Audio Master + (CDs)

Pcook80

New Member
Hi, I tried a forum search but found nothing that might have already been discussed so ..
I was trying to understand if A&M CD's released in the Audio Master + (AM+) series were really different from non AM+ versions (or even if non AM+ versions were released) and what those differences were?

Only I have been buying a few second hand Supertramp CD's recently and have gone out of my way to track down only those that are AM+ , I have been doing this because I have a few CD's already that are AM+ which all sound very good so thought it worth tracking down more, but wonder if there really was any difference?
 
Hello, @Pcook80,

The AM+ logo began during the later 70s when the oil embargo caused shortages of petroleum product for vinyl records. As a result, many LPs were pressed using recycled vinyl that often had flecks of paper from old labels embedded in the pressing.

A&M wanted to do better, so they began a series of Audio Master + records, audiophile pressings that would meet exacting standards. These continued on and off into the 80s and when the compact disc came into being, the company decided that ALL CDs were, in fact, audiophile media, so essentially all A&M CDs from the mid-80s on used the AM+ logo.

I'm not sure exactly when they stopped using that logo - it's still on some represses after PolyGram took over, but I don't believe there are any differences in those with or without it. I suppose if could be used as an indication of a somewhat earlier pressing, but even there, you can have CDs with the CD XXXX catalog numbers, and also those with the later 75021 catalog numbers and they both use the AM+ logo.

Bottom line - no big deal.
 
Thank you Harry for the information.
At least I now know that a CD of that era are essentially the same with or without the AM+ logo. The ones I managed to track down with the logo were no more expensive so at least I haven't spend more money unnecessarily :)
 
Yep, it's like Harry says--just a marketing logo. I've seen a few on the Internet claiming the AM+ was some sort of special process (it wasn't) and that these ultra-rare (they're not) CDs sound better than any other pressing (they don't--most early CDs from all labels back then were made by grabbing the closest available master, even if it was an LP master, and slapping it onto a CD, since they wanted in on the CD feeding frenzy). I might even argue that a few of the early A&M CDs were easily among the worst I'd ever heard.

The logo is a neat historical curiosity and as Harry said, CDs were nearly considered an audiophile product when they first came out (expensive, hard to find, CD players costing $500 and up...not something the average person could own). It originated on a series of A&M/CTi half speed mastered LP reissues in the early 80s, and it's a shame they never extended that to other titles in the A&M catalog.
 
It's amazing how far CDs have fallen in the "audiophile" category. I have a few magazines from the era when they first came out.... they were all gushing over the perfection of the sound, the silence of the quiet parts, the crispness, the clarity, etc. Now they're drink coasters.

Seems like several of the other labels had some kind of fancy logo denoting how much better their CDs were than anything analog. Usually it was some variation on the word DIGITAL.
 
Some magazines were gushing, especially the mainstream press. Others heard how wretched those early CD players and discs sounded and haven't liked them since! I remember being enamored by the low background noise (mainly tape hiss, unless it was digital, in which it was dithering) and lack of wow and flutter, but on the other hand, it didn't take me long to realize CDs were not sounding as good as my vinyl rig at the time--they had a harshness and stridency that wasn't there, and the mastering was often poor (or rather, unsuitable for digital as again, many labels pulled LP production masters off the shelf and dumped them to digital to cash in on the brand new fad).

But digital playback has come a long way in 40 years. A combination of research and innovation has made a lot of changes for the better. I had to go beyond that and spend a few bucks to get a DAC that made CDs (or rather, CD-resolution digital, as I don't play from CDs any longer) sound good, but it's been worth it. CD resolution is still crude in the grand scheme of things (most new releases today are at 24 bits with resolutions anywhere from 44.1kHz up to 192kHz), but there are ways to extract the most information possible out of those bits and make it sound pretty darned good.
 
Some magazines were gushing, especially the mainstream press. Others heard how wretched those early CD players and discs sounded and haven't liked them since! I remember being enamored by the low background noise (mainly tape hiss, unless it was digital, in which it was dithering) and lack of wow and flutter, but on the other hand, it didn't take me long to realize CDs were not sounding as good as my vinyl rig at the time--they had a harshness and stridency that wasn't there, and the mastering was often poor (or rather, unsuitable for digital as again, many labels pulled LP production masters off the shelf and dumped them to digital to cash in on the brand new fad).

