Led Zepplin Mothership vs. hi-res vs. newest

I respect and am astounded by Whart's knowledge of the Zeppelin catalog. There are other threads regarding this topic and I agree that Mothership was probably a lower rez digital master.

I have the remasters of LZ I, II, III on vinyl and am very pleased with the results. But you can't take circa 1970 recordings and turn them into audiophile quality. I appreciate the fact that the remasters are mixed similarly to the original recordings; by that I mean less compression was used than most digital remasters these days. There is depth to the recording, "air" around the instruments and plenty of bass slam from Bonham's drums. Some of the flaws of the original tapes were left in the remix which is better than overprocessing to remove them.

In comparison, the Mothership record is a more technical achievement. There is no tape hiss and Plant's voice is cleaner, but to my ears it sounds digital and is a less enjoyable listen than the new remasters.

Thanks, Low. I am hardly an expert, and what I do is no secret- I research the various pressings, and listen to them. In the case of Zep, along with a number of other bands from that era, I decided to seek out the best sounding pressings, which meant having quite a few (I never bought the Classic 'roadcase' of Zep at the time, but have a few of the 45 cuts that were released separately, late in the game for Classic). The sonic differences are readily apparent, but different 'flavors' might exist for different people, based on their ears and systems. FWIW, it was John Davis who did the 2014 vinyl releases of LZ 1-III, and is credited as the (re) mastering engineer for Mothership. But Stan Ricker (who did the old MoFi vinyl) is credited as mastering the vinyl release of Mothership. As best I can tell, Ricker worked from the files that Davis created. Appreciate the kind words.
regards,
Bill Hart

Whart, that's useful info. Part of my interest in this hobby is keeping a log of engineers and producers for rock bands 1960s thru 80s. Never felt the need to keep track of the mastering engineer, but nowadays the digital mastering is what determines the sound of the release. (even though it may be very different than the final mix).

I know I know, I need to get a life.

I can only talk about the CD versions but Mothership is pretty heavily compressed.

I think the new issues are the best digital available-in my system the downloads are a tad better than the CD.

Really amazing how different the responses are about Mothership's sound quality. Personally, I think it sounds sterile and generally is the worst sounding Led Zep remaster of them all. Nearly unlistenable to my ears. As to vinyl recordings being ruined by having ben subjected to some degree of digital processing or sourcing, that's not been my experience at all. The "Led Zeppelin" remaster 6 lp box set (Atlantic 7 82144-1) sounds very fine to my ears, much better than Mothership. I've not heard any of the latest releases. I've got good clean copies of the originals and the Classic vinyl releases, so I'm not in any hurry to buy the catalog yet again.