What CD sound is the best?

Late to the game, but my comments ...

It is not even close when comes to King Crimson's Court. The 40th Anniversary edition not only sounds superior to all other CD editions, but also sounds the closest to the original vinyl from 1968. The 30th anniversary edition is positively raw sounding ... truly a strange mix.

The SACD version of the Moody's Lost Chord from 7 years ago is equally superior sounding to the original CD release.

Rich

Well I guess I missed the 40th Anniversary Edition. I will have to give it a try.

Isn't 40th anniversary edition a box set? I read it includes the 2004 remaster as well as a fresh mix by Stephen Wilson (of Porcupine Tree fame) whose recordings always sound fabulous.

Everything I read about that version would lead me to expect excellent results plus a lot of material to listen to in the box set. That mix scores slightly higher in dynamic range in the on line recording dynamic range database than the 2004 remaster, FWIW.

I also read the other day that there is a new box set version of the KC classic "Red" coming out. 20+ CDs of related material in that one is what I think I saw. That's a lot of KC material to absorb. Could keep one busy for awhile.

There is a cd + dvd-a version of King Crimson's 40th Anniversary edition. The cd has the 2009 mix plus 5 bonus tracks. The dvd-a has 2 surround formats plus the 2009 mix in 24/96 stereo and the 2004 mix in 24/48 stereo.

The reason for the remixing is that the album was originally recorded on 4 track tape and they had to "bounce down" the recording (rerecord two or more tracks to one track) to get more than 4 tracks worth of music. Therefore they couldn't change the mix on an individual instrument and they had to use second or third generation tapes for the mastering. For this edition they were able to go back to the first generation "slave masters" (pre "bounce down") that contained the one instrument per track original recording. Steven Wilson worked closely with Robert Fripp on the new mixes, according to the liner notes.

There is also a 5 cd + dvd-a version if you really love this album.

One correction, the first generation recordings were called "slaves" rather than "slave masters" as I stated in my post above.