Disappointing CD's....

[mpmarino]

I thought it nice to thread about some CD's that make you want to barf after you've opened the package and listened to 3 seconds of it!

I recently bought 'The Essential Billy Joel" Columbia $19.95 usd. The thing sounds like crap, Almost as if they played the originals using a 4" pioneer into a Maxwell House 2Lb coffee can and picked the result up close miked on a Fisher Price microphone. These tracks sound nothing like the originals. Too bad...I love Billy.

Anyone have any more...

[John Hope]

Hi guys

One of the worst quality masterings I ever came across was the original CD release of Jethro Tull's Aqualung. (I bought this circa 1984). I looked it up on the web recently and discovered to my disgust that at the time they made this CD, they couldn't find the original master tapes and so mastered the CD from the original vinyl press master (the mother or father or daughter or whatever it's called), presumably played on a phonograph of sorts!
Subsequent re-issues of this CD have been OK - they found the tapes, I guess.

Another disappointment, rather out of character, was Mark Knopfler's Shangri-La, mastered at the studios of the same name in the US. Compared to his previous CDs (Sailing to Philadelphia and Ragpicker's Dream) it was flat and lacked presence.

And as for J.J. Cale: Most everything he does (except To Tulsa and Back) sounds like it was recorded in an Airstream Trailer onto compact cassette. Perhaps it was? I get to the point where I feel buying any new CD is like playing Audio Russian Roulette! But I must say that music recorded in this Millenium have been noticeably better.

The good news is that you don't have to put up with this poor fidelity. Serious audiophiles and music lovers can invest in the Adobe Audition software and a fast PC so they can 'remaster' these bad CDs themselves, so you don't have to put up with rubbish. You'd be amazed at what a bit of parametric EQ and noise reduction can do.

Don't get me started on compressed audio - DAB, MP3 etc. Anything more complex than a solo performer winds up sounding like an Audio Pie. The guys that created this stuff should be tired for crimes against humanity!

Cheers


John Hope

[Tweeker]

Red Hot Chili Peppers poor recording goes way beyond not caring about fans with quality rigs, its as if they are optimising for loudness on car radios with 3 inch speakers...

The loudness thing is so self defeating, as most peoples systems have a volume knob they usually adjust to thier taste.

[jeff mai]

The obsession with compression is extremely annoying. I have a number of newer pop CD's that are very well recorded otherwise. It destroys the illusion to hear the chacter of the vocals change as if they're singing louder, but nothing actually gets louder.

[audio-kraut]

Mark Knopfler's Shangri-La,

But it's not only the sound that is disappointing...

[Evan Robinson]

Originally posted by Tweeker
Red Hot Chili Peppers poor recording goes way beyond not caring about fans with quality rigs, its as if they are optimising for loudness on car radios with 3 inch speakers...

The loudness thing is so self defeating, as most peoples systems have a volume knob they usually adjust to thier taste.

I believe they ARE optimizing for low quality speakers. Ones that get confused if you give them dynamics. They probably do indeed sound better on poor systems. Of course, most of us here don't have poor systems and take the rotten end of it.

[SimontY]

Originally posted by Tweeker
Red Hot Chili Peppers poor recording goes way beyond not caring about fans with quality rigs...

Indeed. Has anyone had the misfortune to hear their Greatest Hits album?? It has copy protection. The sound of the whole album is very poor (dull, poor dynamics), but some tracks actually have an audible crackling sort of distortion! At first I thought something was wrong with my CD player, but the same sounds are clearly heard through even cheap computer speakers!

I am tempted to make some kind of complaint and see if I can get a refund. I really feel ripped off.

On a similar note, I borrowed my brother's Maroon 5 cd and it suffered from the same dull sound with terrible lo-fi bass.... It also has the same copy-protection logo on the back. This is depressing.

[SuppersReady]

...digitally remastered and all the usual blah.

All nicely cleaned up and squeaky clean. Oh, and b****r all atmosphere. I'll stick to my vinyl copy of that one.

[SimontY]

Oh no... here's another! Blur - Thinktank

I popped this is hoping for some nice sounds but was greeted my messy OTT bass, all over the place it was. Got a little further in and wondered if I had a techincal error. Track 5 (iirc) started giving me terrible crackle and awful sounds, so I checked the inside to find (oh the shock of it) notification of 'copy-protection'.

Another one that makes me very angry. What can we do about it? It wasn't expensive so returning it won't get me far. Really I just want the music

If I write to EMI will they send me one without the noisy copy-protection???

I don't want to pirate music I paid for, or any music really, I just want to enjoy it!!!

[jackinnj]

Talk about disappointing -- many of the CBS reissues of LP Recordings (aka Szell with the Cleveland SO) -- pretty awful, but what are you gonna do if you want to hear Szell and don't own the original LP's.

I have a recording of French opera arias sung by Anna Moffo on LP and CD -- the CD is AWFUL.