Purchasing CD's, does it matter where its sourced?

[Eric_C]

Last year when I first got my setup I purchased a bunch of CD's from Amazon, mostly from their used vendors.

Some were used, others were new in the packaging and never opened.

There was a mixed bag but I found a lot of them were from South America. Meaning they were packaged for the South American market.

Are these the same CD's they sell here, meaning the mastering, quality, etc. The arrangement on some of the CD's were a little different and no I do not believe these were pirate versions. Someone would have to have gone through a lot of trouble to duplicate these including the inserts and all the rest. They were all older CD's from the late 80's and early 90's.

Just a quick list:

Metallica - Master of Puppets
Metallica - And Justice for All...
Dead Can Dance - Spirit Chaser
Dead Can Dance - Into the Labyrinth
Tara Maclean - Passenger
Tara Maclean - Silence
Toad The Wet Sprocket - Fear

Just wondering if these CD's were of the same quality and original mastering as the CD's pressed for the US market.

[PewterTA]

I would think they should be the same master quality, after all they all have to come from one source. The problem is that somewhere down the line someone could have compressed the CD or done who knows what to it by the time the CD was "re-pressed" and in your hands. Which allows for the quality to not be the same...

Whether that truly happens, who knows... That's why I only buy from trusted places, one never truly knows what they are getting from some of these places.

I've seen copied CDs that except for the doing a DiscID on the CD, one could never know it was a copy...it looked identical to the one I had (retail original copy). I was truly impressed how good the "detail" was on the packaging, the actual pressed disc, and everything. Had I not had a hunch this was a rip off -- I would never have guessed. Only way to tell is it was pressed in Korea or somewhere strange where mine wasn't.