"The Yes Album" Remasters

I also have the Atlantic remaster and it's not bad. I've heard different things about the Japanese HDCDs. Some are supposed to be good, others not so good.

I'd recommend searching the archives of alt.music.yes (easy to do with google). Sound quality of various editions of the different albums is a frequent discussion topic.

As a big Yes fan, I can only recommend the ORIGINAL LP pressings from England.. they are better than U.S., Japan or Germany. The U.S. pressings suck with the exception of Yessongs. I know you guys are talking cd's, just thought I'd add my 2 cents of vinyl experience. I've been listening to Yes for about 30 years now.

Xiekitchen is correct from my 30+ years listening to Yes. Try to acquire the Yes Album and Fragile UK first pressings on the red/plum Atlantic label. Sit back and really appreciate Chris Squire on these gems. They make the US pressings and any of the CD's bow and scrape in comparison. As a side bar, I agree with the Yessongs US pressing except that Bruford is a bit forward in the mix for my taste. On the other hand, his work on that set is outstanding (as usual).

Rhino have remastered everything up to Going For The One on CD-they are very well packaged and have decent liner notes.
Sonically they are probably the best available but are not a massive leap from the last (Atlantic)remasters.
Every CD has several bonus tracks-demo's etc.
If you like Yes and require CD versions-these are essential.
I haven't heard the HDCD versions but HDCD discs usually sound good even without the decoder in your machine.
Hope this helps.

As regards the Yes Album-it is probably the best digital version of this disc I've heard.
The bonus tracks are Your Move and Life Seeker single edits and a previously unreleased studio version of The Clap.
The bonus tracks on this disc are amongst the weakest in the series although overall they are for serious fans only.