Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[plate of chips]

The equation is simple. J-M is obsessed with technology, even if current "technology" is a degeneration. So the masters they make with Perreau, almost always will be too compressed/blunt ("mastering for loudness"), too heavily equalized ("warmness"), and too saturated ("spatialization").

They never do an ABX comparison (with loudness match), which would immediately show the sad truth (eg. Magnetic Fields Part 2 800 024-2 03 or 04 vs. 88843024702).

That's what happens from JMJ listening to way too much EDM.
JMJ's sound and music was richer when JMJ listened to was more influenced by Classical and Jazz.

[Finaero]

The few comments (and the overall rating) for the 40th anniversary vinyl seem to be on the positive side (IIRC the Versailles vinyl release was also similarly better compared to the digital ones)

https://www.discogs.com/release/3320997 ... re-Zoolook

[czt]

As I lately ABX compare a lot of pre-remaster CD-s (before 1997) with Perreau remasters, I myself beginning to turn to a Dadwater "fan", and beginning to understand why JMJ like his mastering.

[Dr_Jones]

Oh, that's an interesting take. I'm interested in what led to that conclusion.

[czt]

Maybe I'm getting used to the "fun, big" (compressed, equalized, spatialized) sound(?) But eg. I found the China 40th remaster clean and good stereo centered. Nevertheless Dadwater is careless and don't verify the final output, hence the annoying glitches (eg. Rendez-Vous 2, Chronologie 6, Oxygene 7, Zoolook 40th, etc.)

[Dr_Jones]

Interesting, I will try to listen with new ears. The China CD is less compressed than the previous Dadwater masters.

[czt]

The China CD is less compressed than the previous Dadwater masters.

Yes, eg. the compression of Souvenir of China was almost painful on his previous remaster.

[czt]

Off Topic

ABX comparing continued (foobar2000 ABX Comparator, EBU R128 -18 LUFS ReplayGain volume match): Magnetic Fields, Houston are very bad work. My conclusion confirmed again, Dadwater is not a "real" mastering engineer, since his main field is broadcast processing. His work not always a complete disaster, but rarely better than the pre-remaster CD-s.

Next, and probably final comparison in these sessions: Zoolook 823 763-2 01 vs. 40th...

[Finaero]

Interesting comment from the Discogs user Whiskeyomega:

I did some research on this and thd master on this is from the original French version for only the 2nd time on vinyl because of badly placed master files. They had to go looking for them after they used a bad master for the CD of this same 40th Anniversary. They did send the artwork properly for both but because that release for the vinyl was cancelled, delayed and redone this is missing the artwork due to miscommunication. But it's perfect audibly.