Ugo
Group: Members
Posts: 5495
Joined: April 2000 |
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Posted: Aug. 17 2012, 20:05 |
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@ Automatic 18: I don't think it's always like that. Indeed, I think it's like that only for the Universal releases, especially their "Back to Black" series. I have the modern reissue of TB on vinyl and I've got an original 1973 (or '74?) issue on picture disc, and they do sound different. But, on the other hand, I have two versions of a box set including all six studio albums by The Doors: one on CD (Perception) and one on vinyl (The Doors: Vinyl Box Set). The vinyls sound quite different from the CDs, so, although the vinyl set was released later than the CD one, they can't have been made from the same (new, digital) masters. Also, on the vinyl version of The Doors (their first, eponymous album), you can clearly hear that "Light My Fire" is sped up, while on the CD version the song is at the correct speed. This is mentioned in the liner notes within the CD, while a sheet within the vinyl box set explicitly specifies that the old master (with the sped-up song) was chosen for the LP release in order to give to the release itself an added value for collectors. (The other songs on the same vinyl album, especially "The End", also sound different from the CD.) Also, I have two versions of the 3oth Anniversary release of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon: vinyl and CD. Again, they sound different. The vinyl has a certain depth and sonic impact which is typical of old vinyls; the CD, although it sounds much brighter and cleaner than all previous versions and all its subsequent ones [it's better than the 2011 remaster in the Oh, By the Way box set, and it's also better than the 2012 remaster for the DSotM "Immersion" 5-disc box set!], lacks a bit of that impact - I'd say that the two releases complete each other.  So, to me, the fact that an album reissue turns out to be better or worse than the original print definitely depends on which album is being reissued, and, a bit lesser, on which label it is being reissued. 
I also don't think that vinyl reissues are only for aged people. I can easily picture a kid of today browsing through his dad's record collection, finding a copy of The Doors (as above), being mesmerized by it (because that kind of music still does that in 2012) although the record is old and scratched, and wanting to hear it better, in a cleaner way. That kid probably won't go straight for the CD reissue, but he'll listen to his dad, the real connoisseur, telling him that vintage rock sounds better on vinyl, and he'll buy the vinyl reissue. This, I think, is very likely to happen with all contemporary reissues of really classic albums.
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Ugo C. - a devoted Amarokian
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