Bad Company

Bad Company | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 14, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Audio Fidelity
• ASIN: B000BJ62TI
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #143,787 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This gold disk is golden., April 7, 2006

By 

dpm60 "dpm60" (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bad Company (Audio CD)

Well, I received this a few days ago and went ahead and spun it last night. Once again Steve Hoffman has done a classic piece of music justice. I think it sounds wonderful. Sure, it doesn't have the sound quality of something recorded today, but that's not what I want from a favorite from 1974.

Anyway, out of curiosity I pulled out my copy of Bad Company that was remastered by George Marino and did a quick comparison with the Audio Fidelity disk. This comparison was conducted using a Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista SACD player plugged into a Creek OBH 11 Headphone amp powering a set of Sennheiser HD 650 headphones.

My thoughts?

When the regular CD was remastered the engineers boosted the bass frequencies a bit and added some compression/limiting. The result is a louder CD with sound that is punchier and warmer than what's on the mastertape. The reverb on Paul Rodger's voice is more forward as is some of the distortion inherent in the recording. This doesn't sound bad per say--just different.

The Audio Fidelity gold disk has somewhat greater dynamics, and I noticed that some of the cymbal crashes jumped out a bit--as they would in real life. This makes for a livelier presentation. There also seemed to be a bit more space between each of the musical instruments, but this was slight.

All-in-all, my preference is for the Steve Hoffman mastering. Your mileage may vary.

Now if only Steve could get his hands on Thick As A Brick (the whole thing this time) and some of the Zeppelin catalogue.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this CD while you can, February 24, 2006

By 

D. Snively (Valrico, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bad Company (Audio CD)

Buy this CD while you can. It will never sound this good again. Obviously, if you are checking out this item you already know the songs as the majority of this album has been played on classic rock radio for years.

You're curious if sounds good. This CD was done by the same people who released DCC discs during the 1990's. The sound is incredible, it sounds like you are in the same room with the band. Steve Hoffman did a great job with this CD. We can only hope they will release the entire Bad Company catalog.

Also, check how much the CDs they released by Jethro Tull (Aqualung, Original Masters) or Paul McCartney are going for on ebay and you will know this CD will be selling for over $50.00 due to the limited production. Buy it while you can!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better Fidelity, June 14, 2007

By 

Steve - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bad Company (Audio CD)

First of all, I love this album. If you have the original plain Jane version then this Audio Fidelity version will definitely sound better but it is different. It wasn't the night and day difference I thought it was going to be but it is truly a better experience. The first thing I noticed was that the drums had better imaging and presence and the bass lines were much more defined, less "muddy" than on the original release. This is a much more forward presentation of the album than before and as another reviewer mentioned it sounded like a live recording in that you can hear the band members talking before each song and the sound stage of the recording has more presence. Guitar strings have more weight, snare drum is more snappy, cymbals are more crisp with a little more decay. The only thing I noticed as a negative was that there was a lot of original tape hiss from the master tapes that you would think they could have removed. Once the songs start you can't really hear the hiss but it was noticeable. The hiss was not on all songs. A great comparison if you have the original version is track 8, Seagull. If you are buying this CD for the first time then definitely buy this mastering and especially if your audio system can resolve the extra detail. I almost forgot to mention that I was only listening to the "standard" non HDCD layer of this disc. A lot of the other positive reviews were commenting on the HDCD encoding of this disc. I love HDCD recordings. My Tom Petty Playback box set is in HDCD and wow what a difference it makes. The current system I was listening to this recording on was a Marantz SA8001 SACD/CD player, Marantz PM7001 Integrated Amp, Richard Gray Pro 400 Power Conditioner, Audio Quest Type 8 speaker cable, and Diamondback analog interconnects. If you are looking for a $1000 SACD/CD player then be sure to check out the Marantz. Very detailed and sweat sounding after is warms up. Hope this review helps you buy this album (or not).