No idea if this related to this, but early CDs weren't so rigorously normalized.
They had more, -uhm-, dynamic - I think people reffere to this as the loudness race or something.
This also was related to the change of music listening, I guess.
Music was nolonger something you enjoy at home in a cozy atmosphere, but a fast moving consumer's product for on the go.
Cheap head phones and speakers were also on the rise, so perhaps it was no problem if music lost a bit of its depth. 😉

Another parameter: for really old albums initially released only in vinyl (not parallel release), mastering was done with that in mind. When they did get a cd release, it often sounded terrible.
But yeah. as it was very accurately put above it all comes down to mastering. If it sounds very dumb and flat, it was not made for cd. If it sounds excessive, it's because of the trend to destroy music by boosting everything. Don't be surprised, a lot, and I mean a lot, of nowadays albums are also mastered terribly. They've got to cover the garbage somehow 😀

About the remastered editions, there's no rule of thumb. Sometimes the remastering corrects the result and does offer a better version of the album, sometimes they do it by commercial standards and destroy it. Such a case will sound better for most of the people (commonly playing it compressed/from youtube/on a mobile phone speaker/on cheap computer speakers/on crappy trendy headphones), so the mass doesn't complain or even understands about it.

Yup. Speaking of vinyl, I once listened to my dads single of Moonlight Shadow, and -wow!- it had an incredible amount of depth!
Even with my crappy old record player, it sounded amazing. Silent parts, loud parts and everything inbetween sounded crystal clear.
In comparison, the version I heared on on the radio was just dull and lifeless. I wonder if there ever was a dummy head recording of that song.
Dummy head recordings were awesome, btw! 😁 It's like you're really in the middle of a concert. Just sad they're nolonger in fashion..
They went the same way those old quadrophony recordings went, I think.
Propably also because they required good speakers for someone to properly experience their magic in all its glory. ^^
Radio dramas were also sometimes aired in dummy head format via stereo FM. It was like 3D television we've today, but for the ears.
In my childhood, I sometimes bought audio dramas on the flea market and listened to them on my walkman. Aww, good ol' times! 😀

I found the best CD I've heard so far is Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits. The dynamics are great, and so is grain and texture. It almost sounds like analog --warm, and without typical CD's "graininess", but still "digital-clean". Then someday I browsed Wiki, and discovered the album was one of the first album mastered with digital in mind, so no wonder.

The next is DTS audio version of Tambu by Toto. That too, sounds like analog, with none of the digital harshness nor graininess, but still digital-clean. The sound is warm, and the bass is surprisingly good.

keenmaster486 wrote:

They are all the original albums; none of them say "remastered" for example. But I listened to them on my system (pretty high quality DAC, pretty good headphones. I can easily tell the difference between, for instance, 192kbps MP3 and FLAC on this system), and comparing them with 160kbps AAC's from Spotify, they sound marginally better.

I gathered even cheap headphones are more discerning than expensive speakers, that it's easier to tell differences between low-quality and high-quality recordings on headphones than speakers.

My speakers are JBL 120Ti's --titanium dome tweeters, pretty bright and revealing. I found them best driven by warm-sounding (albeit still bright) Sansui AU-7900. The Sansui's warm, almost tube-like sound helps taming the otherwise merciless speakers. And yes, I listen to pretty wide assortment of music, so not my albums are audiophile-grade. As such, warm-sounding amplifier really helps, especially for those albums with less-than-ideal mastering.

In your case, you might want to have warm-sounding headphones, to lessen the suffering of listening to bad mastering. Obobskivich could be the right person to ask if you need advice on headphones. Me, I'm not really a head-fi enthusiast, but he definitely is.

keenmaster486 wrote:

What is the difference here, and what should I expect? What do I really get from the "remastered" albums?

Could be nothing. While some "remastered" albums are indeed meticulously remastered, some others are probably marketing ploy. Your ears are the ultimate judge.

Jo22 wrote:

No idea if this related to this, but early CDs weren't so rigorously normalized.
They had more, -uhm-, dynamic - I think people reffere to this as the loudness race or something.

It should be noted that some allegedly audiophile albums also suffer from loudness war. An example is Putumayo series. Yes, they are almost ubiquitous in what-so-called "audiophile music store". Problem is, they're highly compressed --no dynamics at all! 😵 Try Putumayo Euro Lounge and you know what I mean.

Fortunately, my most favorite genre is 1970's fusion, like this one. I have the CD version, and it doesn't suffer from loudness war.

Jo22 wrote:

Dummy head recordings were awesome, btw! 😁 It's like you're really in the middle of a concert. Just sad they're nolonger in fashion..
They went the same way those old quadrophony recordings went, I think.
Propably also because they required good speakers for someone to properly experience their magic in all its glory. ^^

So, have you tried Hafler circuit? Probably a Dynaco QD-1? Or how about this one?

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

I found the best CD I've heard so far is Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits.

Man, you hear well 😉 I wouldn't say it's the best, but surely competes as such. And yes, you are very correct about the reason it sounds like that.

Open the tracks in Audacity and post a screenshot. I can tell you without even hearing them if the quality sucks.

Oh, good idea. I'll try that.

OK, here's Sussudio:

At first blush it looks pretty good, like it hasn't been normalized and compressed to the extreme.
EDIT: This was ripped from the CD as FLAC and then opened in Audacity.
ANOTHER EDIT: And after comparing it very closely to the track on Spotify (remastered), the Spotify version definitely sounds louder and busier. The CD version sound more open. Unfortunately I can't download the track since I don't have Spotify premium, so I can't look at the waveform... unless I record it somehow. Hmm.

OK, here's a good comparison for Sussudio. The "remastered" version is on the top, and the original CD on the bottom.

You can definitely see the difference here. Some compression has definitely been applied to the remastered one.

BUT, keep in mind that the top one was "captured" from Spotify. So it might be that Spotify simply applies some compression to their tracks.

Does someone have the "remastered" edition of No Jacket Required so we can see what the waveform for that really looks like?

keenmaster486 wrote:

OK, here's a good comparison for Sussudio. The "remastered" version is on the top, and the original CD on the bottom. […]
Show full quote

OK, here's a good comparison for Sussudio. The "remastered" version is on the top, and the original CD on the bottom.

Sussudio Comparison.png

You can definitely see the difference here. Some compression has definitely been applied to the remastered one.

BUT, keep in mind that the top one was "captured" from Spotify. So it might be that Spotify simply applies some compression to their tracks.

Does someone have the "remastered" edition of No Jacket Required so we can see what the waveform for that really looks like?

I don't, have you tried ebay or such? I rarely buy my music online, though, so I'm inexperienced with Spotify.