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?
Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.