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Yes, the first re-compressed CD segment sounds so much worse than the iTunes version that I'm not sure what to think. Two possibilities: (1) The album was remastered for a subsequent CD reissue. (2) I'm hearing the benefits of the "Apple Digital Masters"¹ process.

¹ https://www.apple.com/apple-music/apple-digital-masters/

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I occasionally play a used CD of Bob Marley's Legend album in the car and the clarity of the music is so much greater than any of the current songs playing on the radio. Not sure if it's a measure of the quality of the artist, the producer, or the technology.

The degree to which radio stations process the life out of music is unbelievable. https://web.archive.org/web/20210618142217/http://www.master...

Apple Digital Masters is the real deal. The quality difference is noticeable even on modern pop songs, especially when compared to Spotify.

I dunno. I just listened to it on Spotify and it sounded much better than either of the versions in the article. Maybe it's because it was in the context of the whole song.

The article compared vynil vs CD, from the author’s own extraction which is bound to be worse than the originals used by Apple/Spotify regardless of compression.

It also depends on the song, this one is quite dirty already from distortion and digital samples.

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