Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Van Morrison Available Now
From the brain trust at Music Direct.
[Italics added by yours truly.]
Van Morrison’s Moondance is that rare rock album where the band has buffed the arrangements to pure perfection.
And now, you can experience it on the finest-sounding pressing that’s ever been made courtesy of this 180g LP, remastered at Acoustech from the original analog tapes by Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman.
Practically every audiophile press outlet in the world has sung its praises. Moondance has never had such power.
The power to make me wonder how anyone in his right mind would release a record that sounds this bad, that power?
Then there’s this guy, 51nocaster:
As for Moondance, the reissue is very good, but I still prefer the original. Steve Hoffman was involved in mastering the Moondance reissue and like some of the DCC reissues, he seems to favor the lower mids over the upper mids.
As a rule that’s true about DCC records, his awful Creedence records being the best examples, but boy, that’s not what I heard on my copy. Just the opposite. Morrison’s voice on the new reissue has no lower mids. It’s all mids and upper mids.
I suspect a download on ITunes would be more tonally correct in the midrange.
In summary, please count us as one of the outlets not singing this record’s praises, which is why you can find it in our audiophile hall of shame, along with others that — in our opinion — qualify as some of the worst sounding records ever made.