But digital playback has come a long way in 40 years. A combination of research and innovation has made a lot of changes for the better. I had to go beyond that and spend a few bucks to get a DAC that made CDs (or rather, CD-resolution digital, as I don't play from CDs any longer) sound good, but it's been worth it. CD resolution is still crude in the grand scheme of things (most new releases today are at 24 bits with resolutions anywhere from 44.1kHz up to 192kHz), but there are ways to extract the most information possible out of those bits and make it sound pretty darned good.
Yet even though CDs fell short of their original promise all my discs are still usable ( especially more so since I was able to rip them to my computer some time back) they are still usable as you never know what device may come along in the future to maybe further improve the overall sound of these old CDs time will tell though
 
Some 'interesting' follow up comments posted ....
Personally I don't think CD has fallen from grace that much and certainly to put them into the 'Drink Coaster' category is to be frank a little OTT. I would not say they were 'Still Crude' (which implies they always were crude).
As far as the Supertramp AM+ CD's I have been collecting goes, they sound really really nice especially given how long ago these were recorded. The A&M guys seemed to know how to make a great recording back then.
 
Yet even though CDs fell short of their original promise all my discs are still usable ( especially more so since I was able to rip them to my computer some time back) they are still usable as you never know what device may come along in the future to maybe further improve the overall sound of these old CDs time will tell though
I think what bothered some of us is that despite Sony's claim of "perfect sound forever," those early players sounded rough. At that point, they could produce a product that made sound, but didn't yet have the knowledge of how to get around the flaws of 16-bit digital and a low sampling rate. Mainly, they had to introduce a sharp filter prior to the Nyquist frequency (half the sampling rate, which is 22.05kHz), but beyond the theoretical 20kHz limit of what we could hear with our ears. Those early filters, being so steep, introduced a lot of ringing, which was one of the factors that made them sound so harsh and glaring back in the day. Later you would see such things as oversampling, so they could sample the data at a higher rate and use gentler filtering. Improvement in DAC chips also helped, as did improved clocks (which reduced jitter, another problem early CD players had).

"Forever?" Given the CD itself, it wasn't difficult to damage it and make it unplayable--if you put a nick or scratch in the label side at the right place, the player can't even read the table of contents to access the data on the disc. And some scratches or flaws in the music portion that are big enough can make the player mute or stop playing altogether. I even had a CD where the ink label started flaking off (the Led Zep 4-CD box set), and that also rendered the discs unusable. A small number of CDs experienced "CD rot" and wouldn't play any longer, and I've even had one prized CD crack in its case, from the hub outward, while stored on a shelf for several years. Thankfully the crack never reached the data area (but just barely!) Needless to say, it was one of the first I ripped 15 years or more years ago.

Yet if you think about it, a scratched record will always play. 😉 Maybe not perfectly, but you can always rely on it putting out music when you play it.
 
As far as the Supertramp AM+ CD's I have been collecting goes, they sound really really nice especially given how long ago these were recorded. The A&M guys seemed to know how to make a great recording back then.
Ironically it was Crime of the Century that clued me in that something wasn't right with A&M's CD version of it. If you ever get a chance to find one, treat yourself and give a listen to Mobile Fidelity's gold CD version of this album. I had this on the Mobile Fidelity vinyl, and the AM+ CD couldn't compare--the highs and lows were a bit rolled off, making me wonder if it was the LP production master they used (as they often rolled off the extremes so that the LPs they cut would play on even the lowest-cost record players of the day). And the dynamics were maybe a bit less. But when the Mobile Fidelity gold CD came along, there was the sound I remember. It has some punch and weight that you don't get with the A&M--it really highlights the dynamics of that recording. Just "School" alone makes you sit up and take notice--that's a clue as to how great the engineering on that record was!

I compared these to a more recent SHM remastering from Japan, and that one was a disgrace. It was a bit muffled to start with, but the real travesty was that they squashed the dynamics, something even the original AM+ CD has. It sounded like the album, but played over FM radio. All of that impact was gone. Just a poorly mastered example of a well-engineered album.

The gold CD of Breakfast in America actually doesn't sound that much different from the first A&M CD pressing--they are close enough that it's nearly a wash.
 
BTW, I wish I could post samples of these online, but the copyright police would take them down rather quickly...
 
There are great CDs and there are bad CDs. There's no doubt of that. There are also great records, and really bad records. It's the mastering that determines what's good and what's bad. Example. I have an MCA CD of Rupert Holmes PARTNERS IN CRIME that literally sounds like it was recorded from an AM radio station. It's awful. There is no bass at all, and the highs are muffled. I could play it for you over the phone with no loss of quality. (That's a bit of hyperbole, but not too far away from reality.) My LP of the album is full-range and sounds great. It made an outstanding needledrop that literally blows away the MCA CD.

