Heavy Vinyl Commentaries

Letters and commentaries on the subject of the modern remastered Heavy Vinyl pressing.

You Mean to Say You Don’t Have the Nautilus Half-Speed in Your Collection?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Cars Available Now

A well-known audiophile reviewer posted pictures of the Cars albums you see below.

As would be expected, it looks like he has rounded up the usual suspects from his collection:

  • A domestic pressing (probably), perhaps even an early one.
  • A Japanese pressing.
  • A Mobile Fidelity pressing (notice how contrasty the jacket photo is), and
  • The Rhino Heavy Vinyl pressing, which we reviewed recently here.

What are the chances that any of these pressings are any good?

Let me guess. One out of four?

(more…)

Big Star’s #1 Record – Is All Analog Better?

Robert Brook runs a blog called The Broken Record, with a subtitle explaining that the aim of his blog is to serve as:

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

We know of none better, outside of our own humble attempt to enlighten that portion of the audiophile community who love records and are looking to understand them better.

Here is one of Robert’s postings from way back in 2021. The reason it is going up today is that the fellow who remastered the record for Craft, Jeff Powell, also remastered the Born Under a Bad Sign we reviewed recently here. Small world, right?

Back in the 90s I played an import pressing that was in print at the time. As I recall it was very bright, but that seems to be the sound the band was going for. I like Power Pop as much as the next guy, but the bright sound put me off and that was that. I never offered the record for sale, figuring that most customers would not be happy with the sound.

Chris Bellman cut the record for Classic Records in 2009, reportedly on an “All Tube” cutting system. Based on the man’s previous work I would not expect it to be to my liking. He cut a serviceable version of Brothers in Arms years ago, which I thought was quite good for anything pressed on Heavy Vinyl. It would probably earn a grade of 1.5+. Eventually I will get around to posting a review on this blog about it. To say Chris Bellman is no Robert Ludwig may be a massive understatement, but is there anyone today who can begin to match the mastering skills of the great RL?

By the way, the cheapest copy on Discogs is $163.04 if you are interested.

Big Star’s #1 Record Reissues: Is ALL ANALOG Better?

 

Most of the reviews on Discogs are of the Five Star “I can’t believe how good this record sounds” variety, something that is both tiresome and somewhat sickening considering that the quality is sure to be as poor as Robert says it is, if not worse.

One guy had the temerity to stick his head up, offering a dissent from the lovefest being thrown for a record he found of dubious quality. Naturally, a bunch of Discogers jumped all over him for his apostasy.

It’s just now dawning on me that this sort of behavior is not limited to the Steve Hoffman forum.

Here he “risks eternity” by speaking his mind. If they could find a way to burn him at the stake for the crime of questioning the quality of a Heavy Vinyl pressing they happen to like, you can be sure they would be organizing the gathering of the kindling at this very moment. They call him an “elitist goof, ” “a wanker,” and question his bona fides as an audiophile, the standard-issue audiophile forum approach to those who waver from the true path.

This is my favorite reply, offering little more than an appeal to authority. These guys are pros. How could they possibly make a bad sounding record? That’s not what they do, you idiot!

Why anyone would choose to associate with such intolerant, ill-mannered, small-minded people is beyond me.

The true believers at the Hoffman forum are even worse. There, if you write something upsetting to the delicate sensibilities of its members, they simply delete the post and send it down the memory hole where it can no longer do harm to the faithful.

(more…)

Led Zeppelin / II – A New Player Joins the Fun

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

Aaron writes to us often about records. Here is his latest offering. (I’ve made some comments of my own. They are the ones that are not italicized.)

Hi Tom,

Today I did something I’ve wanted to do for years – I played The Two Game.

The Two Game is based on The Blue Game, the one we created for Joni’s Blue Album way back in 2007. That game was apparently harder to play than we thought since nobody seemed to want to play it.

The Rhino pressing’s shortcomings were clear to us at the time, all the way back in 2007, and we noted that it was even superior to the best Bernie Grundman-mastered vintage pressings in one respect. But it seems that no one besides us could figure out what was going on with the sound of the record, even after we gave our customers a free copy so they could play it at home head to head against our Hot Stamper pressing.

With my stereo finally dialed-in and my family all out of the house, I dived in to the Page remaster of Zep 2, side by side with my White Hot Stamper. To help the comparison, I backdropped it with a bunch of other copies I’ve accumulated over the years.

Tom, I figure I’ll need several tries to get to the bottom of this, but it’s going to be an awesome ear-training experience for me, and if I have to listen to any record on repeat, this is a good one. So let me share my thoughts from this first comparison, and maybe you can point out some directions to go in next time I’m up for trying it again.

