Question for those with “Golden ears”, and a frustration! (The Loudness Wars)


Hello! My first text! My user name, is short for my Companies name.
  Anyway, I ALWAYS wondered, which sounds better to you with $$$$ equipment? The Led Zeppelin Rhino Black box of Japanese made, mini copies of the record album sleeves CD’s of ALL the albums? Or, the large sized four CD disk boxset with the crop circle picture on the front(1990 release?), and the later small box, that had the songs missing from the four box “crop circles” box? The mini-album Japanese CD’s sound pretty damn good to me!  Any thoughts? Which sounds better to you? Those with CD based systems I can only dream of owning?  As to my rant, I went to the Wiki article of: The Sound Wars! And there was a link where you can put in your CD or album title and artist, and it tells you if it’s been compressed(LOUD!), or, not. Specifically: CD’s, (if it’s compressed, the VU meters will stay locked in the red) My favorite Fleetwood Mac CD, The Dance, all in the RED, BAD! 😢 U2’s Joshua Tree (special boxed edt.) All in the GREEN (GOOD). But I swear, the drums/cymbals, IMO, sound awful on that CD! Especially the cymbals! NEVER could find a good sounding Joshua Tree CD that the drums and cymbals sounded good. 🙁 That was my FAVORITE concert!!! 4’th. row seats!! AWESOME! Other albums, NIN CD’s all in the red, Van Halen as well. And the worst, totally unlistenable, got it for Christmas many years ago, Led Zep., The Mothership CD’s. 🤮

Thank you all!!!
savroof9849
Forgot to mention, in the 80’s the process was the same except a 1/4" audio tape was sent to the editing house which was typically transferred to 1" videotape. So the original audio master may have been digital, but the master for MTV was analogue videotape.

The point is, the music video master may be different than the mastering for vinyl and CD.


cd318
Excellent points all around. Various incarnations of catalog re-masters are hit-and-miss as well as SHM CD/SACD titles. Enjoy the Music.
Happy Listening!
lowrider57
Excellent counterpoints as well. In a modern era, we tend to forget how much MTV and Radio Stations media played a significant part in consumers receiving their "product". A different time to be sure.Enjoy the Music.
Happy Listening!
@jafant 
I was editing music videos as well as MTV content in the 90's. I experienced the changeover from analogue to digital technology as well as MTV's increased dominance in the biz and in our culture. 
One change I saw was they started to reject videos not only for explicit content but because they didn't like a shot or sequence.
BTW, all video and audio was required to be uncompressed. 

Getting back to modern day audio quality, on the Dynamic Range DB I've seen entries for "MTV version" in addition to the various audio releases. Saw this 2 or 3 times but didn't check to see the DR measurements. That would be interesting.

 
lowrider57
Very cool personal history. I miss MTV Unplugged series from the 90's.
I wish I could purchase the Don Henley episode on CD or DVD.
Happy Listening!