I don't subscribe at all to the notion that CD is some failed format that needs to be banished to the dustbin of history. The format has given me so many hours of pleasure with its ability to eliminate most background noise, and its capability of delivering proper highs without sibilance. From listening to records for many years, I still hear sibilant "S" sounds on certain songs because they were always there and were burned into my brain. One example is "Tristeza (Goodbye Sadness)" on Brasil '66's LOOK AROUND. My old LP would splatter Sergio's "S's" unmercifully being the last track on the side. I was delighted to hear the eventual CD that corrected this flaw.

I love records too, but their quirks are difficult to overcome with modest equipment. I don't have the desire nor the funds to invest thousands of dollars in extra-special equipment, just so that I can go out and spend another fortune looking for ultra-clean records. And in the many cases when CDs don't exist, the vinyl record serves as a valuable second option. But without a doubt, when I opt for a vinyl record, I'll spend a good bit of time and effort to clean it up and write it out to CD-R.

I've not ever had a CD go bad. Not a regular CD - not a CD-R. Not even a CD-RW. They all play flawlessly, just like the day they were made. I think that for me, this qualifies as perfect sound forever. Given the choice, I'll opt for a CD any day, and if it's crap mastering, then I'll seek out a vinyl substitute that might be better.
 
Harry.. Completely agree with everything you say.

I'm sure records can sound wonderful but I remember in the mid 80's getting more fed up with the 'noise' from records on my admittedly very modest equipment, the final straw being lots of clicks and pops from a brand new LP of Dire Straits-Love over Gold. I went and brought a Phillips CD player and a copy of Love over Gold and never went back to records. My equipment is still modest but my enjoyment has always remained (I'm sure that wouldn't have been the case if I had stuck with records and a modest budget). Any CDs over the years that I haven't enjoyed are due to bad mastering or recording not through any failures or faults of the format - most of my CDs are very enjoyable while some can be really wonderful.

I dont think CD is close to being a dead, defunct or an out of date format and I hope that like records, it never is.
 
Oh and that original first Love over Gold CD from 35 years ago is still playing perfectly without any maintenance or special care.
 
Yep, it's like Harry says--just a marketing logo. I've seen a few on the Internet claiming the AM+ was some sort of special process (it wasn't) and that these ultra-rare (they're not) CDs sound better than any other pressing (they don't--most early CDs from all labels back then were made by grabbing the closest available master, even if it was an LP master, and slapping it onto a CD, since they wanted in on the CD feeding frenzy). I might even argue that a few of the early A&M CDs were easily among the worst I'd ever heard.

The logo is a neat historical curiosity and as Harry said, CDs were nearly considered an audiophile product when they first came out (expensive, hard to find, CD players costing $500 and up...not something the average person could own). It originated on a series of A&M/CTi half speed mastered LP reissues in the early 80s, and it's a shame they never extended that to other titles in the A&M catalog.
I guess you’ve never heard the Coca-Cola Celebrating The Holidays CD from the mid-2000’s. Forget the mastering, that CD sounds like it was made from someone’s recording of a school concert on a cheap boom box.
 
The reality is that CDs and physical formats in general have been dropping in sales for several years now, and I even know some used record stores near me who won't even buy back CDs since they don't sell, even used. Vinyl is having a resurgence but it's still is a drop in the bucket compared to streaming, which is where the mass market has headed. The writing's been on the wall for at least a decade but it has really snowballed in the past few years.

In fact, this year is the first time in decades that vinyl has outsold CDs in terms of revenue:

It’s been a long time coming, but now it’s officially official: vinyl sales have surpassed CD sales in the US. According to a new report from The Recording Industry Association of America, vinyl records accounted for $232.1 million of music sales in the first six months of 2020, whereas CDs have only brought in $129.9 million. This is the first time since 1986 — 34 years! — that vinyl has outsold CDs. It's not the revenue figures that caught my attention, but look at how much CD sales have declined since last year.​
Physical sales overall dropped by 23% in the first half of this year, likely because fewer people are leaving their homes, nevermind to visit music stores. However, CD sales declined by 48% whereas vinyl sales started to climb, particularly during the week of Record Store Day “Drops” when 802,000 records were sold. Unsurprisingly, digital sales continued to decrease by 22%, accounting for $351 million.​
Source: Vinyl sales surpass CD sales for the first time in 34 years

Overall, streaming is 85% of the music market these days. Unlike all of us here who collect and enjoy music (and buy it in any format available--vinyl, CD, download), the mass market prefers to rent music rather than own it, I guess. I do have a Qobuz account but unlike the mass market, it is not my sole source of music--it's a supplement, and the best music discovery tool I've ever had.
 
