UPDATE 2026
This review was written in the 90s, back in the days when we were selling Heavy Vinyl records. We had auditioned it and found it to be one of the better releases from Speakers Corner.
Based upon that very unreliable assessment from many, many decades ago, it might still be one of the better Heavy Vinyl pressings from the label. If you can pick one up for cheap, give it a try and see if we were right that it’s “good.”
Of course, the right London pressing would be a huge step up in sound quality for those who have the means to acquire one.
Our Old Review
One of the best of the Speakers Corner heavy vinyl reissues. As you may know they have gone way downhill lately. Haven’t played this LP in a while but I remember liking it quite a bit back in the day.
As a general rule, this Heavy Vinyl pressing will fall short in some of the following areas when played head to head against the vintage pressings we offer:
- It will tend to lack ambience, size and space.
- It will tend to have bloated bass.
- It will tend to have more compression.
- It will tend to lack energy.
- It will tend to lack presence.
- It will tend to be overly rich.
- It will tend to have more smear.
- It will tend to be overly smooth.
- It will tend to lack transparency.
Back to 2000
Even as recently as the early 2000s, we were often 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 or worse.
When I say worse, I know whereof I speak. Some audiophile records have pissed me off so badly I was motivated to create a special ring of hell 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.