Re : Lionheart CD distortion

[derek%sunstroke@sdsu.edu (Derek Langsford)]

tom willet says :

>I have noticed on my copy of the Lionheart compact disk that there are 
>several places in which there is fairly severe distortion of the music.  
>The crescendo at about 1:30 into Peter Pan is a particulary good example.
>I bought a new copy of the CD and it was bad as well, as was another one
>the folks at the record store replaced it with.  A friend of mine has a copy
>which is perfectly clean and plays clean on my system, which is the system
>I noticed the garbage on my copy.  Has anybody else noticed the distortion
>on the Lionheart CD and does anybody know why there appear to be some goo
>pressings and some bad ones.  It sounds like some recording engineer let a
>channel overload during mixdown.

Check the manufacturer of the discs.  I have two import copies, one pressed
by Nimbus UK and one by EMI UK from the boxed set and neither have the 
described distortion.  I suspect it is another example of the inferiority
of the US pressed discs.


Kevin Kinsey states:

>it has been my experience that the domestic (read U.S. pressing) of many
>CD's appear to be of inferior quality. When I got the boxed set and heard
>the import of TSW, it blew the domestic pressing out the window and around
>the block! This is also the case with Peter Gabriel's Security disk. It
>is very possible that you have discovered yet another case of this. I
>have yet to find out the reasons for it, although I have speculated that
>it is either the U.S. manufacturers cutting corners or they are
>not using the original masters when mastering (there is actually tape hiss
>on 'Wallflower' on Gabriel's Security. It is a digitally recorded album.
>You figure it out...).
>
>Does anyone else have anything to add to this? I really would like to
>know!

I think this has been discussed before and the feeling was that for KaTe's
CDs the imports from the UK were preferable as the they sounded better and
came with all the lyrics unless the more recent US EMI Manhattan mid-price
issues. 

Personally I have felt that this is true for most CDs of non-American 
artists.  I think that you hit the nail on the head talking about the use 
of non-original masters by US manufacturers.  Also in the past US 
manufacturers were guilty f running albums through digitization machines
without finetuning the process to each specific album - the production 
mill effect.  Have you noticed how US CDs can sound rather shrill and
shallow compared with their European counterparts?  I have had too many
bad experiences with domestics v. imports to even bother with US discs
for non-American artists anymore.  

BTW there is still some hiss on the UK Peter Gabriel (IV) CD.  It is
present on the master I think.  I am not impressed with it as a recording
in general.  

Anyone done a close comparison of their old import KaTe CDs with the boxed 
set ones?

Kevin, if you want to discuss this further, email me.

Derek Langsford
derek@sunstroke.sdsu.edu