Presenting Yet Another Pressing Perfectly Suited to the Stereos of the Past
This hi-fi-ish Doug Sax/ Acoustic Sounds butchering of Fremaux’s performance from 1971 is insufferable. These Klavier pressings of EMI recordings are nothing but Audiophile Bullshit.
Can this possibly be the sound that EMI engineer Stuart Eltham was after?
Back in the day, audiophiles in droves bought this pressing from all the major mail order audiophile record dealers (you know who I’m talking about), apparently not noticing the overblown bass and spark-spark-sparkling top end.
Perhaps the same audiophiles who think that Mobile Fidelity makes good sounding records? It would not surprise me. Same odd-tasting wine, different bottle.
The Smile Curve
If you’ve spent any time on this site, you should know by now that many audiophile records sound worse than the typical CD. The typical CD does not have an equalization curve resembling a smile. The classic smile curve starts up high on the left, gets low in the middle, and rises again at the end, resulting in boosted bass, boosted top end, and a sucked out midrange — the Mobile Fidelity formula in a nutshell.
If your system needs boosted bass and highs, perhaps because your speakers are too small, well, I suppose you could try this Klavier pressing.
Here’s a better idea.
Fix your f-ing stereo so you won’t need phony audiophile records like this one to make it sound good.
Either of the two records you see below will be dramatically better sounding than the Klavier Heavy Vinyl. The best pressings of this one win all the shootouts, but the Greensleeves Budget reissue pressing can also sound very good, with the better pressings earning a grade of 2+ or thereabouts.
Further Reading
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.
And finally,
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.
To our way of thinking, setting higher standards — no, being able to set higher standards — 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 are seeing things the same way.