There's a bit of a back story to that. 

Phil Ramone told me that he was horrified by the sound of the CDs of the
Paul Simon and Billy Joel recordings he had produced. Upon repeated
inquiries, he was told that when CBS was subjected to its hostile takeover
the tape library in New Jersey was one of the very first buildings put on
the auction block and its contents had quickly been transferred to a
document storage facility in Pennsylvania. When it came time to manufacture
the first Columbia CDs, the facility in Pennsylvania couldn't locate many of
the master tapes so a great many early Columbia CDs, including his, had been
mastered from copies made by foreign licensees from the eq. tape copies they
had been sent years before. 

Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
615.562.4346 http://www.bobolhsson.com http://audiomastery.com

-----Original Message-----
From Steven Smolian: 
Though I've yet to see a review that addresses it, this is clearly (!) a
huge improvement over all previous releases in any format.