-2017- -flac 24-192- ((install)) — David Bowie - Low
This 2017 mastering was handled by a veteran team, likely under the supervision of Tony Visconti himself, who had overseen the previous remasters. The goal was clarity, dynamic range, and fidelity, a stark contrast to the "loudness war" practices that plagued many digital remasters in the 1990s and 2000s. Anecdotal evidence from online forums and customer reviews suggests this remaster restores low-end frequencies that were attenuated in original pressings to ensure playability on budget record players of the 1970s. The 2017 version allows the listener to hear the full, intended weight of Dennis Davis’s Eventide-altered drums and the deep synth pulses that underpin the album’s second side.
Purists often argue this version is more compressed (part of the "loudness wars"), sacrificing the airy, three-dimensional space found in older masters.
The opening instrumental serves as a baseline check for your audio equipment. The high-res encode perfectly separates the driving guitar riffs from the sweeping synth lines, ensuring neither buries the other.
: For convenience, Low (2017 Remaster) is also available as standard 16/44.1 FLAC on services like Tidal and Qobuz, and as lossy AAC and MP3 on Spotify and Apple Music. These versions are fine for casual listening but do not compare to the detail of the high-res edition. David Bowie - Low -2017- -FLAC 24-192-
If you're a fan of this specific era, you might also want to explore the 2017 remasters of "Heroes" and Lodger, which were released around the same time.
The 2017 Low 24/192 FLAC serves as a perfect case study for the modern era of audio consumption for three reasons:
The significance of Low cannot be overstated. After the excess of his Los Angeles years, Bowie moved to France and then West Berlin to clean up and rediscover his creative spark. Working alongside producer Tony Visconti and the visionary Brian Eno, Bowie moved away from traditional song structures. The result was a record of two distinct halves: the first featuring fragmented, cynical pop songs like Sound and Vision, and the second consisting of expansive, atmospheric instrumentals that laid the groundwork for modern ambient and electronic music. This 2017 mastering was handled by a veteran
: Visconti famously used the Eventide H910 Harmonizer to create the album’s signature "snare drum" sound that heavily influenced post-punk and synth-pop.
Unlike previous remasters, this version intentionally avoids de-noising to preserve the original tape hiss and sonic character heard during the 1977 sessions.
Features high-resolution digital transfers from original analogue master tapes, overseen by original producer Tony Visconti . The 2017 version allows the listener to hear
Berlin was a city divided by a physical and ideological wall, saturated with Cold War tension and a dark, brooding history. This claustrophobic atmosphere deeply resonated with Bowie’s internal state. Inspired by the driving rhythms of German "Krautrock" bands like Kraftwerk, Neu!, and Can, Bowie sought to build a new musical language. Low became the first installment of his legendary Berlin Trilogy, followed by Heroes and Lodger . A Tale of Two Sides
Bowie played almost all instruments here, focusing on the marimba, vibraphone, and xylophone. The 192kHz resolution excels at reproducing the percussive strike of mallets against wood and metal, giving the track a rich, organic acoustic space. 11. Subterraneans
– The ambient masterpiece of the album. The absolute silence afforded by the FLAC format allows the slow-building, multi-layered synthetic choirs to emerge from total darkness with breathtaking micro-dynamics.
It influenced post-punk, new wave, and electronic music for decades to come, moving from the funk-laden rock of Station to Station toward a cold, synthesized aesthetic. 2. The 2017 Remastering Process: A New Career in a New Town