Pre amps cost vs. value ... what I discovered last month.

Brian,

in regards to remastering, can't some remastering The sound of a recording that had been previously mastered in a terrible way? Take, for example, the remastered version of Rush's vapor trails recording.   All of a sudden there were layers of sound uncovered from that recording that were on here a ball in the original muddy release. 

 And what made Bob Ludwig so good at what he did? 

Remastering can be great, sure. It’s a mixed bag. Generally the place to being with any remastering is to figure out WHO initiated it, and WHO oversaw the process creatively and WHY was it done at all? Intentions and persons matter. Some of Bob's work is excellent.  He is the granddaddy of mastering along with Bernie Grundman in LA.  

All work is approved by the artist, or label, or someone ... so factor that in always. When a record sounds great, everyone did their job well.

Brian,

You had mentioned previously that the recording artist and the producer have a strong influence on the mastering step, correct? If so, do you find that this influence at thimes compromised the end product in terms of dynamics, soundstaging, etc...? Going along that train of thought, do you have certain examples of your work where you feel that this influence didn’t deter you from creating the most natural, life like reproduction of the music that was heard during the recording process?

Perhaps these are silly questions because you may say that every one of your works is the best possible music that could have been created (which may be your answer). I’m not sure if you have some projects that you felt that the music and sound came across with in a way that audiophiles seems to think of as the most transparent and lifelike.

Cheers. Thanks for taking your time to contribute here.

FYI: I'm not a scattered, aliterate writer  - based on my posts above. It's just that voice to text while I'm driving sometimes isn't all that accurate. 

no worries @simao i didn't notice.  Again, no fear of perfectionism around me, we are communicating here not posturing to be the smartest person in the room

@brhatten I'm not sure how to respond to "most natural, life like reproduction of the music that was heard during the recording process?"  Recordings in the modern world, like aways truly, are distorted and mangled and manipulated on purpose as part of the presentation.  It's an ongoing sculpture of intentional distortions and non life like filtering.  The aim of music is not the live event.  Even live recordings will never and CAN NEVER measure up to the live event.  That is a mythical unicorn that takes up too make people's time as a criteria.

Similarly I'm confused by "compromised the end product in terms of dynamics, soundstaging"  

The recording process does not end at mixing.  Everything that comes to me comes out better in terms of musicality, punch, artistic statement, clarity, soundstage, freq balance, ability to connect, etc.  Now does that mean that it has more DR? Usually no, does not. 

So if DR is your main criteria, on an island, then you will be disappointed.   Yet my argument would be that LOWER DR sounds like MORE DR when it's done correctly. 

I can get into that more if you like but if you are looking for DR at 10db or greater, I do hundreds of records a year and can't point you toward one of those.  I would say the same is true of most MEs working today.