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Digitally remastered vinyl record? Seriously?

Hi folks, this is my first post in the forum. Today I went to my favorite coffee shop/record shop. They had the legendary U2 album "The Joshua Tree" as a 180g audiophile vinyl record which proudly wore a sticker "digitally remastered".

Well, I might be to nit-picky but doesn't that defeat the purpose? We love vinyl because it's an analog source which has all the beauty and vibrance of analog recordings. If you run it through an A-D converter, remaster and then run it back through a DAC (who knows what hardware they're using?) and press it in vinyl, you might lose the analog kick, don't you?

What's your opinion and experience?
128x128mblfan
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czarivey
5,946 posts
 
Ebm, Do you have CDs?
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Digitally remastered cassettes actually don't sound half bad. Sweeter than CDs but not quite as sweet as pure tape.
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
Personally i do not listen to digital in my system at all (no CDs or files).

But i can speak for analog when it comes to vinyl. I preffer original vintage vinyl. Just normal vinyl, not a 180-200g press or reference LP super-duper pressing. Talking about regular vinyl from 60s, 70s, 80s ...

Since my music is mainly Jazz, Soul, Funk, Latin i'm aware of many reissues on the market. Reissue labels always (90% of them) use digital remastering. I have some reissues pressed in the last 15-20 years. No matter it's 45 rpm (7 inch singles) or LPs but my originals of the same tunes always sounds better when i can do direct A-B test.

Again i'm not talking about biggest labels on the market, maybe some of them can do digital remastering much better but i'm not interested in mainstream music. Regular independent small labels still reissue good music (not for audiophiles). I've never heard any reissue with better sound than original even if the condition of the original is not mint-

They always try to make sound more punchy, fuller etc but ends up with big loss in dynamic and naturality when they remastering music from the 60s/70s.

Direct analog mastering from the master tape also possible. This is how it should be done - that's the best! Digital touch is evol :))

Also modern cheap pressing is sucks compared to old pressing. But i have some awful vintage records as well :) Or maybe i just need phono stage with all possible RIAA curves for real vintage stuff.
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