This issue of remasters is a serious downside of streaming music services. (Which overall are a fantastic value for music lovers.)
Beyond the label “20xx digital remaster” there is no way to control or know what version of a mix you get. As someone mentioned, tracks coming from Greatest Hits packages are very problematic.
The other day I decided to do a quick comparison between Spotify and Tidal on a Deep Purple song. (Stormbringer).
I chose the version in each service that purported to be the “regular” version of the album. No “super-extended-remaster” labels, the same album cover images.
The the versions were astonishingly different sounding, almost to the point of being a remix.
I was trying to do a little reality check on the sound quality difference between Spotify highest quality and Tidal, and was totally moot.
FWIW, overall the Spotify mix was way better. I sometimes feel like the streaming tracks hurt my ears. The Tidal mix maybe sounded less harsh, while also being overall brighter, but sounded like a lot of the low frequencies had been sucked out.
Beyond the label “20xx digital remaster” there is no way to control or know what version of a mix you get. As someone mentioned, tracks coming from Greatest Hits packages are very problematic.
The other day I decided to do a quick comparison between Spotify and Tidal on a Deep Purple song. (Stormbringer).
I chose the version in each service that purported to be the “regular” version of the album. No “super-extended-remaster” labels, the same album cover images.
The the versions were astonishingly different sounding, almost to the point of being a remix.
I was trying to do a little reality check on the sound quality difference between Spotify highest quality and Tidal, and was totally moot.
FWIW, overall the Spotify mix was way better. I sometimes feel like the streaming tracks hurt my ears. The Tidal mix maybe sounded less harsh, while also being overall brighter, but sounded like a lot of the low frequencies had been sucked out.