I personally just don’t like how he does things. I frequently hear distortion in loud parts, muddy bass, and really hard panning that sounds uncomfortable in headphones. Doesn’t matter if it’s CD or vinyl or streaming.
I know people will immediately come for me for my setup, but please, I know this isn’t the case because nothing else I listen to has these kinds of issues. I am a professional musician and I have worked in recording studios. I have sensitive hearing and perfect pitch that runs in my family. I have a nice setup that I love and enjoy thoroughly with other recordings. I have actually invested quite a bit of time and money into trying to figure out if it is my setup or not, and I know it’s not. The flaws are more noticeable in headphones (I’ve tried about a half dozen different ones to confirm), and I wonder if he doesn’t check to make sure his masters work well on headphones before signing off on them.
I know that he is often revered and I almost never hear anything bad about him. And I’ll admit that not everything he does is bad. But in general I actually get kind of frustrated listening to his remasters and the way they sound. And I’m curious if anyone else has heard what I’ve heard.
What headphones are you listening on? I have Stax earspeakers at home and have none of this distortion or panning you mention. His mastering of The Cars - The Cars album is phenomenal. Maybe you should clean your records properly first. Or maybe your cartridge setup is wrong?Some more information on gear would be useful.
My main setup is Meze Elites with a McIntosh MHA200 amp or Topping A90D, and my turntable is a relatively new Rega P10 /w Apheta 3. My speakers are Elac Vela FS 407.
I’ve tested on various headphones and turntables / CD players / streaming devices, it’s not device specific. For headphones I’ve tried Meze Elites and Empyreans, Focal Clears, Audeze LCD3, Grado SR225, Beyerdynamic DT990, Sennheiser IE900, AirPods and AirPods Pro. For turntables I’ve tried the Rega P10, Marantz TT15, U-Turn Orbit, and Technics SL-1200G, all with maybe a dozen different cartridges between them. I clean my records with an electrostatic cleaner, but also sometimes test other cleaning methods or just playing the record new, so I know it’s not a cleaning method that’s accidentally destroying the records.
Vinyl, CD, Streaming, playing through my setup or on my iPhone or on other people’s setups, it doesn’t matter, it’s always the same issues. So I know it’s not the setup.
What do you mean by electrostatic cleaner. Are you wet cleaning them with a proper automatic cleaner or a using an ultrasonic cleaner? Do you clean your stylus properly and how? I use a Nessie Draabe Vinylcleaner pro to clean my records with fantastic results. The only way to make your stylus sound like new is using an ultrasonic cleaner like the flux sonic. Other methods don‘t even come close. Maybe you also have to much downforce on your cartridge. There‘s a sweet spot that‘s not always the same as the manufacturer recommends. You just have to test and find out for yourself. Maybe you should see a doctor and get some earwax removed. You never know :-)