Led Zeppelin Reissues Part II

SteveG wrote: ^It's Absolutely  Related!! Party on Robert!!!

may be unrelated, but happy birthday Robert!!!

Oh he's gone away for a while, don't worry.

dr wu23 wrote: Mirror Image wrote: I'm just tired of hearing all the crap about how Zeppelin stole this or stole that. I don't care. It's like I said before, it's what they did with a blues or folk song, for example, that makes it special and turns it into something only they could do.   I think we are all a bit tired......perhaps we should not 'feed the troll' and he might just vanish. Just saying......

Mirror Image wrote: I'm just tired of hearing all the crap about how Zeppelin stole this or stole that. I don't care. It's like I said before, it's what they did with a blues or folk song, for example, that makes it special and turns it into something only they could do.

Led Zeppelin = Hammer of the Gods

So are we saying that LZ did not pay any royalties, or the record company, back to the original authors of some of these songs LZ supposedly stole?

Van Halen essentially was a very good cover band for tons of songs previously recorded by other musicians, they made a lot of money too. I agree that Eddie VH was an excellent guitarist, he put his flare and personalization on all those songs....You may also say he stole his tapping technique from Steve Hackett.

Catcher10 wrote: SteveG wrote: ^Correct Jose, Zep CD remasters are indeed Redbook. I know that high res track files can be downloaded, but I don't know how they sound (and I'm not really that interested. ) I downloaded the hi-res files but have not played them...the A/B I did was with vinyl and the CDs, which as I said I prefer the vinyl versions. I suspect the vinyl and hi-res versions are comparable, my DAC will process up to 24/192 files. I too have zero desire to go down the hi-res download avenue. I have a few albums in 24/96 and 24/192 and really not much improvement for the cost....now DSD64/128 I understand can be the cats meow! But now we are talking about a budget I would prefer to use on my analog end.

I agree Jose. D$D64/128 i$ suppo$ed to be awe$ome. But I keep thinking about the co$t for some $trange rea$on.

SteveG wrote: ^Correct Jose, Zep CD remasters are indeed Redbook. I know that high res track files can be downloaded, but I don't know how they sound (and I'm not really that interested. )

I downloaded the hi-res files but have not played them...the A/B I did was with vinyl and the CDs, which as I said I prefer the vinyl versions. I suspect the vinyl and hi-res versions are comparable, my DAC will process up to 24/192 files.

I too have zero desire to go down the hi-res download avenue. I have a few albums in 24/96 and 24/192 and really not much improvement for the cost....now DSD64/128 I understand can be the cats meow! But now we are talking about a budget I would prefer to use on my analog end.

uduwudu wrote: Catcher10 wrote: There is nothing wrong with the "originals", that is correct. But the 90's remasters from originals are not very good. Jimmy Page and the boyz have known this and are doing the right thing by issuing new remixed versions and correcting the bad mastering. He has returned the sound to what LZ was when they first came out on vinyl...big, bold, beefy sound. With much better depth, clarity and detail than the originals. For me hearing that classic Zeppelin sound coming from my turntable is pretty special....brings a tear to my eye Just wondering which originals. Atlantic issued the albums unremastered - in the digital format back then they did not sound so good - just .... post production master (2 generations on from the original tapes!) master> DAC > 24 bit > down sample > 16 bit CD. Page then did a complete remastering and they ended up as good as they were going to get (though hi res should sort that out!).But the thing is... are people not identifying the remasters from the (possibly still floating around) 80s issues?That could be a problem.

I am talking about the original vinyl issues from back in the day, for me in the US issued on Atlantic records. Those original vinyl issues are very good considering we are talking about late 60s early 70s.

From there the master tapes were then transferred to digital then pressed to CD, I think those are not very good. You first need to use an ADC (Mother Tapes > ADC...) so you can then work in the digital domain.
There is where I believe most of the disasters happen before the DAC process. And for sure ADC and DAC back in the early 80's were probably not very good.

The 2014 remix/remasters are much, much closer to the original versions with some good digital mastering to clean it all up and return it to pristine condition. And these 2014 issues are done from hi-res files 24/96 if I am not mistaken, of course the CDs are redbook. The LP are cut from the 24/96 files, which is why at least for me I think they sound better than the CD versions.

EDIT: From the LZ website, I should have checked, but I knew it was one or the other, as it turns out the masters were created from 24/192 transfers from original tapes

"Technical note: The new remasters were created from 192 kHz/24 bit digital transfers of the original analogue tapes. The catalogue is being remastered now to take advantage of the significant advances in mastering technology that have occurred since 1991."

Since no DVD/A versions are included, only way to hear the hi-res files is to download the 24/96 files and you must have a DAC capable of playing 24/96 resolutions. Again the included CDs will be standard redbook 16/44

Edited by Catcher10 - August 12 2014 at 16:09