RPG / SaReGaMa Recording Quality

Hello all,

Need to get your opinions on this matter.

Recordings which used to be under the HMV label are all under the RPG SaReGaMa label now.

This is pertaining to the older Hindi film music. I am talking 80s and before, mainly 50s,60s and 70s stuff.

There are huge problems with recording / mastering quality of these CDs.

Some examples :
Since my CDs were lost / damaged, I decided to again purchase some of the music I earlier had.
1. Love Story / Ek Duje Ke Liye
2. Baaton Baaton Mein /Choti Se Baat @ 2 other movies (4 movie combo)
3. Muqaddar Ka Sikandar / Namak Halal

The first 2 CDs were horrible. The volume and treble kept fluctuating wildly and continuously through all the songs.

I finally had to take it back to Planet M and demand a return. They listened to it and finally offered to replace it with something else as I buy quite a bit from them.

The 3'rd CD also has a similar problem in some songs. More drastically, they have chosen to delete some parts of the song. For e.g. the classical vocal run in the song "Pag Ghungroo Bandh Meera Nachi Thi" has just been edited out. What the hell ??

Additionally,
we purchased some Mohd. Rafi compilations :
1. Legends Virtuoso collection - 5 CD pack
2. Solid Gold - 2 CD pack
Immortality - 6 CD pack

The first Legends collection is absolutely pathetic. The levels are all over the place. It is very obvious that some kind of equalisation / "correction" has been attempted and it has gone horribly wrong. volume levels are all wrong and there is very audible distortion.

The other two were okay. However songs that are common in all the three compilations all sound different. The recording levels, and bass/trebele/vocals all sound tampered with. What gives ?

Thirdly,
I also avail of the SaReGaMa HamaraCD web-based facility to make your own compilation. You select the songs you want, and pay online by card and the CD gets delivered to your home. Neat.

But again the same problem. I made my compilation of some 50s and 60s oldies, Talat Mahmood, Manna Dey, Hemant Kumar etc. Same problem with recording quality. It just does not sound like the original soundtrack.

Can anyone please tell me, whats the incentive here for paying good money and buying original CDs, if you do not get what is advertised ?

I discussed the same with some of my friends and we listened to the stuff. All of us felt that these have been ripped and re-recorded and quite poorly at that.

Now, my question here is, is there something we can do about it. Given that we are purchasing these CDs that these are original soundtrack recodings, but given that they are in fact, not, is there something at all that can be done ??

Very keen to hear your opinions.