The problem is that they are bright and edgy without enough of the lower sounds to balance it. So the snare drums go "splat" and Roger's voice sounds shrill and, worst of all, the basic bass drum is hardly audible. What you have is a very crisp, hard-edged sound that just doesn't sound like previous releases.

I'm NOT talking about vinyl, I'm talking about the remasters that came out in the mid-1990s. When I first listened to "Won't Get Fooled Again" on "Ultimate" I went running for the "Who's Next" CD to make sure I wasn't making this up. Immediately you hear a smoother high end and Daltrey's voice sounding natural and the drums sounding like Keith Moon.

Sorry to be a party-pooper, but I rushed back to see if I could retrieve the "Very Best of" that I'd sold back. Fortunately, I can buy it back. For those of you who haven't plunked down the money yet, if you care about the difference in sound I'm describing, be sure you can give "The Ultimate" a listen before you buy it!


Finally! The Ultimate Collection Of Everything!   June 13, 2002
 27 out of 31 found this review helpful

This is the collection all "Who" fans have been waiting for and it's just in time for their Summer Tour. The two CD's contain 35 tracks from 1964's, "I Can't Explain" classic to the show-stopping 1982 cut, "Eminence Front". All the best cuts are represented here including, "My Generation", "I Can See For Miles", "Magic Bus", four cuts from "Tommy", five cuts from the fantastic "Who's Next" and all the under-rated hits from the late seventies and early, early eighties. It's not just good, it is all remastered and even the older remastered cuts sound better.

To beat it all, a bonus CD of four tracks is included with "Substitute" (rare U.S. version), "I'm A Boy" (early version), "Happy Jack" (previously unreleased "acoustic" version) and a U.K. single version of "Magic Bus"! All remastered. It sounds like it was just recorded!

The booklet is great as well. Twenty seven pages of photos, history, album covers and trivia - it satisfies everything. Grab it and go see them this summer.


Good songs - bad mastering   November 6, 2003
 18 out of 23 found this review helpful

I am a big fan of The Who, I have all their albums (twice because of the remasters) and several Best-Ofs and rarities collections. So I love the music here. The track selection on this 2 CD set is quite good and promising. The only hits missing are The Relay and Athena.

But the sound is really bad here. This is not because they used the original mixes. Actually, they used the original mixes on "Who's Better Who's Best" and "Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy", two Best-Of CDs from the 1980s, and those sound great. (Get those two instead of this!)

The reasons for the harsh, bright, one-dimensional, distorted, lifeless sound is an unhealthy combination of noise reduction, compression and volume maximization. Noise reduction is supposed to take away the tape hiss, but it also affects the music, the vocals sound shrill, the drums tinny, the bass artificial, the lead guitar unreal, and the whole sound image flat and dull. The breath of life is sucked out of the music. Compression is used to make the low passages louder and to make it more "in-your-face" sounder, but if overused, tape defects are brought up to the front and the dynamic range of the recording is destroyed. Volume maximization will cause digital clipping on the loud passages and therefore also reduce the dynamic range.

In addition, Happy Jack and Call Me Lightning are presented in fake stereo here, probably the worst CD versions of these songs ever.