All The Killers albums
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Layla - the sound quality has me on my knees.
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The US press of OutsideInside (a favourite of mine too) has more oomph iirc - been awhile since comparing to my ancient UK. None too well recorded, agreed, but better than Vincebus Eruptum - which arguably benefits from the raw recording.
Dammit…just remembered I dropped and broke my US copy a few months ago. So no comparison till I find another 
There’s a Pantera album which sounds better on the office system than lounge. Can’t remember which one.
Very rare to find this.
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Maybe Lanois was at the mixing desk when I went to the Joshua Tree concert.
I was so bored I left half way through.
I got a hi-res version of Qobuz some years ago, and it sounded awful - made me doubt download quality/provenance. I then tried a vinyl copy I’d not played in decades and it was no different. 
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Todd Rundgren needs a place in audio hell. He applies compression to the max (admittedly sometimes to cram music on a single LP), equalises into the top, and as XTC found when they received the master tapes for English Settlement and corrected it, his mixing desk was out of phase.
Admittedly his own music was great and his choice of other bands was very good.
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Not mad about it then? I was a very close witness to many aspects of the production of this album, it was actually engineered by Flood assisted by Pat McCarthy and not Lanois but was produced by Lanois and Eno and both producers were, to the best of my knowledge, not involved in the mastering. It was recorded in a well known Dublin Studio and also in the band’s various houses. Some of the singles from memory were remixed by Steve Lilliwhite. I can’t recall where the mastering took place but probably the US. FWIW it doesn’t sound too bad but maybe I’m biased.
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Good music knowledge - sadly lacking these days.
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Good thread - just listened to Joshua Tree…. Where are the drums???
I’m the 70s I worked in Laskys and we received a dbx machine, which you used to compress the sound and to uncompressed it on playback. It also claimed that it would uncompress music that was originally compressed in the studio. Unlike other companders it claimed wouldn’t have a breathing effect. This much was true.
Aha! We all said (in retrospect only me) let’s get Initiation and see if this box can uncompress that mess (it’s a very good album).
I gathered most of my staff that weren’t being harassed by pesky customers, and off we went. First the original ( No idea what kit we used), then the dbx set to uncompressed. No difference. Boo!
We sold a grand total of none. It was very expensive.
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Pressure Machine seems not awfully done. But generally with you.
Nick, I have written on these pages before about the actual sound of Karajan DGG records from around the 1980s. Karajan had become so important in the DGG hierarchy that he was allowed to get involved in the engineering of his own records. There are theories that Karajan had (undiagnosed) hearing loss, because his tampering contributed to ruining the sounds of his recordings.
Walter Legge at EMI or John Culshaw or Christopher Raeburn at Decca would never have tolerated such shenanigans - as is apparent from, for example, the EMI 'Tristan Und Isolde; or the Decca ‘La Bohème’ and ‘Madama Butterfly’, which are all superbly recorded.
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That’s quite interesting. I always put some of the brasher 80’s stuff I’ve heard down to the advent of digital and DDD CD mastering!
I’m pleased so many think the same about The Joshua Tree, thought it was my ears!
Appetite For Destruction another one for me.
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Hollow,
Many thanks for your insights and it must have been quite an experience to have seen this brilliant album take shape. It seems I’m not alone though in feeling that the production of this album really destroyed its impact and leaves much to be desired. Perhaps the brilliance of the album (it was I think U2’s finest hour), made the poor resulting sound quality even more disappointing and stark by contrast.
(Oh and I second Appetite for Destruction too!)
JonathanG
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MeatLoaf, when interviewed over the years, acknowledged the album was horribly compressed and a missed opportunity in not allowing the dynamics of the music to come through.
Above said, the albums which followed sound much the same in terms of replay quality (well, to my ears anyway!).
To reverse things slightly I think there are a lot of albums that are popular because they have remarkable hi fi sq but are actually very bland or boring musically . Happened quite a lot in the 70s when serious Hi-Fi was taking off. Come and listen to my new music system!
I am guilty of purchasing such albums.
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Very true.
I can certainly remember buying several highly recommended albums in the 80s/90s because the hi-fi mags loved them - good sound undoubtedly but if the music isn’t your cup of tea…
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I knew a number of people who didn’t like Floyd but bought DSOTM to demonstrate stereo effect of tracks like Money and Time. That’s still a brilliant album btw but you get my point.
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