Reminds me of the vinyl is dead discussions back in the day, it turned out it nearly died and is now making a decent revival. Who knows how CD and Vinyl will fare in the longer term, it would be foolish to predict anything.
 
In any case Regardless of the kind of medium whether Physical or digital The Moral of the story as I see it "Whichever sounds best to you By all means Go for it and Savor it and Hold on to it" I followed that all along and still do So far so good
 
Part of the slowdown of CD sales is due to a few factors. First: the youth market has always been a prime consumer of music, and they are all off streaming and sharing and listening online, and they don't feel the need to own anything. Second: because of that, car-makers and computer-makers have removed optical drives entirely. Third: those of us who embraced and loved CDs have had thirty good years in which to build our collections to the point where we just don't want or need that much new product. Other than special box sets or the umpteenth remaster of PET SOUNDS or KIND OF BLUE, there's not that much that we need.

Having all of the CDs I do is like a great backup system. I've ripped what I want to digital files, mostly listen to them on the computer or car CD-Rs, and if anything happens to the computer - or someone invents a new holographic player that works with CDs - I'll have all I need. As I approach my 70s, it makes me happy to see all that I've accumulated.

And my records are going nowhere either. Many, many titles were never released on CD and those vinyl grooves hold many treasures.
 
Part of the slowdown of CD sales is due to a few factors. First: the youth market has always been a prime consumer of music, and they are all off streaming and sharing and listening online, and they don't feel the need to own anything. Second: because of that, car-makers and computer-makers have removed optical drives entirely. Third: those of us who embraced and loved CDs have had thirty good years in which to build our collections to the point where we just don't want or need that much new product. Other than special box sets or the umpteenth remaster of PET SOUNDS or KIND OF BLUE, there's not that much that we need.

Having all of the CDs I do is like a great backup system. I've ripped what I want to digital files, mostly listen to them on the computer or car CD-Rs, and if anything happens to the computer - or someone invents a new holographic player that works with CDs - I'll have all I need. As I approach my 70s, it makes me happy to see all that I've accumulated.

And my records are going nowhere either. Many, many titles were never released on CD and those vinyl grooves hold many treasures.
I totally agree Harry the same is very true here and I'm only in my 50s but I too am very Happy with all I accumulated as well there are many items that were almost impossible to find or obtain and everything is still very functional We are truly blessed beyond measure i still remember when we were expressing our personal " Musical Want Lists" here and elsewhere For years upon years
 
My days of playing optical discs has long passed (haven't used a player in several years--everything audio and video is ripped, even the SACDs to DSD files). Even in the car, I installed a player with a USB port. The first unit could only play MP3 and WMA, but my current Pioneer (soon to be retired) will play lossless FLAC all the way up to 24-bit/192kHz, either with the SD card or a USB thumb drive. (I use both, and carry about 650 GB of lossless files in the car.) But as I said earlier, my old purchases are safely stored away, and most new purchases are downloads. I don't care to "rent" music, but I don't mind using Qobuz to borrow it. Now if someone mentions an album here in the forum or anywhere else online, I can find it within seconds and start playing it to hear what it sounds like. (I need to post how I play back digital music--it makes more sense that way.)

I still have a few rarities I need to find on CD. Most are imports. That is one area where streaming services can't fully fill our needs--their licenses are such that they can only stream what they are approved for in each country. I'd never have found the Tamba Trio Tamba album over streaming since the CD was a Japan-only release. In addition, the audiophile labels that issue SACDs don't usually offer those for download either. So discs are still the way to go there.

And the rekkids...I have hundreds that were never reissued on CD. And I have many more where the LP mastering is so much better than any digital version that I can't see listening to it any other way. (They make great needle drops.) Some reissues are released only vinyl now also.

I still have other players in the house--cassette, a reel deck, 8-track, MiniDisc, DAT. But I've found lately I haven't even used them anymore. The reels just suck--the mass-duplicated tape stock was never that good to begin with, and the high duplication speeds rolled off all the highs. I wanted a way to play back anything I found, but thanks to Discogs for some titles and digital downloads for others, with a few scattered CDs here and there, I have all the bases covered. Personally I don't think we've ever lived in a better time to find music!
 
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