Buyer Beware - Great Music, but there's a PROBLEM.......
Bill Anthony | North Texas United States | 11/17/2007
(2 out of 5 stars)
"As a long-time hard-core Bread fan, I quickly got a copy of this 3CD set, issued 2007 by Rhino in England. There are no pictures or liner notes or credits - nothing about remastering, which is where the problem lies.
(None of Bread's music has been remastered since the mid-90's when Rhino completed it's reissues and compilations of Bread. Even the 2006 2CD "Definitive Collection" issued in the U.S. used the same remasters that were done for "Retrospective" back in 1996.)
This set was re-mastered in some way; most of it plays much louder than previous Bread CD's, and many tracks on discs 1 and 2 sound excellent. However, a few sound dull, missing the highs in the sound for some reason. WARNING - when you get to disc 3 - the opening track (The Guitar Man) plays about 40% louder than any previous track - you might blow a speaker! (or eardrum) It's almost double the volume of most current CD's out there. When you lower the volume, you hear that the track has distortion and noise built in to it - like some teenager was hired to remaster this on his computer and went nuts overblowing the volume. Three other tracks on disc 3 are similarly bad (Sweet Surrender, Fancy Dancer, and a very dull sounding Lost Without Your Love).
Unbelievable. I can't believe the good folks at Rhino put their name on this, or let this slip through quality control in such a mess. Hopefully if there is a second production run they will correct the mastering. Hang on to your 90's-era Bread CD's from Rhino and WEA. They're still the best thing out there."
