: Likely refers to the specific CD pressing year from which this digital copy was made .
The 1988 re-release of Meddle marked a significant milestone in the album's history. With the advent of Compact Disc (CD) technology, the album was remastered to take advantage of the new format's superior sound quality. This re-release allowed a wider audience to experience the album's sonic grandeur, and it was during this period that audiophiles began to appreciate the importance of high-quality audio.
In the 1990s, the music ripping and encoding scene saw the emergence of two game-changing technologies: Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC). EAC, a software tool for creating perfect digital copies of CDs, ensured that audio rips were accurate and free from errors. FLAC, a lossless audio codec, enabled the storage and playback of high-quality audio files without any loss of data. Pink Floyd - Meddle -1971- 1988 -EAC - FLAC--oa...
Why two dates? is the release year of the album. 1988 is the mastering copyright (the specific digital transfer used).
"I am not listening to a remaster; I am listening to the raw, loud, dynamic 1988 CD pressing." : Likely refers to the specific CD pressing
: The audio file format. Unlike MP3s, FLAC is "lossless," meaning it preserves the original CD quality perfectly .
First, the content. Meddle is Pink Floyd’s transitional masterpiece. Sandwiched between the experimental soundtracks of Atom Heart Mother and the monolithic The Dark Side of the Moon , Meddle is beloved by hardcore fans for its side-long epic, "Echoes." The keyword establishes the musical foundation: analog tape, early 70s dynamics, and a wide stereo field. This album requires high fidelity. This re-release allowed a wider audience to experience
This is the wildcard. In P2P naming conventions, --oa... usually stands for or "Original Artwork included." It implies the user scanned the booklet, jewel case, and CD surface at 300dpi or higher. Alternatively, it might be a truncated tag for a specific release group or a tracker identifier (e.g., --oay for "Only Available Yesterday").