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.
Stick with 1st pressings.
For best sound generally avoid remasters and remixes.
I don’t think any hard rules can be applied to this.
Steve Wilson’s 2011 remix of Jethro Tull - Aqualung is a vast improvement on the original mix. That album is a favourite of mine, but never sounded right to me. So I was very thankful for Mr Wilson’s work on it as it is a pure delight.
Another one is 2008 Shelby Lynne - Just A Little Lovin’. The original sounded pretty good. But then it was redone in 2014 by Analogue Productions and it COMPLETELY blows the original away. Just jaw dropping good. Makes the original sound dead and flat.