Part One can be found here.
I have a Super Saver budget reissue domestic pressing of LA Woman. Want to guess what it sounds like? It sounds exactly like this German version. When I described the sound of the German version to Steve, he immediately recognized what I was talking about. There is a tape — they call it “the master tape” — of LA Woman that has exactly the bad qualities I have described above. I’m guessing that my Super Saver copy is a flat transfer of that bad tape. (When budget reissues are mastered, it’s often the case that the transfer is flat or something very close to it, because little time and expense is justified for a cheap reissue.)
Now if the Super Saver is a flat transfer and sounds just like this German pressing, I think we can safely infer that this new 180 gram remastered record is a flat transfer. It’s a flat transfer of a bad tape. Nothing more, nothing less.
And nothing new. There are tons of badly remastered records out there. I’m sure you’ve bought some. I could spend days listing them in the Records We Don’t Sell section. Most of the records found on my competitor’s Web sites could be cut and pasted into that section if I wanted to take the time to do it.
But how is it that such a bad record seems to have met with such favor among audiophiles? I’m frankly at a loss to understand it. I’m sure some of you reading this commentary own the record. Some of you no doubt LIKE the record. So let me think of a few reasons why you might not have noticed how bad sounding a record it is.
Maybe you don’t know how well recorded The Doors are
If you don’t own the DCC pressings, or the MOFI of the first album, how would you ever know? The domestic copies, as well as the German, British and Japanese pressings I’ve heard, are for the most part pathetic. So there’s one possibility: You’ve lowered your standards for what you take to be a mediocre ’60s rock recording.
Maybe you were influenced by the reviews you read
You heard what you wanted to hear, or what you thought you should hear, not what was really on the record. This is a common problem. Many people own awful sounding pressings that they read about on the TAS list and have somehow convinced themselves that they sound good, when they obviously do not. A list of the bad sounding records on the TAS list would be a very long list indeed. When it comes to Golden Age recordings, the right stampers are EVERYTHING, and most people are simply not going to be in a position to buy a half dozen copies of Scheherazade at hundreds of dollars each and shoot them out to find the really hot sounding copy. So if your LSC 2446 doesn’t thrill you the way Harry’s thrills him, it’s probably a different stamper. Or a badly pressed copy with good stampers. (Those sound just as bad.)
The third possibility is that your stereo is compensating in some way for the shortcomings of this L.A. Woman pressing
How that could be I have no idea. Most audiophile systems lack bass. This record lacks bass. So it should be a double whammy. Most systems lack extreme highs. This album lacks extreme highs. The one area I can see where a modest system may help this record is in the midrange. Many audiophile systems have notoriously dark, muffled midranges. Vandersteen speakers are famous for their “forgiving” midrange. This record will help to compensate for the dark quality of some speakers. I guess. I don’t know. I really can’t see how that makes much sense, but there has to be some reason, so if these reasons aren’t good enough, feel free to come up with some on your own.
And the fourth possibility is: maybe you just like bad sounding records
The fact that people still collect lots of bad sounding Half-Speed mastered records and bad sounding Japanese pressings and bad sounding audiophile records like Telarcs and Cheskys and such tells me that a lot of people must just like bad sounding records.
There’s not much I can do about that. We try to point everybody in the direction of what we consider to be Better Sounding Records. But as the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water…
And maybe they’re right and I’m wrong
Who’s to say what a record really sounds like? I’ve been wrong before. I once put a full page commentary in one of my old catalogs under the heading Mea Culpa, apologizing for recommending The Beatles Past Masters album.
I was also very wrong about the Japanese Analog Remasters of the Led Zeppelin catalog from about a dozen or so years ago [1992 to be exact]. Some of the cheap Columbia reissues that I used to recommend I now realize leave a lot to be desired.
But we live and learn. If there’s one thing you get out of this commentary, I hope it’s the impetus to listen critically to the records you are buying, especially if it’s a record like LA Woman. See if you hear the sound I described.
Something similar is going on with the awful Mercury Heavy Vinyl classical reissues from years back. Some of my customers agree with me that they’re awful, but I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who like them just fine. The sonic shortcomings I ascribe to those records I believe are real, and if you own those records, perhaps you may want to take another listen to them to see if you might have overlooked something the first time around. Just a thought.
The 2003 German Heavy Vinyl Pressing to Avoid
Limited Edition on heavy audiophile 180 gram Vinyl
Pressed By – Optimal Media Production – B382369
Lacquer Cut At – Universal M & L, Germany
Sticker Info: Reissue from Original Mastertapes / 180 Gram Deluxe Edition
Matrix / Runout (Side A): B382369-01 A1 A33 075596 0 3281 S1 320
Matrix / Runout (Side B): B382369-01 B1 A33 075596 0 3281 S2 320
Here are some of reviews and commentaries for the many Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played over the years, well over 200 at this stage of the game. Feel free to dig in.
A Confession
Even as recently as the early 2000s we were still somewhat impressed with many of the better Heavy Vinyl pressings. If we had never made the progress we’ve worked so hard to make over the course of the last twenty plus years, perhaps we would find more merit in the Heavy Vinyl reissues so many audiophiles collect.
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 or worse.
Setting higher standards — no, being able to set higher standards — in our minds is a clear mark of progress. Judging by the letters we receive, 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.