The Most Digital Recording You Ever Heard


You can generally tell them by weight. In the early days of the CD when they really had no idea of how to put music on a disk they also used to put a lot of plastic in the jewel cases. Sometimes I pick a CD I haven't listened to for a while, get a feel of it and think, "Oh, one of these." Any initial release year starting with "198" will give you a certain sense of trepidation. The question I put before the house is, what was the digital recording that your view epitomized everything that was wrong with digital. Some that come off the top of my head:

Any Proper box set.
Any Collector's Choice reissue.
The original issue of These Foolish Things by Bryan Ferry.

The Angel Broadway Classics series was particularly frustrating because on the one hand you finally escape from fake stereo but on the other the mastering was pretty sketchy.
 
heretobuy
@anotherbob 
It's best to not feed the beta troll, and rest easy knowing you're living a better life. Imagine this forum being so critical to your existence you spend the equivalent of 11 weeks worth of time (24/7) posting nonsense.
Rush: Hold Your FireIt was mastered DDD...all digitalAnd it is their suckiest recording.

I remember when I bought it thinking, 'This is going to be amazing!' What a disappointment.

Just not dynamic at all...super compressed and dead. Clean but lifeless.

I have a decent CD rig with an excellent DAC and I enjoy digital 30% of the time. A good recording is a good recording. But all things being equal, LPs have a slight edge over the best digital.

I'm sure digital will eventually win. It's getting there. But not yet.
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Even the recordings from the early 80s that I didn’t take to back in the day sound very listenable on good modern playback equipment.  We are truly living in a Golden Age of Digital Sound