I chose The Lemon Song, because it is awesome, and because I view it as one of the tracks that’s most balanced overall, with all the instruments contributing about equally, and relatively devoid of studio tricks. Like a kid left to eat all he wants of his favorite candy, I had to eventually stop just from fatigue and satiation.

I recommended The Lemon Song to a customer who wanted to play the game, writing:

Pay special attention in your shootout to The Lemon Song. I am going to discuss some things I learned about it recently. See how all your versions do on the song and what you think each version is doing right and wrong. Enjoy and have fun.

I think the Page remaster actually corrects a problem with this track that exists on all the original versions of the album mastered by Robert Ludwig. For anyone else who wants to play the game, please consider this a clue.

Another piece of advice would be that The Lemon Song is not a good track for overall testing.

There are much better tracks for that purpose, tracks that will make it much easier to recognize what is so fundamentally different about the two pressings.

(more…)

The Personification of the Dunning-Kruger Effect

Presenting the poster boy for the Dunning-Kruger effect. Mr. Hutchison fancies himself an audiophile/mastering engineer.

Mind you, he’s a mastering engineer in the same sense that a person who makes mud pies is a piemaker.

I have not played any of his classical albums. I have in fact only played one title, a jazz record I happen to know well, and his remastered version is no better than the other records that get an F grade for sound and can currently be found in our bad sounding audiophile records section.

I will publish a review one of these days, but until then, I recommend you steer well clear of this man’s records.

Update 2024:

We’ve reviewed three of this man’s releases to date. None of them should be acceptable to anyone who describes himself as an audiophile. If you “love sound,” these titles should make you sick to your stomach.

We’ve reviewed ERC’s My Favorite Things. (For the benefit of our readers, this is what a good pressing should sound like.)

Robert Brook also reviewed the album, and you can find his review here. (He didn’t like it any more than we did.)

We’ve also reviewed ERC’s Forever Changes. (For the benefit of our readers, this is what a good pressing should sound like.)

And we’ve reviewed ERC’s Quiet Kenny. (Again, this is what a good pressing should sound like.)

(more…)

Letter of the Week – “On some level they still hit my “real” button. Fancy reissues never do.”

More Letters from Customers and Critics Alike

Hey Tom,

The way I found you, even though our universes shouldn’t overlap much, is an interesting story that no one but you – at at least no one in my orbit – would understand, so you get to hear it.

I’ve been pissed at the sound of recorded music since CDs showed up to the party. The way I look at it, CDs didn’t start to sound decent until the 90s, and I spent the preceding years going from one latest and greatest to the next, to no avail. They all sounded the same to me.

At the time, and I think this is important, I kinda sorta moved to the view that, well, that must be what it really sounds like (thin, small, strident etc.) It was extremely frustrating.

Then DVDs showed up, and I’m a movie guy, and it wasn’t too long before I had to go the home theater route which means paying for at least 5 speakers and their corresponding amp channels, plus subs. So that took up several years, and it was fine since the video fills in the missing parts in your brain it would seem.

Although I had a turntable at the time, I never used it as it was an old Dual (sp?) of my father’s. But I started buying fancy-pants reissues anyway. The Classic LSCs and such.

I know what both orchestral and pop LSCs sound like. These didn’t, but I figured (this is so embarrassing) that, well, that must be what they really sound like. So I kept buying reissued vinyl, even though I wasn’t listening to them, because I knew one day I would.

(more…)

There’s Something Not Quite Right about MoFi’s Blue

Robert Brook has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Below is a link to a review Robert Brook wrote recently for the MoFi One-Step pressing of one of our favorite albums of all time, Joni Mitchell’s Blue, originally released in 1971.

BLUE: What’s the RIGHT SOUND For Joni Mitchell’s CLASSIC?

Blue Sounds Funny Now

Based on everything I am reading these days from Robert Brook, he has a good stereo, two working ears, and knows plenty about records and what they are supposed to sound like.

This was not always the case as he himself would tell you. His stereo used to be much better at hiding the faults of a record like the MoFi One-Step of Blue than the stereo he has now. He got rid of most of his audiophile electronics, got a better phono stage, cartridge and arm, improved the quality of his electricity, found some sophisticated vibration controlling platforms for his vintage gear and did lots of other things to make his playback more accurate and — we cannot stress this too strongly — more fun, more exciting and more involving.

When your stereo is doing a better job of reproducing what’s in the grooves of your records, the first thing you notice when playing a Mobile Fidelity or other Heavy Vinyl pressing is that the sound is funny and wrong. (Please excuse the technical jargon; those of you who have been audiophiles as long as we have will understand what I mean, the rest of you can just play along. All of this will make sense eventually.)

