Sorry if this is covered elsewhere, but ‘SOTT remaster’ bring up a lot of results so...

1) Any word on whether the 2020 remaster is technically identical to the 2016 one? Or is it completely new? Odd to ask Bernie Grundman to redo it unless there is somehow more to what the estate did with the tapes fist (like rebuilding the mixes, I guess? Or cleaning the source?) Any insight into that process welcome.

2) Anyone got both and can comment on perceived or needle drop analysis differences?

Thanks!

Non-sarcastic side note: the level of pedantry among org contributors made me go check how to spell ‘Grundman’. Now I know. So thanks, guys. Keep it up! I’m a big believer in a little bit of fear being helpful in life. Mistakes can happen, but I real appreciate being reminded that just being lazy in one’s writing is something to be avoided. I’m sure I’ve made other mistakes, so please do pile on, them can take it!

Interesting! I’m sure all the talk in 2016 was the Grundman did this batch of vinyl remasters. The liner notes do say ‘originally mastered by...’ though. No mention of who did the remaster.

bwaaatch said:

Interesting! I’m sure all the talk in 2016 was the Grundman did this batch of vinyl remasters. The liner notes do say ‘originally mastered by...’ though. No mention of who did the remaster.

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Except they do.

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https://www.discogs.com/P...se/9243645

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BartVanHemelen said:

Thanks Bart.

I honestly don’t see this credit in the 2016 release itself, perhaps because the text is nearly illegible due to size, colour and printing errors. Or because I’m just not looking hard enough. Not a regular on discogs, so glad to see it’s value here.

Any views on how different these two editions sound? At this point we’ve all probably invested more in SOTT than any other record ever, so I feel I deserve to be hearing it at its best. I have the 2016 LP and the new SDE on CD. So If I’m really looking for Maximum Sign, do I need this new LP, too?

I’m also curious as to what brief is given to the person doing the mastering in projects like this. The 2016 one was presumably not a big budget production, and perhaps there was not a particular expectation to improve things much, esp as people often say their 1987 SOTT sounds fine. But for the SDE it’s a very different thing commercially. Would this lead to different goals for a remaster and its sound? Presumably the budget goes up, but what does someone DO with that extra time and money?