2. music
  3. 158245-2452

The meaning of “Remastered”

A lot of music I already have is being re-released and “remastered”.  Some of those contain new tunes or printed material and I might buy (again) just to have that.  Otherwise, what’s the value of a new master?  I remember direct to disc vinyl was said to be limited to 10,000 copies because the “master” from which copies were pressed, wore out.  Tape masters would have physically limited lifespans, too.  But in the age of digital music, what is a remaster?  I suppose a new release could have been “re-mixed” or “re-normalized”, so there may be real sonic differences which may or may not be an improvement.  Does the use of the term mean there is some actual audible voodoo by an engineer rather than just procreation of an existing audio file?
77jovian
Ag insider logo xs@2x
cleeds
5,960 posts
 
russashe
... I have owned or heard many super audiophile reissues that had incredible sound but very quickly (1 play sometimes) develop clicks or pops that are startling in an otherwise black soundscape ...
Something is badly amiss if that happens. It could be dirt on the record, a defective stylus or improper setup.
russashe
46 posts
 
@cleeds Could be a lot of things and one of the things it could be is problems with vinyl formulations another could be a shortfall in the manufacturing.  With the huge majority of records lasting and sounding well for ages the few that don't wouldn't make me jump to setup as the first cause.  I could be wrong.  Mostly thanks for commenting, you are the first in 10 years on numerous forums to do so.  No even a "no all good here" response.
oddiofyl's avatar
oddiofyl
3,889 posts
 
Unfortunately sometimes it means "Ruined".....
cd318
2,636 posts
 
I believe it’s mostly a marketing exercise. My experience agrees with the consensus here, they are either ’ruined’ or ’overly compressed.’

I can’t think of many remasters which improved upon the originals. Not for the Beatles (1993 Red and Blue and 2014 US Box excepted), the Kinks, the Incredible String Band, Elvis Costello or Scott Walker.

Different yes, more tracks yes sometimes, but better sound? No!

The frustrating thing is that even after cleaning up glitches and finding better original tapes they can’t resist the temptation to compress the dynamics. They just can’t.

Nor can they often resist trying a little too hard to remove tape hiss - and some of the ’air’ in the original recording along with it.

The Jimmy Page Led Zeppelin ones and the Johnny Marr Smiths ones were ok.

So were the Shout Factory ones for The Beat (or the English Beat as known in the US) and the Singer’s Singer Matt Monro Box.

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/remastered-cds-which-represent-biggest-improvement.247399/
More to discover