Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Neil Young Available Now
I don’t know why I wasted so much time critiquing the sound of this remastered (2009) pressing. Frankly, it really wasn’t worth it.
However, since I listen to records for a living, I figured I might as well listen to this one, head to head with an excellent vintage pressing, of course. What other way to do it is there?
Since we do shootouts for this album regularly, we know just how good the best pressings of After the Gold Rush can sound, and this newly remastered vinyl is missing almost everything that makes the album essential to any right thinking music lover’s collection.
We can summarize the sound of this dreadful record in one word: boring.
Since some of you reading this review are no doubt fans of Chris Bellman, the engineer credited on the album, and a man apparently held in some esteem by a great many audiophiles, perhaps we owe it to his fans to break down the sonic strengths and weaknesses of this pressing in more detail.
What It Does Right
It’s tonally correct. Unlike many modern pressings, it is not overly smooth.
Uh, can’t think of anything else…
What It Does Wrong
Where to begin?
It has no real space or ambience. When you play this record, it sounds as if it must have been recorded in a heavily padded studio. Somehow the originals of After the Gold Rush, like most of Neil’s classic albums from the era, are clear, open and spacious.
Cleverly the engineer responsible for this audiophile remastering managed to reproduce the sound of a dead studio on a record that wasn’t recorded in one.
In addition, the record never gets loud. The good pressings get very loud. They rock, they’re overflowing with energy.
And, lastly, there’s no real weight to the bottom end. The Whomp Factor* on this new pressing is practically non-existent. The bottom end of the originals is huge, deep and powerful.
The Bottom Line
This new Heavy Vinyl pressing is boring beyond belief. I wouldn’t give you a nickel for it. If Neil Young actually had anything to do with it, he should be ashamed of himself. If you want a good copy of the album, find yourself a vintage pressing. Please don’t throw your money away on this one.
If you did make the mistake of buying this album, did you notice its many shortcomings? And if not, why not?
And if Chris Bellman is such a good cutting engineer, as I hear tell, why does this record sound as bad as it so obviously does?
Were you perhaps a bit too impressed by the reputations of Young and Bellman and just figured those two guys must know what they are doing? It’s AAA, right? Made from the master tape? With tender loving care? Is there some reason it shouldn’t sound amazingly good with all that going for it?
No, no particular reason. It just doesn’t.
*More on Whomp
For whomp factor, the formula goes like this: deep bass + mid bass + speed + dynamics + energy = whomp.
If you would like to evaluate your system’s ability to reproduce whomp, here are some records that we’ve found to be good for testing that quality.
Further Reading
The blog you are on now as well as our website are both devoted to very special records such as this.
After the Gold Rush is the very definition of a big speaker album (both Harvest and Zuma qualify for that honor as well). The better pressings have the kind of energy in their grooves that are sure to leave most audiophile systems begging for mercy.
It’s clear that albums like this informed not only my taste in music but the actual stereo I play that music on. It’s what progress in audio is all about. I’ve had large scale dynamic speakers for close to five decades, precisely in order to play demanding recordings such as this one.
Naturally it’s also part of our extensive listening in depth series. Any record we get obsessed with we tend to play hundreds and hundreds of times, and this is no exception.
Further Reading
Hello, Yes, I agree. I have a Techics linier tracking turntable ,a Sansui reciever and full range 8 inch Dayton speakers. I use it to record to my cassette deck. Last night I decided to make a tape of two Neil Young albums . The first was “At the Cellar Door” which sounded wonderfull, very smooth ,clear and analog proper. I was telling my wife who likes his music to, we should buy some more of his albums. Then I recorded my 180 gram reissue of ” After the Gold Rush” , so after a while of listening I notice it just sounds a little distorted from top to to buttom. So yea, I paid a lot of money for this cooy. Both of these are made from the same record Label. I dont know if it was mastered by the same engineers or the pressing plant or what.
So, I have another two copies of this album in question. One is original and the other is on the double album Decade’s issue. I’ll find em and hear what I hear.
It should not sound distorted. It should sound dead as a doornail. The two are very different. Since you cannot adjust your VTA for the thicker vinyl you will have trouble playing it properly I would expect.
I have Neil’s “After The Gold Rush 50th Anniversary” on vinyl. I noticed comments online noted the album’s songs vary in quality. Yeah, they do. The first song sounds like Neil tried to bring the backing vocals forward in the mix, and the result is a hot mess that wasn’t there on earlier versions of this album. I made some changes to my rig today with a shorter RCA cable to reduce my system’s total capacitance to 200 (it had been 260), and I added a smooth and warm sounding Nagaoka MP-200 cartridge. And so now with these changes the first two songs don’t sound quite as dreadful as they had come across, but they still are too harsh. All of the rest of the songs on the album sound good to great on my system.
I am a big fan of Uncle Neil, and I like most his albums. This one is good except for the first two songs.
Hi,
It sounds like they messed with the sound of the album for the 50th anniversary. Doesn’t it make more sense to just stick with the originals?
TP