When you use colored-sounding audiophile equipment — but I repeat myself — then your colored-sounding audiophile records don’t sound nearly as colored as they would under other conditions.

For example, other conditions obtain if you have — again, sorry about the jargon — revealing, accurate, tonally correct, natural-sounding equipment, free from the colorations — euphonic and otherwise — that allow one piece of audiophile equipment to sound so different from another.

(more…)

Can Chris Bellman Cut Records As Well As Artisan Used to?

Robert Brook has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Robert’s story begins:

Recently a friend and a frequent reader of my website suggested I review the 50th Anniversary Edition of David Crosby’s debut. He’d read my article from a while back in which I made comparisons between two different Hot Stamper copies of the record, and he knew I was a fan the album.

I’m sure he also knew, as any of my regular readers would, that I’m extremely skeptical of modern reissues. You can find many examples on this site of reissues I’ve written about that have failed miserably to impress me. But this friend was pretty insistent that this one, remastered by long time engineer Chris Bellman, was different. He also told me it was on par with original Monarch pressing of If Only I Could Remember My Name he also owned.

Bellman was responsible for cutting one of the few heavy vinyl reissues that my friend Tom Port has liked and recommended – a European pressing from 2020 of the Dire Straits record Brothers In Arms. Tom likes precious few “audiophile” reissues. He’s mentioned maybe 4 or 5 over the years as being worthy of any consideration. Given that, and the fact that my friend was so insistent, I figured why not give Bellman’s recut of If Only I Could Remember My Name a shot?

Click on the link below to read the whole thing. I left some comments at the end you may enjoy reading.

IF ONLY I COULD REMEMBER MY NAME: 50th Anniversary Edition

If you are interested in picking up an amazing Hot Stamper pressing of the album, we currently (as of 2/24) have some in stock. Click on this link to see what is available.

On the website, we talk about just how much we love this album:

(more…)

“Tom, what about the argument that the engineers had to make the records sound good on the equipment of the day?”

More Letters from Customers and Critics Alike

OK, what about it? Let’s dig in.

One of our good customers had some questions about a commentary we wrote entitled a kinder, gentler approach to record reviewing.

Tom, what about the argument that the engineers had to make the records sound good on the equipment of the day? Now that we have better gear, these guys can make the record sound the way it was originally intended. I think Chad said this about Rudy Van Gelder at some point in the video.

For the benefit of the reader, the video in question can be found on youtube under the title “Michael Fremer, Chad Kassem, Geoff Edgers: A Journey Back to Vinyl.”

Edgers was invited, apparently under pretext as it turns out, to talk about his article, but instead he was pressed into defending me most of the time. Kassem and Fremer — two individuals whose talents, such as they are, could not be more ill-suited to the work they have chosen for themselves — beat up on Edgers for about two hours.

As an aside, Geoff is a good guy and he certainly didn’t deserve this kind of mistreatment. Fremer and Kassem won’t apologize to him — that’s not something they are known to do — so please allow me to apologize to Geoff on their behalf.

I’m sure he has trouble understanding to this day why he was forced into acting as a spokesman for Better Records. Regardless of how he feels about it, we thank him for his service to the cause. (To be clear, he didn’t exactly take my side, which is the right thing for a reporter to do. He wanted to know why our disagreements upset them so much.)

For those of you who like to watch bickering and sniping from a couple of thin-skinned egomaniacs who can’t stand the fact that someone doesn’t think the records they like — or in the case of Chad, produce and sell — are any good, have I got a video for you.

If you want to undertand how seriously you should take these two guys, both at the top of their respective mountains, watch the video and make your own judgments.

Our letter writer continues:

Suppose that the RL cut of Zeppelin 2 had never existed, because Ludwig knew better than to cut it that way, knowing that most stereos couldn’t play it? And then Chad released something that sounded like that. Or the argument that albums were engineered for listening to on the AM radio.

I think these guys believe they are improving on the mastering, and giving it the sound it should have had all along.

Dear Aaron

Yes, you are correct, this is indeed their position. They think these newly remastered pressings are a big improvement over earlier editions, and on quieter vinyl to boot!

Allow me to quote Michael Fremer, a man who apparently cannot get enough of these new records, even though his shelves are stuffed.

(more…)

Robert Brook Reviews the ERC Pressing of My Favorite Things

One of our good customers has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Here is Robert’s review of ERC’s mono release of My Favorite Things. MFT happens to be one of our favorite Coltrane records, but we understandably prefer the stereo pressings, which is almost always the case when an album has been recorded in stereo, as My Favorite Things was in 1960.

