Any ECM fans here?

Just last Friday ECM released 11 of Pat Metheny’s albums remastered in 24/96 hi-res for download or streaming. They are on Qobuz and Tidal. I have streamed several of them on Qobuz and they sound great. I think these are from the same remastering done for SACD in 2018.

https://jazztimes.com/blog/pat-metheny-ecm-catalog-now-available-in-hi-res-audio/

ECM in general, has good but not great sound, IMHO. Of course it varies from album to album. I have some ECM albums that I like a lot.

My favorites are probably among the usual suspects, Pat Metheny, Charles LLoyd, Jan Gabarek. I used to enjoy Keith Jarrett until I watched a video of him. He looked like he was in so much pain while playing, and I can’t get that image out of my mind when I listen to him.

Sorry, but though I like & own a couple ECM LPs (don't ask me which), I just don't like the label in general.  Their releases don't have enough passion for me.  It's not that the music is mechanical, it's just that it doesn't take chances.   The music on the label comes mostly from the fingers, not from the heart.  Sound-wise, ECM releases are clean but they seem a touch compressed.

yes

Thanks for the Jazz Times link. These were great years for Pat Metheny music.
I'm listening to the remasters and guess what... compression. To my ears they were trying to remove the tape hiss and went too heavy.
According to the article, they used 1/2" analogue masters as sources which must have  sounded so good.

Years ago, a lot of studios used to use Ampex 456 2 inch tape for the original recording process.  That was the standard for many years.

They would feed that into big Scully tape machines that would move the tape very fast.

The mix would go down to 1/2 inch masters.