3 ms·

CDs had a big problem with mastering. They either have a bad sound from CD being a new format (Zappa 80s CDs suffered from this) or since the mid-late 90s are b

CDs had a big problem with mastering. They either have a bad sound from CD being a new format (Zappa 80s CDs suffered from this) or since the mid-late 90s are brickwalled to hell thanks to the loudness war. Obviously there are plenty of fine CD versions of albums out there, but I heard enough poorly mastered CDs and spent enough time searching 2nd hand stores for known good versions to not be worried about the format going away.

chiph 10y ago
> CDs had a big problem with mastering. You are correct. Lots of the early releases once the goldrush started still had their RIAA equalization on them (aka "shovelware"). Even those that used original sources simply didn't sound all that good because of the mastering engineer's inexperience (first release of The Wall, I'm looking at you). There were still gems made though, like Brothers in Arms Because of the loudness war, I've started looking for earlier releases on discogs.com. Anything listed as "Remastered" is viewed with suspicion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war