Vinyl reissues

Mine should be here today too. DOD is probably the one I'm most curious to listen to out of this entire reissue campaign.

Didn't order the BNW so I'm curious if there are any differences.
 
I have some conference calls and I probably have time to listen to one before I need to head to the concert ... probably AMOLAD ...
 
I didn't preorder mine, but I will probably go pick up Brave New World and A Matter of Life and Death sometime this week.
 
Listened to sides 1 and 2 of AMOLAD ... about to head out for the show (did the VIP thing for this show) ... it sounds really good, best I have heard this album
 
RiR, DoD and AMOLAD just arrived at the office. (Already had BNW from Record Store Day, so I'm good with that copy.) Can't wait to spin these this weekend.
 
Got BNW, DoD and AMoLaD today from Amazon. Listening to DoD on my porch. Great to finally have Paschendale on vinyl. Sounds awesome. And surprisingly Montsegur has grown on me
 
Rock In Rio sounds great. Not much to say about it. I've never listened to the CD (just the DVD) so I don't really have much to compare it to. I've said before that I don't really have any issues with the sound of the live albums/videos anyway. They included the rant before Blood Brothers but excluded the stuff in between Sanctuary and Run To the Hills, I'm assuming the CD is also like this?

Cool to have it on vinyl though. I'll be listening to this when I'm busy doing other things and don't have time to pay attention to the video. Still the best live Maiden release.
 
Dance Of Death sounds really good. First time listening to this album without getting severe ear fatigue. It still doesn't sound amazing but there are some noticeable improvements. It's missing that hard limiting "crunch" that plagues the CD. I also noticed that they seemed to do some work with the stereo spacing. There's a lot more space between the instruments and everything comes out clear. It sounds like the bands are in their positions on stage, as opposed to everything being bunched up together in a clutter like on the CD. Get this one.
 
That's kinda what I've been waiting for. I've been really curious if Paschendale would come across better. I'd buy a record player and the vinyl for that experience.
 
Oh yea, Paschendale is really good. The orchestral parts come out a lot more. Not at the same level as the orchestral mix, but it's a lot less cluttered.

The other songs that I felt improved were Journeyman and actually Montsegur. Face In the Sand was also a little less abrasive.
 
Finished up DoD and AMOLAD ... really happy with these .. the songs sound a bit more dynamic to me. Onto BNW and time permitting RiR today.

Overall, they have done a nice job with the ones released so far. Looking forward to Avalon on the next set
 
I think the vinyl version of Dance of Death is definitely an upgrade in sound over the original CD. It is still too compressed for my taste, but the clipping/peak limiting is gone, as Mosh notes. There is better separation between instruments, and it sounds a bit more natural.
Still, the best sounding version of this album remains the DVD-A, which is OOP but can be found (used) online at a reasonable price. The 5.1 mix, if you have a surround setup, is outstanding. For stereo, my go-to version is the 5.1-to-2.0 downmix that I ripped from the DVD-A (not the 2.0 track on the DVD-A, which is the same mastering as the CD, and sucks). The downmix sounds terrific and is much more dynamic than the CD, but it is VERY different. It is essentially a total remix. The vocals are much more clear and prominent, as are the guitar tracks, and the sound overall is a lot less muddy -- but, the bass is dialed down a bit as compared to the CD, which some might find to be a bummer.

In contrast, I don't think the AMOLAD LP is necessarily an upgrade over the CD. The album sounds good, but so does the CD. They sound very similar on headphones with the volume normalized. Didn't get around to spinning Rock in Rio this weekend. Will update when I do.

I would also say that, at least for U.S. releases, the quality of the physical pressing could have been better. The vinyl was pretty noisy, with a fair amount of pops and clicks, even after cleaning. Maybe the UK releases are better in that regard, as they used a different pressing plant, I believe. When the 80s albums were reissued on vinyl in 2014, I bought the UK pressings through Amazon.co.uk, and those sounded clean and quiet.

All in all, these are worthy reissues, but they could have been a lot better. They are basically just the 2015 digital remasters pressed to vinyl, and those remasters were pretty compressed (but not as badly as the original CD of DoD). By way of comparison and contrast, in terms of sound mastering and the pressing quality, these 2017 reissues don't sound nearly as good as the 2014 reissues of the first seven albums. The gold standard, in my view, is the recent (2015, I think) Van Halen vinyl reissues, which were also mastered by Chris Bellman--those sound superb. These Maiden releases are a far cry from those.
 
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Are those Van Halen reissues worth getting if you have the original records and CDs?
 
Mosh said:
Are those Van Halen reissues worth getting if you have the original records and CDs?
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If you're happy with the original 1980s CDs and your old LPs are in pretty good shape, then you're probably set. I don't have the original LPs, but I have the original CDs, which sound pretty good, though they are a little light on bass. I do prefer the 2015 LPs to the original CDs, and my rips of the LPs are what I keep on my iDevices. The 2015 LP reissues were mastered from the original source tapes, and are audiophile quality -- as are the 2015 remastered 24/192 HD downloads on HDTracks (but not the 24/96), from what I understand. So, if that matters to you, then go for it. I think the 2015 LPs only cost about $20 each. I got VH1 and Fair Warning first, then liked them so much I picked up Women and Children and Diver Down. Don't have VH2 or 1984, so can't speak to those.
 
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