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.

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.

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.