Re: LED ZEPPELIN FINALLY AVAILABLE ON iTunes

[TangerineMan <tangerineman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From the way the press release read it sounds like his work was  
> solely of the TSRTS material. I mean after all wasn't all of Zep's  
> catalogue already re-remastered by Page for when they did the full  
> boxxed set ?

You're right; the Atlantic/Rhino press release is vague--while the  
title sez "Comprehensive Two-CD Led Zeppelin Collection Features  
Twenty-Four Remastered Studio Tracks", that doesn't mean they're  
_newly_ remastered. It's probably the same old remastering we're used  
to. And Kevin S. is only mentioned in the quote from Pagey in  
connection with the SRtS remastering.

> Of course, it wouldn't hurt for them to revisit all of their  
> material as with the technology available today, some seriously  
> sonic hoo ha can be done.

Yup... the original remastering dates from, what, 1990? (boxed set,  
then boxed set II, then same remasters were used for the complete  
studio recordings box set, right?) That's a long time ago now. You  
have SACD and other higher-bit-depth formats to play with now...  
Those analog masters (and in the case of the second album, the safety  
masters or whatever they are) aren't getting any younger; Jimmy, it's  
time to record them onto 32-bit/96 kHz or whatever the highest  
resolution is these days!

The flip side of all this is that on iTunes, the "aural assault" we  
all know and love is going to be filtered thru lossy compression. :- 
( And it's increasingly clear that today's generation is fully into  
consuming their music in downloadable, lossy formats and therefore  
doesn't give a flying fu@k about high fidelity, let alone understands  
what it means. It's great that younger people are getting into the  
band, and I think that's something that will continue with every  
generation, but it's still sad.

Doesn't matter tho, within 10 years the technology will exist to  
deliver the music with no loss in fidelity just as fast, over the  
same bandwidth. And eventually to chips right in our brains. :-D Now  
that'd be cool; before you go to sleep, you set your brain to wake  
you up with a randomly (or precisely) selected Zeppelin song!

And we all know the original vinyl is where it's at. Speaking of  
which, much like you, Nech, I still haven't got round to buying an  
audiophile turntable, or scoping out a decent needle, so's I can  
sample that early Canadian pressing of the Brown Bomber that I  
recently discovered hiding in my collection.