Someone in Ireland reported that they had bought the remasters in a shop over there (they got the stock in early).

Sad to report he thought they were a huge dissapointment (although this was clearly not entirely unexpected!). This was someone who knows his onions in audio terms. Reported that the main albums had their EQ fiddled with to sound warm (but sounded like a blanket had been thrown over the speakers). Also tracks on the main album had variable rates of compression. I know -1 has posted some waveforms of selected tracks but this might not give the full picture of how crummy this CDs are reported to sound.

This guy was also dissapointed in the artwork - no tracing paper on Low-Life and reduced number of images on Technique etc Also the tracklisting for the Bonus discs is only on the disc not on the artwork (so once the disc is in the machine you have to guess what track comes next!)

Looks like London have excelled themselves this time.

No one is ever happy...what a surprise!

They will be far far better than the cheap Centredate/London issues we've been given for the last decade.

my pre orders have not yet been posted

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Tiger Woods. Shit place for a picnic

I bought Low-Life, Brotherhood & Technique this morning.

I've only ripped Brotherhood to my iPod so far and while the main album does sound - on the whole - much better than the Factory CD rip I've already spotted big concerns regarding the bonus disc:

TBTHOG's intro is fucked, whoever mastered it should hang their head... there are audible gloops and skips in the opening hihat/keyboard sequence; would love to know how that passed quality control? The next track Evil Dust sounds like it was recorded directly from vinyl, I can hear the crackles or some sort of skip at the start and I'm sure it wasn't like that on the True Faith CDv. I use EAC on secure mode to rip music so it's not my work DVD drive playing up, I know that much.

Aside from the audio problems True Dub is the Tall Paul effort and not the Pettibone one while Beach Buggy is a mislabelled BM '88 Dub. They've even managed to carry across tracklisting mistakes from decades old Factory releases (BM'88 CDv); gotta love that attention to detail.

I'm hoping Low-life and Technique will rescue things a bit... I'll pick up PC&L before I go home. I didn't see any Movements on the shelf... it is HMV so you would expect them to have all of these new ones.

Ally wrote:

I didn't see any Movements on the shelf...

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Na na na naa naa

hibster wrote:

my pre orders have not yet been posted

HMV have posted ONE of mine...

"Sunrise" on "low life" has a huge volume dropout on the right channel at 2:30... unbelievable!!!!

Ally wrote:

TBTHOG's intro is fucked, whoever mastered it should hang their head... there are audible gloops and skips in the opening hihat/keyboard sequence; would love to know how that passed quality control? The next track Evil Dust sounds like it was recorded directly from vinyl, I can hear the crackles or some sort of skip at the start and I'm sure it wasn't like that on the True Faith CDv. I use EAC on secure mode to rip music so it's not my work DVD drive playing up, I know that much.

Bugger, that's the same as on the promo CDR's (I received Brotherhood - the only one I bought - on Saturday) - I was hoping that would have got rectified before the official releases....

TBTHOG is very noticeable - a bit towards the beginning and a bit towards the end, and yup, Evil Dust (and no, it's not a b-side, Rhino... ), does sound a bit crap...

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Absolutely!

just noticed 'Mesh' (labelled C&W) has odd glitches throughout on the promo disc. Guess that will be present on the finished one when it finally comes out. I suspect it's delayed due to its 'Temptation' issues.

In France, it seems that the remasters will not be available until next week.

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Il ne faut pas tuer la Terre, on ne saurait pas ou l'enterrer. Michel GRANGER

I pre-ordered mine from the UK and actually received them Friday. Technique, I am afraid, is a total wash as well. It's my favorite album of all time, and I am not even a huge New Order fan. The only songs that benefit are the "dance" oriented songs and even then it just sounds so compressed. Songs like All The Way seem louder but so much seems to have been lost in the mastering. They just weren't worth the conversion rate, that's for sure.

The bonus disc - I too can hear that it sounds like they ripped the songs from Vinyl. I can hear pops and a small "hiss", especially during Run 2.

This is just so sad as all my other favorite groups have had excellent remasters.

I received PCL too but haven't listened to it yet, and am actually afraid to as I don't want the same kind of disappointment.

Seriously pondering whether or not to drop these back at HMV tomorrow for a refund.

Passing off vinyl rips as remastered rare material is out of er, order.

The obvious audio glitches I've found so far just rub salt in the wound.

Mind you, my hopes were never high for these so I'll probably just hang onto them as yet another addition to the ol' collection.

You mean they've half arsed the re mastering?

What a massive surprise that is!

They cant even be bothered doing re issues correctly now. Speaks volumes.

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PETER COATES'S BELATED REDEMPTION wrote:

Liam is right: this board really is fucking wank these days.

Is the remastering really that bad? i knew they were going to botch the tracklist but i thought they would at least get the remastering right. doesn't anyone properly listen to them before they get pressed?! fucking ridiculous!

Ridiculous, but not in the least bit surprising.

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PETER COATES'S BELATED REDEMPTION wrote:

Liam is right: this board really is fucking wank these days.

what price are they in the shops ???

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"There's no sense in telling me, the wisdom of the fool won't set you free "

what price are they in the shops ???

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"There's no sense in telling me, the wisdom of the fool won't set you free "

To have it delivered to the States I paid USD 28.06 for each CD.

I just listened to Round and Round (Extended Mix as it has it listed) and almost had a stroke. I counted 4 pops/irregular static within the first 20 seconds. I am listening through BOSE Noise Canceling headphones right now. It's definitely a vinyl rip and it is atrocious.

Listen to the 15 second mark right before 16 seconds and tell me how any reputable company would allow that kind of glaring mistake. THEN...right before the 28 second mark and then at then right before 38 second mark.. Complete crap.

Colin Simpson wrote:

what price are they in the shops ???

Apparently 14 quid from HMV...

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Absolutely!

I'm really looking forward to these now...

So, a lot of these mixes (on the bonus discs) sound as though somebody just pressed play on a record player (with a scratchy record), and recorded the result...

Marvellous... I could have done the same job at home...

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Absolutely!

They only had Low Life in our HMV. The others were missing in action.

These sound like they've been mastered from the Centredate cd's and not the er masters themselves. Might wait until the price drops for these.

Going off on a tangent I got the Still remaster a couple of weeks back and the accompanying booklet has half of Unknown Pleasures notes in it and half of I think what should have been Still's notes.

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In trouble and shame

It sounds like an MP3 vinyl rip with a lot of compression. Trust me, I hate to report this.

£79 USB turntable anyone?

Colin Simpson wrote:

what price are they in the shops ???

I've already had the whole lot offered to me at £8 each.

I'm waiting 4 weeks until they're in the local HMV bargain bin at £2.99 a go. Then I can just walk past them, laugh and still not buy them.