Letter of the Week – “One begins to notice what is wrong with them — they sound tinkered with”

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Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Elvis Presley

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased in 2017.

Hey Tom, 

Bless You Tom! Much appreciated! Funny thing is, I never had this album or properly heard it before now. Back in the late ’70s and early ’80s, I too was buying audiophile pressings and Half Speed Masters and at first, I thought they were great! But before too long, one begins to notice what is wrong with them– they sound tinkered with! I think that is exactly what MoFi did.

I tried these again when I came back to vinyl in 2009. That first year I began buying audiophile pressings but when I played them back I found they were not the holy grail nor the sound I was looking for at all! Certainly not even the claimed ‘Sourced from the Original Master Tape’ was true! More like, from the digital master/remasters or a third generation master. I spent a whole lot before I put the brakes on and went for original recordings/early pressings such as ED1 or ED2.

Now, when I want a record for serious listening of something special, I know the only place to get what I want first time and every time for the best sounding records– Better Records, of course!

Michael

Michael,

Thanks for your letter. “Tinkering” with the sound is what these audiophile labels do. Apparently they know how to “fix” the recordings that the original producers and engineers got wrong.

Or so they think.

Like you, I was fooled.

It took me a while but eventually I started to see where I had gone wrong.

And don’t write off all reissues. You can stick to first and second editions, but by doing that you will miss out on the superior sound of these 150+ reissues. (If I had time to really go deeper into it, I could probably list three times that many.)

Even better, these superior sounding reissues can actually be bought.

Best, TP

This link will take you to our reviews and commentaries for the more than 140 Half-Speed Mastered pressings we’ve played over the years.

Some audiophile records — Half-Speed Mastered and otherwise — are so dreadful sounding that I got pissed off enough to create this special list for them.

Setting higher standards — no, being able to set higher standards — in our minds is clearly a 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

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