Labels With Shortcomings – Classic Records – Rock and Pop

Peter Gabriel on Classic Records – Some People Have No Business Reviewing Records

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This commentary was written after a review I spotted online prompted me to crack open one of the Classic Records 200 gram Peter Gabriel titles and play it. Let’s just say the results were less than pleasing to the ear. Bernie Grundman had worked his “magic” again and as usual I was at a loss to understand how anyone could find his mastering in any way an improvement over the plain old pressings.

I had a discussion with a reviewer for an audiophile web magazine concerning his rave review for the Peter Gabriel records that Classic pressed. I just played one, and it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. But of course it’s not right either. Not surprisingly, reviewers have a tendency not to notice these things. I’m not exactly sure how these people are qualified to review records when the most obvious tonal balance problems seem to go unnoticed, but I can hardly be surprised.

A Bad Record Tells You… What?

Which brings up something else that never fails to astonish me. How can an equipment review be trusted when the reviewer uses bad sounding records to evaluate the equipment he is testing? Aren’t we justified in assuming that if said reviewer can’t tell he is listening to a bad recording, he probably can’t tell whether the equipment under review is any good either?

A bad recording tells you nothing about the equipment it is playing on. Worse, it might complement the faults of the gear and end up sounding tonally correct. If you use So Long So Wrong as a test disc, what are you testing for, the bad sounding vocals or the bad sounding guitars?

Today’s Bad Heavy Vinyl Pressing Is… Aqualung!

See all of our Jethro Tull albums in stock

Another Classic Records LP debunked.

By the time the guitars at the end of the title track fade out you will be ready to take your heavy vinyl Classic and ceremoniously drop it in a trashcan. (Actually, the best use for it is to demonstrate to your skeptical audiophile friends that no heavy vinyl pressing can begin to compete with a Hot Stamper from Better Records. Not in a million years.)

Over the course of the last 25 years we was wrong three ways from Sunday about our down-and-out friend Aqualung here. We originally liked the MoFi. When the DCC 180g came along we liked that one better, and a few years back I was somewhat enamored with some original British imports. Wrong on all counts. After playing more than two dozen pressings, it’s pretty clear that the right domestic pressings KILL any and all contenders.
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Axis: Bold As Love – More Heavy Vinyl Trash from Classic Records

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Axis: Bold As Love

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Sonic Grade: F

A Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records LP debunked.

One of the worst things the dummies at Classic ever did. Flat and dry with no Tubey Magic whatsoever. It positively screams “CHEAP REISSUE.”

Roy Orbison – Crying on Classic Records

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Sonic Grade: C

Another Classic Records LP reviewed. Not sure if we would still agree with what we wrote back in 2003 when this record came out, but here it is anyway.

“This is actually a very good sounding record, unlike the first Orbison that Classic did. It’s also a better album.”

Track Listing:

1. Crying
2. The Great Pretender
3. Love Hurts
4. She Wears My Ring
5. Wedding Day
6. Summer Song
7. Dance
8. Lana
9. Lonliness
10. Let’s Make a Memory
11. Nite Life
12. Running Scared

Why Own a Turntable if You’re Going to Play Mediocrities Like These?

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This commentary was posted in 2007 and amended later with the statement that we would no longer be ordering new heavy vinyl titles starting in 2010. By 2011 we had eliminated them completely from our site. If you bought any Heavy Vinyl pressing from us, ever, now is the time to get rid of it and hear what a Hot Stamper can do for your musical enjoyment.

Three of the Top Five sellers this week (8/22/07) at Acoustic Sounds are records we found hard to like: Aja, Aqualung and Blue. Can you really defend the expense and hassle of analog LP playback with records that sound as mediocre as this Rhino pressing of Blue?

Why own a turntable if you’re going to play records like these? I have boxes of CDs that sound more musically involving and I don’t even bother to play those. Why would I take the time to throw on some 180 gram record that sounds worse than a good CD? (more…)

Led Zeppelin II on Classic Records – What Could Be Sadder?

Led Zeppelin – II on Classic Records

Sonic Grade: F

A Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records LP debunked.

An absolute DISASTER — ridiculously bright, ridiculously crude, in short, a completely unlistenable piece of garbage.

Over the years we have done many Led Zeppelin shootouts, often including the Classic Heavy Vinyl Pressings as a “reference.” After all, the Classic pressings are considered by many — if not most — audiophiles as superior to other pressings. What could be sadder?

In fact. you will find very few critics of the Classic Zep LPs outside of those who write for this very website, and even we used to recommend three of the Zep titles on Classic: Led Zeppelin I, IV and Presence.

Wrong on all counts.

Since then we’ve made it a point to create debunking commentaries for some of the Classic Zeps, a public service of Better Records. We don’t actually like any of them now, although the first album is still by far the best of the bunch.

See more commentaries as well as our in-stock Led Zeppelin albums

In Through The Out Door – Another Classic Records Disaster

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More In Through the Out Door

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Sonic Grade: D

A classic case of Live and Learn. After finishing our first shootout for this album in August of 2007, our faces were sure red. We used to think the Classic version was pretty decent, but the best originals SLAUGHTER it!

We had never done a shootout for this album before that. We didn’t feel up to the challenge, because the typical pressing tends to be miserable — gritty, grainy, hard sounding, congested mids, dull, and so on. (more…)

Genesis Nursery Cryme – Another Misfire from Classic Records

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Sonic Grade: F

A Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records LP debunked.

The Classic Heavy Vinyl pressing is a smeary lifeless mess next to the better British pressings.

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Simon and Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water – Classic Records Reviewed

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Sonic Grade: C

Not Bad, But Hot Stampers Rule

What do the best copies give you? They’re the ones with textured strings in the orchestral arrangements. The string tone on the average copy is hard and steely. (The Classic 200 gram pressing suffers from a case of slightly steely strings. Play it yourself and see.) When the strings are blasting away at the end of the title song, you want to be able to hear the texture without the strings sounding shrill and edgy. This is no mean feat, for the record or the stereo. (more…)

Matthew Sweet – 100% Fun – Classic Records Debunked

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Sonic Grade: F

A Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records LP debunked.

Our Zoo label LP MURDERED the Classic heavy vinyl reissue. It’s not even close. The Classic is a opaque, turgid, muffled piece of sh*t compared to the Zoo vinyl pressing we had on hand to play, and even the CD will kill this embarrassing audiophile reissue.

This is not the easiest record to reproduce, but if you have a big dynamic system, it will really ROCK. I happen to think it’s the best thing Matthew Sweet ever did, and you deserve to hear it sound right, which means stick with the thin, good sounding vinyl and not this heavy RTI trash from Classic.