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Reissue roundup: the rolling stones remasters.

Article Excerpt
Unless you've been marooned on some south Pacific island for the past several months, you're probably already aware that ABKCO has just remastered all 22 of the Rolling Stones albums in its catalog. This was a strenuous undertaking for the company, and one the band's legions of followers around the world thought long overdue, with many discussing the press releases and participating in all forms of wishful thinking at online forums. From official accounts ABKCO had its people comb the planet in search of the absolute best available master tapes for this project, some of which were in the possession of band members. In a few cases, correct versions of certain songs replace an alternate take that appeared in the former editions too, To oversee this arduous task, ABKCO commissioned legendary sound engineer, Bob Ludwig, in the hopes that his expertise would bring a quality to the sound not available since the original U.K. vinyl pressings went out of print years ago. One press release reported that collecting the tapes took nearly a year, and that Ludwig listened to every one of them before he made his selections. Of special interest to this writer is the fact that in addition to the remasters in the latest high-resolution CD format possible, ABKCO decided to make them hybrid SACDs.

There are several reasons for this decision, of course. SACD and DVD-A have captured the attention of many audio enthusiasts, it's true, but in terms of the greatest benefit to ABKCO, the fact that there is no...