Record Collecting for Audiophiles – These Are the Fundamentals
One of our good customers, Dan, found much to agree with in our recent Better Record’s record collecting commentary and offered up his own two cents worth in the letter below. (Emphasis added.)
Tom,
Just wanted to affirm the new Better Records axiom of “the better your stereo gets, the fewer modern reissues you will own.” My collection has dozens of these Heavy Vinyl reissues, and none of them are holding up after a year and half’s worth of significant improvements to my stereo.
It was only at the beginning of last year that I found myself pleased with roughly 50% of my heavy vinyl purchases. Now, that number has plummeted to less than 10%. Almost everything that’s being put out today is an utter disappointment.
Of course, part of the explanation may be that my listening skills have improved. But it’s hard to imagine that I would have liked dull, dreary, lifeless vinyl a year or two ago. I like to think not.
More probable is that my stereo upgrades have widened the sonic chasm between good, old-fashioned records and their nouveau imposters.
I’d also like to second the avoidance of new vinyl purchases until major stereo improvements are made. I’m trudging through the laborious task of replacing these records with older, better sounding copies. It’s excellent advice to those new to the game or young (or both).
Amazingly, hearing the difference doesn’t even require a Hot Stamper, almost any original or early reissue will beat the Sundazed, Classic, etc. That’s how inferior they are. To borrow from The Who, the sound must change.
Dan,
I agree with this bit at the end of your letter, with one caveat:
Amazingly, hearing the difference doesn’t even require a Hot Stamper, almost any original or early reissue will beat the Sundazed, Classic, etc. That’s how inferior they are.
The caveat would be if you know how to clean your records right, right in this case being the way we recommend you clean them, using Prelude fluids and a machine.
Old uncleaned records can sound pretty bad. An audiophile pressing may beat your old original — until you clean it.
It’s one of the revolutionary changes in audio we spend so much time talking about, and it can make all the difference in the world on some records, especially old ones.
Thanks for your letter. You are not alone in swearing off these modern mediocrities. Many of our customers went through the same process you have, and it seems they are as pleased with the results as you.
Best, TP
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.
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.
I’d argue that listening skills precede everything – it dictates one’s choices of stereo componentry from the get-go – but one has to start somewhere, with old original records properly cleaned. There have to be some pretty serious system compromises if the bulk of Heavy Vinyl reissues are still winning the perceptual battle with these.
A big part of the challenge is for the listener to be able to trust their own experience. I have been pondering for awhile that there is perhaps a precursor that they have to have learned something well enough in life to accept their own authority to make judgements, to be able to recognise expertise when it is beyond their own, and not to simply defer to claims of expertise when such claims are unearned. I don’t have the data for it but this would at least explain in part the chasm between Hot Stamper aficionados and the rest of the “audiophile community”.
Austin,
How does one acquire better listening skills? You have to start somewhere and through practice and experience you pick them up as you go.
I wrote about it here.
An excerpt:
All of the members of the listening panel were musicians with already well-trained ears when we hired them. From the start they had no trouble appreciating the differences between pressings.
I, on the other hand, am not a musician. Over the years I simply tried to get my stereo to sound more like live music. As it improved over the years, it allowed me to hear more and more of what was really on my records. I slowly gained the skills I needed to do the kind of critical listening comparisons that are currently the heart of our business. Let me be the first to admit it was slow going for about the first twenty years.
It has been my experience that most audiophiles are in that same non-musician boat. The problem seems to be that stereos are not nearly as good at teaching these skills as musical instruments are.
Unless you are of an experimental mind and are willing to devote a great deal of your time and money to the audio game, you are unlikely to develop the skills necessary to critically evaluate recordings at the highest levels.
Unfortunately, playing into this vicious cycle, those same critical listening skills are the very ones you need to make your stereo revealing enough so that even subtle differences between pressings become not just clear, but obvious.
Better ears lead to better stereos, but bad stereos make it hard to develop better ears.
That’s why I made so many mistakes and learned so little in my first twenty years as an audiophile.
Although we make plenty of mistakes, we think of ourselves as experts when it comes to evaluating the sound of records and stereo equipment. (Experts make mistakes, they just make fewer of them.)
But the practical consequences of these findings are that few audiophiles can ever hope to acquire expert critical listening skills. It takes too much time and it takes too much work. Most people are in this hobby for fun. They already have a job. They don’t need another one.
Perhaps there’s another, better way to look at it. Most people are not going to become scratch golfers, but they can still get better at the game. There is a balance to be achieved between working hard to improve your skills and having fun at the same time.