JP
Major Contributor
Certain? You don't know what changes were made during the cutting process. You don't know what differences were made between what was made in the studio and "vinyl production masters" either.
I used to own multiple early copies of LPs by the Dutch band Focus - US, UK, Germany and Italy IIRC.. The US versions were sometimes different mixes, but none of them sounded remotely the same even when from direct copies of the same master. So what the hell should my digital copies sound like?
Sorry, but I don't see how assuming that any one format is "right" gets us anywhere. It's quite clear that even when band members get involved in later mastering, it doesn't help as it turns out that any two people on the same recording turn out to have different "intent", that band members have a different idea of what the album should sound like thirty years later (especially after playing the music from that album years later on different instruments), and that they may not have been allowed their actual intention for whatever reason at the time the recording was made. Then there's just plain fashion in how a recording should sound.
We have no idea if any artist was actually happy with the sound of the LP in most cases, either, unless there's clear evidence from the time. We might agree with the studio master as reference if it was approved by the musicians, but even then we still have to understand it as they heard it, which may be very different what an engineer finds on the tape decades later.
The whole "fidelity to what" thing remains very woolly. I've pondered this for decades, but recently reached the point of believing that all we can do in audiophilia is build systems that give each of the versions we listen to a decent shot at convincing us.
Fidelity to the source. If you're "building" to convince you of something you could end up pretty far away from fidelity in general. Not that I have any particular issue or even care if that is someone's goal.
In regard to the sources for some of these CDs, the matter has been investigated and analyzed for decades on other forums by professionals in the field, so we're talking about considered opinions. I don't know of anyone that personally witnessed the vinyl and disc process for these tiles, so no, I don't think it's possible to know for certain. But there is consensus in the community and I have of course listened to both myself as anyone else can.
"Right" is a pointless debate for the reasons you mentioned, which is why I didn't use that word.
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