Well, it was subsequent to the Toby Mountain remasters because there was no 192/24 or 96/24 
recording system at that time. I suspect it was relatively recent, given that they were just 
released on HDTracks. Also, just to be clear, since I've done work for HDTracks improving their 
metadata -- some releases very clearly state the mastering engineer's name and the remastering 
timeframe. This information should be universal, but HDTracks gets metadata from the record 
companies. I had to do quite a bit of sleuthing to track down some of that data in some cases.

These new Elvis Costello HD releases may be from circa 2008-2012, when UMG reissued some of his 
albums.

My original point was, the Toby Mountain remasters were very good for the early 90's. Same case with 
the David Bowie albums, although I have to say this most recent (2015) remaster of the early Bowie 
albums (through "Pin-Ups") is better. The later CD-era Bowie remasters, by Abbey Road for Virgin, 
were not as good as Toby Mountain's, too dynamics-compressed and made LOUD for my taste. That bad 
idea has not been repeated with these new reissues, and there's more bass and percussion punch than 
any of the previous digital issues. To my ears, the US RCA LPs of Bowie's albums were all terrible, 
typical RCA 70s and 80s schlock. That's why the Toby Mountain Rykodisc CDs were so well received. It 
was the same with Elvis Costello because the US Columbia LP issues were usually made from dub tapes 
and sounded horrible compared to the original UK LPs. On a normal system, the Ryko CDs smoked them 
both, but I've heard the UK LPs on a house-priced vinyl playback rig and they sound really good, 
some of the best rock vinyl ever cut.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lou Judson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 11:47 AM
Subject: [ARSCLIST] HDTracks - Re: [ARSCLIST] What Your Music Format Says About You


I repeat what I was told by Mr Chesky in an email: the transfers they sell were done and provided to 
HDTracks by the record companies, not done by HDTracks. So who knows how or when they might have 
been done?
<L>
Lou Judson
Intuitive Audio
415-883-2689

On Nov 11, 2015, at 3:13 AM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Now the early catalog is out on HDTracks, not sure when or where the new transfers were made.