ELECTRIC RECORDING COMPANY’s Reissue of MY FAVORITE THINGS

We even tell you what to listen for to help you separate the best pressings from the merely good ones: the piano.

A solid, full-bodied, clear and powerful piano. As we focused on the sound of the instrument, we couldn’t help but notice how brilliant McCoy Tyner is. This may be John Coltrane’s album, but Tyner’s contribution is critically important to the success of My Favorite Things.

The engineering duties were handled by Tom Dowd (whose work you surely know well) and Phil Iehle, who happens to be the man who recorded some of Coltrane’s most iconic albums for Atlantic: Giant Steps (1960) and Coltrane Jazz (also in 1961).

Electric Recording Company

We’ve played a number of ERC releases.

In the video embedded in the Washington Post article “In Search of the Perfect Sound,” at some point you can hear me exclaim “This guy makes mud pies!” while listening to the ERC pressing of Quiet Kenny.  I am happy to stand behind that judgment, and I think Robert Brook would agree with me about that.

Here is our review of ERC’s Forever Changes.

Our commentary making the case that these albums are aimed primarily at collectors and speculators, not audiophiles, can be found here.

We have now played the ERC pressing of My Favorite Things for ourselves and will be reviewing it soon.

Other Opinions

As much as we dislike these records, there are some music lovers who are quite pleased with them. A certain JLysaker wrote the following on discogs in 2021 about the ERC records a friend of his gave him (!) (edited for brevity).

I own 4 lps from this label. All sound amazing… The [Way] Out West pressing, stereo, is probably the best sounding LP I own… I also had an AP edition of one of the albums and the ERC pressing was hands down more natural sounding and imaged with greater clarity, and not just to my ears but to that of another buddy there for a listen.

Was it $500 better? I really doubt sonic differences translate into clear dollar amounts, but I would understand someone saying: ‘I’ll stick with damn good.’ Then again, some albums are dear to people and they want to hear it in the best possible fashion, and that probably won’t be through an original pressing — too rare, condition issues, and so forth as pointed out below. So they pop for one of these, as I did with My Favorite Things, which isn’t even a well recorded album.

And I am glad I did as Coltrane’s soprano never sounded better to me, and I have been listening to that recording for decades. So, from experience, these pressings are special. But acquiring them involves serious opportunity costs for anyone not rolling in the dough. And I doubt I ever would have sprung for one if an evil friend hadn’t given me some.

But here I am, feeling neither scammed nor screwed, and quite certain that those releasing these records are qualified to do so.

Others in the comments section were not so positive. Then again, nobody gave them the records and the price struck them as a bit high (median pricing for the album is currently $723.10).

We get similar complaints about our prices, but then again, we’re in the business of selling the best sounding pressings ever made, which is clearly not the case with ERC. They’re in the business of selling mud pies.

(more…)

Hearing Is All It Should Take, Right?

Hot Stamper Classical and Orchestral Pressings Available Now

Some person on some audiophile forum might feel obligated at some point to explain to you, benighted soul that you are, that the old classical records you — and other audiophiles like you — revere so highly have to be recognized these days for what they are: drastically compromised by the limits of their old technology.

Simply put, there’s just no way they can sound good.

It’s just a fact. It’s science. Technology marches on and those old records belong on the ash heap of history collecting dust, not sitting on the platter of a modern turntable.

That’s why the audio world was crying out for Bernie Grundman to recut those Living Stereo recordings from the 50s and 60s on his modern transistorized cutting equipment and have RTI press them on quiet, flat, high-resolution 180 gram vinyl, following the best practices of an industry that everybody knows has been constantly improving for decades.

Right?

For those of us who actually play these records, there is little evidence to support this narrative.

It’s a story made up mostly of assertions, along with an unhealthy amount of faith in so-called experts. [1]

Note that Bernie had no experience cutting classical music. He was a rock, pop and jazz guy. Robert Ludwig was the classical guy, cutting hundreds of albums for labels like Nonesuch in the 60s. What a different world it would be if he was the guy who cut for Classic Records! This review gets to the heart of the matter.

However, the contrarian view outlined above only really holds true for a very small minority of audiophiles of the analog persuasion: those given to empirical testing of such propositions. [2]

For an audiophile to compare the new pressings to the old ones, proper testing requires that the following four conditions can are met:

  1. He or she has a revealing, accurate stereo,
  2. A good record cleaning system, and
  3. Knows how to do shootouts using his or her
  4. Well-developed critical listening skills

If you’ve spent much time on this blog, you’ve probably read by now that the first three on this list are what allow you to achieve the fourth.

Compromises?

The best classical recordings of the 50s, 60s and 70s were compromised in every imaginable way, yet still they sound amazing.

(more…)