Do you really want all that old stereo stuff to be hard-panned like it was originally released?  How about treble-panned fake stereo?

But, in conclusion (because the discussion gets a little too complicated for me, adding to the fact that I'm not fluent in english): Does a remaster sound more modern to the point where you hear it clearly in a normal music equipment? It's just that fact that would annoy me, because I don't need to be updated or something like this.

E.g. as I wrote UMG Rolling Stones 2009 remasters clearly sound much worse than Bob Ludwig's for Virgin/EMi at 1994.

Here's what the remaster of Focus/Moving waves/Hocus Pocus looks like compared to an early CD reissue.





One of them sounds great - tape and compressor saturated loveliness - "warm sounding" Prog Rock record from 1972.
The other sounds like a "modern" record/remaster; saturation buried under something nastier altogether.

Guess which is which...    

The endless confusion arises, I think, from ignorance of what 'mastering' meant historically.  By the time the workflow:  multitrack tape recording --> mix down to two track 'original master tape(s)' (OMTs)-->release on stereo vinyl (LP or 45)  became routine, 'mastering' was the  step after the mixdown, and was *necessary* because tape is a higher fidelity medium than vinyl.   I.e., in order to 'fit' the signal on tape onto vinyl that could be played on typical home systems the signal on tape had to be compromised  (e.g. bass filtered and summed to mono and ; treble rolled off near the end of a 'side') .  That (and more mundane things like adjusting overall levels, track-to-track levels, fades, spacing, and sequencing the tracks)  was what 'mastering' was.  It was really 'mastering for a lower fidelity distribution medium'.  


99% of the time* the two-track mixdown master tape *was* the artist's intent.  Everything on vinyl was an attempt to get close to *that*.  The EQ moves etc that were used during vinyl mastering and cutting were typically captured in real time on another tape, the 'production master'.  This was used for repressings, so that the mastering and cutting engineers didn't have to re-create their art every time.

Since the advent of CD, or *at least* since the advent of hardware that might be better equipped to play back full-range CD signal, 'mastering' the EQ and dynamics of an analog OMT in the vinyl sense really has not been *necessary*. CD (Redbook PCM) is a *higher* fidelity medium than tape, and can handle anything in the audible band that magnetic tape can throw at it.  (Sequencing, spacing, fades etc still are mastering functions).  But mastering , in the sense of  'sculpting' what's on the OMT, was/is still done, as we all know.  Mastering for CD (or other digital medium) is done to make the tracks 'hang together'. To make them 'pop' on radio. To make them sound 'professional'.  To 'fix' something that was deemed wrong with the OMTs.  TO give them that 'final touch of magic'.  Whatever. Ask a mastering engineer today to justify his job, go to their websites and read their descriptions of what services they offer, the answers can be interesting.



Industry lore has it that much of the first wave of early-mid 1980s CD issues came from vinyl production master tapes, or tapes of even higher generation, with all the generational tape noise, and EQ moves etc, that that implies.  Hence we had a wave of 'remasters'  of the same albums in the late 80s/early 90s  trumpeting as being sourced from 'original master tapes' -- mixdown masters.   Though that didn;t necessarily mean 'flat transfer with no changes in EQ etc'  Furthermore, and very unfortunately, the 'remaster' era was soon overlapped  by the 'loudness wars' era, which arguably negated or rendered moot the sonic benefit  of OMT sourcing.  And that in turn led to yet another wave of remastering, this time in 'hi rez',  to get 'better sound , though once again there was NO GUARANTEE that the dynamics and EQ weren't altered compared to the OMT source.  This bullsh*t went on for years and now we have possibly a final iteration where places like HDtracks are having their feet held to the fire by audiophiles to deliver 'original master tape' sound as unadorned as possible.   And (for no good technical reason) in 'high res'.   However, HDtracks et al only get what the (notoriously lax) record companies deign to give them, so the wheel keeps turning.....


*A figure I am pulling out of my ass, but seriously, the exceptions I'm aware of are when some element or production move (e.g. an instrumental part fly-in, a fade-in or fadeout) was added at the cutting/production master stage...in that case the closest source to the artists's 'approved' version would be the production master tape, or the original master with those later moves re-created.


 

One of the things STILL happening is that many recordings (certainly not all) are still left with DolbyA encoding.  That helps to explain for excessive compressed sound, a sense of distortion and HF emphasis.  I have decoded more than just a few CDs and digital distributions from DolbyA, and gotten audiophile results.

some albums labeled as "FDR" (that's full dynamic range), when they were previously released only with a lot of compression:
Carcass — Swansong
At the Gates — Slaughter of the Soul
(for all of the above I ignored releases on non-digital mediums, of course)