Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Before you hit the 'no' button on "was this review helpful ?", let me say up front that my review is based entirely on the *sound quality* of this set. It does not reflect the actual music itself, which has been described in detail in many other reviews here. If you care about the sound of these songs, please be warned that the remastering job was horrendous. These songs have been remastered using a progam called No-Noise (or a similarly-like program) which basically acts as a Dolby system like we used to find on analog casettes. The life has been sucked out these recordings and they sound very compressed and quite "digital". If you want to hear this for yourself, please compare any song (try "In My Room" for example) from this set to the older 'Endles Summer' compilation disc. When the vocals enter on the older set, they sound rich, full, warm, etc. The same vocals on this set have zero impact - they are flat, cold, sterile, and lacking any sense of dynamics whatsoever. There is no comparison. The dynamics that are found on the older and frankly superior-sounding set are gone. There is no more warmth or excitement left in this newer set. It is a shame, since there is wonderful music here. The problem with noise reduction programs such as No-Noise is that when engineers try to remove the hiss from these older recordings, this hiss or "line noise" cannot effectively removed without affecting the entire signal. Some engineers DO take caution not to overdo this process, but on this recording it has been way overused - and consequently ruining this collection sonically. I post this because I work hard for my $$$ and when the recording industry charges this amount of money for a set of music that they want us to believe is SUPERIOR sounding due to the fact that it is newly remastered, it is a crime. This is a poor remastering job and the public ought to be aware of it. If sound quality does not interest you, then by all means go ahead and enjoy this set. But if you are a bit hesitant, please try to hear a friends copy to decide for yourself if 'Good Vibrations' is worth the $$$. I hope this helps. I will never sell my 'Endless Summer' disc as it is sonically superior to this set in every musical aspect.