Led Zep Reissue on vinyl

Moryoga: I think the 'muddy' sound of LZII (at least on several tracks) is due to the huge amount of crude processing done when the album was originally assembled- you can hear the overdubs and the layering of different tracks- it is very evident on the 'RL' of II where a track with heavy processing, like 'Whole Lotta Love' seems to suffer from generation loss due to all the gimmicks. There are some web discussions and articles about how the album was made that support this.
I still haven't listened to my new copies yet, but hope to do so soon.

hi Bill,

the Classic Records 45rpm pressing of 'Whole Lotta Love' is not muddy sounding, the layering is very clearly heard and not fuzzy sounding. back in 2004 during my room project, i listened to this track in my system with one of the engineers for LZII, Chris Huston (who was my room designer and was staying with me at the time). he did say that they did venture into the 'then' mostly unknown reaches of mixing methodology to unleash the magic of that track. which we all continue to enjoy to this day.

too bad that the Classic 45's were still a couple years away from release when Chris was in-home.....i would have loved to get his take on them.

Without being negative and just bitching, doesn't it seem a shame that the great analog pressings, UK, Classic etc. of all these albums seem to be universally considered to sound better? Why even bother with digital in the analog mix at all. Fine to do a hi res file if you want to offer options, but why add a digital mix when obviously the all analog sounds better when done right? It's just lame to me. I guess we live in a world where mp3's on Beats headphones, McDonalds, selfies and Facebook is as good as most people want. Sorry, I couldn't help being negative and just bitching :)

it's very simple.

the rights owners of these recordings make archival digital copies for remastering. they won't allow the original masters out of their control with rare exception. and then it's with heavy guard and at considerable expense.

this perspective is many times combined with a lack of understanding of the limitations of the digital archived file.

here is more info on the issue of analog masters and thier restrictions.