The 2016 Vinyl Reissue of 'Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd' Uses a New Master, Not the 2001 CD Transfer, and Drops the Cross-Fades

That 2016 vinyl pressing of Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd isn’t just a flat transfer of the 2001 CD—it’s a completely different master. The original CD was a standalone project, mastered by Doug Sax with heavy compression and cross-fades between tracks to create a seamless radio-friendly flow. For the vinyl reissue, the engineers went back to the original analog tapes, cut a fresh lacquer, and actually re-sequenced the songs to work better on a record side.

The most noticeable change: the cross-fades are gone. On the CD, “Marooned” bled right into “The Great Gig in the Sky” and “Wish You Were Here” slid into “Comfortably Numb” without a pause. The vinyl version treats each track as a discrete cut, giving you a few seconds of silence between them. It makes the compilation feel less like a mix tape and more like a proper album—or maybe just a collection of songs you can cue up without that weird ambient tail getting chopped off.

Sonically, the vinyl master is quieter and less slammed than the CD, which was often criticized for its loudness war brickwalling. If you have the 2001 CD, the 2016 vinyl is worth picking up just for the breathing room and the lack of forced segues. It’s the same tracklist—16 songs, from “Astronomy Domine” to “High Hopes”—but presented the way a Pink Floyd compilation probably should have been from the start.