On 21 May 2012, at 02:07, Michael Mol wrote: >>> ... >>> All digital Led Zep releases (i.e. including all CDs) are notoriously >>> poorly remastered, with excessive gain applied. >>> >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war >>> >>> So far they have deteriorated with each remastering / re-release. >>> >>> Huge threads on the Steve Hoffman forums discussing this, if you want to >>> cork sniff. >> >> I can attest to this - Led Zep II - awful. An older disk, not even a >> remaster. I can only play it at moderate levels - it loses all it's dynamic >> range at higher levels. A big disappointment. > > Dipping only slightly further offtopic, are they still pressing vinyl? > I believe there are a number of tools for automatically splitting and > transcoding audio input from a vinyl player.
MoFi are doing some lovely releases - I've bought a handful of their (expensive) SACDs, but they do vinyl, too. Looks like they use very good quality materials. The lads on the Steve Hoffman forums seemed to be generally saying that the best Led Zep CDs are the very early ones - I think these were released even before the 1990 boxed set [1] - and that these are very cheap in the USA (but I think you have to search and find them secondhand). Yet they also refer to some Japanese releases, implying these are the ones they refer to. Not only may finding a decent version be a chore, but so is understanding what to find! Anyway, to answer your question: the thread I read was primarily concerned with CD releases, but yeah, a couple of those guys stated their vinyl copies were *much* better. Stroller. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin_Boxed_Set
