2012 SHM Remastered Classics.. Why?

Kristopher

Active Member
While rebuilding my collection, I bought every single 2012 Japanese SHM disc. I noticed that the song times are not on the back and red discs, but they look crisp.

The lyrics in the booklets are clear as the original US pressings while the previous European reissues were kinda blurry for some. However the Ticket to ride cover looks very faded and light blue and has the lyrics but oh well.

When I got Offering/Ticket to ride on the mini LP SHM, I was blown away by the better quality, same for the live albums and Lovelines. If the 2016 SHM discs are the same mastering as the 2009 Mini LPs, why did the 2012 SHM discs use the same 2009 masters? I feel disappointed 😢. Side note every remastered classics with the yellow spine got reissued with clear booklets in 2012 SHM except Singles, Lovelines, and YOM. After the 2009 reissues.. why go back and use the inferior masters?
 
The 2016 discs would’ve been using the 1998 masters. The only difference would be the mastering engineer making the disc master. There may’ve been two different engineers doing it and the one in 2016 preferred less compression. You might want to see if they’ve added CD Text to the 2016 albums—-if you have a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray/4K UHD player capable of reading CD Text. I just found out last week that sometime after 1995 Sony did a stealth remaster of WHAM!’s 1984 “Make It Big” album to include CD text; that seems to be the only change aside from a small note about the album having been on CBS records before. Maybe that’s what occurred in 2016 with the Carpenters.

But really, for SHM they should be using the same glass masters that were made in 1998, since SHM is still a regular CD, just with a plastic that’s not suppose to scratch as easily. They’re like the Ultradisc II CD’s the MFSL released in the 1980’s/90’s.
 
Yes they use the 1998 Remastered masters.

It might be like “B’Wana” where even in the 80’s and 90’s the different CD releases were different in brightness and muddiness, even though they all originated from the same tape masters. But that difference was from the disc mastering engineer.

But considering that Universal should’ve used the same masters as the 2009, maybe they did a small change somewhere. The 1998 HDCD’s never had CD Text, so maybe they added that in 2016.
 
I do recall either on the 2012 or 2016 “Horizon” SHM-CD in Japanese it says it uses the ‘98 master. However, when I ripped it, there was slightly more peak limiting/loud spots than my ‘98 Remastered Classics CD. Imho, the SHM-CDs are generally best for the packaging. I haven’t been impressed by the sound tbh. As Tom said, it really depends on who engineered/mastered the audio. SHM-CD may have gone through the process of: source tape -> ‘98 master -> 2012 or 2016 tinkering -> SHM-CD, so the product is actually likely a couple of generations removed from the master tapes.
 
Ahhh ok. Oh well, I got all the albums with the original yellow spine and lyrics for each release that didn’t have the lyrics for all the songs before such as Close To You and Ticket To Ride. Now & Then now has all the lyrics.

None of the booklets are blurry like the European issues that say digitally remastered with different color backgrounds for the inlays.

These discs were pressed 14 years later, which means they’ll last longer due to discs that rot over time.

Lovelines is the only studio album from the remastered classics that didn’t get a reissue in 2012. Just CD-Rs. Same red n black discs only the times are missing on the discs.

Oh the Tan album is spelled correctly on the red and black disc. That’s a plus
 
Ahhh ok. Oh well, I got all the albums with the original yellow spine and lyrics for each release that didn’t have the lyrics for all the songs before such as Close To You and Ticket To Ride. Now & Then now has all the lyrics.

None of the booklets are blurry like the European issues that say digitally remastered with different color backgrounds for the inlays.

These discs were pressed 14 years later, which means they’ll last longer due to discs that rot over time.

Lovelines is the only studio album from the remastered classics that didn’t get a reissue in 2012. Just CD-Rs. Same red n black discs only the times are missing on the discs.

Oh the Tan album is spelled correctly on the red and black disc. That’s a plus
What do you mean by “just CD-R’s”? Are these not pressed discs? Or are they Manufacture-On-Demand? MOD discs are usually made on CD-R’s (and in some cases they just hook a tape deck up to a stand-alone CD Recorder and make the CD that way, no computer) which, as far as I know are not made with SHM.

But, if they are CD’rs, it could explain the sound difference if, to save costs, they just copied a 98 or 12 CD in a computer rather than getting the original tapes, and the 16 CD’s are nothing more than ripped CD copies!
 
As far as I know, Richard’s 1997 album isn’t on SHM either.

What do you mean by “just CD-R’s”? Are these not pressed discs? Or are they Manufacture-On-Demand? MOD discs are usually made on CD-R’s (and in some cases they just hook a tape deck up to a stand-alone CD Recorder and make the CD that way, no computer) which, as far as I know are not made with SHM.

But, if they are CD’rs, it could explain the sound difference if, to save costs, they just copied a 98 or 12 CD in a computer rather than getting the original tapes, and the 16 CD’s are nothing more than ripped CD copies!
The 2012 SHM Remastered classics were silver pressed SHM discs, yellow spine, red and black discs, and clear booklets. They did this for all of them except Singles and Lovelines.



What I meant by “just cd-r’s” was referencing Singles and Lovelines made on demand.
 
Can someone make a list of the best cds to get for each release? Getting my collection back too. So far only got the 80s and remastered close to you and target philharmonic cds (not sure which version?)
 
If anyone wants my opinion, feel free to DM me. I've posted my opinions—but they're just opinions :)
 
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