All I know, is that Prince needs to catch up with every other artists out there with great albums and get his whole WB back catalog remastered. Prince, swallow your pride and your pocketbook and get it done...seesh if not for you, for the fans that have supported you forever.

I love those labels.

So these Japanese replicas...they're obviously not remastered. What is the point of their existence? I mean...is there something unique or different about them that would make a Prince fan want to buy yet another copy of a CD they probably already own?

rudedog said:

Rude, he never will and we know it. He'll never support remastering or doing anything with Dirty Mind, and songs like "Sexuality", "Darling Nikki", "temptation", or anything else. He'll try to rerecord or overdub shit and fuck it up. I've said it before and I'll say it again, It Will Take Prince Dying Before We See Any Remasters or Vault Releases. Remember, he had the final say on ULTIMATE, and shit like "Erotic City" was removed by him.

For remasters and reissues, WB has the final say on those albums. He may have to clear them adding unreleased tracks they may have, but in all, they can do what they want with them.

ernestsewell said:

They aren't remastered, but they sound better than the current issues. Did u see the thread a few months ago about these?

I have purchased Parade, PR, SOTT, and Controversy so far. They are pretty pricey, so it's ONE-AT-A-TIME for me.

daPrettyman said:

So have they just had the sound bumped up on them? What is the original source being used? Is the point of them just to have a better sounding copy of an album? Doesn't seem to be any extra packaging or anything, per se.

ernestsewell said:

I'm not sure of the original source, but the sound is bumped and I can hear elements on SOTT that I couldn't even hear on the original cd.

The sound does sound a bit bumped up for sure on all of them. I do hear things that I've never heard/paid attention to and am satisfied. When u listen to these with headphones on, you do hear a lot of hissing, but it doesn't take away from the quality of the recording (to me anyway).

daPrettyman said:

Are the hiccups in "U Got The Look" still there?

ernestsewell said:

I thought the hiccup was only on the Ultimate long version issue.

daPrettyman said:

I do believe, in Billy's will, that the hiccups were on the 12" single and any ensuing edition thereof. I THINK one of them is on the album version.

I love those labels.

So these Japanese replicas...they're obviously not remastered. What is the point of their existence? I mean...is there something unique or different about them that would make a Prince fan want to buy yet another copy of a CD they probably already own?

the urban legend that had folks coloring the circumferential edge of their CDs with a green(remember, it had to be green) Sharpie so many years ago.

squirrelgrease said:

Wait, what? I never heard this.

Reminds me of the Sharpie comment from HQ or somewhere that made CNN, when people talked about using a Sharpie to cover up the Contents circle on the CD, and someone said, "What are they going to do next? Outlaw Sharpies?" I had to laugh at that one.

Bewaring of the Green

Claim: Coating the edges of a compact disc with a green marking pen will noticeably improve its sound quality.
Status: False.

Origins: Despite

numerous claims about the efficacy of "greening" CDs, there is no valid scientific reason to explain why marking CDs with green pens would improve sound quality, nor has anyone ever been able to consistently distinguish between marked and unmarked discs in a double blind comparison.

The most commonly offered explanation for the allegedly improved results produced by a "greened" CD is that the light from a CD player's laser reflects off the shiny inner rim and outer edge of the CD and enters the "eye" of the player, thereby altering the digital bit count and distorting the sound. Coating the edges of the CD with a colored marker supposedly reduces or eliminates the amount of stray light reflecting of the disc's edges, producing "better" or "cleaner" sound. (Green markers are used because the faithful believe that color most effectively "absorbs" the light from the laser's infrared beam.) As former Stereo Review and High Fidelity editor David Ranada pointed out, however, light travels so quickly that it would be reflected back to the laser from the edge of the disc while the laser was still reading the same digital bit and therefore could not produce a distorted reading. Ranada confirmed his assertion by connecting a digital error counter to a CD player to compare data errors produced during playback of both colored and uncolored discs. He found no difference between the two types of discs at any portion of their surfaces -- inner rim, outer rim, or middle. He also tried coloring only half the circumference of a disc and using an oscilloscope to analyze the signal picked up by the laser. The scope showed no difference between the patterns produced by the colored and uncolored halves of the disc.

The claim that coloring CDs could improve their sound originated in late 1989, was spread at the winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early 1990, and achieved national prominence when it was printed (and given credence) in the March 1990 issue of ICE (the International CD Exchange newsletter). The initial claims suggested that the inner rim and outer edge of the disc should be colored with an Eberhard Faber Design Art Marker No. 255, but over time this procedure became less specific. (Many later reports mentioned coloring only the outer rim, and the pen used was either generic green or a competely different color altogether, such as purple. Coating discs with Armor All or Rain-X were other popular variations.)

That this story was so enthusiastically embraced and believed is likely due to a number of factors, such as:

The pyschological power of persuasion: People believe coloring CDs improves sound quality merely because they've heard the claim repeated so often and so authoritatively. The details of compact disc technology are still largely a mystery to most of the general public, and so they readily accept the seemingly plausible explanation offered to explain the phenomenon, even though it has no demonstrable scientific basis. Since sound quality is largely subjective and unquantifiable, the "greening" claim is difficult to disprove. Not surprisingly, the results of comparison tests follow the pattern one would expect to see: people claim to hear a difference (often an astounding one) between marked and unmarked discs when they know which is which, but they cannot reliably distinguish between the two types of discs in double blind studies.

The desire for control over technology: People want to maintain some level of control by believing that no technology is so complex or perfect that it can't be improved by a little good old know-how. As Sam Tellig, a writer for Stereophile magazine put it, "I get a great deal of satisfaction in showing that these tweaks take the 'perfect-sound-forever medium' and make it a little more perfect."

The "something for nothing" syndrome: People are always readily willing to accept something that promises great returns for little or no investment. This concept is best summed up by early "greening" enthusiast Pete Howard (publisher of ICE and Rolling Stone CD columnist), who opined: "Even if there's a little bit of difference, it's amazing that you can improve billion-dollar technology with a two-buck marker."

Snobbery: Digital audio technology has been denigrated since its introduction by a small but fervent group of audiophiles who insist that the sound it produces is "harsh," unlifelike, and generally inferior to that of analog recordings. The revelation that CD sound is imperfect was undoubtedly an appealing story for some of them to spread.

Greed: There was money to be made selling objects of dubious worth (such as damping rings and CD markers) to a gullible public, and hence a financial interest for some people to promulgate stories touting their alleged effectiveness.