Upgrading your music collection

[Razor X]

Like most people, when CDs came out I replaced pretty much my entire collection.  Some of those old CDs, which sounded so great at the time, were poorly mastered and sound pretty crappy compared to modern CDs, so I've been replacing a lot of my old favorites that have been digitally remastered.  Now I'm finding that things that I bought back in the 90s (old recordings from the 60s, 70s and 80s) that were supposedly digitally remastered and sounded pretty good at the time, don't sound so good to me anymore.   I've noticed that sites like Amazon, will often tell you what year the remastering was done.  So my question is, how far back can you go and still get the best possible quality?  I'm thinking definitely nothing that was remastered prior to 2000 -- or is even that too far back?

[Tyler]

I'm not sure razor.  I guess it depends on what you consider quality.  I know some people that want to hear the scratches from the originals in the music, even though they are listening to a CD.

[BALDANDRE]

Kinda on subject...

to date I have NOT found a version of "Cool like Dat" by Digable Planets that you don't have to turn the volume up to get it to the level of new recording..

anywhere!

I know it's just one song, but that song haunts me with that problem anytime I add it to a mix I need..

It's tough living in this age of technology!

[PBurke]

cool song andre. i really liked digable back in the day. like pharcyde around the same time too.

[handlebar]

It all depends on genre and style in my opinion.I have over 3500 classical cd's and many are pre-digital. So i buy new when feasible. Otherwise,i have converted most of those cd's to mp3's already.

Jim

[Razor X]

I'm not sure razor.  I guess it depends on what you consider quality.  I know some people that want to hear the scratches from the originals in the music, even though they are listening to a CD.

Yeah, there are some people like that.  I don't understand it, and I don't understand how anyone can say that vinyl sounds better than a CD.  This will probably spark a huge debate ...

[Marz]

Well, this may be another unread rambling of mine but here goes...

It really depends on the quality of the original recording and the equipment used to "re master".

Lets take a visual example to put this into perspective.

Imagine the original Elvis recordings sounding like the Ed Sulivan TV Show looked... At the time it was cutting edge but nowadays it looks grainy and fuzzy in comparison.

Led Zepplin would look more like an episode of "All In The Family", clearer, color, more robust than the Ed Sullivan show but nothing like  todays "Survivor".

You get where I am going with this so lets look at the digital re master quality.

In the 80's a digital re mastering was done on equipment that was comparable quality to an Atari 2600, in the 90's it was like a Nintendo... nowadays it is more like PS3... At the time, AWESOME... now, crappy and nostalgic at best.

So if you picked up a "Digitally re mastered" CD in the 90's it would be like making an All in the Family" video game for a Nintendo 64. Pick up the same CD that has been re mastered today and it will look like an All in the Family video game for PS3.

So to sum it up, they will always be trying to make everything sound "better" than it did as the technology advances and the more technology advances the better it will sound (theoretically) and the more the cutting edge of yesteryear will sound nostalgic.

In my opinion, you can re master it a thousand times with the best equipment available but certain things like Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks or Led Zeppelin II sound best on the original record with the pops and cracks etc. Everything else is just lipstick on a pig. Other things had such a poor digital production originally that they benefit greatly from newer technology and Digable Planets is a great example of production limited by the digital tech at the time and would probably sound much better re mastered.
 
Hope that makes sense.

[Tyler]

Good explanation Marz!

[tomgallagher]

I have old Dixieland and N'Orleans jazz that wouldn't sound half as good without all the scratches  and such.

[JDog]

Marz great post. You summed that all beautifully.