Pink Floyd best CDs soundwise

Sol322, never heard of it, pls enlighten me!

The 40th anniversary edition (3 disc set)of The Piper is pretty spectacular.

The SACD hybrids all appear the same based on the packaging. Here's the specific one that I'm referring to:

Dark Side of the Moon 30th Anniversary Hybrid

I'm not familiar with the Japanese hybrid.

The gold Wish is incredible. The English Wish is a little better BUT they fade in late and fade out early to hide the master tape hiss. Thank God they didn't remaster it though.
Japan Animals is great too.

Guthrie remixed DSOTM in his Tahoe studio - he uses EMM Labs Switchman III preamp & ATC. If you google you can find an interview with Guthrie....some of the vocals are deliberately blurry as that is what the band wanted - they definitely made some aristic changes in this remix. I have also seen an analysis indicating that the CD layer was made "hot" to match other CD's of our time (although no one will admit that the CD layer is doctored to sound quite different from the SACD layer).

Hot means they compress the sound using limiters and then jack it up close to the maximum level attainable on the CD. It gives a punchy sound which initially sounds impressive at low levels. When you crank it however you realize it is badly distorted and will sound excessively harsh/unnatural. I have many many examples of this....take for example the famous Rosanna - from Toto with nice ghost note drumming from Porcaro. I have a CD I bought of this back in 1996 which you need to turn to voume to 8 or 9 to sound loud and it sounds beautiful, polished and delicate, as it should having won a grammy award. I have the same on the recent "Essential - Toto" CD which has been remastered. This newer version sounds very loud at 3 or 4 in volume level and it initially sounds more punchy and crisp/exciting (at low levels) but when you crank it is so very clearly doctored that vocals are harsh and edgy...another victum!!

The problem is usualy the band and the producers themselves...they often want "hot" CD's to compete with other hot and lousy sounding CD's (but sound good or more audible in a car or as background in a restaurant) and they demand this in the mastering stage.

The good news is that you can get pretty nice sounding stuff on independent labels...my bet is that the Japanese version might be the safest bet...much of this can be corrected by a proper master....although some material is distorted in the orignal masters like much of the Stones early stuff (deliberately done for artistic reasons)

If you want to find less doctored/hot CD's then stick to mastering engineers Bernie Grundman and Doug Sax - they still use compressors (everyone does/did even for Vinyl) but they tend to have a lighter touch than most. You can find out who mixed and remastered stuff on artists direct.

Good luck - finding good CD's (especially remasters) of Pop music is a real crap shoot.

BTW- Guthrie started working with Pink Floyd on The Wall....so if you don't like the wall it is possible you don't like the way he mixes....personal taste may play a role too. (The original sound engineer behind DSOTM, as every fan knows, was Alan Parsons....that was in the days they uses to cut and splice analog tape with a razor blade)