite good by any standard now. Several years ago I got several Led Zepplin and Bowie CD remasters, and overall they were slightly better than previous versions, but this latest crop especially Judas Priest is much larger improvement.