Remasters 2015: How do they sound?

drjazz: I’ve been looking for new ways to listen to our favorite recordings. I’m the guy who remastered the warner demos and many other boots listed on our vhboots.com.

This is what I came up with for best versions so far, and I’ve been comparing by what sounds best on multiple speaker sets, nothing else.

1st 3 albums – undecided, will get back to you.

Fair warning – Japan forever young is absolutely amazing. The new 2015 remaster is distorted and bland compared to this. I’ve listened to it on multiple speakers, the new version is a mockery imo. On the forever young, The bass is tight and the balance is the best I’ve heard. Far better then the 2000 remasters as well. The 2015 is a waste of money! The forever young is a wet dream.

Diver down – I’ve not yet heard the 2015 remaster. Until this point the 2000 remaster is best. I have the forever young and the target cd from 1987. The 2000 sounds best to me. Well balanced and remastered appropriately for the title.

1984 – the 2000 remaster is horrible. The original target version sounds very good and better than the 2000 remaster.

However, I have to go with the new 2015 remaster on this one. It’s very clean, up front, and solid. Very good quality. It seems like a lot of time went into this one.I’ve not yet heard the Van Halen 1 version of this, but my speculation is that it will give the gold 1998 version a run for its money.

0U812 – the original and the forever young series are clearly different. I cannot pick a favorite. The forever young series has more bass, but not really for the better. I agree with previous statements that this album needs a remix. If I has to choose, I would go with forever young, but not by much.

I plan on getting all of these versions, so I will do a complete analysis when completed. I hope you appreciate these opinions.

VH forever!

Thanks for the review. Appreciate the review I do

JasonA: Are you comparing the old CDs to the 2015 CD remasters? Have you heard the 2015 remasters on vinyl or 24-bit/192kHz HDTracks files? The new CDs, as well as HDTracks 24/96 uses a different mastering than the others. They are much more dynamically compressed (louder) than the vinyl and 24/192 files. Check out the HDTracks 24/192 files, they are the bomb!

As an example, here are some dynamic range numbers that compare the 2015 versions of Diver Down. The CD has a DR of 7, while the 24/192 files are DR 12: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/92643

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/91892

Are you saying that the hd files are remastered

JasonA: Are you comparing the old CDs to the 2015 CD remasters? Have you heard the 2015 remasters on vinyl or 24-bit/192kHz HDTracks files? The new CDs, as well as HDTracks 24/96 uses a different mastering than the others. They are much more dynamically compressed (louder) than the vinyl and 24/192 files. Check out the HDTracks 24/192 files, they are the bomb!

As an example, here are some dynamic range numbers that compare the 2015 versions of Diver Down. The CD has a DR of 7, while the 24/192 files are DR 12: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/92643

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/91892

are you saying that the hd files were remastered differently than the cd files? If so i’ll have to listen to them. The fair warning cd version is not pleasant to me, sounds over processed. I cannot comment on any of the others because I haven’t heard them except 1984. The 2015 1984 sounds better than all the other releases to me. If you look over in the newbie forum you can see a more detailed comparison of the versions I have. Look under the hello post.

JasonA: Are you comparing the old CDs to the 2015 CD remasters? Have you heard the 2015 remasters on vinyl or 24-bit/192kHz HDTracks files? The new CDs, as well as HDTracks 24/96 uses a different mastering than the others. They are much more dynamically compressed (louder) than the vinyl and 24/192 files. Check out the HDTracks 24/192 files, they are the bomb!

As an example, here are some dynamic range numbers that compare the 2015 versions of Diver Down. The CD has a DR of 7, while the 24/192 files are DR 12: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/92643

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/91892

drjazz:
Fair warning – Japan forever young is absolutely amazing.

Sorry if this is a stupid question – but what is the forever young series and where can I get it? I’ve never heard of it! And thanks for the insight!

JasonA: Yes, the HDTracks 2015 versions are the current remasters. Not to be confused with the previous HDTracks versions, released in 2013 (?). The 2015s are from a new transfer. For whatever reason, the 24/96 versions on HDTracks have the same dynamic compression applied as the current 2015 remastered CDs. But the HDTracks 24/192 version are not dynamically compressed. There’s been speculation that the compressed 24/96 version is what they used to master the 2015 CDs from, while the 24/192 versions are what they used to cut the 2015 vinyl. Just speculation, mind you, but no hard proof. It is also speculated that these new 2015 transfers were done from a better generation of tape than anything released in the past, based on the clarity of the sound, and language used in the press release/marketing for the 2015 releases (“In order to produce the original sound the band intended, Bellman cut straight from the quarter-inch tapes for CD; for 180-gram vinyl; and for the digital versions.”)

EDIT: you can check out mp3 samples here. Again, be sure to choose the 24/192 versions, NOT the 24/96 versions: https://www.hdtracks.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=van+halen

Gotcha. So it sounds to me like vinyl is the way to go for the new re-masters then I should transfer it myself and create a 96 48 wav file. I did compare the 2013s to the 2000s 2 years ago. The wave signature is almost the same, and the sound is near identical as well. Sounds to me that the 2000 was used as the source for the 2013.

rockphantom: Thank you for comparing multiple Van Halen releases, drjazz. Could you please supply the matrix number for the Japanese Forever Young Fair Warning CD that you recommend?

I can’t be absolutely certain until I’m home, but I’m pretty sure it’s the 20p2. There are two different versions of the forever young. They might be the same, but I cannot verify that yet. Check out this link; it explains more.

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/van-halen-2005-forever-young-japan-cds.200501/

I’ve compared most versions of the vh CDs, and the newly released hd tracks, and here are my findings.

Best overall recording to get is the forever young series from the late 80s. 20p2 is the cd product number.

Here are my findings:

The new re-masters released on cd are over compressed and even worse than the 2000 versions, however the new 2015 hd tracks are different and are not bad, I haven’t checked vinyl.

The 2005 forever young series is over compressed like everything else released after 2000, but they are indeed re-eqd. Take your chances, you might like them.

I have EVERY VERSION of wcf. And the best is the forever young from the late 80s. The new 2015 hd re-master is identically the same in eq as this Japan release, but the new version is 2 db lower and the transfer is 26 years later. I’d go with forever young. It is possible however that the new hd re-masters are upsampling versions of the Japan forever young series.

So in conclusion, the new 2015 hd tracks (NOT THE CDs) are nearly identical to the late 80s Japan released forever young series, but they are lower in volume. I personally like having a cd which was transferred 26 years ago.