A certain Keith G, of uk.rec.audio "fame", writes :

I even wondered if the CD 'side' had been 'hit wiv a stick' to make the SACD
version sound better.

After adding my other responses, a really obvious thing occurred to me.
If these are 5.1 remixes, then the mastering engineer will have had to
go back to the original multitracks. If you're a real purist, this means
that they are essentially a different work of art in some respects to
the original locked down mastertapes. Two different engineers (or even
the same engineer, particularly if working years later) will always
produce a different master tape from the same multitrack session tape
each time.

(Worked for Minidiscs - they always came out a dB or
so 'fuller', I reckon... ;-)

The sound on MD will of course have been distorted slightly by the
compression used.

(How's that then? - Managed to ask a 'digital' question without using the
word '****e' once...!! :-)

Yes, but you used "mp3" which means the same thing :-)

Nowt wrong with an MP3/128 DAC'd through valves

I do not understand the point in distorting a sound and then putting it
through valves to warm it up. MP3s are certainly brilliant for making
music practical, but they distinctly subtract from the listening
experience IMHO at 128kbps.

(or even on the computer)

Yech, standard computer soundcards (even Creative Labs) sound awful and
are full of noise and distortion. Definitely surprised that you'd not
complain about this as loudly as you'd complain about CD.

--

"Jokes mentioning ducks were considered particularly funny." - cnn.com