James Taylor Greatest Hits CD Sound

[The56Kid]

I’ve recently been reading quite a bit about the dynamic range inherent to CDs when they were first introduced in the mid 80’s. Said dynamic range has become literally non-existent as CDs have fallen victim to the dreaded loudness wars. With that in mind, I sought out a few of my older CDs to see if they truly exhibited the DR originally promised by the medium. Unfortunately, about 85% of my CD collection is boxed away, but I was able to locate a few older discs including James Taylor’s Greatest Hits, one of my earliest purchase circa ‘87/88 or thereabouts.

All I can say is WOW! Once cranked to the proper level, this CD sounds beyond fantastic and is impressively revelatory - crystal clear highs, beautiful deep lows, incredibly wide soundstage. Blows my mind that an old non-remastered CD could sound this amazing. The average DR for this CD is apparently 13. I’ll continue to dig up old CDs in my collection to see if they too exhibit the incredible sound the JT does. It’d be great to ‘rediscover’ many of my old CDs this way!

 

[HomerJAU]

I have many CDs released in the eighties where all DRs are consistently 13 or higher. They sound great too. I ripped many to FLAC and have them on my server now, although I don’t listen to them often as most my listening time is devoted to MCH releases.

I did make a collection of the top 100 Australian singles of all time, well just the ones I had on CD, plus a few albums I bought on Discogs to help make up the list. Probably ended up with about half of them. It’s a good listen in upmixed stereo with high DR. Worth the effort!

 

[JediJoker]

...I was able to locate a few older discs including James Taylor’s Greatest Hits, one of my earliest purchase circa ‘87/88 or thereabouts.

All I can say is WOW! Once cranked to the proper level, this CD sounds beyond fantastic and is impressively revelatory - crystal clear highs, beautiful deep lows, incredibly wide soundstage. Blows my mind that an old non-remastered CD could sound this amazing. The average DR for this CD is apparently 13.

Some of my stereo reference recordings come from early CD releases for these very reasons. James Taylor's Warner albums aren't among them, but the U.S. '80s CD releases (the masters of which I believe remain the only ones pressed by WB until the upcoming box set) do generally sound very good. Unfortunately, it can be hit-or-miss with these early "catalogue" album releases. Some, if not many, were hastily flat transferred from poor sources—often the LP master tapes complete with RIAA EQ baked in—while others were handled with greater care and mastered from the original masters by competent engineers (Barry Diament, Steve Hoffman, etc.). As for new albums released in the early CD era, I find those to be more consistently good, poor production notwithstanding.

Do note: any recording mixed, mastered, and released in the analog era would necessarily need to be "remastered" to digital. Mastering, in its most basic sense, is the final step in the audio creation process before distribution and consumption and involves converting the audio to the appropriate format(s) therefor. It has come to imply additional processing (equalization, dynamics manipulation) applied to the complete mix (rather than to individual elements therein). Hence, the marketing use of the term "remaster," implying that a remastered release will benefit from improved sound when, in fact, the only meaningful change from a previous release may be a reduction in dynamics and/or a hyping of the EQ.

 

[Quad Linda]

Being an early adopter of most formats, I have many of those early German & Japan CD's. Most do sound great IF you've got gear capable of a wide dynamic range. Likely most of you do.

Some early Sony Japan CD's have a brittle high end, especially 52nd St. - Billy Joel (35 DP1) and You've Got the Power - Third World. Most do sound great!

As for JT, I thought the WB Greatest Hits CD sounded very good. Mine is away in a box, so I can't a/b it to an earlier CD I bought called Classic Songs. It is an '87 Europe only title on CBS/WEA (what?) 16 tracks, 8 each from WB and Columbia. You can look up the DR #'s, 'cause I'm lazy and haven't had breakfast yet. http://www.45worlds.com/cdalbum/cd/2292410892

 

[The56Kid]

Some of my stereo reference recordings come from early CD releases for these very reasons. James Taylor's Warner albums aren't among them, but the U.S. '80s CD releases (the masters of which I believe remain the only ones pressed by WB until the upcoming box set) do generally sound very good. Unfortunately, it can be hit-or-miss with these early "catalogue" album releases. Some, if not many, were hastily flat transferred from poor sources—often the LP master tapes complete with RIAA EQ baked in—while others were handled with greater care and mastered from the original masters by competent engineers (Barry Diament, Steve Hoffman, etc.). As for new albums released in the early CD era, I find those to be more consistently good, poor production notwithstanding.

