It wasn't remastered. There was an article with "tangerine" about the production of Ultimate and it was mentioned in that.

quoted from Housequake.com's discussion last March:

"Fact 1: 'Ultimate' IS indeed Remastered. This was confirmed by the people who put the thing together at WB (and they should know!). Just check T17's original posts, it was even confirmed before the remastering had even been completed! Also, it was originally going to be a selling point, and WB had intended to use the fact that Ultimate was remastered in their advertising. However, in the run up to the original release date it became apparent that there could be legal issues with a remastered set, and it was agreed with Prince that it could still be released as long as the remastering wasn't mentioned or used as selling tool."

from Billboard, last Feb '06:

"A week before Prince's new NPG Music Club/Universal album, "3121," hits stores on March 21, Rhino will unveil a two-disc collection of remastered hits and remixes."

One of these guys, "Geoffrey Dicker and Mathieu Bitton are credited in the liner notes for Ultimate Prince as creative consultants," suppsoedly posted one year ago on housequake.com and at that time said they had completed the remastering... but now he no longer posts, and I cannot find his posts (as if they have been erased). I think he posted as Tangerine17.

1999 comparison, the vertical proportions are different indicating an EQ/compression change...

ufoclub said:

Thank you for your research.

I'm a making a compilation of Purple Rain rarities. Today I hapenned to compare the CD version of When Doves Cry to the rest of this boot stuff I'm working with and I noticed that the sound quality on PR is REALLY awful in comparison to even fan released stuff. It's really time for some true re-masters.

I liked it, but they could have released it just as a disc two instead of the two discs (I mean how many copies of Kiss and When Doves Cry do you need 2 own!!!). Also a lot of those remixes are already on the actual vinyl, still loved Lets Work, LRC and the domestic argument scene in kiss and god I could go around the world for the extended Lets Go Crazy remix exactly as it was in the opening 8 minutes of Purple Rain.
Yep the guys from Warners knew how to extract the money from us hardcore Purple Rain Prince fans with this set and the Purple Rain 21st anniversary 2 disc set.

masbas said:

then

ufclub said:

the same person?

Hopefully, I can shed some light.

Technically, the tunes were re-mastered, but from the two-track mixdown, NOT the original master tapes. Some have argued that this invalidates it as a "true" re-master, even though there have been other releases by other artists who have slapped a "digitally re-mastered" label on their disc when the original tapes weren't available.

Ultimately (no pun intended), they sound better than the original discs, but not nearly as good as they could if the orignal master tapes had been utilized.

At this point, who knows if we'll ever see actual re-masters of the WB Prince catalog? I have my doubts, but you never know. I never thought The Police would get back together either.

Abrazo said:

yes, I thought it was the same person. Do you know otherwise?