Now from my last post you will note my disappointment at the quality of reissued or remastered CD’s issued by my favourite bands. With the arrival of the first of the New Order ‘collectors editions’ I have found a new low in quality.
Having placed my bonus disc into my rather expensive Marantz CD player I immediately removed it and checked it for dust and dirt. I ripped the CD into my computer at a high bit rate and assumed the pops and crackles were due to a poor rip. I tried every CD player I had and the result was the same. To make matters worse, the original album sounds little different to the original CD I own. Before I wrapped the faulty CD up to return to sender, I decided to check the last bastion of specialist knowledge: the official website forum.
Here you will find many heated debates raging around the subject. I could not help but raise a smile as member after member threw their hat in the ring with lost tempers and childish antics abound. It reminded me of when my favourite group the Pet Shop Boys reissued their back catalogue. The rants we fans entered into were ferocious enough to be commented upon by Neil Tennant in a radio documentary, much to our equal delight and shame.
But at least the Pet Shop Boys reissues were consistent and sourced from the master recordings. The New Order collectors editions are poorly mastered, include poor vinyl transfers and even feature the same track on more than one of the bonus CD’s! They are a shambles from start to finish and I have since cancelled my orders for the remaining four albums.
I cannot condemn them highly enough. Avoid at any price.
