Re: Warning: Do Not Waste Your Money On The Japanese Celebration Day CD

[Kurt & Susan Rompf <romler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Typed Friday A.M.
Okay, so now that I¹m more awake, let me elaborate.   I¹m on vacation from
work today so when I got home last night from work it was like Friday night
for me.  So I came home, cracked a beer, put in the Japan CD and started
straightening up a bit.   This was not a sit down audiophile listening
session, more like Zep in the background to start the night off right.  But
whoa, was it a bad start.   Even just while walking around the house I was
like what is this crap?   The sound was so bad that it flat out stopped me
in my tracks.  I HAD to sit down and really listen.

But I couldn¹t.  It was literally hurting my ears.  It was brash, noisy,
messy and overly loud.   First thing I had to do was turn it down.    And
then I tried again.   Whoa, I mean really WTF?   It was completely
unlistenable.

Break.

Typed Saturday P.M.
Sorry, I had to go Friday morning and I¹m just getting back to this now.

Anyway, everything on this CD is just WAY too loud.  Overly extended loud
and distorted.  There isn¹t any separation; it¹s all one big garbley gook
mess.   And there is this constant whine of brashness behind everything.
It¹s hard to tell if it¹s just loudness by itself, or a combination of
excessive loud and poorly mixed.   All I know it that I absolutely hate it.
It¹s probably the worst sounding CD I¹ve ever heard.   I turned it off.

Later, I had my wife listen to it when she got home and her reaction was
³This is horrible.  Who the hell is that singing because it doesn¹t even
sound like Robert?   And what is that constant noise that¹s over
everything?²

It took me a bit to really nail it down.   I left it on this time, and
decided to just let it play to see if songs got any better as they went.
Nope.  But I was able to figure it out somewhat.  While walking around I
literally went out in my garage, which needless to say muffles the sound a
bunch.  Usually what gets muffled are the highs, and all you hear is the
bass.  But this was the opposite.  What came through loud and clear was the
hi-hat cymbal crashing over and over and over, like a constant bashing in
your ears.   I think this is the source of the constant noise, but I¹m still
not 100% sure.

But it¹s not just that.  Jimmy¹s guitar just sounds totally out of range of
what is possible.  It¹s just gibberish.  And like my wife said, Robert is
just weird.

I listened to all I could stand and turned it off.  I never even put in the
second disc.  [I guess maybe I should try that eh.   I mean I guess it¹s
possible I got a defective disc?]

But then I was worried about the U.S. CD, which I hadn¹t listened to yet.
Or had my sound system suddenly gone to shit over night?   So I nervously
put it in and sat down.   Whew, was I relieved when it sounded a gazillion
times better.   There wasn¹t time to do a full sit down listening session,
so I just scanned over a few songs and got what I was looking for.

I have always been skeptical about people raving up the Japanese CD¹s saying
how much better they sound.  With Jimmy normally involved in such things,
I¹ve never held much merit that the mixes or mastering would be done that
much better or differently than what is released in the U.S.  I mean why
would that be?  The U.S. is Zep¹s largest market, so why would Jimmy put it
out sounding one way in one country and another way in another country?
Well that was my belief until now.  Since I haven¹t done a full sit down
listening session with the U.S. discs yet, I can¹t say they are awesome or
not so great, or somewhere in-between.  But what I can tell you is the U.S.
CDs are very listenable, enjoyable, and sound at least fairly good.   This
Japanese CD is just down right horrible.   Totally unlistenable.   Whether
it¹s a loudness war disaster, a mixing freak out, or a combination of both,
I don¹t know.  I¹m not a recording engineer and I won¹t claim to be.  I
would love for someone in that profession to have a listen to this thing and
tell me what¹s wrong here.

What ever it is, it¹s just wrong.  Do not waste you money on this piece of
garbage.  It's embarrassing really.