Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

If you like your Sade vocals buried by the instumentation, then this set is for you. The loudness compression that has been applied to this set has completely obliterated the dynamic range of the original recordings. To set your expectations of what you will hear: If you've been listening to Sade past three decades on any previous CD release, your ear has been trained to expect Sade's voice to be in the front of the soundstage, just like if she were singing on stage in front of a band in a small club. When you play any of the tracks from this bastardized set, you will immediately notice that her vocals are buried and competing with the instruments, like she had been physically moved from the front of the stage to behind the drum kit. The volume of every track is REALLY loud, much louder than the older CD's, and quickly tiring to listen to. If you're not familiar with the term "loudness compression": Go to Wikipedia and search "loudness wars". In that article, there is also a link to an excellent You Tube audio/video demonstration of this reprehensible practice, which is being propagated by bean-counter record company executives. The technical explanation of loudness compression is the application of an increasingly high ratio of compression to the dynamic range of a particular recording, and then increasing the gain of the recording, until the peaks have reached maximum. In layman's terms, what this means is there are no longer any quiet or loud passages in the recording, EVERYTHING is at the same volume. Basically, the iPod is responsible for the proliferation of this practice: When music is played back thru iPod earbuds in any environment where there is ambient noise present, by having the volume artificially jacked across the entire music spectrum, you can hear the content more clearly. However, when you listen to the same recording thru a home audio system, it literally sounds like the music is emanating from a megaphone. The "remastering" on this set is a classic example of this insidious process. If you own any of the 2000 remasters, hang on to them, AND DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS SET!