Why do I keep torturing myself with remasters?

ole- I feel bad, reading what happened to you, what a nightmare. Here's a thought, and don't take this the wrong way. I don't know how old you are, but trying to replace these things at this point may just be a bitter process- used record buying is all over the lot and you are carrying some baggage. I don't know what your system is--sorry, I didn't check your profile here if you have one-- but if that were to happen to me- god forbid, I'm not sure I'd try and replace it at this point in my life. I'd get up on some good digital front end/computer based audio, and just sit back and pull (legal) streams and downloads- yeah, I'm sure they have mastering issues too, but I suspect that a lot of improvement has gone into digital, not only on the playback side, but on the production side. I say this as somebody with rooms fill with records and no digital player in my main system, but this is eventually where it is headed, except for us luddites, diehards and hair shirt audio geeks. I guess my point is not to carry this cross, because it isn't going to make you happier. And the key, to me, is to enjoy this stuff. Otherwise, why bother? I've gone through periods where I put everything on ice- had no time or energy to deal w/ it. Cut yourself a break. And good luck. 

bill hart

whart \
 thanks i'm ok its been awhile lol...I do have a dig front end cambridge trans and bel canto .I also have probly . 1/2 gi in a hardrive but its a far cry from spinning vinyl on my vpi ... also i havnt updated my dang profile i should someday lol and maybe take a pic its pretty decent imo ..after reading about gon members 150k systems it not in that league though

Oleschool, you have our support.
Here is a wild idea. If you can afford it why don't you make a short trip to Japan to get some of the Japanese pressings that you lost? Couple of hundreds of your favourite albums in NM condition might be waiting for you over there. Japan is also an interesting country to visit, I heard.

The majority of reissues these days are sourced from digital or CD where compression rules. You mentioned the remastered Bowie from tape was good. I think you have your answer. This is Michael Fremer's plaint as most companies refuse to indicate the source for the remaster and has urged (pestered) them to do so.

Additionally, most remasters attenuate the bass to appeal to current tastes and also, in the mind of the engineers, correct what was originally minimized due to playback limitations. Most record players couldn't handle strident bass reproduction 50's through 70's as the cartridges available had difficulty in tracking the record. Modern carts can handle it but, I do agree with you that it perhaps is boosted too much in some instances It comes off as tubby, not clean. 

My problem with most remasters is the high incidence of warpage. Very few have not shown signs of this affliction. Some companies are certainly better than others - QRP comes to mind.

Generally, I seek out original pressings as a rule or new remasters that boast as being mastered from the original tapes.

I have highest success rate with Japanese vinyl. I bought it in the 80's because regular vinyl sounded terrible and I am buying only Japanese again for that vintage sound (less compression than on remastered digital) and to catch rare stuff. Japanese quality is consistently the best for vinyl, IMHO.