Is remastered mainly just less jitter?

OTOH, the really early masters for CD are poor - if one were to avoid listening before buying maybe the 1990s would be the safest bet.

Re-mastering can use newer, better technologies; can remove some artefacts from say wow & flutter, can degrade the sound with compression, and can reflect personal preferences of the engineer or fads

Jitter is likely the least problem or benefit in re-mastering

Early CD really vary.

For some reason, Dark Side of the Moon was often sent around in analog master form, then was final-mastered at each CD pressing, so there are a number of different quality CD’s for the same recording out there. Then there is one VERY famous remaster that totally kills it dynamically and sound effects-wise.

Then there’s a lot of really crap sounding CD’s, especially in the early age of digital drums. Ugh.

I have had many Dark Side of the Moon's, none were great as the list shows, best was the vinyl.

I buy all my cd's s/h on ebay for a couple of bucks this way. I search then click on the issue with the most green, get the "catalogue number", and search it on ebay. 

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=Pink+Floyd&album=Dark+Side+of+the+Moon

Cheers George

"Dark Side of the Moon ... there is one VERY famous remaster that totally kills it dynamically and sound effects-wise"

is that the one Barry Diament did?

I’d love this, got the CD Issue/ cat no. and year it was done? I can see on the net he did a SACD version but the redbook layer of that was crap. All the SACD’s on the list show it was also compressed no DR, all done in 2003 

For him to have done this, he would have had to get the original master tapes from that recording session 21 January 1972 .

Cheers George