Reviews and Commentaries for Led Zeppelin II
More Classic Records Led Zeppelin Titles Reviewed
An unmitigated disaster — ridiculously bright and ridiculously crude.
In short, a completely unlistenable piece of garbage, and, along with the MoFi pressing from 1982, one of the worst sounding versions of the album ever made.
Over the years we have done many Led Zeppelin shootouts, often including the Classic Heavy Vinyl Pressings as a “reference.” After all, the Classic pressings are considered by many — if not most — audiophiles as superior to other pressings.
What could be sadder?
In fact, you will find very few critics of the Classic Zep LPs outside of those of us (me and the rat in my pocket) who write for this Better Records, and even we used to recommend three of the Zep titles on Classic: Led Zeppelin I, IV and Presence when they first came out.
Wrong on all counts.
Since then we’ve made it a point to review most of the Classic Zeps, a public service of Better Records. We don’t actually like any of them now, although the first album is still by far the best of the bunch.
Below you will find our reviews of the more than 200 Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played over the years.
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.
Further Reading
If Acoustic Sounds ever sells the Zeppelin catalog, chances are they will use the Classic Records metal parts for it. I sold my Zep 2 CR for $500 after I bought my WHS.
I would be surprised if Jimmy Page allows anyone to license the old versions of the albums now he has had them all remastered to his taste. They were junk anyway, with the exception of the first album, which should be clearly better than the newly remastered version (review coming).
$500 is a great price, congrats. The greater fool theory is alive and well, and really not a theory, more like a law.