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I saw there is a significant lack of Who's Next threads on this forum

I may quote from another well-known forum:

Gardo wrote: I have a Polydor WN (813651-2) from the very early days of CD (copyright 1983), made in West Germany, bought in the States, and it clocks in at 43:25. It is (obviously) NOT Steve's remaster, though it does pass the one-channel BBE test described above. It sounds like it was mastered from a third or fourth generation tape: hissy and congested. Another tell-tale difference from Steve's: "Baba O' Riley" is faded in, taking about 3 seconds to reach full volume. On Steve's master, "Baba" is NOT faded in.

I assume this is incorrect? Well, my Canadian CD of Who's Next meets all the usual criteria for having Steve Hoffman''s master, but "Baba O'Riley" is faded in. Not sure if it takes 3 seconds to reach full volume, maybe only 1.5, but a fade-in.

Do all versions of the original mix have the fade-in?

No, Gardo's comment is correct. 3 seconds is probably about right. And no, the other versions of the original mix *don't* fade up at all - the German CD (and the box set, which lifts the WN tracks from that CD) is the only one I'm aware of that fades up.

FWIW, Behind Blue Eyes fades up on the German CD as well.

Could you give more info on your Canadian CD? Does BBE fade up as well? Does the hiss seem excessive (I realize it's hard to determine what's "excessive" without hearing a "non excessive" baseline, but...)?

It was my fault. I always thought the Hoffman mastered version of Baba has a minor fade-in, but when I compared it to the version on The Who Collection Volume 2 (the same as on the old Polydor CD), I noticed that it was almost non-existent. The Polydor mastering is very different, with a lot of hiss and other anomalies. Gardo is right.