Sonic Grade: F
Sour and opaque, a major disappointment.
You can do worse but you would really have to work at it.
No, I take that back. That’s really not fair. The average RCA reissue with any label other than the original is likely to be every bit as bad as this Heavy Vinyl disaster.
Years ago we thought we thought we had found a good one on the orange label, but I doubt that I would see things the same way today.
If you would like to avoid the worst sounding pressings put out on the DCC label, steer clear of this group. They’re awful.
Other records mastered by Steve Hoffman that badly missed the mark in our judgment can be found here.
Our Most Recent Hot Stamper Pressing Review
- The band’s sophomore release is back on the site for only the second time in fourteen months, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from top to bottom
- Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
- If this price seems high, keep in mind that the top copy from our most recent shootout went for $1000, and the vinyl was not as quiet
- It’s the rare copy of this 60s Psych Classic that has this kind of freedom from grit and distortion – it’s also swimming in Tubey Magic, the glorious sound of vintage analog vinyl, found on the real thing and, let’s be honest, nowhere else
- An incredibly difficult album to find with audiophile sound, but this pressing has the goods and is guaranteed to beat – and by a very large margin – whatever you care to throw at it
- 5 stars: “Every song is a perfectly cut diamond … a groundbreaking piece of folk-rock-based psychedelia that hit — literally — like a shot heard round the world…”
- The DCC is a hopeless disaster – after fighting its way through Kevin Gray’s transistory, opaque, airless, low-resolution cutting system, whatever was good about the recording is completely gone
- If I were to compile a list of my favorite rock and pop albums from 1967, this album would definitely be on it
- As is sometimes the case, there is one and only one set of stampers that consistently wins our shootouts for this album. Click on this link to see other titles with one set of stamper numbers that always come out on top
Three Qualities Are Key
The best copies of Surrealistic Pillow have three things in common.
- Low Harmonic Distortion,
- Driving Rock and Roll Energy, and
- Plenty of Tubey Magical Richness.
It’s the exceedingly rare copy that has all three. The more of each of these qualities a given pressing has, the higher the sonic grades we typically will award it.
In order to find these three qualities, you had better be using the real master tape for starters. At this point, we only buy the Black Label Original RCA pressings, preferably in stereo but occasionally in mono when they’re clean enough to take a chance on, although we think the mono pressings are not competitive with the best of the stereo LPs.
Next, you need a pressing with actual extension up top, to keep the midrange from getting congested and harsh.
Richness, Tubey Magic, weight, and warmth — the other end of the spectrum — are every bit as important, if not more so.
Add freedom from dynamic compression — the exciting, lively sound that’s practically impossible to find on any modern reissue — and you should have yourself a musically involving, hopefully not-too-noisy LP to throw on the table and enjoy whenever you like, for years to come.
We know that the best pressings of this groundbreaking album, when played back on modern, high quality equipment, are every bit the thrill you remember — if you were around at the time like I was — from more than fifty years ago.
AMG 5 Star Rave Review
The second album by Jefferson Airplane, Surrealistic Pillow was a groundbreaking piece of folk-rock-based psychedelia, and it hit — literally — like a shot heard round the world; where the later efforts from bands like the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and especially, the Charlatans, were initially not too much more than cult successes, Surrealistic Pillow rode the pop charts for most of 1967, soaring into that rarefied Top Five region occupied by the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and so on, to which few American rock acts apart from the Byrds had been able to lay claim since 1964.
And decades later the album still comes off as strong as any of those artists’ best work. From the Top Ten singles “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love” to the sublime “Embryonic Journey,” the sensibilities are fierce, the material manages to be both melodic and complex (and it rocks, too), and the performances, sparked by new member Grace Slick on most of the lead vocals, are inspired…
Below you will find our reviews of the more than 200 Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played over the years. Feel free to pick your poison.
A Confession
Even as recently as the early 2000s, we were still impressed with many of the better Heavy Vinyl pressings. If we’d never made the progress we’ve worked so hard to make over the course of the last twenty or more years, perhaps we would find more merit in the Heavy Vinyl reissues so many audiophiles seem impressed by.
We’ll never know of course; that’s a bell that can be unrung. We did the work, we can’t undo it, and the system that resulted from it is merciless in revealing the truth — that these newer pressings are second-rate at best and much more often than not third-rate and even worse.
Some audiophile records sound so bad, I was pissed off enough to create a special list for them.
Setting higher standards — no, being able to set higher standards — in our minds is a clear mark of progress. Judging by the hundreds of letters we’ve received, especially the ones comparing our records to their Heavy Vinyl and Half-Speed mastered counterparts, we know that our customers see things the same way.