Remasters vs. Originals? Remasters worth it?
 

So what are you guys thoughts on this? Do you generally stick with the original CDs (late 80s early 90s) or do you upgrade to the newer remasters? Do you think the originals sound better? Are bonus tracks enough to make you buy an album again?

Are remasters worth an extra $5 to you?

depends on the album... most of the time... I have not heard a remaster that lives up to its flawed original... other times, it is needed... such as say "...And Justice for All" which was not mastered very well to start with.

Bonus tracks are good though, i can not stand when somebody release a remaster of an album, but won't add incentive to buy it. Have to add something to it to give me a reason to buy an album twice.

The concept has a lot of potential. There's tons of 70s albums which are ingenious musically but feel a bit weak in the mixing.

Then again, modern mastering standards would just make them louder, and drown out the essential subtleties. But if the right adventurous hand was at it, then these could really have life breathed into them again.

Yeah, many albums have become casualties to the loudness war.

For real.
It's bad when you get ear fatigue 2 songs into an album in headphones because every single sound is compressed so hard that the drummer farts at exactly 0 decibels.
I like loud music, but I don't like flat, static, loud music.

A lot of 80's Thrash Metal has been given remasters and they quite frankly sound awful. Megadeth's So Far So Good So What and Anthrax's Among The Living are just 2 examples where the remastering sounds even worse than the original releases and I a m glad that I have the original mixes.

This does also hinder me if I don't have a particular album on CD for whatever reason and it's much more difficult trying to find the original releases. I usually have to search for small indie outlets in order to get the originals.

Heavier music recorded with limited resources in the first place does not warrant remastering at all IMO.

True. There's only so much that can be done to a song that was recorded on bad quality equipment. I can understand maybe slapping a multiband compressor/expander on a song and maybe a bit of EQ, but it's not going to do anything for the quality of the original sounds.

I think in this day and age if they do insist on remastering everything, they should do a 2 for 1 package. 2 discs, 1 the remastered version and 1 the original version as was when first released. My worry is that one day all the original releases will all be out of print, and all we will be left with are remasters that ruin may of the albums.

If I already have it in my collection, screw re-buying it just for a re-mastered version. But if I'm buying it for the first time, it all depends on the music. Stuff like Pink Floyd or The Doors is worth the extra money for the re-mastered version. Other older artist (Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, George Jones, etc) can only truly be enjoyed on vinal, with all of the pops and skips of the record player.

Well that is what's happening with many releases unfortunately. As Freebase pointed out, if the original tapes have multitracks that couldn't be processed onto the final mix due to budget or time constraints then I am all for remasters but if the original source material was limited then a remaster will only compound the sound and make it sound even worse.

Case in point: Black Sabbath's Paranoid album that was recorded on 4 track yet the Deluxe version has a 5.1 mix. How the frig does that work if you only have 4 tracks to work with in the first place?