Next let's listen to Chad Kassem's compilation album, The Wonderful Sounds of Female Vocals, on both CD and LP from his Analogue Productions record label.
This album features a tour de force compilation of female vocals by Nina Simone, Patsy Cline, Ella Fitzgerald, Joan Baez, Diana Krall, Shelby Lynne, Rickie Lee Jones, Dusty Springfield, Jennifer Warnes, Julie London, Phoebe Snow, Janis Ian, Nancy Bryan, Joan Armatrading, and Judy Collins, which are widely considered by audiophiles to be some of the best recordings of female vocals ever.
These vocalists were recorded over a large span of time, with different recording engineers and/or studios involved, so you would expect the individual songs to sound different from each other in recording terms.
Presumably, the remastering for The Wonderful Sounds of Female Vocals was done by Kevin Gray on both the CD and LP versions, as there's a similar hand on the controls that provides a consistent sound quality and balance of these vocalists across the compilation.
I wonder if the masters for the CDs and LPs of The Wonderful Sounds of Female Vocals were optimized a little differently to take advantage of the strengths of each format, or if they were the same?
The midrange is where the action is for female vocals, and both the LPs and CDs sound gorgeous during playback.
It was not present on all the tracks, but on certain tracks it seemed as if there might have been a midrange boost in the original recordings to accentuate the female vocals in their mixes. This effect was more noticeable with the CD 5.1x than with the LPs, and tended to add a little harshness on certain vocals, but was present in both the CDs and LPs.
The CD 5.1x sounded more dynamic overall, and had more rhythmic drive, than when playing back the LPs.
The CD 5.1x also had more resolved imaging, and a greater sense of 'space' in the recording. The LPs sounded slightly smoother, more liquid, and less resolved, which suited some songs better than others.
The CD 5.1x recovered more musical information from CDs than I heard with the LPs, so it was a little easier to hear the 'authenticity' of the original recordings.
Overall, on The Wonderful Sounds of Female Vocals, I slightly preferred the CD 5.1x's playback most of the time over that of the LPs played on my turntable.
However, it was very, very, close, and practically speaking, and depending on which song I was listening to, I thought it was basically a performance draw between the two medias and sources.
I really enjoy the Eagles Greatest Hits 1971 - 1975 classic rock album that was released in 1976.
My LP is the 1976 Asylum Records 7E-1052 version from the USA. My CD is from the 2-disc set that includes the Eagles Greatest Hits Volume 2 album as a second CD, and appears to be the 2017 European version.
I'm not alone in that fondness for the Eagles Greatest Hits 1971 - 1975, as according to Discogs, it was the "First album ever to be awarded a Platinum Disc, it was certified at 38× Multi Platinum on 20 August 2018, making it the RIAA's top-selling album of all time, passing Michael Jackson's Thriller."
I'll cut to the chase: the LP played on my turntable killed the CD version played on the CD 5.1x.
The original recordings for Eagles Greatest Hits 1971 - 1975 were all analog and sounded great in that way we associate with the best records from the stereo period of the magnetic era of recording.
However, there is a weird forewarning on the CD that it might not sound that good: "The CD can reveal limitations in the source tape."
That's BS about limitations of analog source tapes. Think about how remarkable the Analogue Productions digital transfers from analog source tapes sound. They're amazing.
Stereo magnetic recordings are the high bar of the recording arts, and if a CD sounds bad compared to the analog source tapes it likely means someone did a suboptimal job on the digital remastering, and the transfer to CDs.
The Eagles Greatest Hits 1971 - 1975 remastered CD sounded bad in all the ways that CDs have been criticized for in the past. It was edgy, forward, and unpleasant sounding, and destroyed the natural timbre of instruments in horrific ways. I was pretty eager to get this remastered version of the Eagles Greatest Hits 1971 - 1975 out of the CD 5.1x, and get on to some other more edifying listening.
I recommend the CD 5.1x to all recording studios everywhere to find out how good their mix & mastering are for transfer to CDs, and if those fine folks had a CD 5.1x to listen with they would have known immediately that the digital remastering of the Eagles Greatest Hits 1971 - 1975 sounded like crap, and needed to be redone.
I would love to hear another remastering of Eagles Greatest Hits 1971 - 1975 by say, Kevin Gray or Phil De Lancie, who know how to get the best out of digital transfers from analog master tapes. Until then I'll be playing the LP of the Eagles Greatest Hits 1971 - 1975.
