Remasters - are they better? What exactly is it?

Crime of the Century is killer on vinyl. I listen to it on occasion and there is plenty of bass from a press from the mid-late 70's. One of my favorites.

I like remasters from the 90s and early 2000s, when dynamic range was preserved, I.e., prior to the Loudness Wars. Examples: Virgin Rolling Stones remasters in 1994, Hendrix remasters in the same time period, RYKO remasters of Bowie, etc., ABKCO remasters of Stones 2002, Led Zeppelin Remasters 1990 Box set and 1993 Box set, by Jimmy Page & George Marino.

@geoffkait  good examples. I do prefer the original Bowie CD releases,  though pricey to obtain.

@select-hifi agree with the Japan Sanyo release, I paid top dollar for mine. Love how Gold Dust Woman preserves the original screams at the end.

You can pretty much tell what decade something was recording by the quality of the recording.

Nonsense. Like many things in life, recording quality is a bell curve.

a flat transfer of the original analogue master tapes is best, nothing added and nothing taken away

a flat transfer does not exist. Tape machines have EQ curves aligned at 3 points: 100Hz, 1KHz and 10KHz. If the original was recorded on an ATR-102 and the copy is made on a pair of Otari / Studer / MCI, the sound will change - sometimes drastically.

When I was a recording engineer, if I wanted a ’faithful copy’, I schlepped my 2T to the studio and made a ’master’ off the 2T buss.

There can be differences between CDs that are not remasters, but just later pressings. Someone decides the recording needs a little ’help’ and messes about. See an example from Fagan’s Nightfly track I.G.Y. see http://ielogical.com/Audio/#ReIssues

The recent remastering of The Beatles album Abbey Road is a good example of a clear improvement in sound

Crime of the Century is killer on vinyl.

That probably depends on what ’original’ you had. see http://ielogical.com/Audio/#Origins

@ieales  No it's nonsense to say you cannot tell around what decade a recording is from.  Old recordings just sound different.  They generally sound like they're being played through an old hifi system or they literally sound like a recording of an LP.  There's very little slam, lots of noise, sounds like AM radio bascially.

That's NOT to say there aren't some good sounding older albums.  I get that.  But there's a clear difference..

It sounds like the difference is two things:

1. Older recordings were meant for "lesser" hifi systems or mediums that couldn't produce much bass or crystal clear highs so they didn't push it.  

2. Remasters can be better or worse depending.. Kinda what I figured.  

Again, go take any old Elvis album and see if you're shaking the rafters in your house.  Then take any album of almost any genre recorded post 2000 and you'll find much more "richness" to the sound.  As if everything in the recording path is just better.. Better mics, cables, mixing equipment, and MUCH better hifi systems.

I'm just not sure how someone can disagree that there's not a huge difference in the sound of older stuff vs newer stuff..  Maybe you like that old nostalgic sound.. If you do, I'd say save your money on great audio equipment though because it matters much less.