Do note: any recording mixed, mastered, and released in the analog era would necessarily need to be "remastered" to digital. Mastering, in its most basic sense, is the final step in the audio creation process before distribution and consumption and involves converting the audio to the appropriate format(s) therefor. It has come to imply additional processing (equalization, dynamics manipulation) applied to the complete mix (rather than to individual elements therein). Hence, the marketing use of the term "remaster," implying that a remastered release will benefit from improved sound when, in fact, the only meaningful change from a previous release may be a reduction in dynamics and/or a hyping of the EQ.

Thanks for the correction reference the remastering of these old CDs, Jedi.

Next up: Thin Lizzy Vagabonds of the Western World. The 1991 Deram CD features an average DR of 14. Can’t wait to crank it later today. One of my favorite albums of all time featuring some of the best lead guitar work ever tracked by the one and only Eric Bell!

 

[Quad Linda]

Phil Lynott is still alive in our hearts and on our disc players.

 

[ar surround]

Ever notice how the material with a lot of dynamic range sounds better and better as you turn it up? (Of course you have!) And how the compressed, over-equalized crap sounds worse and more painful? With the high DR stuff, it might be this Fletcher Munson Curves thing:

https://www.teachmeaudio.com/recording/sound-reproduction/fletcher-munson-curves/
Another thing...Some of the older CD's might seem to have a dull high end, but respond nicely to use of tone controls. However tone controls on the compressed material are virtually useless. So crank up those high DR recordings and throw the victims of The Loudness Wars into the rubbish bin.

 

[The56Kid]

Ever notice how the material with a lot of dynamic range sounds better and better as you turn it up? (Of course you have!) And how the compressed, over-equalized crap sounds worse and more painful? With the high DR stuff, it might be this Fletcher Munson Curves thing:

https://www.teachmeaudio.com/recording/sound-reproduction/fletcher-munson-curves/
Another thing...Some of the older CD's might seem to have a dull high end, but respond nicely to use of tone controls. However tone controls on the compressed material are virtually useless. So crank up those high DR recordings and throw the victims of The Loudness Wars into the rubbish bin.

Amen to all of your points. These high DR old CDs really open up when properly cranked while there’s literally nothing that can be done to get a brick walled CD to sound good.

 

[dr. simple]

For what it’s worth, there’s a thread on the Steve Hoffman forum where Steve answers a bunch of questions, one of which was, “What’s the Best sounding Boston 1 CD?” He chose the first pressing. http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...ton-cd-best-traveling-wilburys-cd-etc.779139/

 

[The56Kid]

For what it’s worth, there’s a thread on the Steve Hoffman forum where Steve answers a bunch of questions, one of which was, “What’s the Best sounding Boston 1 CD?” He chose the first pressing. http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...ton-cd-best-traveling-wilburys-cd-etc.779139/

Thanks for the link, Dr.

Interesting reading to say the least. Not sure I own any Hoffman remasters, but I appreciate his honesty and sense of humor.

 

[4-earredwonder]

Crossing my fingers that my recent purchase [enroute from AmazonUK] of 6 Remastered RBCDs [overseen by Peter Asher] of recordings James Taylor made for Warner Brothers between 1970~1976 sound as good

The Warner Bros. Albums: 1970-1976

 

[The56Kid]

Crossing my fingers that my recent purchase [enroute from AmazonUK] of 6 Remastered RBCDs [overseen by Peter Asher] of recordings James Taylor made for Warner Brothers between 1970~1976 sound as good

The Warner Bros. Albums: 1970-1976

Wow, that looks like a fantastic package. Hopefully Asher didn’t ram these beautiful recordings into the proverbial brick wall. Please get back to us once you’ve spun them!

 

[4-earredwonder]

Wow, that looks like a fantastic package. Hopefully Asher didn’t ram these beautiful recordings into the proverbial brick wall. Please get back to us once you’ve spun them!

Actually kid, @ $4 per disc delivered [from AmazonUK], not a bad deal. AmazonUS is over $40 for the set [w/sales tax] and 'estimates' delivery within 1 or 2 MONTHS {?]. Weird.

 

[JonUrban]

I ordered the LP set with the autograph, crazed old JT fan that I am. I am hoping the LPs sound great through the surround master!

 

[humprof]

Rhino just posted the first (of seven, apparently) videos of an interview with Peter Asher on YouTube.

 

[4-earredwonder]

So in the process of transferring all of these classic JT Warner/Rhino discs to RBCD and Vinyl [180g?] Asher should've hired Steve Wilson to remix them into 5.1!

IMO, Baby James would have been SWEETER!

 

[The56Kid]

So in the process of transferring all of these classic JT Warner/Rhino discs to RBCD and Vinyl [180g?] Asher should've hired Steve Wilson to remix them into 5.1!

IMO, Baby James would have been SWEETER!

Amen!