Re: New Hounds of Love

["John D. Walker" <jdwalker@post.cis.smu.edu>]

Just got mine Monday from CDUniverse....

The sound is significantly better than my original CD (which is one of 
the cheaped out EMI reissues without the lyrics or any of the track 
listings detailing the musicians featured on each song).  A minor quibble 
- they didn't include lyrics for the bonus tracks, which would have been 
nice to have.  The 28 page book is mostly EMI propaganda.  I would have 
preferred 28 pages of KT info.  The CD insert is very nice, with the 
lyrics, Peter's intro (nice job!), and some shots of KT.  My CD had no 
pix at all so for me it's a step up.  Is the shot of KT in the red thing 
a new picture?  Let me just say for the record that KT is *still* one of 
the most beautiful women on the planet, and let it go at that.  The CD 
comes in a box, with a blown up shot of the front cover on one side and 
the track listing on the other.  The CD itself is off-white, very classy.

My original HoL CD is very fizzy and hisses a great deal.  The highs 
shatter and at times it's rather harsh.  The remaster sounds 
MUUUCCCCHHHHH better, I think it's much closer to what KT actually 
intended.  The shattered highs and fizzy sounds are cleaned up, the bass 
is much warmer, and most of the hiss is gone.  The vocals are smoother 
and warmed up a lot.  Nice job, whoever it was that remastered the 
thing.  I couldn't find his or her name anywhere.  This is probably what 
it sounded like on vinyl if you had a $10,000 turntable and only played 
it once.

If you already own one of the high quality CD's of HoL, like the Japanese
pressing or something, you might not get much out of this.  But for those of
us who only have the crummy EMI Manhattan "Nice Price" bargain basement stuff,
this is an essential purchase, ESPECIALLY if you have a nice high-end stereo
system that can do it justice.  The differences are subtle, but 
definite.  If you're buying it for the new package, pix, etc., don't.

All of the preceding was IMHO, of course.


JW      jdwalker@post.smu.edu

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