What is this thread all about?
Just a place for general discussion. A place to unload whats on your mind and talk about anything - personal, health, help needed, achievements, daily highs and daily lows, theories, predictions and what have you.
Does not need to be Q related.
From discussion on Tues regarding CDs and stuff - putting it here too as there's some good info esp for Zappa/Stones fans:
The thing about streaming is you can't control which version you're listening to. Often remasters are too hot or otherwise poorly done (very occasionally the reverse), so with physical media you can control which version you have.
For example, Men At Work's "Business As Usual" got remastered after the original CD without it even being marked as such - it was years before I found this out - it has WAY too much reverb on it (Hofmann forum very useful for this kind of research). So I got the original and HOLY COW they fucking trashed it. It sounds so much better without all the reverb smearing everything.
The original "FZ Remasters" of Zappa stuff, several of them suffer from this as well, this page details which ones got fixed. I can verify that Bongo Fury (the "weird" part is the dynamics are so much better, it took some getting used to! It's SO much better!) and Sheik Yerbouti are both 100% essential to have the 2012 vs the earlier ones.
The other big one I'm aware of is the Stones, the "DSD" mastered ones are phenomenal, easily some of the best stuff I've ever heard on recording (like hear the top of an acoustic guitar vibrate and stuff like that). The more-recent remasters are WAY too hot by all reports (edit: except possibly dumbasses on Amazon with tin ears - basically, be careful about reviews that say "this master sounds GREAT!!!" as the thing is initially people often perceive louder is better - same reason they crank TV settings on the wall at Best Buy instead of tuning them for correct color and brightness and stuff).
Oh, and now that I'm thinking about it, another debacle is earlier ZZ Top stuff and how hard it is to get a correct version of THAT...even recent CDs reverting to original album mix (without the "80s synth layer" that some idiots decided would be a good idea at some point, totally stupid) have their various issues generally. "Find a good vinyl copy" is still the best way to go there.
I used to be about as "into this" stuff as one could be without being a card carrying Hoffman Forums poster. Don't have the time these days, but I over indulged in this hobby for TOO many years. I have thousands of CDs, vinyl, even cassettes lol.
Glad to see it's still alive. I agree with all the broad points of the post.
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Heh, I don't overindulge at least - I basically use the forum when there is some random hole in the collection that needs filled, how to best fill it or at least avoid some atrocious misstep (like trusting Vintage Guitar that The Stones' Blue and Lonesome is great - THAT is the FUCKING LOUDEST cd I've EVER heard - I threw it away immediately*). I mean not just loud master in terms of peaks but a significantly louder level than it should be - I can't imagine it even conforms to Red Book probably?
*I also bought my last VG issue when they, at the end of a "what have they been up to lately" piece on vax-damaged Clapton, said "I just wish he'd wear a damn mask."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
Edit: Regarding the infamous Vapor Trails sound debacle:
THAT is an interesting rabbit hole. It's not that it's mastered hot, exactly. Bear with me here - I think they were trying something very ambitious, but failed. So the Jesus and Mary Chain album "Honey's Dead" basically sounds like compressed shit - until you crank it, on a system that can actually reveal this stuff (it's taken me 30 years to eventually, by increments, achieve this)(and the discovery itself was also literally a drunken turn-it-up accident) - then it is one of the best-sounding recordings I've ever heard. The various re-dos of VT (fan "remasters" that attempted to restore peaks with software, as well as the recent "remix" which they should damn not have done a new MIX FFS) sound "better" until you realize it doesn't touch the original master of VT when cranked. It's like that version is TRYING to pull off what the JAMC album does, and in fact almost makes it.
Of course, if they had hit the bulls-eye, it would still sound like shit on most systems, and everyone would still have not understood. But anyway.
ROFL I "never understood the appeal"