Led Zepplin Mothership vs. hi-res vs. newest

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.

I suspect the wide differences in opinion with respect to Mothership is a reflection of the wide differences in system performance. Just saying.

I think it's how people react to compression.....I'll be the first to admit you can be seduced by volume and my take is that even a moderately expensive system if you are not atuned to compression it really probably only affects you subconsciously....or you might get irked when you can't find a happy listening level-it's too quiet then it's too loud.

I'd argue if your system isn't reasonably high end then compression might not bother you that much.

However if you have potent amp/speaker matching or a big system it can be unbearable-it really sticks out.

Mothership has a DR rating of about 6/7 and the new remasters 9/10 which mean more dynamic range and less compression.

Well, I think it's worth considering that dynamic range is certainly not the only audiophile parameter of interest. Dynamic range is not the only game in town. There is also frequency response, bass performance, clarity and resolution, transparency, and so forth. In fact some of the most notable recordings in terms of wide dynamic range such as Brothers in Arms and Bop til you Drop and Peter Gabriel's Security are off the charts dynamic range wise but virtually unlistenable due to ye olde distortion and digital glare.