Led Zeppelin-newly remastered


The new Led Zeppelin compilation sees the first remastering of their material for 17 years or so.

Oh and it sounds great,clarity and thump to the fore as Zep sound better than they ever did on CD.
Mothership was mastered by John Davis.

I guess the biggest bone of contention on this double CD is the choice of tracks, every serious Zep fan is going to find several favourites missing.

Lets hope this will lead to each studio album getting state of the art Redbook remastering.
ben_campbell
if you can, compare momship to the 80's diament mastering like i did.try this: turn up a diament cut til plant is pretty loud. all will be well, i promise. now - swap it for mommaship and turn up that same song til plant is as loud as you just heard him on your 80's cd. i promise that your ears will hurt from the loudness/piercing quality of one instrument or another.

I have observed the same problems with remasterd Toto albums (orginal Grammy Award winning stuff damaged through incompetence of remastering engineer and producer) - the orginal 80's first CD release sounds better..

What you describe above is exactly what you hear when it has been mastered "hot" - the modern remastering uses compressors to compress the dynamimcs of the original master tapes so that the CD sounds perceptively louder....but THIS ADDS DISTORTION. Do a google on "CD Loudness wars" it is absolutely criminal how the industry is destroying good music! BTW Led Zeppelin sounds awesome on ATC SCM 100's - anyway that is what Robert Plant uses at home...so I guess it should.
I don't know what the 80's diament is/what ? I assume that is the first Led Zeppelin cd's that came out. The Page re-masters in the 90's is better than those period, imhop. The recorded volume level is not much different imhop but the detail is better and drums, bass (Bonham, Jones) more pronounced as opposed to vocals, guitar being highlighted for radio as things were back then. Early cd's were/are not as good as now if current re-masters are done properly. Come on ! We all know cd technology has become better since the 80's. Sure idiot engineers can record a cd too loud compressing and removing dynamics and rendering the music unlistenable. For an example, I bought the Climax Blues Band compilation, "The Band plays On (FUEL)." This is the worst cd recording I have ever heard. Where I can usually listen to any cd at like 40% to 50% on the volume knob, this one had to be turned way down in order to be able to stand it, and then it still sucked. Extemely loudly recorded, like if you recorded an LP to tape in the old days with the recording level cranked to the max. It just doesn't work. I understand the concept of a TOO HOT recorded cd, there isn't any room left for dynamic changes in the music. I strongly don't believe this is the case in the Page re-masters of the 90's. Consequently, I did have high hopes that high rez recordings of their catalog would be forthcoming. Comments so far seem to be critical of the "Mothership" recording ( I want to buy high rez versions of individual albums). So, I wait for more comments.
Finally got around to listening to the CDs. They are fabulous... but the real shocker is the DVD that is included with the CDs. Early footage of live performances and a few later ones. And the sound, oh my God!
IMS the early stuff is a little bass shy but from ZOSO on the bass is more pronounced. I can difintely hear more in the highs though on all material.