BMG CD's ARE worse

As I mentioned earlier, the CD in question may have been compared to a remastered version. In this case the remaster will usually be louder and sound better. When the CD medium became popular, many companies wanted to get their products on the market as fast as they could. Many times 3rd and 4th generation mix down tapes were used instead of the original masters. This coupled with the use of early generation AD converters made for sucky sounding CD's. This is the reason vinyl sounds so much better than earlier CD's. 1995 was the year digital recording got much better because of the much improved AD an DA converters.

The Japanese issues are much better in general and sound as good as most remasters of today because they took the trouble to use the master or first generation mix down tapes for their releases.

BMG, more than likely, simply makes a digital copy of the CD that they are going to sell. If it is an early generation CD, then it is going to sound like it. BMG is owned by Bertlesman Music Group. They have access to many original releases but not as many as Columbia House.

Columbia House is owned by Sony Music and Universal and have a much larger back catalog to choose from. Therefore they have many more original releases to choose from.

Thanks for the information. I will be comparing BMG CD's to the same "non BMG" CD's in the future for a fairer comparison. If I find quality differences again, I'll repost.

go purchase 2 copies of any CD somewhere now go a/b the 2 "identical" disks. Are they different? I always hear slight differences. I believe nothing man makes to be exactly identical is impossible.

If the discs are from the same final Digital master, they will be identical. Jitter is a different issue.

I finally got two identical CD's, one is BMG version, brand new right out of the case; of Steve Winwood's "Arc of a Diver". The other is from the library.
The library CD had minor scratches all over it. It also had two thin metal detection strips taped to the back of it. So I would expect the library CD to sound worse.
First I put the BMG in my Marantz CDR-500 CDR (better) drive and the LIB (library version) in the CD drive.
The BMG version sounded "better" by quite a noticeable amount. I put in quotes because the clarity seemed to accentuate the "digital nasties".
- Listening the BMG was subjectively louder but the output level meters on the CDP showed identical output levels.
- BMG was clearer and more dynamic. This is probably why it accentuated the "digital nasties".

Switched BMG to CD drive and LIB version to CDR drive. Same results but perhaps BMG was TINY bit worse than the first time due to worse quality CD drive.

Put Auric Illuminator on BMG CD and digital nasties reduced by 10%. I'm calling the difference between the two CD's was 100% so A-I reduced the difference by 10%.

After 20-30 minutes of this my ears got fatigued and I couldn't really hear differences anymore.

My conclusion - compilation CD's not BMG CD's are worse.